Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Maybe a bad sign of PC Gaming Health?

cliffski

Adverts.

There doesn’t seem to be much cash in advertising PC gaming any more. Rock Paper Shotguns current ads are for some university and easyjet. Blues news is pimping crisps and heroes and Sky Plus. I see a spore advert on gamespot, but not much else. Quartertothree is advertising gold farming sites.

There was a time where the latest FPS, RTS or other high profile PC game was advertised everywhere. These days, its online only, console games or casual games ads only. Is PC gaming really this sparse? At least there is a (slim) chance this means cheaper advertising slots abound?

2 thoughts on Maybe a bad sign of PC Gaming Health?

  1. While game specific advertising might be down I think it might be an overall trend for most websites that advertising is dropping. I’ve not personally noticed a decline, but that’s just due to a lack of my visiting the relative sites. I think Firefox is affecting online advertising a lot, simply because it’s so easy to simply block ads. When a site comes up with a new way to sneak an advert through the most common blocks, a new method is devised to counteract it just as fast.

    So while adverts might become cheaper, this will likely be a result of them being less effective. I think the best advertising is the kind that begins to meld in seamlessly. On flash games, advertisements that pop up during loading times. You’re already going to sit their waiting, so might as well just look at what’s in front of your face. Advertising that involves non-interfering additions to games (like billboards in racing games) is nice but people tend to dislike the “selling out” aspect. I don’t think this was continued, but Valve had the idea for billboards in Counterstrike, and there was a large amount of moaning about that. Which, for a game that can’t be selling by the truckloads, but that they still support, it’s not absurd to want to get some kind of revenue from their continued work.

    Then there’s also the nontraditional marketing techniques, like viral videos, or something that has nothing to do with the product but it just hilarious to the point that people WANT to view your adverts. (BABIES, YEAH! BABIES EVERYWHERE!) Or the more traditional “Give your game to publications for free so they review it” to get advertising by means of articles themselves.

    I would not be surprised to see the day soon when traditional ad space is something that simply isn’t relied upon. Instead it will be replaced by seamless or entertaining advertising, or by obnoxious “You can not go past this point without seeing this ad” techniques that will alienate visitors.

    And that was kind of a long rant…

  2. I think i am right in saying gta4 turned over $300+ million on its first day. Thats bigger than top Hollywood films. There must be advertising in that somewhere.

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