823 Million Dollars Spent to Promote Videogames in 2008

The Nielsen Company has announced that gaming companies have spent more than 823 million dollars in order to promote videogames in the United States. The data was obtained with the help of the Monitor-Plus service, which is used to see what advertisements are being targeted at consumers in the U.S. The sum worldwide could easily be more than three times bigger, considering that Europe and Japan are also important videogame markets that demand similar budgets for promoting games.

The Nielsen Company has also announced that it has entered into a long term partnership with the research firm Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, focused on observing the videogaming industry. EEDAR plans to integrate data taken from Monitor-Plus into its service, called GamerDNA, which is used to track videogames and now includes no less than 8,000 titles indexed. The new system will be able to offer better information on the expenses associated with each of those titles.

Gregory Short, who is the executive chairman of EEDAR, stated that “EEDAR is very pleased to work with The Nielsen Company - one of the most trusted names in marketing research. The integration of Monitor-Plus marketing data and creative assets into EEDAR technologies will redefine how the video game industry can analyze and best leverage the pivotal role marketing plays in the consumer purchase process.”

823 million is a pretty big sum and the industry as a whole might want to take a good look at advertising budgets and maybe even slash some portions of them. As old school gamers, we'd like to see titles, be they Wii Fit or Gears of War 2, become successes because of their inherent qualities and because of the experiences they offer to the player rather than through the power of a lot of money thrown at advertisements.