This sponsored post is produced in conjunction with NativeX.
Michal Pilawski and Andrew Korf of NativeX sat down with us at our recent GamesBeat 2013 conference to talk about advertising within video games and how it can work for game designers, advertisers — and even players.
“I grew up playing games. That’s how I learned to speak English, actually,” says Pilawski. And NativeX is positioning itself for a generation of people like Pilawski, who grew up gaming.
For instance, he says, the 21 year olds who are graduating from college now have, on average, spent 10,000 hours playing video and computer games over the course of their childhoods — comparable to the amount of time previous generations spent watching television.
“We do believe that games will be the new TV 20 years from now,” Pilawski says.
Also, games are “the most persuasive medium ever invented,” he says, making them attractive to advertisers. For example, the U.S. Army’s game, “America’s Army,” was responsible for recruiting more people than all other advertising and recruiting channels.
“When you are in that fantasy world, you are more likely to respond to any stimuli that comes from that world, and for advertisers, that’s just the most amazing place to be in,” Pilawski says.
In this video, Pilawski and Korf talk about the flexibility and power of the NativeX advertising platform: how it enables developers to integrate advertisements into their games, evaluate the results, and make changes. But they spend most of their time talking about what it takes to make in-game advertising work well.
The key, they say, comes down to relevance and good design.
For example, if you’ve reached a frustrating point in a particular level, you may welcome some help, even if it’s in the form of an advertisement. It’s similar to the way Amazon works: Most people actually welcome its recommendations — even though they are basically ads — because they are relevant.
But design is important, too, especially in a medium like video games, where good design and aesthetics are increasingly important.
“When you can blend the two [relevance and good design], ads can actually add value to the game, instead of taking it away,” Pilawski concludes.
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