Tap Me!, Inc: Tap Into Fun

I have found that the best way to think about the next generation of in-game advertising is to not look at the negatives of the current offerings but to instead list out the strengths of each medium and build on those. This way it is easier to find the similarities of both art forms and have them do a little co-op play.

Video Games: Fun, Interactive, Creative, Immersing, Multi-media, Addictive, User-controlled, Rewarding, Epic, Social

Advertising:  Direct, Creative, Interactive, Captivating, Work best across multi-media, Momentous, Leads to benefit, Social

It really is a match made in heaven but the delivery is really the problem here.  In the case of advertising they have throughout the history of the form had to piggyback or message their way into mediums like print, TV and digital communications.

So a little known fact regarding Marshall McLuhan’s famous, “The medium is the message”, the original title was “The medium is the massage”, subtle difference that resulted in an error in print that somewhat obfuscates what the book is really about. Massaging human senses with your message.

Games operate on so many sensory levels and require active cognitive interaction. Because of this it is a challenge to apply an advertising message. If the message is to be provided in stream (during game play) it will be competing with the games world, rules, and the users state of flow.

Despite this challenge, there are a couple of key places where in-game ads have been placed that make sense, but are still not optimal.

Let me break down the most common types of in-game advertising today and how they play to the strengths of the Video Game and Advertising mediums.


Game world (Real Integration)


VG Strengths: Immersing, Creative, Epic
Ad Strengths: Creating, Captivating, Momentous

This is what most marketers understand as in-game advertising. It is effective in much the same way that outdoor and display branding are in the real world. However, for a realistic integration the game needs to be HUGE. This has its own set of problems. Scale and opportunity cost. Not to mention that it does not fit inside of any kind of game.


Loading Screens (Pre-roll & Mid-roll)

VG Strengths: Multi-media
Ad Strengths: Direct, Multi-media, Captivating

We watch ads in between shows on television or before a movie starts. Why not put them in while a game is loading? Perhaps because it adds no value to the game and the fact that gamers hate loading screens all together. Besides, companies like OnLive are going to make sure the loading screen is a thing of the past.


Interfaces (Integration)


VG Strengths: Interactive, User-controlled, Rewarding
Ad Strengths: Interactive, Leads to benefit, Multi-media

What better way to say I don ’t care about your message than putting it into an interface where the user is being asked to progress through the experience. Now you can argue that billboards have a certain degree of effectiveness and it’s all about the foot traffic but, effective billboards are usually married to a bigger plan unlike the typical banner ad that is pervasive in interfaces. They do have their place and they scale pretty easily, the bigger issue is effectiveness.


Offers (In-stream)


VG Strengths: Rewarding, User-controlled, Interactive
Ad Strengths: Direct, Momentous, Leads to benefit

Offers in games that help a user overcome a barrier to continue playing or offer the player an advantage have been a powerful source of revenue for games that use the model. Players are interrupted during play, or after they have run out of a resource to sign-up for an offer to continue playing for free. This is almost a predatory form of advertising that will not lead to long term loyalty. Why? Because the user just wants to play the game and will do anything to keep doing it if that is the mode they are in. Time will truly tell if this model will be tolerated by game developers as new revenue models emerge.


Branded Virtual Goods (In-stream, integration)


VG Strengths: Rewarding, User-controlled, Interactive, Fun, Immersive, Creative
Ad Strengths: Direct, Creative, Interactive, Momentous, Leads to benefit

The newest form of in-game advertising applies almost exclusively to the social games space due to the scale necessary for this type of integration. The above example is a more generic approach, but typically the most effective way to connect the brands to gamers is to do a creative integration. Although it is early it seems that it is very effective. This is no surprise because the branded virtual good plays on many strengths.

I hope you found this informative. Please contribute to this conversation in the comments below and follow us on Twitter @TapMeJosh and @TapMeGames.

Tap Me is fighting the good fight so games that have an ad model like Angry Birds don’t have to piss off their gamers.

This is why the next generation of in game ads have should be designed and developed by game developers.

Stay tuned for a breakdown of current methods of in game ads.

by: Joshua Hernandez

[I will be doing a series of posts on what we are calling the next generation of in-game advertising. Please leave your thoughts and comments below.]

The in-game ads space had it’s circus mid last decade. To the outside world it might appear that they failed to significantly scale or simply meet expectations culminating in MS shuttering Massive this Fall. I am sure the reasons are much more complex than that but lets work on that perception. 

Although efforts by non game developers like AdMob and Apple have put a dent in the hard shell that in-game ad revenue has proven to be we there is still so much more that can happen in this space. We have stories about IPhone developer Backflip Studios show the promise of ad driven monetization for IP with massive scale, but it’s more the exception than the rule.

So what will it take for the next crop of entrepreneurs to crack this walnut of a business model?

1. We first need to understand that the medium is the message. Games are a difficult medium to pin down. Its video but interactive, it has a story but its experience is user generated. Any platform the does not contribute or at least participate in the art of game design will be a temporary solution at best. This is why virtual goods works so well. It’s a platform created specifically to take advantage of the inherent mechanics in a game. However we cannot count on virtual goods to carry an ad platform because of the customization required.

The next gen in-game ad platforms need to be in the space between virtual goods and current ad-targeting methods.

2. Change needs to come from the inside. The game development industry has always been resistant to solutions that come from a general direction or outside the industry itself. It’s not that we have been resistant to innovation, but we need to know we are participating in a solution that will not only help drive a gamers experience to produce more revenue but also maximizes the fun factor of the game.

Game developers will protect fun at all costs. The next gen of in-game advertising needs to be designed with the preservation of fun in mind.

3. Focus on the needs of the customer with games as the lens. Brand marketers are usually approached with “Your Ad Here” for in-game ad efforts. This needs to change. We need to understand the needs of the brand marketeers and also bring them into our creative process in simple and effective ways.

Participating in hits at scale is great and a tried and true method for advertisers. But that is not the way to participate in the relationship that the game is fostering with that gamer. And it is certainly not the way to hit broader audiences.

The next generation needs to provide this platform.

by: Joshua Hernandez

In my past startups I was very vocal; had daily posts on SectionZ.com before the word blog was invented. There I rallied thousands of artists to band together to help them get feedback on electronic music they had in the oven. Over a decade later, that communal cement is still strong, even long after my departure. In fact, it was the community that really made it work.

Because of community, SectionZ became and is still now a nebula of underground electronic musicians where stars are born.

I feel the time has come to join my fellow founders in letting both the game development community and advertising communities know why we want to create a new way to advertise in games. To bring them both together to truly create a mutually beneficial relationship that in the end will make the customers happy is what we are striving for.

“The reason why is to let gamers play and for gamers to have fun” - Sebastian Hernandez

My four year old took what is a 10 minute pitch and distilled it to that quote. And he couldn’t have been more on target.

For too long, game developers and in-game advertisers have had a complex and tumultuous relationship.

Advertisers are approached post-scale and have little involvement in where ads go or behave in a hit game. Advertisers need and want to be involved in the creative aspects in order to better determine how to best position their messages to that game developers’ user base. With the exception of realistic games they rarely have that opportunity unless they build an adver-game.

Game developers have few choices as to how to implement advertising. Most solutions are either too complex or time consuming for their 2D Android Puzzle Game. From a game design standpoint, even though early monetization is now a core tenant of design, banner ads, interstitials and offers can really compromise a games experience. To top it off, not all game developers want to create social games or be acquired by Zynga and Google.

So it stands to reason that there needs to be an alignment if game developers are to ever take advantage of advertising as a revenue channel and if advertisers are going to participate effectively in a medium that year after year commands more of the consumer mindshare.

The good news is that this alignment is taking place, and entrepreneurs like ourselves are looking for ways to create a genuine dialogue that lets both parties spend time doing what they do best - making games and adding value.

So what factors are aligning?

1. Gaming is mainstream 

No longer is a gamer just an 18-34 male; that stereotype has been dead for years. The only reason most marketers have this perception is because the current generation of in-game advertising companies are focused on console gaming and Hollywood titles (we call those Triple A games).

Recent in-game advertising breakouts like McDonalds having a farm in Farmville are less of an exception and more a good example of post hit integration. Personally, I thought this integration was clever and added value but we all know it does not scale nor become persistent.

With games everywhere, from our frequent flyer miles programs to our pockets it should be easier to market to audiences.

2. Games are commodities 

Mobile developers know this best. Their biggest challenge today is to keep their user base engaged. 

They know that unless they have the next bird physics sensation that they need to be as iterative with their gamers as they are with concepts just to keep them coming back for another week or two and their eyes away from that next shiny fun time.

Keeping gamers happy is key, so interruption of play needs to be kept at an absolute minimum.

This is an advantage advertisers can leverage if they start to think of ways to work with a gamers’ natural behavior to jump from one experience to the next. Why? Because this commoditization of games finally allows for an in-game advertising platform that looks to aggregate gamers. The future is not about the game with 1,000,000 users. Its about 20 games with 1,000,000 gamers that when segmented provide a diverse audience.

3. Failures of the old models make room for next generation of in-game advertising 

The wrong message to take away from Microsoft’s Massive supernova is that in-game advertising is dead because it is far from it. We all know that games are commanding more time and go far beyond eyeballs. Industry icons like Mark Pincus from Zynga and Michael Pachter from Wedbush have talked about its potential. 

Massive’s shortcoming was not due to a lack of trying and even execution. It was just to soon to offer any product that truly scales yet remained integrated with the game. This is the problem that the next generation of in-game advertising must solve. 

It is simply time for the next generation - a generation that starts with the gamers’ experience in mind and makes its way up to the game and advertising experience; one that focuses on adding value through means that are intrinsic to the science of play.

So stay tuned as we build this community by following us on twitter @TapMeJosh and @TapMeGames.