And now, kids, a Web game from our sponsor
As computer games go, Flip the Mix is one of the simplest. There are no bullets to dodge or aliens to blast. Just line up three colored dots in a row to score 100 points.
But the dots are stamped with the familiar logo of M&Ms, one of the nation's most popular snacks. The object of the game is to achieve a higher score than Red, one of the obnoxious candies that appears in M&Ms television commercials.
The entire game is a commercial, running 24 hours a day on the M&Ms website. Bored with that? There's always Coke.com or Nabiscoworld.com, or Millsberry.com. Each of these sites is loaded with simple games that advertise as well as entertain.
It's called ''advergaming" -- the use of Web-based games as promotional tools. Though precise figures aren't available, more and more of the world's best-known consumer products companies have sponsored online advergames. These are simple contests that run inside a Web browser and take just a few minutes to play.
Some critics worry that the colorful and simple games are also attracting young children, and subjecting them to marketing messages that they're too young to properly evaluate.
''Kids are going to grow up with the inability to have a meaningful distance from the commercial culture," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a Washington group that opposes domination of the Internet by large corporations.
While retail games such as Halo or the Sims often cost more than $10 million to create, and sell for around $50, Dan Ferguson, cofounder of Dallas advergaming developer Blockdot, said he can put out a good game for under $100,000. A client can then host the game on its website, introducing its product to thousands of visitors who mainly come for the fun of it. While a typical TV commercial lasts 30 seconds, a typical Blockdot gamer plays for seven to 10 minutes, ample time for the sponsor's message to sink in.
Apart from making games like Flip the Mix, Blockdot also runs its own gaming website, Kewlbox.com, which has about a million subscribers. Companies that purchase advergames from Blockdot can pay an additional fee to have those games hosted on Kewlbox. That way, a gamer who'd never think of visiting the advertiser's website will still be exposed to the message when he visits Kewlbox.
Ferguson got into advergaming in 1998. At first, he found it difficult to line up investors and customers. ''The first three or four years we were doing it, everybody thought we were insane," he said. ''It took a long time for big companies to realize it wasn't a gimmick."
They've finally gotten the point. ''Our business has doubled this year," Ferguson said. Blockdot has released about 20 new titles already this year, with five more due out in the next six weeks.
There are plenty of other game designers that specialize in building advergames. New York City's gameLab has created a series of online games that promote the Lego Group and its plastic building blocks. ''We did a game for Lego called World Builder, which features actual 3D models of toys you can make with a particular line of products," said gameLab chief Eric Zimmerman. ''We know from Lego that it's very popular. They're getting all kinds of e-mail saying, 'I saw this really cool game and now I've got to go out and buy your product so I can play it.' "
Peter Hobolt Jensen, executive producer of Lego.com, says the games enhance the site's effectiveness as a marketing tool. ''It's a big traffic draw," said Jensen. ''It's one of the ways we can extend the playfulness of our product into the virtual space."
It's also a way to persuade children to buy more toys. That worries Susan Linn, instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author of ''Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood." Linn fears that companies like Lego are blurring the line between play and marketing, and that children aren't yet able to tell the difference. ''Children are particularly susceptible to advertising," said Linn. ''They're not adults in little bodies. They can't defend against advertising very well." Linn favors greater federal regulation of all kinds of advertising to children, including advergames.
In response, Masterfoods spokesman Jeffrey Moran said the games on his company's site comply with voluntary standards for children's advertising laid down by the Childrens' Advertising Review Unit, an arm of the Council of Better Business Bureaus that oversees marketing to young people. Moran said that the games aren't really advertising at all. ''We are not attempting to sell directly to kids," he said. ''People could view it as advertising. We don't." Instead, Moran said that the games on his company's site merely seek to establish a ''brand identity" in the minds of players.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.
