Online Gaming and its Potential for Strategic Communication

Introduction

Online gaming is a new media phenomenon that relies on interconnectivity between users as a form of entertainment.

Online games include a variety of genres, such as action adventure, role playing, sports and many more. Many of these genres give mainstream corporations various audiences to target, expanding their marketing reach.

Simultaneous gameplay between users allows this technology to be the focal point of many new media marketing campaigns. These games are played over some form of computer network, usually the Internet.

The most popular term often used for gaming is "video game,” which is correct but it also goes further than that.

Analysis of online games

An online game can be played through a connection to the internet, with other players in your own neighborhood or someone in another country. Some prominent examples are Battlefield 2, Counter-Strike, World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. The electronic systems used to play video games are known as platform. Examples are personal computers and video game consoles such as Xbox 360, Sony Playstation and Wii. These platforms can expand from large computers to small handheld devices.

Users interact with one another, coining the term ‘multiplayer online game.’ These multiplayer online games promote interaction to help form online relationships, whether it is basic friendship, a team of players, or a romance.

Multiplayer games allow users to cooperate and compete with each other, and sometimes to interact with people around the world. They include a variety of gameplay types, representing hundreds of video game genres. Most of these games demand players invest significant amounts of time into the game.

Bad press has followed the technology since its inception. Research has found that these relationships foster isolation from the real world. [i] This research continues to stimulate an ongoing debate on whether online role-playing games actually connect users or polarize them from each other.

History

Computer games were initially meant for one player sitting at a computer. Games such as, NIMROD[ii], and Spacewar![iii] paved the way for this technology. By the 1960s, computers began to support time-sharing, which allowed multiple users to share use of a computer simultaneously.

When personal computers reached the general public in the 1980s, simple multiplayer text-based games gained attention and provoked further research for advanced games. As technology evolved, games turned to fantasy settings, using rules similar to the real world. Other styles of games, such as chess, scrabble, and other board games, became available. By the turn of the millennium, gaming consoles allowed the use of the Internet to promote relationships with other gamers regardless of their location.

Reasons for Adoption

What makes online games unique from other media are their ability to connect to many players, which allows users to interact with online communities making it a form of social activity.

Through this social activity, the rate of adoption continues to increase. ComScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, conducted a 2007 global study into online gaming, showing the number of unique visitors to these sites to have reached almost 217 million worldwide – a year-on-year growth of 17 percent. [iv]

The largest online games website, Miniclip, has 43 million unique users, according to Google Analytics (December, 2007).

The online games market is worth $4 billion and is expected to triple in the next five years, according to the latest Strategy Analytics outlook for the global online games market. [v] Online gaming is establishing itself as a major player in the world of strategic communications. The online games category is the largest category out of the three main online entertainment markets - music, games and video.

There are many reasons for playing these games. The motivations of these users determine what and how long they play. The statistics below are based on a survey[vi] of almost 2,000 online U.S. gamers suggesting that there are six different categorizations of player, based on time spent gaming and motivation and attitudes.

Power Gamer 11% - Represents 30 cents of every dollar spent in the gaming industry.

Social gamer 13% - Enjoys gaming for the social interaction.

Leisure gamer 14% - Spends on average 58 hours a month playing casual games. Interested in challenging and novel games.

Dormant gamer 26% - Loves to game, but doesn't have the time for it. Interested in challenging games.

Incidental gamer 12% - Spends on average 20 hours a month playing games. Motivated by boredom rather than any real love of games.

Occasional gamer 24% - Plays puzzle, word, and board games.

Demographics

Teenage boys have been perceived to be the main audience of on-line gaming but that isn’t true, according to a 2008 Entertainment Software Association (ESA) study.[vii] The average gamer is 35 years old. Twenty-five percent of gamers are under 18, 49 percent are between the ages of 18 and 49, and a surprising 26 percent are over 50. Forty percent of all gamers are female.

The average adult gamer has been playing computer or video games for 13 years. Thirty-five percent of American parents say they play computer and video games, and 80 percent of these play games with their children. Sixty-six percent of gamer parents feel that playing games has brought their families closer together. The usual gamer parent is 37 years old. The study also indicates that parents are present 94 percent of the time when a game is rented or purchased for their children.

Anonymity

A major characteristic of these games is the anonymity of the users. Anonymous communication in role-playing games is known to be positive, but not all players choose to participate fairly. When users know that personal actions will not be identified by others they become less inhibited and consequently become aggressive.

When the true identities of gamers remain unknown, many users act differently in their settings. Communication research in the field of social computing has indicated that people tend to behave differently when their identities are anonymous to others. They can choose what type of character they want to play and what they want him or her to look like. Many feel that it is an escape from the physical limitations of their true self.

Strategic communication

Online games offer some unique opportunities for strategic communication, such as:

In-game advertising – This refers to the use of computer and video games as a medium in which to deliver advertising. Last year, spending on in-game advertising was over $200 million, and this figure is estimated to grow to $900 million by 2011. [viii] In-game advertising is seen by some in the games industry as offering a new revenue stream, allowing developers to offset growing development costs.

Numerous genres give advertisers a way to target specific demographics. One concept that is evident to all advertisers is that all gaming audiences are increasingly neglecting television in favor of computer and video games.

Many gaming networks see in-game advertising as greedy and unnecessary, suggesting it as a ‘big brother’ component like spyware. Spyware is software that is installed to personal computers to intercept or take partial control over the user's interaction with the computer, without the user's consent.

In-game ads have taken different shapes to reach its audience. Most commonly, they're simple billboards for things such as movies, soda, cars and the like. But now there are also interactive ads placed in online games, including full-motion video, branded cars and an endless variety of other options.

Social Gaming Networks – This differs in offering just games for users to play, although some do. These social networks are a place for gamers to make fully functioning sites with blogs, forums and chat rooms. Gamers can choose a template and then can go on to add an image, photo albums, videos and profiles, all interchangeable within their page. These Networks also integrate ratings and comments for games.

Within on-line gaming, there are four options to reach target audiences: branding, interaction, engagement, and sponsorship.

Branding is placing an advertisement in an area where it can be seen, such as walking past a Verizon billboard in the game.

Interaction allows gamers to use a product, as they would in real life which provides feedback to an advertiser.

Engagement is on customization of use, for example, so gamers can decide if their characters create their own Nike shoes.

Sponsorship includes special packaging and exclusives between advertisers and game programmers/manufacturers.

For further information:

Rollings, Andrew; Ernest Adams (2006). Fundamentals of Game Design. Prentice Hall.

Mike Drucker (2003). "Gaming not just for dorks - Dawning of the era of the armchair QB.” Washington Square News

Matthew Yi (2005). "Advertisers pay for video games - Product placement tradition no longer free ride for business.” San Francisco Chronicle

[i] Study of Online Gamers by Nicholas Yee © 2002. www.nickyee.com
[ii] http://www.goodeveca.net/nimrod/
[iii] Computer History Month http://www.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/index.php?f=theme&s=4&ss=3
[iv] http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1521
[v] http://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod=PressReleaseViewer&a0=3569
[vi] http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10681
[vii] http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2008.pdf
[viii] http://www.yankeegroup.com/ResearchDocument.do?id=16395