Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
In a recent patent filing sure to shock some, Google has proposed a real time profiling of players of online games such as World of Warcraft. Soon players of such games may see in game ads directly designed to appeal to their persona.
Last month Google filed a patent in both Europe and the US which outlined plans to psychologically profile people simply by their style of play in popular online games.
Google believes that by careful evaluation of player conduct in virtual worlds that real world products can be targeted towards the human avatar controller.
From the patent; "User dialogue (e.g., from role playing games, simulation games, etc) may be used to characterise the user (e.g., literate, profane, blunt or polite, quiet etc). Also, user play may be used to characterise the user (e.g., cautious, risk-taker, aggressive, non-confrontational, stealthy, honest, cooperative, uncooperative, etc)."
Taking this a step further, Google also believe if a player likes to explore their new virtual world, that they would be interested in the real world, as such would target the player with travel ads.
More immediately; "If the user has been playing for over two hours continuously, the system may display ads for Pizza Hut, Coke, coffee."
With over eight million playing World of Warcraft the potential captive audience is there to be exploited by advertisers and game manufacturers alike. Will there be a revolt?
Well maybe but, and this comes to the crux of the whole plan who wants the real world invading our virtual ones? Especially in fantasy games such as World of Warcraft? Even if they take the Shrek approach and contextualize the ads somehow – Ye Olde Vacuum Cleaners and the like will be difficult not to change the games feel completely with this type of in-game content.
Racing games have always had in game advertising, and some ads have crept into games set in urban environments as billboard terrain features. Whilst not directly targeted to player profiles, they can actually enhance the gaming experience due to the nature of the game itself.
In a MMORPG players are looking for an alternate reality, somewhere to lose themselves and more importantly for this story, be something or somebody different.
So we have Google targeting an audience trying to be who they are not, with the aim of providing advertising in a world that doesn’t use the concept of advertising. It will be a brave developer to allow Google and Advertising companies un-feted access to their players.
This all ignores the fact that Google will be keeping a profile on you in their database, well actually on your in-game Avatar, but still it is yet another invasion of privacy in an increasingly controlled society.
There are plenty of MMORPG’s out now, with many more being developed, it may not take much destruction of a games immersion to drive gamers to take lucrative accounts elsewhere.
David Bass
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