Ah yes, the always enjoyable battle for the “hearts and minds” of gamers continues. This time around the efforts are on the behalf of IGA Worldwide.

European publisher relations VP and co-founder Ed Bartlett was in attendance at the Edinburgh International Festival this past week, and made some very pointed remarks about IGA stating that “We are not spyware” and that “We’re not evil”. He also said that “I used to be a game developer, so I’m not a big evil corporate guy”.

Will gamers listen? We certainly hope so, and IGA probably does too.

Via Gamasutra.

At the Edinburgh Interactive Festival this week former Sony CEO Chris Deering revealed a troubling statistic that only 3 out of 10 games published ever recoup the production costs associated with launching them This adds yet more importance to finding additional revenue streams and promotional methods for games in today’s market. Deering was quoted by Michael French of Developmag.com stating that “Something is going to have to be there to make up the difference”

Chris happens to be a board member of IGA Worldwide, which would most likely lead to the logical suggestion of in-game advertising as a way to burgeon the revenue deficits faced by today’s game publishers.

Paramount is running an in-game promotion for the upcoming movie “Tropic Thunder“. They have partnered with Massive Inc to run an in-game scavenger hunt within Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. Apparently each ad in the game will serve as a clue to gamers and lead them towards an eventual reward consisting of an invitation to Ubisoft’s VIP club, and an exclusive VIP map for Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. Several prizes are also on tap including some Tropic Thunder schwag, tickets, etc. And for one lucky winner a grand prize of an Xbox 360 system with a Live Subscription and some Ubisoft games.

This is a nice way to get players involved and actually have something to reward them at the end for their participation. A new map and being granted access to a VIP club doesn’t come with a huge amount of overhead for Ubisoft or Massive. The three interest groups here (Paramount, Massive, and Ubisoft) appear to have pulled off a great cross promotion that puts all of them in a positive light. It would be nice to see some metrics from this campaign down the road to see just what kind of impact it had on gamers’ awareness of Tropic Thunder.

Press release can be found here.

Gamos Technology Solutions is releasing a mobile game titled “Colombo Ride”. Players act as a taxi driver in the game, earning money ferrying people around a map closely based off of the actual Sri Lankan city of Colombo. Plans exist to sell ads in and brand certain areas of the in-game city.

Story via pocketgamer.

There is a debate going on over in the EA forums about In-Game Advertising in Battlefield Bad Company. Head on over to check the thread out here: In-Game Advertising in Conquest Mode?

Hope you are all having an excellent weekend!

IGA Worldwide is going to be delivering the in-game advertising for a free first person shooter titled Rising Eagle. The game, developed by Invasion Interactive, is available to PC users via a free download on the Rising Eagle website. To date the game has been downloaded 103,385 times, which isn’t too much of a surprise considering mankind’s love of “free”. Ed Bartlett, VP Publisher Relations – Europe of IGA Worldwide calls this model of ad supported games the “freemium” model. As the amount of money allocated towards in-game advertising increases we can expect to see an increase in the number of “freemium” games.

Rising Eagle has the majority of its combat based in urban environments, as seen in this shot from Paris below. This no doubt will allow for some great placement for brands within the game.

For more details check out the press release here.

1. NCAA Football 09 (Xbox 360)
2. Wii Sports (Wii)
3. NCAA Football 09 (PS3)
4. Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
5. Wii Play (Wii)
6. NCAA Football 09 (PS2)
7. Guitar Hero: On Tour (Nintendo DS)
8. Wii Fit (Wii)
9. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3)
10. Battlefield: Bad Company (Xbox360)

Check out the full sales stats at VGChartz.com

We decided to assemble a comprehensive list of In-Game Advertising companies. We have quite a few on the list, but if we missed any just leave a comment with the name and link to the company and we will get them added. We hope this list is helpful when looking to see who all is out there.

Massive Inc.

www.massiveincorporated.com - In-game advertising agency purchased by Microsoft.

Engage In-Game Advertising

www.engageadvertising.com- In-game advertising agency.

Double Fusion

www.doublefusion.com- In-game advertising agency

Jogo Media

www.jogomedia.com- In-game advertising company founded in 2006.

NaviGame

www.navigame.com-In-game advertising agency.

NeoEdge Networks

www.neoedge.com- In-game advertising for Casual Games

IGA Worldwide

www.igaworldwide.com-In-game advertising agency.

Exent Technologies

www.exent.com- Developer of the in-game advertising technology “Admuse”

GreyStripe

www.greystripe.com- In-game advertising provider for mobile games

Bihu

www.bihu.com- Chinese In-Game Advertising Company, recent recipient of $10 million in funding from Sequoia Capital China

Enter Media

www.entermedia.ru-Russian In-Game Advertising Company

Google/Adscape

- www.google.com Google purchased In-Game Advertising startup Adscape in 2007. Google has yet to release their in-game advertising solution from this deal.

Game Creative

www.gamecreative.com.au- Australian Advergame and In-Game Advertising Company

MochiMedia

www.mochimedia.com- Flash game advertising company

Coming off the heels of their new partnership with Yahoo, NeoEdge Networks has announced that they will be offering guaranteed ad campaign engagement results from today forward. This is an excellent accountability move by NeoEdge and will only strengthen the viability of, and trust of in-game advertising as a competitor against traditional media channels.

NeoEdge has now added themselves to the list of in-game advertising companies which have made efforts this year to validate the business model with marketing and advertising professionals.

Their press release:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA–(Marketwire - July 24, 2008) - Starting July 24, NeoEdge Networks, Inc., a leading advertising network focused on providing television quality advertising inside online casual games, will be the first in the industry to offer benchmarked, guaranteed ad campaign engagement results.

NeoEdge is adding a guarantee to its online advertising network that no other company in the Internet video ad space is offering. NeoEdge advertisers will be secure knowing that their campaigns are delivering the desired ROI, with assured Viewer Engagement (Time Spent Watching) and Click-Through Rates (CTR). NeoEdge benchmarks advertising goals for each vertical market, and will offer a guaranteed number of impressions. The benchmark for each vertical varies based on consumers’ prior behavior.

Traditionally, online advertising is purchased on a Cost Per Thousand (CPM) impression basis. Advertisers pay for a contracted number of impressions, regardless of whether a consumer actually reads the ad, clicks on it, or performs some other kind of action like visiting a web site and making a purchase or signing up for a new service. By introducing more rigorous metrics and guarantees, NeoEdge is bringing online video game-based advertising closer to parity in effectiveness and accountability with the traditional forms of television and other advertising mediums.

“Good creative will always drive metrics, but for advertisers who are looking to make the jump into online video advertising we take the risk out of the decision with guaranteed results,” said Ty Levine, VP Marketing NeoEdge. “We can look at a vertical category in which advertising has run on our network and determine a baseline expectation of click-through and time spent watching the advertisement. By looking at this data, we can provide the advertiser with a realistic and guaranteed expectation of results. If the ads do not perform, NeoEdge will assess the results, absorb the risk and provide additional impressions free of charge.”

The guarantee enhances NeoEdge’s offering to channel partners, like National Cable Communications (NCC), the largest seller of targeted cable advertising in the world, and Engage In-Game Advertising, an independent video game advertising company, offering in-game planning & execution across console, PC and mobile game platforms. These NeoEdge ad sales and marketing partners agree that the new guarantee is crucial for enabling online advertisers to ensure the same kinds of results they currently enjoy through traditional broadcast & online advertising.

“This will help differentiate our offerings from traditional online ad buys and make it easier for our sales’ partners NCC and Engage to penetrate the marketplace, and take online video advertising to the next level,” added Levine.

“Engage delivers in-game advertising strategies that takes advantage of the unique demographics & behavior of gamers,” said David Smith, President, Engage In-Game Advertising. “NeoEdge is the first casual game network to provide the tools and metrics to make this a truly accountable medium for advertisers. We can now offer our clients broadcast-grade, in-game advertising with guaranteed results.”

Greg Schaefer, President, NCC added, “NeoEdge is unique in its strategy to bring the discipline and metrics of television advertising to the world of online video ads. We’re excited about offering this kind of guarantee to our clients, many of whom are entering the online video ad space and expect assurances in their media initiatives.”

This strategic direction comes on the heels of NeoEdge’s recent partnership with Yahoo! Games. Through this partnership, NeoEdge delivers an end-to-end advertising solution with pre, mid and post roll ad slots that integrates easily and unobtrusively with the Yahoo! Games site and extensive game catalog. NeoEdge’s NeoARMâ„¢ ad enabling technology does not require source code to ad-enable the games. With Yahoo! Games and The NeoAdsâ„¢ advertising network, advertisers now have an online video-based advertising network with the scale, reach and efficiency to reach the key female demographic and tens of millions of engaged casual game players across the U.S.