Research Project: Product Placement in MMOGs

[Idalo]

Hello fellow MMORPGers! :hello:

I'm a new member to this forum but have been involved with and playing MMORPGs for several years. This is my first post so let me get straight to the point and not waste your precious online time.

I'm currently working on my master degree in marketing at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Since I've always been a savvy gamer I have chosen to combine my area of study with my hobby. In a nutshell, the topic of my research project is to explore the potential for product placements in MMOGs.

[ A brief definition of 'product placement' is: Product placement can be described as the practice of displaying, mentioning or including in any form a product or brand within a setting which is not primarily intended to function as an advertisement, for example a movie, song or video game. If you want to know more about what product placement is you can start by checking out the wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement ]

As I have only just started collecting data for my project this thread will hopefully help me design my project and also help me get a general overview of what people think and feel about this topic.

So feel free to post any thoughts you might have on this topic here - any feedback (both negative and positive) is welcome! A few questions to get you started could be:

- What if product placements find their way into your MMO world?
- How could product placements be acceptable or even add value to our online worlds?
- Are product placements and online fantasy worlds incompatible?
- <Your question here> ;)

Oh and feel free to ask any questions you might have, as I said - any feedback would be greatly appreciated :top:

[solangelic]

Hey there

I think you should check out Entropia Universe. At least when I left it there was introduced commerical adds in town with the goal to have advertisment for real life products in game.