In-game advertisement: local companies indifferent

VietNamNet Bridge – A recent survey by the US Advertisement Association showed that 90% of US companies said that they would spend money on in-game advertisement (ad pieces placed on video games and virtual forums). Meanwhile, the new type of advertisement has not drawn much attention from Vietnamese enterprises.

Everything begins with Casual Game

The game business circle said that in-game advertisement in Vietnam first appeared on some MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), but did not draw attention. Only at the end of 2006, when Samsung and VTC signed an advertisement contract worth $200,000 on placing advertisements on Casual Game (a simple entertainment game), did the in-game advertisement market begin to become bustling.

Game distributors and the business circle have jumped on the bandwagon, and many kinds of Casual Game have been imported so far this year. These include Super Dancer Online, a ‘sister’ game with Audition provided by VTC Game and Netgame Asia; Boom by VinaGame, Extreme Soccer by Cyber World. It is said that FPT (the Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technologies) will import three games, including simple ones, this year.

Quang Anh, a staff from VDC Net2E, said that the simple Casual Game proves to be an ideal environment for advertisement. Meanwhile, several MMORPG are not suitable for the advertisement of modern trademarks. That explains why the in-game advertisement on MMORPG could not develop.

“As for ‘Extreme Soccer’, we can place ads by showing logos, and products’ trademarks on the standby screen, playing field, or banners around the field, or player’s uniforms,” Quang Huy, Marketing Director of Cyber World, said.

Local companies not only import games for domestic advertisement, they now think of producing games themselves, by the order of local enterprises.

Local companies still hesitant

“The biggest problem for us is to persuade local enterprises to choose in-game advertisement. In fact, local enterprises keep hesitant when placing in-game ads as this type of ad proves to be unfamiliar,” said Tra My, Head of the Game Flash project on socvui.com, said.

Socvui has got contracts on producing games and advertising for Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and Honda, according to Ms My. “The world’s market has been 20-30 years in advance of us, therefore foreign companies are familiar to in-game advertisement,” said Ms My, explaining why Socvui’s clients were foreigners.

Not only socvui, other well-known websites like ongame.com.vn (by VDC Net2E) or trochoiviet.com.vn also have not seen the participation of local companies. According to VDC Net2E, Vietnam does not have good skills in making games for advertisement; therefore, in-game advertisement has not attracted clients.

Yankee Group has estimated that the in-game market will see strong growth. In-game ads brought $56mil in turnover in 2005. The figure rose to $100mil in 2006 and it is expected to bring $732mil by 2010. However, AdWeek estimates that the total turnover will be $2bil by 2010.

Tran Manh Long, representative of the Vietnam Advertisement Association, said that in order to pave the way for the in-game ad industry, the first thing that needed to be done was to build up a perfect legal framework for the online games market. The overlapping in concepts, regulations and procedures in legal documents have led to the underdevelopment of the market.

If game producers cannot make products attractive enough for gamers, local players will only play foreign made products. If so, the local game production will lose the home market to foreigners, analysts said.

Nguyen Nga - Viet Nam Net