These powerful viral factors merit a closer look:

1. Competitive or collaborative activities. This is an area in which video games excel. A game that offers compelling multiplayer activity, of either a competitive or a cooperative nature, will generally be more viral than the ordinary advertisement. After all, when a video game seems fun, people will naturally invite their friends to play it with them. Collaborative games are particularly compelling in this regard, since they appeal to both very competitive people (who will want help beating the game) and not-so-competitive people (who simply enjoy playing with others). A clever advergame might also use attractive prizes and group multiplayer competition to encourage friends to join forces and, as a result, maximize their prize-winning potential. Intel’s Silicon Commander employed this tactic to great effect.

2. The desire to achieve. Many games use high scores and other goal-oriented achievement systems for example, “complete this level in ten minutes or less and win a virtual gold medal”—to encourage repeat play. These features, when properly employed, can be used to encourage players to spread the word about an advergame. For example, when players achieve a high score, they might be given an opportunity to challenge friends to beat their score. Nike Shox enabled players to e-mail their high score and a snapshot of their best slam-dunk to friends—along with a link to the game itself, of course. The inclusion of the snapshot was a nice twist, and hints at the broader tactics that advertisers can use to make game-based achievement and self-promotion an even more compelling experience for players.

The desire to share good things: Video games—particularly those of the casual variety—occasionally enable players to give each other “virtual gifts.” These gifts vary widely, from clothing for an avatar, to special food for a virtual pet, to allotments of raw virtual currency. Gift giving, though often motivated primarily by friendly impulse, can also be a self-serving act if it somehow benefits the giver in-game—for example, by rewarding the giver every time one of the giver’s friends accepts a gift. This, of course, is no different from real-world promotional schemes in which consumers are rewarded with discounts or free prizes when they convince friends to try a product or service. Advergames that incorporate a virtual economy of goods and/or currency can benefit greatly from an effective gift-giving model.

In addition, the motivation to share user-created content with friends can be an especially powerful way to make a game more viral. When players have created content that they are proud of, it is only natural that they will want to share it with friends. Some advertisers even use contests to amplify the viral effects of user-generated content in advergames. For example, Chevy Cobalt Labs includes a feature called “Tricked or Trashed,” which encourages visitors to vote between two user-created vehicles, “trashing” the worst of the two. As you can imagine, this provides great incentive for more involved players to refer their friends to the game and, in doing so, secure more votes for the car they have created. “Tricked or Trashed” logged more than 400,000 votes within a three-month period, many of which were motivated by the viral nature of the game.

Changing The Game

Changing the Game reveals how leading-edge organizations are using video games to reach new customers more cost-effectively; to build brands; to recruit, develop, and retain great employees; to drive more effective experimentation and innovation; and to supercharge productivity. It is written for a general audience, and includes a wide variety of case studies, practical tips, and warnings of pitfalls to avoid when creating or using video games for business purposes.

Reviewed positively in The Economist, Inc. Magazine and The Financial Times, it’s written by David Edery (pictured), Worldwide Games Portfolio Manager for Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade and Ethan Mollick,  studies innovation and entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management. You can order it here.