Video Games How Much Do I Need to Spend on My Advergame?

Advergames are seen by many marketers as just a way to get an advert for their product, brand or service placed on other websites and in front of their visitors. Often this means they think the best thing to do is spend as little as possible to achieve this. But why should you spend more on your custom advergame?

Trying to convince most marketers of the merits of spending any more than the bare minimum on any project can be an uphill struggle, advergames are no different. The problem is you're trying to get your brand in front of the vast online gaming community. With a massive and increasing number of quality free-to-play web based games on offer, you need to give them a reason to give your advergame the time of day. Just throwing together a minimal interactive web based widget on a minuscule budget is unlikely to accomplish this, and it's likely you'll be wasting a chunk of your marketing budget.

Two main factors can make or break any advergame:

1) Does the online gaming community want to play your game?

The main goal of any advergame is to grab the attention of your audience, keep them there and make them want to return again and again. The longer you can keep their attention, the more exposure you get. Obviously this means investing in a great game to providing a great interactive experience. The better and more immersive the game, the better the results will be for your business. You truly do only get out what you put in.

2) Do online gaming community websites embrace your game?

The other factor in the success of any advergame is the spread of the game amongst gaming community websites and blogs. This is absolutely essential in order to get your advergame in front of the numbers of players it needs to be successful. Without traffic from third party websites, which either host the game themselves or link to the game on your website, you'll be left with a game that gets very few plays. Quite simply the better the game, the more buzz it will generate, the wider it will spread, the more exposure your brand will get and the more traffic will be directed from the game to your website or online store. Conversely, if your advergame is rubbish, very few people will want to play it, or share it with others and again it will fail to produce satisfactory results.

So if you're thinking of using advergames as part of your business marketing, always remember that the more you put in, the more you will get out and ultimately the greater the success will be. All advergames should be a great immersive game in their own right, first and foremost, the advertising should always be secondary. This will benefit your brand with much greater engagement with your audience, and much greater traffic to your website or online store. To make your advergame successful means allocating the largest budget you can manage to the game, rather than trying to spend as little as possible.

Simon Walklate is a professional computer game developer and co-founder of development studio The Motion Monkey. To read more about advergame production services please read here.