Porting Doom into Doom 3

You've probably heard about Massive launching interactive ads for Toyota in Anarchy Online (if not, here's a report by Business Week). This paper on Fully Interactive Surfaces in Doom 3 explores a more advanced kind of interactivity -- the authors have embedded the original Doom into the game released a decade later. I wonder if we will soon start seeing advergames inside larger titles.

Q&A With In-Game Ad Execs by Adotas

Adotas does Q&A sessions with the execs from Massive, IGA and Double Fusion. The questions:

1. Has the industry grown large enough that you could consider other in-game advertising companies as serious competition, or is it still a wide open market?

2. In what direction is the in-game ad formats heading: display ads like on billboards, or in-game product placement?

3. Is there an industry standard for measuring in-game ads?

4. How useful do you think in-game metrics are, since games can be played both on and off-line on a whole bunch of different platforms?

5. What sort of games are more easily combined with advertising? What do you do for games that aren't sports or set in a present-day location? What about fantasy, sci fi games, or even puzzle, arcade, and casual titles?

6. Do you think it's possible in the future that some high-profile games could be entirely ad-supported?

SL Business: The Premier Virtual Branding Magazine

Coming out August 1. Follow its progress on the magazine's website. A few more details at SL Insider.

McDonald's Counter-Srike Map

Here's a McDonald's map for Counter-Strike: Source. I also have a McD WAD for Doom but the game isn't stable enough for me to take a snapshot. I suspect none of this was sanctioned by Ronald, but that's the beauty of it.

Need Help: Voice/Sound/Dialog Ads in Video Games?

I am doing the thesis's last chapter that focuses on ad formats in video games and hit that part about voice advertising. You know, where a character says "I wish I had a ride like that" and points to GMS Yukon in the latest CSI game. I also remember hearing about Madden doing product plugs in his commentary to the NFL series, but don't have much more than that.

If you know of any other examples, could you please drop me a line (vedrashko at hotmail) or comment below? Any tips or links will be much appreciated, and you will get an honorable mention in the paper. Oh, and I am already writing about fake radio commercials in GTA: San Andreas, so that's covered.

To make this post worth your time, here's a chapter from Game Design Complete published on Gamasutra (free registration) that talks about various kinds of game advertising opportunities. Also, check out my del.icio.us bookmarks on the subject; plenty of goodies there that haven't been posted here.

MTV Overdrive on U2 in SL

MTV Ovedrive did a story on a recent U2 in SL's concert (much like the one a few months ago):

"A virtual — and unauthorized — U2 might be the most provocative example, but independent musicians and big-label acts are also getting involved, potentially making multiplayer video game worlds the next frontier of touring. Musicians can channel audio into game worlds and set up characters to be their puppet personas — a way to go on tour without leaving their keyboard, be they the "SL" musician Frogg Marlowe or, if Universal Music's official plans continue to take shape, Chamillionaire and the rock band Hinder (see "GameFile: Chamillionaire's Ridin' Virtual, 'Saint's Row' Has A Surprise, Anti-Game Laws Gain Steam And More")."

Panel on Marketing to Virtual Avatars, Part 1

part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Today, Harvard’s Berkman Center hosted a panel discussion titled "Avatar-Based Marketing: What’s the Future of Real-Life Companies Marketing to Second Life Avatars". The two-hour event took place on Berkman Island in Second Life. Panelists included the following avatars (pictured above, left to right, real names in brackets, info taken from the event’s notecard):

Razor Rinkitink (Raz Schionning), director of web services at American Apparel that just launched a store in Second Life.

Fizik Baskerville (Justin Bovington), a virtual marketer. His company, Rivers Run Red, serves such clients as Adidas, Disney, Vodafone, EMI, BBC and Carat. Recent projects have seen the virtual marketing developments for: 20th Century Fox, Buena Visa International, Warner/Chappel, Universal, BBC, Mtv, Fender Stratocaster.

SNOOPYbrown Zamboni (Jeff Paffendorf), Electric Sheep Company’s futurist in residence. He is currently leading Electric Sheep's founding involvement in ASF's Metaverse Roadmap Project and helps curate the Second Life Community Convention, State of Play, and Accelerating Change conferences.

Cristiano Midnight (Cristiano Diaz), a member of Second Life since December of 2002, created one of SL's first and longest running third party sites, SLuniverse.com in 2003. In 2004, he launched an in-world business called ANOmations, and in early 2005, he developed the Snapzilla web site.

Zero Grace (Tony Walsh), speaker, writer, and cultural critic behind SecretLair.com and ClickableCulture.com.

Hempman Richard (Paul Hemp), a senior editor at Harvard Business Review. He is the author of the HBR’s recent article "Avatar-Based Marketing?"

Hamlet Au (Wagner James Au), covers Second Life society journalistically at the new New World Notes. Works as an SL consultant for both for-profit and non-profit companies, including Rivers Run Red and Creative Commons.

The event was moderated by Ansible Berkman (Rodica Buzescu), a recent graduate of Harvard College and the manager of Berkman Center's presence in Second Life.

The following transcript has been edited for clarity. Changes to the raw log may include punctuation, capitalization, order of replies, spelling. Some off-topic conversations have been omitted. Please leave a comment if you find a mistake. All hyperlinks and emphasis added by me.

part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5