Advergaming
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Advergaming is the practice of using games, particularly computer games, to advertise or promote a product, organisation or viewpoint.
Advergaming normally falls into one of two categories. In the first a company provides interactive games on its website in the hope that potential customers will be drawn to the game and spend more time on the website, or simply become more product aware. The games themselves usually feature the company's products prominently.
In the second form games are published in the usual way that are intended to interest the player in the game's subject and cause them to investigate further. The subjects may be commercial, political or eductional. Examples of the second form of game include America's Army, intended to boost recruitment for the U.S. Army, and Special Force, intended to promote Arab resistance to the state of Israel. Games themed for a specific sporting organisation such as NFL or Formula One racing can also fall into this category. An example of eductional advergaming is Food Force made by the United Nations World Food Programme.
Advergames are usually distributed virally ie. users pass them on to colleagues resulting in an exponential growth in visits. An example of this phenomenum can be found in the advergame from clearasil (http://www.clearasil.com), the advergame clearahillgained (http://www.clearahill.com) over 35 million plays within 12 months and was played by over 14% of the entire population of Norway!