I was listening to web advertising pod cast last week, sure this is what web designers do with their free time.  The guest speaker said how much more arduous marketing and advertising is becoming on the internet now.  His reasons were that your target audience is spending more time playing games on-line or on the computer, than they are browsing the web, placing them out of reach of your advertisements reach.

Okay so, let’s explore this statement a bit, I mean after all WoW, that’s World of Warcraft to you none cyber geeks out there, is one of the most widely played games in cyberspace.  So there has to be some level of truthfulness to this statement, right?  While I have never played WoW, I respect those who do, after all I have a few friends that work at Blizzard Entertainment the manufacturers of WoW.  However does this mean that since this audience is in front of WoW and not Google, you can’t connect with them anymore?  Let’s look at the demographics on WoW players.

Gamer Demographics
Now then as it turns out, Nielsen has done some research on the WoW community.  The age group of participants ranges from 25 – 54 and WoW was the most widely played ‘core’ game amongst females with merely under 40% of the 11.1 million players.   With males on the other hand, these stats as you might imagine is more outstanding.  WoW owns more than 6 million distinctive male participants which means the gender gap is not as large as you might have thought for this demographic.  The next crucial stat is that on average these adults spend nearly 11 hours a week playing WoW.  So yes, this might be time spent in front of Google, sites, Facebook or Twitter, but isn’t this a little selfish of us to demand that?

Turning Lemons into Lemonade!
So you can look at this as… this is priceless time that your consumers won’t get to advertise to this crowd as the notable guest lecturer said… otherwise you could educate yourself on this demographic and make this a specialty market for your consulting business.  Because this is a broad demographic, 25 – 54 you can virtually publicize anything to this market of gamers.

Did you know?
World of Warcraft belongs to the MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game) or MMOG market and they are not the only kids on the block.  There is also Rift, Eve Online, Darkfall, Aion and many many more.  If you spend a some time browsing on these markets, you will discover that akin to any marketplace, cell phones, tablets, ect., these games have accessories and stuff to purchase.  This is your chance to find these keywords and phrases and advertise your clients items to this group.  In fact if you genuinely get to identify the communities playing these games you will find out more about them and more regarding how to promote to them, what they want.

Summing up
So while there is always something changing in markets, from cell phones to smart phones, to tablets to games reaching a 50 year old demographic… the expression you must to adopt is adapt.  Every marketplace has possibilities; is advertising getting more challenging, yes but I believe it is simply because as markets mature, more businesses figure out the small niches to promote to, what else is new.

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A new study coming out of Ha Noi, Vietnam illustrates the struggles that lots of schools have in fighting outside influences on pupils.  This particular survey indicated that students have ranked games as their primary form of entertainment throughout the school day.  Obviously the trend of students to ignore their school activity as well as consider video games in an effort to spend their time is troubling not merely to schools but unfortunately to parents as well.

The Appeal of Free
One of the many reasons that schools all over the world are having difficulties keeping out online 3D games may be the lure of free things.  Most everybody likes to acquire something free.  Kids aren’t any different.  When a popular and addictive item like a video game emerges at absolute zero cost it is a safe bet that a lot of students will discover a method of accessing the game.  Software developers know that money can be produced in alternative methods such as advertising or perhaps in-game transactions and so the free game is merely an enticement to have people’s focus.

Easy Access
Another reason why a lot of students are spending too much time at a time logged on as well as zapping little aliens is the ease of access.  Fresh smartphone’s, MP3 players and also portable game devices make it easy for people to get to their games from nearly anywhere.  Many of these devices are designed with Wi-Fi connections or even a cell phone plan.  A couple of minutes of down time during class or the lunch break are a few apparent times that youngsters use to sneak in a few minutes of play time.

Disturbing Materials
One explanation why a great number of teachers and also school administers oppose the games are the troubling materials displayed from the game play.  Stealing cars, performing arbitrary acts of violence and also immoral behavior are only a few instances of some of the situations depicted by the most popular online gaming.  The majority of school officials believed that these forms of games motivate the lewd behavior and bring about the dysfunction of society.

Parent Participation
Most experts acknowledge that parent intervention will help curb this problem.  Parents need to sit back with their children and chat in regards to the value of education instead of wasting precious time on video games.  There isn’t any question that spending several carefree time playing games can be a good activity for children, nonetheless it should not substitute for school assignments and get yourself ready for the future.

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