Sony Brings The PAIN, New In Game Advertising Model
For all the masochistic gamers with a love for PAIN, comes the news that Sony will be adding in game advertisements to its $9.99 PSN title.
In addition, with the PSN’s tracking capabilities, Sony will be able to charge advertisers based on how many people are currently playing the game. This differs from the industries currently running plan to charge based on projected sales figures. In rare form, Sony also releases the price of advertisements, $30 per thousand players.
Furthermore, Sony goes on to announce their partnership with Nielsen Games, an in game advertisement agency who has access to back end Sony proprietary data.
As of now, all PAIN advertisements have been fake or directly related to Sony. That will change in the coming weeks. With no advertisers being disclosed as of yet, Darlene Kindle, director of Sony’s new in-game advertising unit went on to say, “You can imagine people like Lionsgate, who publish Blu-ray movies, getting involved. Media, creative agencies and brands all want to be involved in this program”.
Perhaps the most interesting bit of news here isn’t the PAIN advertisements, but Sony’s commitment to in game ads as a whole. Quotes from product strategy director Gerardo Guzman don’t serve to douse suspicions, “We can’t get inside the game, at least not yet.”
“Advertisers aren’t saying they want Sony players or Xbox players, they want gamers. For this to work it has to be across all platforms, including the PC.” Double Fusion places most of its ads on PCs.
In addition Jonathan Epstein, CEO of Double Fusion, an in game advertisement network based in San Fransisco said to AdWeek, “I hope we can extend this paradigm. Advertisers want to reach game players across all media.” With money to be made, it seems like everyone is hot-to-trot the new business trend of in game advertisements—That is, except us…the gamer. Who cares about us though? Sony, as well as any other publisher worth his salt knows that we will buy the games, in game advertisement or not. Even with the knowledge that the extra revenue won’t be passed on as a savings to us, the end consumer.
