Here’s an article in Red Herring by Ryan Olson on some corporate research seeking to quantify how successful in-game advertising is. Using technology that tracks eye movements, the researchers discovered that two thirds of gamers look at in-game ads at least once each minute, and over 80 percent look at ads at least once every two minutes. Double Fusion and Interpret were the two companies involved with the research. The eye tracking technology was provided by a company called Eye Tracking.
Ad placement on the screen was determined to be important. Ads at eye level garnered more views than others, even if more screen space was taken up by ads at different levels of the screen. Ads with simplistic messages garnered longer view times than ads with lots of text. Relevance to the game or in-game activity was likewise deemed important.
The findings of this research could prove useful to educational game designers seeking to infuse their interactive learning environments with pertinent messages.
References
Olson, R. (2007, July 23). How effective are in-game ads? Red Herring. [Online]. Available: http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22936&hed=
How+Effective+Are+In-Game+Ads%3F
July 26, 2007 at 1:31 am |
Ads in games really tick some people off. Take a look at Michael Vass’s reaction to the study here: http://www.videogamingblog.net/2007/07/23/more-ads-per-minute-than-ever-before/