In-Game Adverts Could Reach $2 Billion?

Via 1up, a story on the Adweek site positing that in-game ads could reach $2 Billion by the end of the decade. The story discusses Massive, the streaming ad firm, and their success in reaching eyeballs. From the article: "Those customers include the majority of the major film and entertainment studios, according to Davis, as well as brands such as Coca-Cola, Subway, Honda, and Gillette. Davis said that Massive was benefiting from an 'overwhelming trend away from mass marketing' that is making the medium's men 18-34-dominated audience more attractive to more brands, even sometimes slow-moving packaged-goods advertisers."

gaming costs?

[gEvil (beta)]

Great! Now that the game developers/publishers are raking in a good amount of money, can they use that to offset my online gaming fee? Didn't think so...

No.

[keyne9]

Advertisers: Stay out of my fucking game.

Re:who really started this disturbing trend?

[Anonymous Coward]

This makes complete sense to me and actually adds to realism in racing/sports games.

Most sporting arenas/racetracks/etc. and the contestants there in are laden with advertisements for an exremely broad range of products and services in real life. Leaving ads out of their virtual counterparts would detract from the experience, IMO.

On the other hand, obnoxiously out of place ads making into just about any other genre of game (FPS, RPG, RTS, whatever) would be completely jarring and detract significantly from the immersion for me.

I could maybe stand a bit of product placement in "real", modern settings (branded vending machines/foodstuffs as set dressings in the break room of an office building level, real storefronts and/or bus stop billboards in an urban street level, etc.) as long as they were diverse enough that everything wasn't branded with the same 2 or 3 trademarks.

Dropping any kind of real ads into a Fantasy, Historical, or Sci-Fi setting would be highly annoying and would prompt me to refrain from buying the game, however.

Re:Why... There Ougta Be A Law...

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of force would the government be protecting you from in this case? Which part of the constitution puts game ads in their purview?

We could do with less of the government in our lives. Congress reacting to a Pepsi sign in our favorite shooter seems a pretty low bar to set.

Re:Depends on the situation.

[shoptroll]

I can agree to this on some level. I remember Jet Moto 2 having Mountain Dew billboards on the sides of the track, or racing games with billboards on the track walls. I remember Parasite Eve 2 had a couple of coca-cola references, notably a few soda can machines and like one item bearing the coke label (I believe it was a keychain with a coke bottle cap attatched to it).

In my mind, stuff like that is fine. It's not obtrusive or in my face. Heck, You Don't Know Jack's online game had commercial breaks for stuff on the internet, but that worked wonderfully for the game since it was a "game show" and the ads offset the hosting costs. That was a wonderful use.

What I will not agree with is stuff like the recent Counter-strike Subway mod snafu. If that's where this is heading in the long run, I will greatly enjoy avoiding any game involving advertising, and if this forces me to stop playing commercial games, then I'm quite sure I will find enough indies games to play. Otherwise, I have a nice collection of games dating back to the NES to choose from.