The emerging prevalence and popularity of mobile games have become to much for marketers who ignore them to continue doing so.
“Games are media, and marketers need to think about it as such,” writes ClickZ‘s Matt Kapko. “Facebook’s head of games and other executives at CBS Interactive, IGN, PaeDae, and Scopely encouraged a room full of marketers yesterday to get serious about gaming as a media channel that is on the upswing and ripe for advertising opportunities.”
The evidence of mobile gaming’s power as a platform is everywhere.
Just last week, Electronic Arts and PopCap released Plants vs. Zombies 2. Within days, the game become the No. 1 mobile game launch in EA’s history, downloaded over 16 million times.
“We’re going through a mobile revolution right now,” says Simon Whitcombe, games lead at Facebook. “Mobile gaming has become a big deal very quickly.”
Whitcombe says the mobile gaming industry is poised to surpass $12 billion in revenue next year.
Mobile games are “dominating those devices we carry around with us every day,” he adds, noting that brands still have a “huge opportunity to reach an audience around a passion they deeply care about.”
The challenge for marketers and advertisers, however, is to find appropriate ways to deliver their message into this channel.
“It’s about being appropriate to the gaming experience,” says PaeDae CEO Rob Emrich.
So while a clear opportunity exists, challenges also persist.
“I think targeting within the games and these overall networks matters a lot and it’s not being done very well right now,” Emrich concludes. “Unfortunately the Internet as a whole and games in particular are still moving toward direct response, and unfortunately that’s still the lowest common denominator when it comes to advertising.”
