Effects of Multiplayer Videogame Contexts on Individuals’ Recall of In-Game Advertisements

Abstract

Research on the effects of in-game advertising has grown steadily during the twenty-first century. However, most studies have investigated only single-player contexts and have not taken into account the elements of multiplayer settings that are common to many gaming environments. Therefore, the current experimental investigation examined the impact of multiplayer contexts on the effectiveness of in-game advertising. Results indicate that playing with a partner versus playing alone enhanced players’ recall of ads, but the mere presence of a partner was not sufficient in explaining the difference: partner disposition had an impact such that playing with a friendly partner generally elicited the greatest response. Further, attitude toward one's partner mediated the effects of playing mode on ad recall. Practical implications regarding multiplayer game settings are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• videogame advertising
• ad recall
• videogames
• brand recall
• memory

Notes

One extreme outlier whose session lasted for an inordinate amount of time was dismissed from the data set before conducting any analysis. The session time in question was almost 30 minutes long or 4.6 standard deviations greater than the mean, which is well above the conventional rule for excluding outliers more than 3 standard deviations from the mean (see Tabachnick & Fidell, 1996). We do not know the exact reason for the long duration of this specific case, but it was deleted because we did not want any potential irregularities of advertising exposure to contaminate the otherwise normal distribution of actual session time.