• CNET News.com, Monday, September 10, 2007 11:01 AM

The experts of the online gaming world convened last week at the Austin Game Developers Conference to talk about the state of the burgeoning industry. Most believe that online gaming will continue to grow, but not without setbacks. Marketing in games and branded advergames are two areas of particular promise, but not all marketers will be successful. Experimentation is risky but potentially rewarding, too.

Which isn't to say that the market isn't already full of such experiments. As Chris Sherman, executive director of Virtual Worlds Management, points out, many big-name consumer goods and toy brands have successfully reached out to their core demographic (kids) through gaming. For content providers, games have become a way for people to interact more closely with their brands. Warner Bros. Online Arcade--in which fans play online games starring Scooby Doo, Bugs Bunny and Harry Potter--is a good example, as are the various virtual worlds tied to MTV's many brands.

Of course, not all efforts bear fruit. The virtual world Second Life, which has had some serious cachet among advertisers, has come under fire recently for failing to deliver for its many marketers. Developing branded content in the online world became a fad long before it proved to be worth the expense.

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