Technologyquarterly June 11Th 2005

Software that The unexpected How to make tests new drugs success of the laser (almost) anything page 23 page 25 page 37 TechnologyQuarterly June 11th 2005 The sincerest form of flattery When technology borrows from biology Republication, copying or redistribution by any means is expressly prohibited without the prior written permission of The Economist The Economist Technology Quarterly June 11th 2005 Monitor 1 Contents And now, a game from our sponsor Gaming: As young people spend less time watching television and more time online and playing games, advertisers have devised a new way to reach them ROSS the popularity of a new me- And the popularity of many advergames C dium with the demands of advertis- suggests that gamers are evidently quite ers, and the result can be a whole new happy to put up with advertising in re- genre of entertainment. In the 1930s, the turn for free entertainmentjust as soap- On the cover sponsorship of radio serials by makers of opera fans were in the radio age. In elds from robot design to household-cleaning products led to the In-game advertising is not new, but materials science, engineers soap opera. Listeners were enthralled by until recently it was limited to static pro- are increasingly borrowing episodic, melodramatic storylines, and duct-placement, inserted rather awk- mechanisms from naturean advertisers were guaranteed a big audi- wardly into console games, says Denise approach known as ence. Today, the same thing is happening Garcia of Gartner, a consultancy. She biomimetics. Nature’s with another new medium. Video games estimates that less than 10% of console designs are, after all, the have been crossed with advertising to games carry such embedded ads, and results of millions of years of produce a new genre: the advergame. they account for a mere 0.25% of reve- trial and error. How a new Advergames appeal to both advertis- nues at Electronic Arts, the world’s big- database could make them ers and gamers alike. Advertisers face the gest games publisher. In the long term, easier to copy: pages 18-21 problem that many young people are ads will be piped directly into games over watching less television in favour of the internet, allowing games publishers Monitor gaming and internet surng. A report to update in-game advertisements as of- 1 Advergames, a new way to cut published last year by Nielsen, a market- ten as they want and to collect informa- diamonds, searching video, research rm, found that time spent tion about how in-game advertising is technology and the elderly, watching television was declining viewed. This may even lead to new, ad- pulling the plug on hurricances, among American men aged 18-34, and vertising-supported pricing models. more graceful walking robots, was decreasing even faster among gam- Today, however, few games consoles plastic bridges, the body as ers of the same age. Given that internet are connected to the internet. So while network, bre-optic sensors, users are nding ways to avoid pop-ups, there is vast potential for in-game ad- and fashionable ash drives ashing banners and spam, putting advertising on consoles, the near-term vertisements into games is an obvious opportunity lies in advergames, which Rational consumer way to reach them. Perhaps surprisingly, are specically designed around advertis- 9 Why radio is worth watching gamers seem to feel positive towards in- ingthe product is often the protagonist The new world of digital radio game advertising. Football, driving and and are either downloaded on to PCs or other sports games look more realistic played inside web browsers. American Reports with real advertisement hoardings rather rms spent around $90m last year on ad- 10 Technology, meet biology than generic ads for made-up products. vergames, compared with $20m on in- 1 Biomimetic designs that borrow from nature 13 Computers that test drugs How biosimulation is helping the pharmaceutical industry Case history 15 A bright idea The dramatic yet unexpected success of the laser Reports 18 When modern art shows its age New materials and technologies are changing art conservation 20 Flexible screens The science-ction technology is becoming realitybut slowly Brain scan 22 How to make (almost) anything Neil Gershenfeld dreams of building a universal replicator Where America’s Army leads, Food Force follows 2 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly June 11th 2005 2 game adverts and product placements, ventures. The game avoids mentioning says the Yankee Group, a consultancy. tampons altogethergirls have to keep a A successful early example of the brutish brother from reading their dia- genre was America’s Army, an adver- ries. But after the game, they are ushered game rst released as a recruitment tool to a page that does discuss tampons. The in 2002 which is based on Unreal, a advergame, put on line in mid-February, shoot-’em-up. This strikingly realistic war was played 500,000 times in its rst six game, which covers basic training, tacti- weeks. Given that it cost $25,000 to de- cal planning and a variety of missions, velop, that works out at a cost-per-play of now has over 5m registered players. just $0.05. Andy Stawski, a brand man- About 100,000 people download the ager at Kimberly-Clark, says the game is game free every month. But advergames having a signicant eect on sales. can promote peace as well as war, as a Advergames have been used in some more recent example, Food Force, dem- unlikely ways. America’s National Rough and ready onstrates. This advergame, launched in Christmas Tree Association launched an April by the United Nations World Food advergame last year to promote real trees Holden, who specialises in applying Programme, is intended to raise aware- over plastic ones. In Britain, the Food technology to improve decision-making ness of global hunger. Players are cast as Standards Agency launched a game in business. Together with his colleague emergency aid workers who must pilot called Sid the Slug to encourage people Matee Serearuno, he has developed an helicopters, negotiate with rebels and to eat less salt. (This rankled the Salt Man- optimisation system called iGem. Be- help to rebuild communities. ufacturers’ Association, which has been sides automatically working out the Kris Oser, a video-game specialist at lobbyingso far in vainto kill the game.) grade of a rough diamond, it also sug- Advertising Age, an industry magazine, And excitement over the potential of ad- gests how best to cut it in order to maxi- says old-style television, print and radio vergames has led some would-be pio- mise the value of the resulting stones. advertising just throws brands at peo- neers astray. Ian Bogost of Persuasive The system uses a set of rules, distilled ple. Compare that with Dodge’s adver- Games, based in Atlanta, dreams of from the judgments of four diamond ex- game, Race the Pros, in which the building games that go outside the perts, to determine the clarity, and hence company’s cars can be driven to victory sphere of entertainment into rhetorical the grade, of each stone. Each expert was in a hyper-realistic simulation. Every Fri- tools. One of his eorts is Activism, the asked to classify 503 dierent virtual day, real NASCAR race times are Public Policy Game, which was paid for stonescomputer models of stones con- uploaded into the computer-controlled by the Democratic Congressional Cam- taining dierent types of aws. The ex- cars, and the track is dotted with the vir- paign Committee. Alas, the slow-paced perts’ verdicts were then boiled down tual billboards of dealerships close to the action of tax reform is neither motivating, into a set of rules, so that when a new player (who must enter a zip code to take fun, nor terribly educational. 7 gemstone is presented to the system, it part). Such driving advergames also can determine how the experts would neatly sidestep rules that prohibit boast- probably have graded it. Data from more ing about a car’s top speed in TV adverts. experts could have been used, but four Richard Schlasberg, a Coca-Cola mar- proved to be enough to produce a robust keting manager based in Hellerup, Den- Diamonds that and accurate system, says Dr Holden. mark, says the beverage-maker, long a In actual use, the system is fed models fervent believer in television advertising, of gemstones, which are produced by is now siphoning funds from its TV bud- are a cut above scanning the stones using a desktop X-ray get to maintain a regularly updated suite tomography machine. When a stone is of games. A 30-second prime-time slot on Materials science: The combination identied as a borderline case between American television can cost half a mil- of an expert system and a novel two grades, the system uses an optimisa- lion dollars, whereas an advergame laser-cutting technique could boost tion technique, called a genetic algo- rarely costs more than $50,000 to de- the value of rough diamonds rithm, to explore the dierent ways in velop and can be posted on the internet which the stone could be cut to maximise for months or years. Mr Schlasberg notes HILE a diamond may be for ever, its its value. Sometimes bigger is not neces- that, with television, potential drinkers Wvalue is far from set in stone. It de- sarily better: removing imperfections, just stare, briey, at Coca-Cola. With ad- pends on the four Cs: carat, cut, colour known as inclusions, may reduce the size vergames, consumers are actually play- and clarity. But while the rst three can and caratage of a stone, but could also el- ing you, he says, and they then associate be measured objectively, assessing a dia- evate it to a more valuable grade.

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