Sports and In-Game Advertising

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moments and extensive sponsorship deals like what was featured in Fight Night Round 3 are all examples of this, and it will likely be a huge market for years to come.

"[The deal with 2K Sports] was a significant commitment from one of the most powerful publishers in the world, not to mention a world class developer," said Shumaker. "From our perspective, we see the power of sports advertising. This derives tremendous value for our company. From a games perspective, the one we're really ecstatic about is the football title, [All-Pro Football 2K8]. Not only does IGN say it's one of the top 10 game of 2007, the series has been critically superior to Madden on a consistent basis. Advertisers want to reach in a powerful way, but they also want association with content. It really benefits us that this game is unique and uses America's favorite game. As for what's out now, NBA 2K7 is the only third-party basketball game out on PS3 and it's dominating the critical reviews, making it a tremendous stake in the ground for success in late '06. The main success is leveraging the marketing in various other sports games."

"I think the first step is—since we can reference so much real world sports—is to look at the game from an enthusiast's perspective even before looking at it as a gamer," she said when asked about how Double Fusion handles sports games differently than other titles. "If they expect to see content, like a replay, we're going to bring a sponsored replayed. You have to consider the psychographic of a sports game player over regular gamers. For example, one of the things we're going to be doing is that gamers can get achievements from something based on a sponsor. Let's say that I am 'insert brand here' in College Hoops 2K8 and I go through as the Duke Blue Devils. Let's say I unlock a point guard with better shooting percentage. That's the 'insert brand here' player advantage."

Will the future hold more opportunities?

When you look at the niche genre of Sports MMO games, it seems like the sort of thing that would have taken off a long time ago. After all, the potential to reach for something that sports fans can participate in that merely requires an Internet connection seems massive. You wouldn't even have to be a fan of videogames to want to interact with sports fans around the globe in such a way. With things like fantasy leagues all the rage, GameDaily BIZ wouldn't be surprised if some time in the future there were official and unofficial sports MMO leagues, with huge participation from around the world.

"We believe the advanced online category is great," ventured Shumaker. "It's attracting more gamers to the medium and we believe it literally has limitless potential. One example is a game in Asia called Freestyle Basketball and that's completely online. We're completely committed to the sports space and we're determined to get revenue for all categories in sports."

When asked if he expected to see additional MMO Sports titles in the future, Mackay responded, "From other companies it's certainly possible and from us it is a definite. Our goal is to expand into all the different team sports games. We've tackled the technical hurdle of players following the action when a baseball is hit. We thought baseball would be the easiest, but the time between the pitch and the hit, created a common problem in the very beginning. We've actually got some patents out, pending right now, so we can turn this team baseball experience and translate it online."

"The idea [of Sports MMOs] seems so simple in retrospect, but that's the genius of our owner. He started with fantasy MMOs, but he took a step back and realized he couldn't compete with the big publishers. He watched the World Baseball Classic and saw the sport was expanding in a big way. That's why we're doing what we're doing and we're very fortunate in that there are no other competing baseball games on the Internet."

He then added that the MLB license would just be a "limiter" since in the MMO world only one person could be Derek Jeter or Jason Giambi. Out of curiosity, since he named two Yankees, we asked if he was a Yankees fan. He laughed and said no, revealing that he's actually a fan of their cross town rivals, the Mets and he really meant to say Jose Reyes. Mackay idly remarked that when you put Giambi's and Jeter's faces everywhere that's what you recall, giving ironic testament to the power of advertising and sports.

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