In-game advertising in the UK is poised for rapid growth, according to the UK Internet Advertising Bureau's "IAB In-Game Advertising: The UK Market" report. Online gaming growth and changing demographics have set the stage for in-game ads to flourish.
eMarketer estimates that worldwide in-game ad spending will reach $2 billion per year by 2011.
Citing research by in-game advertising company Double Fusion and game publisher Electronic Arts, the IAB study noted the rise of women gamers.
Jennifer McLean of Double Fusion said that "certain titles, and particularly casual online games, attract an increasing number of older females. On many of the larger casual sites 70% of the audience is made up of women between the ages of 35 and 54. For example, 75% of the one million plus subscribers to EA's casual online games are women, willing to pay the $5 a month subscription."
That is in line with a study by the Information Solutions Group (ISG) commissioned by casual game developer PopCap, which noted that 76% of PopCap.com users worldwide were women.
Generally speaking, the more "hardcore" the gamer, the more likely he is to be male, and conversely, the casual gamer will tend to skew female. That trend has been noted by the International Game Developers Association.
Age also plays a factor. According to TNS Media Intelligence, the over-45 market grew 41% in computer games bought for personal use over the past four years, compared to a 10% growth rate for the market overall.
In-game advertising will also benefit from the development of measurability tools that let marketers track how their audience responds to their ads.
"Marketers can now serve their ads into a game in real time and select the type of game and placement they require," said Ms. McLean. "They can even specify the number of impressions that should be served. It is through this relatively new and incredibly exciting technology that advertisers have been able to open up meaningful dialogues with the traditionally 'hard to reach' game playing audience and, crucially, track the impact of their campaigns."