Intrinsic Virtual Advertising, how we got here.

We are proud to introduce a new product that we believe will be transformational for the video game industry. We call it, Intrinsic Virtual Advertising. But before I describe the platform, let me share with you the experience that led to the ah-ha moment.

To say I am a gamer is an understatement, I’ve personally spent thousands upon thousands of hours immersed in virtual environments as I grew up. Going from the Nintendo Entertainment System, playing Super Mario bro’s, to hosting 24 person LAN parties because as a kid getting a networking switch with 24 ports was a life goal, you could say that gaming was an integral part of my life. Fast forward, now we all play together online and although I no longer can throw chocolate or M&Ms at everyone during gameplay, we still all talk as if we are in the same room. The games and platforms have changed but the love and fun have not.

Enter Player Unknown Battlegrounds (PUBG), it could be argued that this game has prevented many big nights at the pub, in fact, it may have contributed to a degree of fiscal responsibility, but none the less this game has literally changed the trajectory of my life.

When playing PUBG without a pre-determined team, you are randomly matched with various people around the country or world, total and complete strangers, but with one thing in common, we’re all gamers. So the stage is set, it was 2017, the buggy (vehicle) made the most amazing yet terrible sound that clearly no sound engineer had gone near. I was playing in Erangel (map) and I was randomly matched with ROSSI458. Now as anyone who plays PUBG will attest, when you find a good teammate you want to continue to chase the Chicken Dinner (Winning the round). Unknown to us both, we had just met our business partner for the next bunch of years.

The moment that made me move to a new city and start the foundations of what we built today. Let’s just say there was a “Can” of a drink that looked like a can of drink in the real world, a new game patch was released and the “Can” was well.. not gone but different, it just didn’t have the same feel. We immediately knew the enormous missed opportunity for the brand, it couldn’t have been more clear. This was our ah-ha moment, so naturally when one of us comes from startup land, the other an expert software engineer you start a company. The vision: to build the technology and platform that allowed advertising to be executed in a manner that would be acceptable to both developers and gamers while being transparent and revolutionary for the advertising world.

Intrinsic – Essential or a natural part of something

As gamers, we knew that our product needed to be these things. First, it had to be a viable monetization tool that was easy for game developers to implement. Second, it had to be easy to use and self-service for advertisers. Lastly, but most importantly, the ads could not be obtrusive for the gamer. These things must be kept in harmony.

Empower the Developer

Our approach is to empower the developer first. Why? Because the developers are the ones creating environments where nearly 2.6 Billion people worldwide are choosing to spending their time, the very places that I grew up in and love. Monetization of games is progressively becoming more difficult as spending habits change, coupled with ever increasing fundamental economic forces, game development and the ongoing support of a game is becoming ever more difficult. Many games never see the light of day because they run out of money or, the creative vision of the developer is ruined because they have no other option but to utilize monetization methods that negatively impact the player experience, or behave in a carnivorous manner to their player base. Gamers don’t want to be nickeled and dimed in order to play games, and they don’t want to consistently be interrupted when they are playing a game they enjoy. Immersed, Intrinsic, and Natural is what is needed to bring this equilibrium.  

With “Intrinsic Virtual Advertising,” games, developers, and publishers can significantly increase the Life-Time-Value of the player, while enhancing creative flexibility, and opens the opportunity for unobtrusive brand advertising.

A New Digital Marketing Channel for Advertisers

With an easy to use online interface, advertisers can log on to the platform and follow simple steps to target their desired audience, upload their creative, and set their budget. It is that easy. For many businesses, it’s a new advertising tool where they are not having to seek new budgets but rather reallocate a portion of their current digital marketing spend. Not only is it convenient for them, but it provides access to an audience that they have traditionally struggled to reach while backed up by a slew of in depth analytic and telemetry data that is not available from other forms of digital advertising.

I like asking brands or agencies, “How do you reach me with your current digital marketing efforts? When I go home, I play games and IF I watch TV, I watch NETFLIX.  Their response, (while without fail doing this strange head nod) “It’s very, very difficult.”

Now it’s not!

Why Intrinsic Virtual Advertising works now:

1. Technology

• Networking – bandwidth and transfer speeds are now only allowing for higher quality creative to be delivered at next to zero bandwidth impact.
• Cloud Computing – globally distributed computing and the ability to use those services containerized and on-demand for optimum efficiency. They are allowing backend/frontend services to interact live with virtualized environments.
• Game Engines – the advancements in game engines and the use of APIs have enabled the ability to bring things into the virtual environments.
• Coding Languages – Languages and systems able to meet the extreme performance demand have only recently matured.

2. Culture

18 years is how long I have been playing with one group of friends online and yet, we have never met. A group comprised of businessmen and women, software engineers, psychologists, shipping and logistics managers, retail assistants and lawyers all bond over the same thing.

As gaming has rapidly gained social acceptance the demographics of gamers has shifted, this is now an extremely attractive market for advertisers.

Average age of a gamer = 33

Male 54%

Female 46%

Furthermore, esports and education are driving the industry, and the demand to reach this audience is now growing at a rate that can no longer be ignored.

3. Execution

We feel this space needs to be driven by people who are gamers themselves, built from a gamer’s perspective and not just a tech or advertising agency. Positive experiences, coupled with comprehensive user behavior data, is the key to success. With both realized, the actual value is derived for the gamer, publisher, advertiser, or agency.

Summary

Right now, we have an opportunity to lead, steer, and educate. The gaming industry is on the verge of unprecedented growth, something we are embracing and nurturing to ensure the preservation of the gaming culture that I love. We have the cultural mindset with a more matured technology base to succeed where others have failed in the past, and we firmly believe that the advertising solution of choice for the developer will quickly become the solution of choice for everyone.

If you want to play some PUBG… Jonny_St  is where you will find me.