Sony Puts Pizza Ordering in Videogames

[MoneyMan]

[story.news.yahoo.com...]

Type the command "/pizza" while playing Everquest II, a fantasy game with 330,000 active players, and get the Pizza Hut Web site, where you can place orders for delivery

Nothing mind blowing here, and I'm not too certain as to how successful this will be (especially the grander vision Sony's says in the article).

It's just a little nugget that I found interesting. More evidence of local products/services search technologies and there further integration into non-traditional mediums.

Thoughts/comments?

[Chicago]

>>More evidence of local products/services search technologies and there further integration into non-traditional mediums.

True.

Yet, MoneyMan, i simply don't know what to think of this product positioning strategy.

A tiny part of me says cool, but a big part of me says ~give me a break.

>>caution is required as the game doesn't pause while you're ordering.

Not being a game player I am at a disadvantage, but isn't the target market here teens?

If teens are permited to make decisions like ordering a pizza for lunch or dinner without parental consent, I am just a bit out of touch.

If it isn't a teen making these decisions, I would suggest to these young adults, to pause the damn game for a minute, and order your damn pizza - no anchovies pls.

[MoneyMan]

Completely agree on this specific instance of integration. I think it's a bit forced and I personally don't see much advantage.

To me, that fact, and that this is a major company, just epitomizes how disjointed the local search market place is. Everyone’s vying for a piece right now – some much better than others.

[eWhisper]

The average EQ player is 26.3.
63% of players have a household income above 30k.
The average player spends around 22 hours a week playing.

Does that put a different spin on the demographic targeting?

[MarkHutch]

Now if Webmaster World would just install such a link, the world would be perfect! :)

[MoneyMan]

Thanks for the clarification on demo information eWhisper.

Does that put a different spin on the demographic targeting?

The demographic targeting is not where I see the shortfall in this product. I would think that Sony knows their audience base very well. I just question the interjection of such a technology on into this type of medium and whether there will be adoption.

I'm sure Sony did their research on this too. So who knows.

Then again, they are the master's of smart technology that doesn't adopt - betamax, minidisks...

Ehh just some radom late night thoughts. I think I'll go order a pizza. :)

[martinibuster]

It's product placement, it allows you to keep playing without having to break to get food. But it's hard to eat AND play, in my experience (food spills all over the place).

[killroy]

Enter the water resistantcontroller and free easy-whipe pack with each pizza...

True intergration would be to walk up to an ingame NPC to place your order... now THAT would convert ;)

SN

[Milamber]

True intergration would be to walk up to an ingame NPC to place your order... now THAT would convert ;)

lol that'd be amazing, but then you could only order pizza from certain places in the game world.

[cooldoug]

Yeah thats cool, order pizza while playing a little Everquest!

[garyr_h]

To me it's a great idea. I'm sure the coding for the programmers wasn't much at all and I bet they get a nice sum of money from pizza hut.. at least for referalls.

For those who don't know about this command or aren't old enough to make such a decision it shouldn't matter.. it doesn't play down the game at all.

Personally if Diablo II had the same thing I would use it...

[seindal]

I wonder how many people will start the game just to order a pizza :-)