What the Super Bowl video game ads mean for gaming
This year saw three different video games advertised during the Super Bowl, and they all had one thing in common: they were all mobile games.
Super Bowl ads cost $4.5 million for a 30-second clip, and that is not even counting the cost of making the commercial or hiring a well known model like Kate Upton or an A-list celebrity like Liam Neeson.
The fact that three different mobile games – Heroes Charge, Game of War, and Clash of Clans – could afford the exorbitant cost of Super Bowl advertising is proof that mobile games are big business.
Angry Birds, the poster child of successful mobile game franchises, is estimated to have been downloaded over 2 billion times across all platforms, making it one of the most popular game franchises of all time.
But what does the popularity of mobile games mean for gaming as a whole?
Microtransactions
Many gamers worry that the success of microtransactions – discrete, one-time purchases for in-game content – could become the norm in other games, and in-game transactions have already found their way into several MMOs and other online games, including Sony Online Entertainment’s controversial H1Z1 zombie survival game.
While many of the items available for purchase in console games are either cosmetic in nature or are obtainable for free in other ways, the microtransaction sales model has occasionally become obtrusive in games, such as Planetside 2’s notorious “Upgrade Now” button that took prominence on several in-game menus, taking the place of buttons that had been there previously, which caused many players to click it accidentally.
New players
The success of mobile games is due in large part to the format’s mass appeal. The games are not targeting existing gamers but rather the mass audience of smartphone and tablet owners. People are buying mobile games who would not normally have played games in the first place.
This mass appeal to non-gamers was critical to the success of Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s Wii console, which became one of the top-selling systems of all time by catering to a more casual audience with games that could be played together by families or that involved easy to use motion controls.
As more non-gamers adopt mobile technologies, the casual mobile game genre will continue to grow.
Screenshot via Game of War: Fire Age/YouTube
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