Marketing of Video Games - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 54

There are dif erent ways to introduce ads into games; some of them are
copied from the physical setting, and some of them are enabled due to the
uniqueness of the medium. Among the most common are advertising bill-
boards and product placement. No matter the method used for promotion,
the driving philosophy for all games is that the content of the promotion
has to be in line with the rest of the content of the game. Games are built to
form an internal logic; for example, being a futuristic world, or an ancient
world. The promotion then has to add to the content, or the suspension of
immersion is ruined.
First, games, just as the physical world, can contain billboards. There-
fore, it is possible to display ads on these sites, as in the physical world.
Billboards then are used quite in the same way as in our physical world,
but as a digital form in a digital world. Secondly, just as in fi lm, TV and
magazines, video games use product placements. Further, as in these other
media, the products displayed in games must be in line with the rest of the
content, or the break between the game world and product will be too great
and any immersion will be impossible. Using a bottle of Coca-Cola in a
game displaying, for example, New York in the 1950s will only increase the
credibility of the game. On the other hand, placing a can of Coca-Cola in a
game that uses a medieval setting will break the historical context.
Compared to other media, games have a great advantage when using
product placement—the gamer can interact with the objects. Drinking a
bottle of Coca-Cola in a game could, perhaps, have a greater impact on
consumption then watching a person in a fi lm drinking one. Likewise,
instead of looking at an IKEA sofa in an ad, in a game one can buy the item
and furnish one's in-game house with it.
Product placement is an adoption from other media; in fi lms it has been
used, and is still used, to the extent that it has become an industry stan-
dard. The dif erence is that placing products in games not only enables the
gamer to be visually stimulated by the message; more important is that
the gamer interacts with the product in the narrative of the game. There
is strong evidence (Nelson 2002; Winkler and Buckner 2006; Acar 2007;
Glass 2007; Mackay et al. 2009) that this seemingly small aspect impacts
the understanding of the product and inscribes virtual experiences with,
for example, driving cars that have a real-life brand or drinking soft drinks
that have a real-life brand .
An interesting contractual phenomenon that has arisen is the relationship
between game developers and third-party organizations whose products are
promoted in games: who pays who? As using promotion in games has not
been developed into a practice, compared to other media like fi lm and TV,
the question of relationship is still an open one. If one were to build a racing
game, using tracks and cars from the physical world, would the game devel-
oper pay the car manufacturers and track owner for the use of their brands,
or do the car manufacturers and track owners pay the developers for promot-
ing their brands? This question still seems to be unresolved.