Abromavičius, Edgaras

In the context of interactive content, the definition of intrusive advertising is associated with billboards that suddenly break the visible line of history and reduce the time spent on it. This formulates a potential dilemma for marketing managers who need to decide on the most effective way to make extra money from consumer purchases. More and more scientists are exploring product demonstrations not only in video games but also in virtual reality. Then consumers play video games, they are exposed to different sizes and types of product display items. In addition, there are many other sensory components of video games that make up the game environment or atmosphere (such as background music and landscape). Human attention is divided into the main task of the game and the sensory stimuli included in the background of the video game. It is therefore important to understand the extent to which players devote their cognitive resources to focusing on the core task of the games, as well as all other elements of the content.

Virtual reality is a computer-stimulated reality in which the user experiences a high level of involvement in the fictional world of 3D graphics. All this helps to create special accessories that act as a tool to achieve virtual reality - glasses with high-definition screens, which convey the image with effects directly to the eyes. Users also have direct access to their hands via interactive dashboards (Saraiva et al., 2018) Virtual reality provides a unique experience for users to engage in interactive content. This is associated with the ability to move in a 360-degree amplitude in the digital world. Businesses are making increasing efforts to present their products, brands or services in a virtual space in order to reach the modern consumer. The results of the study revealed that the level of efficiency of virtual product integration integrated in reality is not the highest compared to other media. Still, there is high potential in the future that could become a real market leader in the media field.

An every new technology is a new media and our own sequel. At the present, people have a relatively new technology and new media - video games. Video game is a specific type of digital entertainment, where the player interacts with the digital interfaces, and are faced with different kinds of challenges, depending on the game scenario. The video game developer is a participant in the gaming industry - it can be the whole company or just one person - who actually creates interactive applications. Game development company employ a wide range of the spectrum and the various occupations of people who work together on a video game development studio in order to create every part of the product. The most important task is to reach out to each of components work together by adding them in one game, in order to provide a consistent and immersive gaming experience for the consumer. Game development studios are mostly local companies whose number of employees from five to ten people. In the second decade, they have become one of the biggest media in the world with which users interact every day. Traditional forms of media, such as movies, books, newspapers and TV still plays a big role in our society, but the video game has recently attracted a particular attention. It is important to mention that the video game industry has a relatively short history compared to media industries such as the film industry, which dates back to more than a hundred years. In 1971 has been designed a first video game – “Galaxy” „. The industry is just more than forty years old. Theoretical analysis of video games allows us to make an observation about video games as an exclusive interactive media that uses specific principles of development and publishing aimed at digital products. At the moment, the most popular games are mobile video games. The biggest video game companies that play in the global market spend millions of dollars for their product promotion.

Product placement is an innovative form of marketing communication which provides companies an opportunity to persuasively incorporate their products or brands into consumer-familiar environment in the authentic way. Even contemporary customers who are already used to sceptically react to advertising or even ignore it, consider product placement as an element in the environment and do not suspect it to be a kind of advertisement. Therefore, the article identifies the ethical problems related to the usage of product placement; even being a relatively new measure of marketing communication product placement faces some problems of its application. Despite the latter problems, product placement is gaining its popularity in television shows, movies and video or computer games; thus, a discussion on its effectiveness becomes relevant. Accordingly, the article deals with a scientific problem: what aspects of product placement in video games make this tool of marketing communication effective? The article aims at assessing the effectiveness of product placement during the sports game and video game. The article determines the indicators of the effectiveness of product placement and provides the results of a comparative experiment. During the experiment, the effectiveness of product placement was assessed by comparing the results of two groups of participants: the first group was watching a broadcast of a sports game, and the second group was playing a sports video game. The research results revealed that research participants recalled and recognized product brands provided during the sports game broadcast and sports video game. Moreover, the group which was playing a video game better recalled the brand and the place where they were provided in comparison to the group which was just watching a game.[...]

The article analyses product placement in sports video games, its merits and demerits. Product placement is considered as one of the means of advertising. This mean is quite novel in video games; therefore, the research on its prevalence is still scarce. Considering the novelty of the usage of product placement in video games, the research aims at determining its trends and perspectives. Scientific analysis and content analysis of “NBA 2K” video game were performed to reach the aim. The results revealed that two methods of product placement were used: visual, and a mix of visual and verbal. Moreover, the prevalence of this method has a growing trend.

The recent emergence of the development of information technology (IT) sector has led to the sector‘s recognition as becoming one of the leading sector s in global economy. The evolving progress of the new technologies opens wider possibilities for the merge and interaction between real and virtual worlds; as one of the ways of such mergence computer video games can be named ( Straubhaar et al., 2013 ). Acc ording to Kuster et al. (2010), video game is a game based on computer software, supposed to be played on an electronic device allowing the presentation of graphical imagery and the interaction of the player with the software ( Wolf, 2008 ); moreover, the ga me requires the player to perform specified tasks to achieve objectives and to remain within the rules for the game established by the constraints embedded in the software. In the United States of America, even 59 per cent of inhabitants (with the average age of thirty one) play video games (ESA, 2014). In Europe also the importance of video games is considered as respectful; according to European Commission ( Europos Komisija, 2008 ), the video game industry becomes one of the fastest growing areas, as well as video games become one of the most popular leisure activities among citizens. Considering latter insights, the scientific problem analysed in the article is formulated as follows: what are the possibilities of application of sport video games in trainin gs and business? Accordingly, the object of the article is the application of video games in training and business. The article aims to provide possibilities for application of video games in trainings and business. Analysis and synthesis of scientific lit erature were provided achieving to reveal the video games a platform for trainings; disclose the essence of this phenomenon. Considering the lack of Lithuanian authors‘ insights in this relatively new field, the foreign authors‘ opinions and [...].

Achieving to attract contemporary consumers, organizations apply various regular and innovative marketing tools and methods. Product placement can be named as an innovative marketing tool. According to S. K. Balasubramanian (1994) product placement is a paid product message aimed at influencing movie (or television) audiences via the planned and unobtrusive entry of a branded product into a movie (or television program); and one of the most recent marketing channels for this tool is video games. One of the most salient advantages of videogames as a marketing channel is their interactivity (Lee, Faber, 2007; Jin, Park, 2009). Various methods of the usage of product placement in video games are provided and analyzed in scientific literature (Frith, Mueller, 2010; Lehu, 2007; Glass, 2007). However, there are several researchers stating that the usage of product placement in video games is not always beneficial for a company (Kuster et al., 2010; Barejee, 2009; Williams et al., 2011). Organizations achieving to avoid potential risks of the usage of product placement should assess the effectiveness of this tool. The effectiveness of product placement was analyzed by such scientists as M. Yang et al. (2006), P. Walsh et al. (2008). The lack of scientific research on the effectiveness of product placement in terms of three core consumer-related aspects (cognitive, affective, and conative), in particular time frame, determined the framework of this research. Therefore, the problem of the research comes out of the question: what is the level of effectiveness of product placement in basketball video games after a period of time? The object of the research is the effectiveness of product placement in video games; the aim of the research is to determine the level of the effectiveness of product placement in the video game “NBA 2K13”. [...]

Relevance of the research. Traditional television or radio advertising becomes nowadays less powerful marketing tool. Traditional advertisements can be avoided by switching channel or turning off the television set; such viewer action is called “zipping” or “zapping” (Russell, 2002). Various marketing tools used by business organizations with purpose to encourage customers to purchase a product can be observed by contemporary society. While regular marketing instruments are losing their power, alternative new way of introducing new products to consumers is emerging. Product Placement is a paid product message aimed at influencing movie (or television) audiences via the planned and unobtrusive entry of a branded product into a movie (or television program) (Balasubramanian, 1994). Some scholars (e.g., Keith, 2008) analyse product placement as a form of hidden advertising. One of the ultimate ways of usage of this marketing tool is product placement inclusion into video games. Forecasts exist, that the global market for video games is expected to grow to $82 billion in 2017 (Gaudiosi, 2012). Young men spend 12.5 hours a week playing video games, and it is 2.7 hours more than watching television (Glass, 2007). Considering the growing popularity of video games and the lack of scholarly research in the field of product placement in video games, the scientific problem solved in the article is how to make product placement in video games. The object of the article is product placement in video games. The research aim is to reveal the peculiarities of product placement in video games. Research method. Qualitative content analysis of scientific literature was provided to reveal the principal aspects of product placement in video games.[...]