During recent years, computer gaming has gained increasing popularity, and today thousands of players are playing games all around the world. Predictably, interactive computer gaming has blurred the line between games and other entertainment or communication media, and the avenues that are being explored in the development of gaming might well break new ground for interactive Internet applications in all areas of business relations and social life.
Due to their dynamic nature and specific appeal to certain audiences, computer games and especially games played on Internet enabled platforms provide the ideal vehicle for Internet advertising. Not only is it possible for an advertiser to target directly a specific group of customers, but also advertisements can be directly incorporated into the computer games, enabling something akin to the well-known concept of product placement. In such a system, a game is running on a system that is connected to the Internet. Throughout the playing of the game, the game software contacts a set of ad servers to retrieve advertising content to present to the user during game play. The data and advertising content is transferred using HTTP protocols over the Internet. Optionally, the advertising content is cached locally to the game, and throughout the playing of the game the game software contacts a set of ad servers to retrieve a list of advertising content to present to the user during game play.
For product placement advertisements, there is a considerable development effort involved in their implementation and a considerable business effort in sales, customer service, and reporting. As such and because of the constant communication, each party involved in the advertisement design, placement, and integration is provided an opportunity to present input opinions and decisions. With all of this communication, advertisements are approved by each party as part of their involvement. From the game developer, to the game producer, to the advertiser, to the game console manufacturer, to third party IP holders each party sees and approves of the content through their business dealings. Clearly, for one or two advertisements built into a video game, this is manageable.
With the advent of dynamic in-game advertising, there is significantly more effort in garnering approval for advertising content and yet, companies involved in in-game advertising continue to pursue manual approvals in order to ensure that all parties approve of advertising content for a video game. Such a process is slow, costly, and prone to human error, where the error is often uncorrelated to the parties involved—one party makes an error that adversely affects another party. This is very undesirable.
Of course, one of the great problems that in-game advertising is to face is that for a single product placement, relatively senior people within an organization involve themselves in the process. For 1000 advertisements, the hands on executive is no longer feasible. Unfortunately, with more advertisements and fewer senior level people involved, a recipe for disaster results.
It would be advantageous to provide a method and system that overcomes these and other drawbacks of the prior art.
It is an object of the invention to provide an enhanced content approval process for use with in-game advertising.
In accordance with the invention there is provided a method comprising: providing a request for approval of advertising content for being impressed upon video game players within a known advertising spot within a known video game; determining based on the advertising spot and the video game at least a party for approving of the advertising content; and automatically transmitting a message to the at least a party requesting their approval of the advertising content for being impressed upon video game players within the known advertising spot within the known video game.
In accordance with the invention there is provided a method comprising: receiving secured advertising content from a remote server, the advertising content secured against tampering; determining from the secured advertising content an approval status thereof; determining based on the secured advertising content an absence of tampering thereof; and, when the secured advertising content is both approved and absent tampering, storing of the advertising content in an accessible form within a memory storage for retrieval during video game execution and for impressing upon a gamer of the video game.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention there is provided a system comprising: a suitably programmed processor for: providing a request for approval of advertising content for being impressed upon video game players within a known advertising spot within a known video game; determining based on the advertising spot and the video game at least a party for approving of the advertising content; and automatically transmitting a message to the at least a party requesting their approval of the advertising content for being impressed upon video game players within the known advertising spot within the known video game.
In accordance with another embodiment of the invention there is provided a system comprising: a suitably programmed processor for: wherein secured advertising content is received at a video game system; wherein software in execution on the video game system determines from the secured advertising content an approval status thereof; wherein software in execution on the video game system determines based on the secured advertising content an absence of tampering thereof; and, wherein storing of the advertising content comprises storing of the advertising content in an accessible form within a memory storage of the video game system for retrieval during video game execution and for impressing upon a gamer of the video game.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention there is provided a storage medium having data stored therein, the data for when executed resulting in performance of: providing a request for approval of advertising content for being impressed upon video game players within a known advertising spot within a known video game; determining based on the advertising spot and the video game at least a party for approving of the advertising content; and automatically transmitting a message to the at least a party requesting their approval of the advertising content for being impressed upon video game players within the known advertising spot within the known video game.
In accordance with another embodiment of the invention there is provided a storage medium having data stored therein, the data for when executed resulting in performance of: a suitably programmed processor for: wherein secured advertising content is received at a video game system; wherein software in execution on the video game system determines from the secured advertising content an approval status thereof; wherein software in execution on the video game system determines based on the secured advertising content an absence of tampering thereof; and, wherein storing of the advertising content comprises storing of the advertising content in an accessible form within a memory storage of the video game system for retrieval during video game execution and for impressing upon a gamer of the video game.