More Than a Game

The second article I chose to read was "More Than a Game" written by Anni Layne Rodgers. Anni writes about the growing fascination with video games, and how advertisers are seeing that they need to expand to this genre because of its popularity. She writes that in 2007 the sales of video game hardware rose 43% and hit $9.4 billion which exceeded Hollywood's box office. A lot of people are jumping on the video game bandwagon, and its not just kids, many adults are as well. She writes about a software company called YaYa and how they offer games that players can send their high scores to friends and family and challenge them to beat their score. The company says that ninety percent of people that receive a challenge via email play the game and send their scores back. They go on to say that the level of peer-to-peer marketing is unparalleled. I have seen this type of thing for several years now. My friends will play some flash game and send me a challenge to beat their scores and soon all my friends are doing it and sending everyone their scores. I think the challenge being to try to best your friends is very addicting in itself. The game might not even be that fun to play its just the fact that you are trying to beat your friends that keeps you stuck to it. Advertisers are seeing this trend and using it to their advantage to get their products and services known to a large amount of people very fast.