Stay just outside the game
"I think there's been a mistaken emphasis placed on in-game ads," Johnson says. "[Games] have always been a difficult place for brands to play. As a gamer, I become immersed, and non-contextual ads would just make me angry."
Although Johnson says relevant ads have their merit, he believes GGL's community-building approach offers the best entry point for reaching the ever-evolving gaming demographic. To reach gamers without adulterating the gaming experience, GGL leverages its gaming communities as platforms for brands to sponsor gaming tournaments online.
"While you're setting up the game, there are great moments to reach the player," Johnson says. "We run tons of branded tournaments. You'll go after an audience, they'll be tightly engaged and connected to brand, but you won't compromise playing experience."
For Johnson, the idea of community -- a word he uses whenever possible -- is the key to unlocking the riches of the gamer demographic. Community-driven gaming sites like GGL allow users to define themselves, according to Johnson. And that means gamers are sending a signal to brands, telling them not just their age, location and other basic demographic plot points, but also what they're most passionate about and how they see themselves.
Recently, GGL teamed with the U.S. Army to offer a tournament. While the Army brand welcomes players to the tournament and the games -- primarily war games -- are a natural fit with the sponsor, the branding stops there.
The idea is to present a given gaming community with something fun and highly relevant from a sponsor, Johnson explains. Beyond that, ads in games would be too intrusive.
"[The Army-sponsored tournament] is a natural fit," Johnson says. "Sponsoring the tournament helps them build community, while opening up opportunities for them to have a dialogue with potential recruits."
According to Sessler, sponsorship makes the most sense, at least when it comes to his audience of hardcore gamers.
"Sponsorships are just how things are done in this world," Sessler says. "It's a safer and more effective way to reach gamers."
Although Johnson sees gamers as an ever-expanding class, he cautions that not all brands are a good fit for the medium, at least for now.
"I'm not sure if there's a game for every brand," Johnson says. "The audience is becoming more diverse everyday, but there are some brands that just don't match up well with a genre right now."
Still, Johnson isn't so sure that problem won't someday change. The way he sees the issue, it's only a matter of time before there are enough gamers out there to build communities around just about anything.
Sessler, whose hardcore gamers come closest to living up to the stereotypes of wired males losing track of time while cracking the next level of a sci-fi shoot 'em up, isn't so sure all brands are welcome in the gaming space.
"As long as it's a brand like Mountain Dew, that's great," Sessler jokes. "Pantene won't get very far."
But Sessler's myopic fascination with hardcore gamers might miss a human truism: We all play games. While Sessler's tribe consists of those who define themselves as gamers first and foremost, many other people (women especially) play games as a way to entertain themselves while filing time.
For the less extreme group, casual games provide joyful fodder where true devotees of the medium like Sessler see as a way of life.
Stay out of the game altogether
If IGA wants to be in the game, and GGL wants to be around the game, Zango is the third option. Their approach is to fly well below the gamer's radar, serving time-shifted ads to online gamers long after they've ended the game and gone back to work, shopping or surfing the internet.
According to Val Sanford, Zango's VP of marketing, the basic idea behind the company's business model is to leave gamers alone while they're playing.
"The last thing you want [as a gamer] is a break in the action," Sanford explains. "We show them ads when they're not playing."
While Zango focuses on the so-called casual game market, licensing hundreds of games to publishers as a vehicle for serving contextual ads at a later time, the marketing play can be limitless.
"Our advertisers run the gamut from airlines to local business," Sanford says.
That being said, Zango's audience probably doesn't overlap with players who flock to GGL or play the games IGA targets. Casual games are light by comparison, Sanford explains. Players can engage in the game with a minimum of startup time and preexisting expertise.
But that doesn't change Zango's non-intrusive approach. According to Sanford, the key quality of casual gamers is loyalty to the game. That loyalty exists because the games are fun, but it also persists because the games are easy to use. In-game ads, Sanford says, would only get in the way.
Where does this leave marketers?
When you approach a TV audience, there's an implicit understanding that ads will interrupt content -- usually at the height of the action. Of course, the flip side to that understanding with the viewer is that once the ads have had their chance to run, the content will return.
Online marketers continue to grapple with the nature of the bargain presented to users. Should the bargain mimic the print medium, where ads are displayed alongside content? Perhaps online ads should interrupt content as with TV. Or, maybe ads should now become fully integrated with content (and in some cases actually become content).
These are all valid models as online marketers experiment with a new bargain for internet users. But games don't have the same kind of room for experimentation. No matter what marketing tactic you employ, gamers have a clear message: Leave me alone, unless you can enhance the game.
Will there ever be a unified model for delivering ads in games? Probably not. But that's not such a bad thing if marketers accept that this medium requires them to play behind the scenes.
Michael Estrin is associate editor at iMediaConnection. Read full bio.