(Smith and Chaffey 2003)
Nowadays, it seems that online communities are the biggest communities in the world. By continually reducing the distance between people and the information they need, the Internet makes that information cheaper for marketers to send to recipients. This is a good opportunity for the organization to get closer to customers. Games online look like to be the big communities because many people around the world can connect and chat to each other easily. In this case, organization could choose the advertising their good and service in the game online. Therefore, we would like to talk about why game online is important to e-marketing. Game online can divided into many type such as RPG, Action, Sport and so on.
The world of online gaming
Specifically, the social activities of those who play the Internet game might not seem of central importance to information professionals. However, their activities of online gamers raise many points that bear on the future of marketing channel. The culture of online gaming ranges from in-game actions (chat, “guild” formation) and other online activities, i.e. creating/using other websites.
However, we will focus on Browser based and Video game online. For the game, Travian is a browser game. What do I mean the browser game? The browser game is a game that you use with the Internet explorer or firefox, you just connect to the Internet without download the program into you computer just login and play in website. You could go and see the website: www.travian.com. There is also another game similar to Travian called ‘Gladiatus’ www.gladiatus.com.
Online game shows the way promotional tools can be put to work on the Internet. The reason that Browser game is important to the marketing is the sponsor of the website could put some advertising before and after Internet user play the game. Also customer could notice the advert and might remember it. By creating the communities the organization should know their market place first. Therefore, in this Browser game field, it seems to be that computer and Internet advertising should be mixed and matched in the website.
“The fascination with games has advertisers salivating. So many brands are looking to developers and content portals to help them create new ways in which to advertise (Dan 2008)”. That is to say, many advertisers have found the advantages of online gaming in terms of product recognition and loyalty among gamers toward the brand. Recently, The video game online have a huge number of registered members, for example, in china, which has 147 million online gamers especially for the multi-player role-playing games such as Meng Huan Xi You, Zheng Tu and World of Warcraft. This kind of game seems to be the other world that the players can create their own character and be participated in an online community. The other marketing opportunity for pushing their product into the game is creating company’s real product as the item that player may use or buy in the game to modify their own character such as clothes, accessories and so on. In addition, if they make the product to be a high value, it could desire gamers to buy their product and also it can make a positive image and the brand loyalty.
It maybe work that put the real product into the virtual world (AOL Small Business 2006). The products could be showed in the online game. For example, there are lots of missions in World of Warcraft. Players will get the award that after they complete the mission. Real products could be one of the awards in the online game. If players use Coke for restoring their health point (HP) in the online game such as World of Warcraft, it could be one of the significant successes in the marketing of Coke Cola. It seems that products could get the benefit in cooperating with online game.
Reference:
Gao, Y. (2004) ‘Appeal of online computer games: a user perspective.’ The Electronic Library [online] vol. 22, (1)74-78. Available from < jsessionid="5EEEA3D9147231AEB69555BA1D8A7733?contentType="Article&contentId="862044"> [19 March 2009]
Castronova, E. (2006) ‘A cost-benefit analysis of real-money trade in the products of synthetic economies.’ Emerald Group Publishing Limited [online] vol.8,(6)51-68. Available from
Smith, PR., and Chaffey, D. (2004) eMarketing eXcellence: the heart of eBusiness . Oxford:Elsevier Butterworth Heinemann.
Mintz, D. (2008) 'The Addictive Nature of Online Games and Breaking the Rules.' Revolution (14605953) 13-13
AOL Small Business (2006) Sell Virtual Products in Online Games
[online] available from
