Games such as Pet Society or Who Has The Biggest Brain will likely make their way onto the console, either in disc or downloadable form. It’s lucrative and people have proven their willingness to pay for the HD, console-based experience.Delivery of advertisements into video games is nothing new and, as Jeremy Pepper pointed out to me last week at the Audience Conference, ads even appeared in relics like Pole Position. Advertisers have embraced video games as a very relevant and cost-effective platform but we haven't even seen the beginning. Contextual advertising has been appearing everywhere from web search to email. I believe we will see a ton of targeted advertising in video games for consoles over the next 5 years. I think the consoles will be able to tell advertisers which games are being played on the console and then deliver relevant and unobtrusive advertisements to players. Consoles will be able to mine data about web history, game-playing habits, chats within games, movies played on the device, music and pictures uploaded, etc. Then ads can be streamed into games instead of burned into discs or software.Other social gaming platforms will either be acquired or strike lucrative deals to bring their games to the console as well.
Beyond gaming on consoles like the PS3, XBOX 360 and the Wii, streaming movies is also a new avenue for marketing and advertising. Instead of getting outdated trailers for movies from 8 years ago when you decide to rent Wonder Boys, you would be able to stream trailers for movies like Where the Wild Things Are or Paranormal Activity (maybe here Netflix could help more).
Especially after today's AdMob acquisition by Google for $750 million in stock, Google has emerged as the undisputed leader in ad delivery for almost every medium. Owning Massive gives Microsoft a solid head start though it hasn't helped them in the past when going against Google. Some are predicting massive growth for that group but one blogger doesn't see how that provides value to the gamers ... more on that in a minute.
I think Google needs to buy or partner with Wii or purchase Sony's PS3 unit. I'd like to see them build the hardware but that doesn't seem to be the way they do things. I would also like to see a gaming console built on Andriod, which would allow anyone to create games, alter games and probably lower the price significantly.
The name of this blog is Eyeball Economy. I believe almost all media should, and will, be free. As a consumer, an organization should subsidize my media consumption (eventually to zero-cost) with the realistic hopes that I could then become one of their consumers.
A lot of things I've been thinking about over the last few months concern distribution. I shouldn't find that odd considering I work for a company primarily known for the distribution of multimedia and plain-text press releases. I think there will be a ton of consolidation in the TV/Internet delivery space and I think the best companies to make those moves will be Microsoft, Google and Apple. Sony could still contend but they have no foundation in advertising to become a factor. Having internet capabilities built into televisions is a great start, but they're going to have to rely on other companies to deliver the content.
To recap a scattered post:
- Google should buy the PS3 or the Wii and Scientific Atlanta or another set-top box maker (like Cisco's recent acquisition of DVN.)
- Video games will primarily be played on the television or computer for a lot longer. Delivering ads to those eyeballs is where the money will be. Look for some action in the space over the next 6-12 months.
- Media (tv, internet, video games, web content) will all be subsidized by advertisers
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