An advergame is necessarily developed around the brand which relates to the company’s underlying business strategy. The game should be in concert with the image, which means the player, i.e. the consumer, should feel that he/she wants to be associated with the company. Keeping this in mind, a clear definition of needs and targets and targets will enlighten the game developer’s way.

Definition for targets means to search answers for questions such as; For whom is this game developed? What should the core message be? It is important to remember that advergames are not traditional advertisements. Advergames are actually a revolutinary tool of propaganda in which consumers engage “voluntarily.” Games are played repeatedly which let consumers to repeatedly read the marketers message. Contrary to TV Advertisements or other advertisement media, advergames are supposed to not to disturb the consumer.

Every campaign bears its own limitations. In case of advergames, limitations are mostly dependent on technologies used and media tools that are used to distribute the game. While web-game is supposed to be under 1MB and should be developed for Shockwave or Flash Player, a full-package game prepared as a desktop application may be distributed in CDs, DVDs etc.

There are also limitations which relate to the content of the game. For example, pharmaceutical companies are to deal with many legal issues in their marketing activities. Game content much more critical than textual or visual presentations; because, general message that the game includes, is wrapped around a series of interactive events. For example, the death of a sprite in a simple video game just means to restart. But considering an advergame around a drug, “Game Over” message may be much more repulsive.

After setting the objectives, defining the audience and limitations, the game should be outlined on an idea inspired by the company brand. This is the concept development phase in which graphical artists’, marketing specialists, game writers’ and of course developers are involved.

Preproduction games are presented on storyboard drafts, which cover the game functions and story in detail. If required some game actions are shown interactively. The presentation may be prepared as a large scenario file, or a one-shot draft depending on the games genre and extent. Most of the times, more than one alternatives are presented.

While making a game, design and developement process’ are inside each other. After identifying the games’ components like sprites, bonus’, heros, interfaces etc and recognizing how each will interact programming and design process continue together. Depending on the genre of game, a programming library, (for example an isometric physics engine) might be useful. Illustrations and interface designs are optimized according to the target platforms.

After completing a beta version of the game, it is “played” many times to detect and clean bugs. Since games include interacting elements, and players’ behaviour may vary, there may always be some bugs. Only way to find them out is to “play.”

Advergames are marketing tools. Marketing campaigns are mostly time-dependent. Sometimes advergames are launched as a part of an online campaign, and sometimes the advergame is at center of a million-dollar project. Anyway, it is best to promote the advergame as well. If your game is web-based and reachable on a web-site, visitors certainly should be invited through banner-campaigns or other popular ways of online advertisement.