Communications Characteristics Research On In-Game Advertising

With the high-speed development of computer science, Internet and communication technology, we have stepped into a new digital era, which brings online game, an epoch-making industry. It is a highly-profitable trade, and it also represents the strength of a nation’s culture and technology.Online game was born as being cultural, interactive and entertaining, as well as massive game players, which means it is not only a fascinating entertainment, but also an ideal media platform. That’s why online game is becoming more social and media. And online game is an interactive entertainment, allowing game players to interactive with games and with other players. The prosperity of In-game advertising (IGA) is one manifestation of this tendency. It allows game players to interact with the planted ads.IGA is a combination of modern ads and online games. With the help of online game media, the planted ads convey advertisers’ information and intention to numerous game players by texts, images, videos and audios. The advantages of IGA are quite obvious, for instance, the two-way communication leading to highly interactive entertaining process, various presentation forms, and undisputed loyalty of the targeted audience. But it has some shortcomings too, such as the uncertainty of planting frequency and degree, time-effectiveness of the planted ads. However, these flaws can’t deny the promising future of the IGA industry. Many successful applications have proved the effectiveness of IGA.By reviewing and summarizing important research achievements, this paper analyses the background of IGA’s rising, the strengths and weaknesses of IGA, the development tendency of IGA and provides some advices for the ads planting. Most of all, this paper uses some classical theory of Communications, for example, the5W to dissect the process and industry chain, and integrated-marketing communication, and persuasive theory etc. In one word, this paper holds the standpoint that IGA does have the power and potential in China, the future largest online game market of the world. I sincerely hope that this paper can be helpful for the IGA practice.