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Video gaming has become a hugely successful global industry worth $25billion in 2005, a figure that is set to rise to $55billion within the next two years, according to PwC. There were 37 million active gamers in the UK, Germany, France, and Spain, spending nearly 11 hours a week with various PC or console titles in 2005 (GameVision Europe figures). The total online gaming community today is estimated to be close to half a billion unique players and is growing fast (DFC Intelligence).
The rapid proliferation of high speed internet connections means there are now nearly 10 million broadband homes in the UK (ONS Omnibus survey 2006) and broadband is a key driver of the diversification of PC and console gaming that has changed the very nature of game-play from a solitary to a social activity. Gaming has entered the living room and is now frequently favoured in polls above TV, as the preferred entertainment medium.
In America, online multiplayer video games command more attention than prime-time television shows and there are also currently more households in the UK with consoles than Sky connections. Individual titles can attract audiences of millions and demand considerable brand loyalty; recent research from Gamesure for example reports that Counter Strike, the most popular online action game franchise, has recorded over 7.6 billion viewer minutes in a month.
What is crucial about the manner in which games are played is how it bucks the trend of the way other media are being consumed. The rise of broadband has prompted a change in the media consumption habits of 16-24 year-olds in particular. Where other media are suffering from a lack of focused attention from this crucial demographic, gaming continues to demand complete concentration.
A research study from Yahoo! and OMD entitled Truly, Madly, Deeply Engaged: Global Youth, Media and Technology (2006) looks at how young people from a number of different countries are redefining the roles of traditional media. The report outlines how 16-24 year-olds are demanding media on their terms and are fitting in the equivalent of 42 hours of activities into one day. They are multi-tasking to the extent that they sometimes consume two or three media at one time. Gaming however is different. It is a medium where if the audience is not completely focused there will be ramifications. Indeed, as John-Paul Edwards, Head of Media Futures of Manning
Gottleib OMD stated when speaking to the IAB; “Gaming demands complete attention, because in the majority of cases if you are not focused, your character will die.” When you consider that Games typically take between 10 and 200 hours to complete, it is clear that it is a medium that commands significant dwell time. 63% of European gamers play for at least one hour at a time (Nielsen Interactive Entertainment/ISFE 2005).
The integration of the internet into gaming titles has enabled simultaneous multi-play. Users are now able to play against (and with) people across the globe, establishing relationships and rivalries in the process.
Local Area Network (LAN) parties, where gamers take their computers to a venue and link their machines together to do battle or play as a team, has been a popular pastime for several years now. But as the latency issues associated with slower internet speeds have been largely overcome by broadband and machines with faster processing powers, socialising online within games is in the ascendancy.
Where social gaming has become most pronounced is in massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) or either of their sub-categories massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) or massively multiplayer online social games (MMOSG). MMOG games create virtual worlds and communities, where vast numbers of players socialise and play against each other. MMORPGs in particular are attracting huge numbers of players. The most popular of these games is Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, which now has 8 million players globally. In World of Warcraft players have to complete quests within the fantasy world of Azeroth to make their initially weak characters, strong.
Consumers now have more choice than ever when it comes to gaming platforms. Until the Xbox 360 and the Playstation PSP were introduced, the PC represented the only place where games involving online activity could be played. Now nearly all the major consoles and mobile gaming devices offer a degree of connectivity, where gamers can link up and play against one another.
The World Wide Web also represents a games platform in itself. As opposed to requiring the consumer to purchase a games title from a shop that incorporates online elements, there are websites such as Pogo.com - some offering subscription services - that host a variety of games. This platform has proved particularly appealing to the casual games market; time-poor consumers with an interest in gaming, but who are unable to commit to some of the more demanding off-the shelf titles.
The ongoing popularity of portable devices is set to be supplemented with the developing mobile phone games market. The mobile has been identified as a key device for the future of a number of media, and gaming is no different. At an Intellect conversation evening on the subject of gaming in February 2006, several phone manufacturers outlined how much emphasis the major mobile networks and manufacturers are putting on finding the right games for phones. Mobile therefore seems set to become the next major platform for games and one that will undoubtedly compliment activity on consoles and PCs.
Gaming has traditionally been regarded as a mainly male pastime. The NPD Group reports that 70% of all males aged 18-34 are gamers and that 75% of households with a male aged 8-34 own a video game console (Nielsen Entertainment). One of the unique selling points of in-game advertising is it represents an opportunity for marketers to get their messages to the traditionally hard to reach 18-34 male age range. As Dan Brown, Group Account Director at Universal McCann told the IAB; “I think in-game advertising is most interesting for the brands trying to reach the ‘lost generation’ (as they are often called) of young males who spend the majority of their free time playing video games. Given the fact that the reach of online gaming is now huge, it is an opportunity that can’t be ignored.”
Not only do game players account for the majority of the male 18-34 year-old demographic, they represent an important part. Research from Massive (2006) discusses how gamers are “active, informed consumers” who multiply their market power with a “halo effect”. Relatives and friends view them as a key source of advice when they are making their own entertainment and technology purchases.
Recently, however, as gaming has become more social and a greater range of gaming types and titles has become available, the demographics of those playing games has widened. There exists a juxtaposition between gender and the types of games played and indeed the platforms they are played upon. Talking to the IAB, Josh Graff Business Development Manager EMEA & APAC from Massive noted how the male 13-34 video gamer demographic represents the core section of their target audience. This demographic favours massively multiplayer online games (MMOG), sports, real time strategy and first-Person Shooter titles.
Certain titles and particularly casual online games attract an increasing number of older females. On many of the larger casual sites 70% of the audience is made up of women between the ages of 35 and 54, as reported by Jennifer McLean of Double Fusion. For example 75% of the one million plus subscribers to EA’s casual online games are women, willing to pay the $5 a month subscription.
Whilst younger males are happy to buy video game titles for consoles and PCs and immerse themselves in role playing games that incorporate online elements, older females prefer going online and playing games that require less commitment, intermittently, at sites such as pogo.com.
Despite this - and an October 2006 BBC article reporting that a third of UK game players are female - David Gardener, chief operating officer for EA’s worldwide studio still believes the industry is “failing women”. Gardner has publicly stated that the content of many of the titles is simply not appealing enough for women gamers and if the problem was cracked, EA could; “add a billion dollars to its sales.” He points to the example of the Sims, an EA game that has become the most successful title in the world by attracting a large, female audience (70% 0f Sims players are women under the age of 25).
In the wake of the Sims success Josh Graff told the IAB that Massive were investing in expanding the demographics of AAA titles; those titles that are most prominently displayed in game shops. Massive recognise that widening the audience of game players will be a positive move for the future growth of advertising within games. The broader the audience the more opportunities there are for marketers.
The rapid proliferation of high speed internet connections means there are now nearly 10 million broadband homes in the UK (ONS Omnibus survey 2006) and broadband is a key driver of the diversification of PC and console gaming that has changed the very nature of game-play from a solitary to a social activity. Gaming has entered the living room and is now frequently favoured in polls above TV, as the preferred entertainment medium.
In America, online multiplayer video games command more attention than prime-time television shows and there are also currently more households in the UK with consoles than Sky connections. Individual titles can attract audiences of millions and demand considerable brand loyalty; recent research from Gamesure for example reports that Counter Strike, the most popular online action game franchise, has recorded over 7.6 billion viewer minutes in a month.
The Mymedia Generation
What is crucial about the manner in which games are played is how it bucks the trend of the way other media are being consumed. The rise of broadband has prompted a change in the media consumption habits of 16-24 year-olds in particular. Where other media are suffering from a lack of focused attention from this crucial demographic, gaming continues to demand complete concentration.
A research study from Yahoo! and OMD entitled Truly, Madly, Deeply Engaged: Global Youth, Media and Technology (2006) looks at how young people from a number of different countries are redefining the roles of traditional media. The report outlines how 16-24 year-olds are demanding media on their terms and are fitting in the equivalent of 42 hours of activities into one day. They are multi-tasking to the extent that they sometimes consume two or three media at one time. Gaming however is different. It is a medium where if the audience is not completely focused there will be ramifications. Indeed, as John-Paul Edwards, Head of Media Futures of Manning
Gottleib OMD stated when speaking to the IAB; “Gaming demands complete attention, because in the majority of cases if you are not focused, your character will die.” When you consider that Games typically take between 10 and 200 hours to complete, it is clear that it is a medium that commands significant dwell time. 63% of European gamers play for at least one hour at a time (Nielsen Interactive Entertainment/ISFE 2005).
Gaming as a social activity
The integration of the internet into gaming titles has enabled simultaneous multi-play. Users are now able to play against (and with) people across the globe, establishing relationships and rivalries in the process.
Local Area Network (LAN) parties, where gamers take their computers to a venue and link their machines together to do battle or play as a team, has been a popular pastime for several years now. But as the latency issues associated with slower internet speeds have been largely overcome by broadband and machines with faster processing powers, socialising online within games is in the ascendancy.
Where social gaming has become most pronounced is in massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) or either of their sub-categories massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) or massively multiplayer online social games (MMOSG). MMOG games create virtual worlds and communities, where vast numbers of players socialise and play against each other. MMORPGs in particular are attracting huge numbers of players. The most popular of these games is Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, which now has 8 million players globally. In World of Warcraft players have to complete quests within the fantasy world of Azeroth to make their initially weak characters, strong.
Consumers now have more choice than ever when it comes to gaming platforms. Until the Xbox 360 and the Playstation PSP were introduced, the PC represented the only place where games involving online activity could be played. Now nearly all the major consoles and mobile gaming devices offer a degree of connectivity, where gamers can link up and play against one another.
Nelson: Is that a computer game?
Randy: No it’s an MMORPG. These are real people I’m playing with. See, I’m a hunter, level 2. I can chat with all these other people. I can even wave to this guy, see? Hello. (his character waves to another character, who waves back). In the outside world, I’m a simple geologist, but in here… I am Valkorn, Defender of the Alliance. I’ve braved the Fargo Deep Mine, defeated the bloodfish at Jarrod’s Landing.
South Park: ‘Make Love not Warcraft’
Randy: No it’s an MMORPG. These are real people I’m playing with. See, I’m a hunter, level 2. I can chat with all these other people. I can even wave to this guy, see? Hello. (his character waves to another character, who waves back). In the outside world, I’m a simple geologist, but in here… I am Valkorn, Defender of the Alliance. I’ve braved the Fargo Deep Mine, defeated the bloodfish at Jarrod’s Landing.
South Park: ‘Make Love not Warcraft’
The World Wide Web also represents a games platform in itself. As opposed to requiring the consumer to purchase a games title from a shop that incorporates online elements, there are websites such as Pogo.com - some offering subscription services - that host a variety of games. This platform has proved particularly appealing to the casual games market; time-poor consumers with an interest in gaming, but who are unable to commit to some of the more demanding off-the shelf titles.
The ongoing popularity of portable devices is set to be supplemented with the developing mobile phone games market. The mobile has been identified as a key device for the future of a number of media, and gaming is no different. At an Intellect conversation evening on the subject of gaming in February 2006, several phone manufacturers outlined how much emphasis the major mobile networks and manufacturers are putting on finding the right games for phones. Mobile therefore seems set to become the next major platform for games and one that will undoubtedly compliment activity on consoles and PCs.
Key demographics within in-game advertising
Gaming has traditionally been regarded as a mainly male pastime. The NPD Group reports that 70% of all males aged 18-34 are gamers and that 75% of households with a male aged 8-34 own a video game console (Nielsen Entertainment). One of the unique selling points of in-game advertising is it represents an opportunity for marketers to get their messages to the traditionally hard to reach 18-34 male age range. As Dan Brown, Group Account Director at Universal McCann told the IAB; “I think in-game advertising is most interesting for the brands trying to reach the ‘lost generation’ (as they are often called) of young males who spend the majority of their free time playing video games. Given the fact that the reach of online gaming is now huge, it is an opportunity that can’t be ignored.”
Not only do game players account for the majority of the male 18-34 year-old demographic, they represent an important part. Research from Massive (2006) discusses how gamers are “active, informed consumers” who multiply their market power with a “halo effect”. Relatives and friends view them as a key source of advice when they are making their own entertainment and technology purchases.
Recently, however, as gaming has become more social and a greater range of gaming types and titles has become available, the demographics of those playing games has widened. There exists a juxtaposition between gender and the types of games played and indeed the platforms they are played upon. Talking to the IAB, Josh Graff Business Development Manager EMEA & APAC from Massive noted how the male 13-34 video gamer demographic represents the core section of their target audience. This demographic favours massively multiplayer online games (MMOG), sports, real time strategy and first-Person Shooter titles.
Certain titles and particularly casual online games attract an increasing number of older females. On many of the larger casual sites 70% of the audience is made up of women between the ages of 35 and 54, as reported by Jennifer McLean of Double Fusion. For example 75% of the one million plus subscribers to EA’s casual online games are women, willing to pay the $5 a month subscription.
Whilst younger males are happy to buy video game titles for consoles and PCs and immerse themselves in role playing games that incorporate online elements, older females prefer going online and playing games that require less commitment, intermittently, at sites such as pogo.com.
Despite this - and an October 2006 BBC article reporting that a third of UK game players are female - David Gardener, chief operating officer for EA’s worldwide studio still believes the industry is “failing women”. Gardner has publicly stated that the content of many of the titles is simply not appealing enough for women gamers and if the problem was cracked, EA could; “add a billion dollars to its sales.” He points to the example of the Sims, an EA game that has become the most successful title in the world by attracting a large, female audience (70% 0f Sims players are women under the age of 25).
In the wake of the Sims success Josh Graff told the IAB that Massive were investing in expanding the demographics of AAA titles; those titles that are most prominently displayed in game shops. Massive recognise that widening the audience of game players will be a positive move for the future growth of advertising within games. The broader the audience the more opportunities there are for marketers.
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