Blog - Sneaky Games


‘Tis the Season for Holiday Advergames
Friday, November 13th, 2009
Several months ago, many marketers began thinking about specific holiday related campaigns in order to capitalize on the shopping season now underway. At the very least, most businesses will include holiday messaging and coloration on their websites while others will further enhance their presentation with the inclusion of specific holiday shopping sections, landing pages, or fully customized home pages. In the past we’ve seen a few businesses launch holiday themed advergames and this year will be no exception. In coordination with the launch of Disney’s A Christmas Carol, the Disney site also includes a simple advergame which features Scrooge flying through the clouds and collecting stars: Scrooge’s Soarin’ Star Ride Equifax has a weather-appropriate game, though neither the game play or subject matter does much to remind players of the Equifax brand. http://www.equifax.com/holidaygame/ Certainly that criticism couldn’t be made about the National Christmas Tree Association. Their game, “Attack of the Mutant Artificial Trees” is a perfect example of the far right side of the Sneaky Games Advergame continuum. It’s definitely a Bran-Distraction. http://www.christmastree.org/home.cfm


Advergame Technology Considerations
Friday, October 30th, 2009
Success in advergaming can be calculated in many different ways, but one of them is surely the extent to which the game is broadly played. The raw number of impressions delivered by engaging more and more players is definitely one aim of many marketing executives who fund advergame development. Even better are impressions coming as the result of a viral spread of the game from friend to friend and colleague to colleague. We know, from our own advergame research that the fun factor is a key element to incubating such an infection. But it’s not the only consideration. The penetration rates of advergames will depend as well on the resident technology of the player. For now, let’s just consider the most popular type of advergame – those that are web based. Web based games have the advantage of being easily accessible and distributable, but because of browser differences often take much more time in the testing phase to get right. A popular technology choice is Flash which is said to be installed on over 800 million systems giving it a vast base. Shockwave games offer many design and playability advantages, but only has a market penetration of ~60%. When beginning an adveragming project, it is important to think of technological choices both in terms of what the technology will make possible, but also the installed base of potential players.

3 Questions to Ask Your Advergame Developer

Friday, October 16th, 2009

If you’re considering an advergame campaign, a study we recently conducted has some information that should help you ask intelligent questions of whatever game studio you select to work with. The Advergame research study revealed some interesting overlaps and disparities between consumers that play games and those that develop them. With this in mind, here are the questions:

What’s Your Definition of an Advergame?
Our research showed that consumers and developers define advergames differently. Developers, for example, are far more likely to say that an advergame includes direct brand interaction. Consumers are far less likely to say that game sponsorship qualifies under an ‘advergame’ definition. Knowing how your development shop thinks will help you to understand how well they are likely to understand your target gamer.

What’s the Most Important Element for a Successful Advergame?
Very clearly, our advergaming research showed that the correct answer to this question is quite simply, “how fun the game is.” 73% of consumers in fact, said that the key element was either how fun the game is, or ensuring that the brand didn’t get in the way of game play.

	Fun	No Obstruct	Foward to Friend	Brand Prominence	High Scores
Consumers	33%	40%	13%	7%	7%
Developers	11%	22%	56%	11%	0%

What Advergames Do You Like Playing?
The research also showed that opinions changed for those participants who had actually played advergames. As such, we encourage anyone who develops or markets advergames to play them regularly. If your developer doesn’t rattle off a couple games for you – beware.

Is Game Sponsoring the Best Advergaming Strategy?

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

In our last blog post, we suggested that H&R Block might have been better off sponsoring an existing game rather than developing an entirely new one. In truth, game sponsorship can be an affordable and fast way for companies to leverage advergaming. The inventory is certainly there. The Casual Gaming Association 2007 Report said that game portals, on average, offer more than 1,000 games on their sites and add anywhere from 75 to 300 new ones per year. The report doesn’t say how many sites there are, but a quick Google search for “free online games” yielded over 300 million results. For the first 50 pages of results, almost every one of the ten sites given per page was an individual game site. That alone would mean:

50 pages X 10 sites = 500 sites X 1,000 games = 500,000 games.

Of course, many of these sites offer the same games, so there is overlap between sites, and so on. However, it doesn’t appear unrealistic to say that the number of casual games could easily be “hundreds of thousands.”

In our recent Advergaming Research Report, consumers were far less likely to choose game sponsorship as an appropriate definition of advergaming.

	Placement	Interact	Features	Promoting Game	Sponsor
Entire Sample	48%	41%	33%	22%	15%
Consumers	47%	27%	20%	27%	7%
Developers	56%	56%	44%	22%	22%
Marketers*	33%	67%	67%	0%	33%

*note: Marketers is a very small sample size.

Couple a vast inventory with this fact, and marketers might see an opportunity to non-intrusively deliver their message to millions of willing gamers.


When Advergames Go Bad
Friday, September 18th, 2009
In our last post, we revealed the top line results of our “Advergame Knowledge” survey. A more detailed analysis appeared in the Sneaky Peek – which is archived here. One of the findings of that research was that 63% of the respondents said that the most important element of an advergame was either to make it fun or to ensure that the advertising didn’t obstruct game-play. In the book entitled, “Advergames That Didn’t Follow This Advice”, we present The Deductor by H&R Block. The Deductor is an advergame for the Facebook platform, which has a great name full of promise. But that’s where it ends. See for yourself: http://apps.facebook.com/thedeductor/page The graphics quality is actually pretty good, but the controls, game-play, objective, and utter confusion created by the small play area makes this game nearly unplayable. H&R Block would have been better off to sponsor, re-skin, and perhaps give a graphic facelift to a game like MrCash. (http://www.addictinggames.com/mrcash.html) This game has inferior graphics to The Deductor, but it’s much more fun. Note: we’re not saying Mr. Cash is a great game, but given the choice of playing Mr. Cash three times and The Deductor once – we’d take Mr. Cash. – Ka-Ching!


Advergame Research Results
Friday, September 4th, 2009
Sneaky Games recently concluded a proprietary research study in order to better understand the general amount of knowledge people have around advergaming. The short survey was fielded using two methods: Pay per Click Advertising – Respondents were recruited through AdWords text ads. Ads were shown in the United States and Canada for target keywords such as “Advergame” and “In-Game Ads”. Sneaky Peek List – We sent an invitation to participate to the subscriber list of the Sneaky Games newsletter. Those of you familiar with marketing research will notice immediately that these recruitment techniques will have likely created sample bias among the respondent pool. Opt-in subscribers to an Austin game development studio’s newsletter plus internet searchers for terms such as “Advergame” do not represent the market at large. This bias was intentional as Sneaky Games wanted to survey the knowledge of a more informed audience rather than a more comprehensive universe. The results of the survey will be fully published and analyzed in the next version of the Sneaky Peek (subscribe), but follows are some snippets from the study. Who took the survey: Consumers who might play an advergame – 56% Developers or other technology specialists who might create an advergame – 33% Marketers or other business professionals who might execute an advergame campaign – 11% What is the best definition of “Advergame”? The placement of real-world brands into a video game environment – 48% A video game of any kind which requires players to directly interact with real-world brands – 41% A video game for console, mobile, or online play which features one or more real-world brands – 33% An advertisement created for digital media specifically aimed at promoting an existing or upcoming video game – 22% [Incorrect] The sponsoring of a video game (either console, mobile, or online) by a real-world brand – 15% Have you ever played a video game that was sponsored by or featured a real-world brand? Yes – 59% No – 41% Which choice below most accurately shows the amount of total US Advergame spending in 2008? More than $300 million – 37% Between $100 and 200 million – 22% Less than $10 million – 22% Between $200 and 300 million – 19% [Correct] True or False: Advergame campaigns take more time and cost more money than many other types of Internet marketing. False – 70% True – 30% The MOST important element for an Advergame is: How fun it is – 33% Ensuring the advertising doesn’t obstruct the game play – 30% Encouraging players to forward the game to friends – 26% Ensuring that the brand figures prominently in the game – 7% Making sure the game has a reward system like high-scores – 4%


Advergames & SEO
Friday, August 21st, 2009
Can developing and marketing an Advergame help you with SEO efforts? Yes – if you know what to do. Here are 5 tips for using your Advergame to bolster your Search Engine Optimization efforts. #1 - Describe Your Game Using Important SEO Keywords When you create and market an Advergame, you’ll have lots of opportunities to talk about the game. Make sure your descriptions include keywords you care about. #2 – Use Online PR Mechanisms to Create Anchor Text Backlinks There are many free and paid PR distribution services online and when you create your game, you should use a handful to publicize its availability. Most, if not all of these services, will allow you to craft your own messaging and include links to your site so that interested parties can play the game. One-way links like these are powerful from an SEO standpoint. Use anchor text when possible. Anchor text is linked text that is contextual and relevant. For example: This linked text about advergames developed by an Austin-based studio is not a good example of anchor text. This linked text about advergames developed by an Austin-based studio is a good example of anchor text. What would be better for our example above is if that text were located on a site other than this one. Because the text is located here, it’s not technically a ‘backlink’. #3 – Use Keywords in the Title of the Game and Submit it to Game Directories This is not always possible, but if you can do it, it will help with your SEO. Most game directories will link to your game by the title. If, for example, you are a cell phone manufacturer, naming your game “Ring Race” is not nearly as good as naming it, “Cell Phone Ring Race”. #4 – Allow Commenting on the Game to Create Free Content You should allow users to comment on your game and post these comments as regularly as they come in. The search engines like new content and this is an easy way to create it. #5 - Dedicate a Landing Page for The Game Having a dedicated landing page on your site for the game is critical. BUT, don’t overdo it with too much Flash and other distracting technology. The landing page ought to describe the game play and include the comments mentioned in #4 above.


The ‘Casual’ in Casual Games Doesn’t Mean Insignificant
Monday, July 13th, 2009
Tid-bits of research scattered throughout the Internet indicate that the word Casual in the phrase Casual Games most likely refers to the emotional attitude with which a player approaches gaming and not the amount of time or level of engagement they dedicate to actually playing. Games, for the casual player, aren’t necessarily part of their self identity (as would be the case for a hardcore ‘gamer’), but that doesn’t mean that their casual play is any less important. For example: Casual gamers spend 14 hours per week playing games online. [source] Casual gamers spend ~ 20 minutes per game [source] For AOL users, casual game play is the third most popular activity (behind email and IM) [source] 61% of casual gamers spend more time gaming in 2009 than in 2008 [source] The lesson here for advergame campaigns is an important one. Casual gamers approach their activity nonchalantly which means it is up to the game to engage them. This is both good and bad news. It’s good in that if the game succeeds in engaging with the player, the brand experience offered to the player will be positive. If the game fails to engage them, the player will likely (and again nonchalantly) simply move on to another game that does.


Advergames Are Like Grandparents – Old.
Monday, March 9th, 2009
One of the joys of the gaming industry is that it keeps you young. Advergames, Edutainment, Branded Entertainment – all the words we use around the Sneaky Games office are exciting and until recently – new. As it turns out though,advertising and game development have been bedfellows far longer than any of us realized. Remember the Atari 2600? Of course you do. But do you remember “Tooth Protectors” by Johnson and Johnson? Probably not even though it was a real Atari 2600 game cartridge. By all accounts, the game was terrible and we don’t suppose that is all that surprising; there’s not a lot you can with you do with floss and tooth brushing. What’s interesting, however, is that more than twenty years ago, J&J attempted to make their oral hygiene products, “playable”. In our most recent Sneaky Peek Newsletter, (subscribe) we proposed an Advergame continuum which distinguishes between playable brand games and other types of game advertising. More than twenty years ago, J&J was at the extreme of our scale. Subscribe to the Sneaky Peek to see how we would classify “Tooth Protectors.”


Are Games the New TV?
Monday, February 23rd, 2009
In a recent interview with Chip Lange, a VP at Electronic Arts, he was asked for his 5 to 10 year vision of the future of gaming. His answer was basically that gaming’s stigma will fade and that everyone will be doing it. Importantly, he argued that while there will still be big budget blockbuster games out there, casual games will become a natural part of the gaming landscape, if not daily life. Most media happens this way. For a while, there were just three networks. Then cable came along. Movies used to be made by a handful of studios. Then the independent film scene became wildly popular. Gaming will likely go through a similar transformation which means, if it follows suit with the technologies that came before, there is going to be a huge opportunity for new entrants. You don’t actually need to be a game maker to make games. What you need is content. Including Sneaky Games, there are plenty of excellent game development companies out there. But that’s like saying there are plenty of actors. Actors don’t work unless there are scripts. If you manage a brand that is engaging, you could be holding the script to the next great game.

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