X Marketing within Games

I have no hard evidence of my own about whether or not cross marketing within games works. I do read about several other companies who have made some of their games more successful by this method of advertising.

Now the theory is simple enough. If person A likes the game they have randomly picked up and is enjoying playing it. then it stands to reason that they will most likely enough more of your products. Simple and i also think true. this does not just mean companies like Blizzard or Zynga, it can also mean that little ole indie company, like you or me.

Now i have been doing this X marketing as i term it in my games since the beginning, or at least from the time i got my second game out on the Xbox. I have no evidence that this worked for me at all. I might have some good evidence if in fact one of my later titles had done ridiculously well, and then i am sure i would have sen an upturn in downloads for an older game of mine. Still it hasn't happened yet.

AND yet....

I hold out hope and enthusiasm for this method of advertising. Here's why everyone should do it, compared to traditional advertising methods.
Pros:-
Costs very little to setup
No pay out of your pocket expenses
Don't have to negotiate with anyone for expenses
don't have to go looking for good deals on advertising
Have i mentioned it's real cheap?
You can tailor it to be as intrusive or not as you see fit
Advertising graphics do not Have to conform to set areas

Cons:-
Only reaches the people you reach with each product
Designing a good X marketing screen can be annoying or time consuming
Only seen by those people that click on the option or the credits or wherever it is hidden
Can be a bit gauche when put in front of a players face too much

So below is the one i have created for Cards: En Fugeo.

You can tell i had to get this designed, so people could click on the otion to go to marketplace to download it, or just move on from this page. I have been using something like this for a long time, hidden behind the credits button off the main game page.

Now however i have exciting news....

My latest game uses the Admanager. I use the 480x80 ad bar size and it sits at the bottom of my landscape game screen. Well one of my chums at Massmedia ttold me about an idea to use the bar to advertise my own wares. What? i asked, really? WOW... as the realisation dawned on me, i knew this had to come to pass. I could use the same advertising space that the Microsoft one does. Replacing one of their ads every so often with one of my own. Fabulous. No longer hidden anywhere. I love this idea. I know many people reading this have probably already done this same thing. After about an hour of wrangling my ad manager class. I now have it working. 10 seconds for my own ad once every 5 minutes of real ads. What a beautiful solution, thanks Ben.

Good luck with your Cross Marketing campaigns everyone.

Da Voodoochief