Читать книгу Marketing in the New Media - Holly Berkley - Страница 27

Another new media marketing opportunity that is growing involves online gaming. As of April 2006, 31 percent of American Internet users are playing online games (according to Pew/Internet), and in-game advertising is quickly becoming one of the top advertising choices of the new media marketer (Fallows, February 2006). According to the Yankee Group, the ad budget spent on this medium drastically increases every year, with $732 million expected to be spent annually by 2010 (Burns, April 2006a).

And online gaming isn’t just for teens. I often find my 35-year-old husband logging on to his favorite video games in the late hours of the night, to compete online with his former college buddies who are scattered throughout California. They’ll have an instant messenger going alongside the game, so they can “talk smack” or just catch up on old times during a little friendly competition.

My husband and his friends are definitely not alone out there in the world of cybergaming. According to an Associated Press-AOL Games Poll, 40 percent of Americans play video games, and 45 percent of those play them online. The study also found that while men play more games online than women, they also use the online gaming more socially than women. While women tend to play games solo, men often play online with others. Since 41 percent of gamers play three to four hours per week, they are probably reducing their television viewing (eMarketer, May 2006b). This could be one of the major reasons why one in three people born after 1980 can’t name the TV networks (Evans, May 2006b).