The University of Texas at Austin have released the results of a study on the presence of in-game ads in violent games. The finding suggested that violence in games leads to lower brand recall and negative brand attitudes, especially among women.
“Although violent video games are very popular and can reach a young, highly engaged audience, their effectiveness as an advertising medium is questionable,” said Jorge Peña, assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies. “Our study demonstrates that featured violence diminishes brand memory and primes more negative attitudes toward the brand.”
After playing two similar games, save that one had NPCs with guns and blood-soaked rooms, brand recall and recognition were lower for everyone in the violent one. Women in particular displayed a 11.29 percent decrease in brand liking for the violent shooter game, which the study things might be a result of lack of familiarity with these games and men perhaps being more desensitized to violence.
“Advertising campaign planners would do better to spend their budget on ads embedded in nonviolent video games than in ads placed within violent video games; particularly if they are trying to reach women,” said Seung-Chul Yoo, doctoral candidate in the Department of Advertising.
Yoo and Peña believe violent content in video games divert attention from other sources of information in the game, thus distracting from in-game ads. There’s also the suggestion that violent materials leave a negative impact for the player, similar to the way violent TV programs hamper ad recall relative to nonviolent TV programs, according to other studies.
Source: utexas.edu
