What opportunities await brands wanting to make their first venture into videogames with Sony's 'Home'?

With the launch of PlaySation Home seemingly all but imminent Red Bull has had the pleasure of announcing that it will be the first brand to have a presence within Sony’s virtual world.

Red Bull will own a tropical island within the online space, Brand Republic is reporting, featuring a aeroplane minigame based on the brand’s own Red Bull Air Race.

While Sony has yet to officially announce any planned brand partnerships directly. However John Beasley, brand marketing manager for Red Bull UK said, "The game gave us the first opportunity to recreate in the gaming world what we try to do in the real world, which is to facilitate interaction, to give people stories, memories, experiences and a really good opportunity to interact with the brand.”

He added that Home will be "an easy environment for brands to take that first step into gaming.”

This idea of Home as a half-way house for brands wanting to get into videogames is very interesting. There is little real clarity about what Sony truly intends for Home, there is a lingering notion that the firm is just going to riff with it and see where its users take the platform – which, it must be noted, is both strength and a weakness.

Whatever it is though, it seems to quite comfortably occupy a space between a videogame and puritan virtual world. With examples of the latter such as Second Life delivering huge opportunity for big brands, indie start-ups and consumers alike. In light of this, the notion of Home as a mediator into the world and culture of videogames is not at all unreasonable.

There is undoubtedly huge scope for branded content within Home. From branded locations in the Home universe such as the Red Bull island, each with their own features and raison d’être, into the realm of branded products for each users avatar and personal space in a similar vein to the IKEA and H&M add-ons for ‘The Sims’. And of course, orbiting all this is a debate as whether brands should charge users for the privilege or treat the whole experience as other forms of digital advertising/PR.

With the launch and spread of Home (assuming it doesn’t befall a similar crisis of identity as Google’s ill-fated foray into virtual worlds) it will be interesting to see how many brands, of all shapes and sizes, decide to dip their toe and test the water. It can only be presumed that, when creatively conceived and well executed, the possibilities for brands to have meaningful and productive engagement with gamers are endless.