It's very common when discussing the struggling browser games that the view of "It would work better if only it has been advertised" comes out. Not only does this views exist in browser games industry,but also almost every products has been related to advertisement.
It's certainly true that advertising helps a lot for games, but the answer is not as simple as that. Why does the game developers throw money on advertisements? How to modify the advertising effects? What are the reactions of gamers when they received the game advertising here and there?
When a new game is to be launched, the game developer needs to collect some of the related information like"How big does the audience will be " "Can the game bring enough profit for them" " Will the player be fond of this game", etc. The right developer, making the right game for the right market. Well, the advertisement can help the game developers.
Media partners or large gaming websites will be busy to release trailers and previews for the games since they have got dollars from developers. This can take many forms including pre-orders, page views, youtube views, comments etc. The games will be promoted throw all kinds of channels. Then the page views and unique visitors or other performance for the advertisement will be tracked. If the number presented is satisfactory, the developer would throw more money into advertising. On the contrary, they will take measures, for example, changing the game name or sound effects to let the game rush into the market again.
It seems that the developers are happy enough only if the advertising effects indicates to be satisfactory such as the pv and uv is high, the advertising page was hit a lot, the video targeted a large number of people, etc. Although there are indeed many people got the game information, are you sure they will become the targeted players or they will take the further action? Maybe there are majority of people who received the game information just -"passively" so they won't play games and they won't spent any, of course. There are also potential players but how to define "potential"?
Never did i take action just because i have watched an advertisement. At most, from the repeated advertisements, i remembered the brands or products. What i think the main function of advertising is exposure which can just generate profit indirectly.
In total, Advertising is not the only answer for browser games. It indeed helps but it's not worth throwing large amount of dollars on. It's better to spent the money that in the first place arranged for placing advertising on games themselves like reducing game price or imposing more benefits for player. The browser game developers and publishers shouldn't rely on completely on advertising since the audience is not precised but costly and the effect can't directly transferred into profit.
For more about browser games, please pay close attention to my blogs: http://gameonwebs.blogspot.com .
No comments:
Post a Comment