Marketing in MMOGs

This is a really interesting topic to me.  It seems like a very tough design challenge.  How do you get advertising dollars in an MMOG, and more specifically into a fantasy universe, a game universe that does not naturally lend itself to traditional advertising.  You can’t just throw in a billboard advertising Skechers shoes on the side of the road just outside Coronet.  Most of the direct marketing tactics would be immersion-breakers.  So how can it be done?

I think the only way to bring advertising dollars into MMOGs is to incorporate it into system designs.  And it’s going to have to be clever. In many cases I think advertising can only allude to certain products or services.  Does that break the entire possibility then?  Who would pay to have you allude to their product or brand?

The more obvious possibilities are ones that make certain objects in the game have similar shapes or color patterns as some real world product.  If all the best drink buffs are in containers with similar coloring as Coke cans, then it’s quite possible Coke will come to mind first when a player get a hankerin’ for a drink.

An interesting approach would be if certain master game design features were allowed to be funded by some sponsor.  Take all the “yeah, right.. like we will actually have the funding to make this” aspects of each system design and allow them to be funded by someone in exchange for advertising on the login screen that such-and-such a feature is being  developed due to funding from Actimel Yogurt Drinks, or Hyundai.  Boy, wouldn’t that be a lot of pressure to make whatever new feature is being added something good and not bad?  And you’d have to figure out how to quantify exactly how much the sponsor gets “pushed” to players.  And then that sponsor is associated with the game forever. Maybe

The goal is to figure out how the developer can allow the hoards of interested investors to help.  How can the developer leverage what a potential sponsor does really well to further the interests of the game.  In furthering the interests of the game, the sponsor gets more exposure, and since exposure is what the sponsor is wanting in advertising anyways…  Obviously, it’s exposure that’s converted into sales and profits eventually above and beyond the initial expenditure.