Welcome to the advergame industry

Oct 8, 2007 07:41 GMT  ·  By

We've seen in-game commercials, hot Halo 3 advertising campaigns, but this may be the first time that a great company advertises its product on the Xbox 360 with the aid of a specially designed game. You'll drive a new Toyota Yaris in the title that will be made available over the Xbox Live today. Keep in mind that the game's for free and only the users from the US and Canada can play it.

In the game, you'll be driving the Yaris, which will be equipped with a big tentacle that shoots enemies. The gamer has to race through some sort of futuristic setting, dodging obstacles. We've seen similar initiatives in the past, as for example two years ago Volvo launched an Xbox game that taught gamers to drive safely. The title was made available at all dealerships for free signaling the end of conventional advertising and the start of a new era.

Most advertisers have already started buying in-game ad space, knowing that this is the next type of media that can influence lots of people at the same time, as they don't have the option of changing channels. In-game advertising is already a multi-million dollar industry and the expenses of the great companies in this field have almost doubled this year in comparison with the 2006 figures. Another famous "advergame" as they call it was Sneak King, available at Burger King, with the purchase of a value meal.

Surprisingly enough (or not), the game sold 3.5 million copies being more profitable for the company than the standard TV ads and also a cheaper advertising campaign. What are you waiting for? Go download the Yaris game now and while many gamers are becoming suspicious about the title's quality the producers assure us that everything was polished and that the gameplay's worth the effort.