Many of you are enjoying the amazing free game Trackmania Nations ESWC, nothing is free in the world so there are banner spots all over the levels for sale. Nadeo has selected IGA Worldwide to handle it. For those of you who haven’t downloaded this amazing free racing game, download it at Nvidia.
IGA Worldwide, the multi-award-winning in-game advertising specialist, has been selected by developer Nadeo to handle the in-game advertising for its Trackmania Nations ESWC title.
In a world first, Trackmania Nations ESWC, Nadeo’s updated version of the infamous driving game Trackmania, developed especially for the championships, has been made available for free via electronic download. The development costs have been offset by revenues generated from in-game advertising via IGA Worldwide’s Radial ad serving network.
The 2006 ESWC championships also include Gran Turismo 4, Pro Evolution Soccer 5, Counterstrike and Warcraft 3. With entrants from 53 countries, the Grand Final will be televised from Paris where the best players from each country will compete before a crowd of 40,000 over three days. With qualifiers completed in January, drivers are now battling it out to win regional heats and the hundreds of thousands of dollars of prize money on offer.
“e-Sport is one of the most advanced forms of network gaming so a free game available around the globe is a great starting point for getting people involved,” said Florent Castelnerac, studio manager at Nadeo.
“In the real world, racing drivers and teams have sponsorship deals and the entire industry is supported by advertising and promotions. As advertising in games takes off, this is now being replicated in the virtual world by gamers.”
“This represents a key milestone for the in-game advertising industry – for the first time a AAA-quality new release is subsidiszing itself via advertising so gamers are able to participate in a major virtual sporting event without having to shell out,” said Justin Townsend, CEO at IGA Worldwide. “It’s a tremendous testament to the growing strength of this medium that developers and publishers are confident in relying on in-game advertising revenues to recoup significant portions of their development costs.”
The title is already proving immensely popular with gamers across the globe. IGA has already served content to over 800,000 unique users, logging almost 2 million hours of connections to their ad servers.
Townsend continued: “With racing and sport titles, gamers expect to see advertising to add to the overall realism, and the advantages of dynamic delivery via Radial is that the content that people will see will stay updated and will be both time-specific and geographically relevant to them. These titles also offer unparalleled exposure for advertisers, both through the game and via the live event.”
