Testing the Effects of Incidental Advertising Exposure in Online Gaming Environments
Adam AcarUniversity of Connecticut
INTRODUCTION
In 2005, advertisers spent $80 million to reach video game players; this spending is expected to top $400 by 2009 (Park Associates 2006). Advertising through digital games appears widely in popular print media and industry magazines, even though few empirical studies attempt to explain the effects of the ads that target game players. Yet because 75% of people who have Internet access spend more than an hour per month playing online games (Park Associates 2006), and as online gaming continues...