Sony catches up

Now after Double Fusion, Adscape, and Massive, meaning Microsoft, are ahead in the market of in-game advertising Sony U.S. which has their own in-game division has decided to create an advertising team that will promote and focus on brands and other products in games. According to Reuters Sony will be promoting in it soon to come "Home" Virtual world.

Sony will be following in the footsteps for a change. They are going to do what the other companies are doing which is focusing on getting more revenue from sponsors to offset higher production cost of better more advanced games. These games will have better graphics and high definition capabilities as well as better voice acting and more dialogue than some movies out today.

The head of Sony's new division is Darlene Kindler who was recently the head of publishing for Adscape, the company that was bought by Google in March. Sony is supposed to place ads in "Home" their online virtual world that is supposed to debut on PS3 early next year. Sony says that "will depict brands in various forms within the game, where users would expect to see them in real life on billboards and posters, on shopping bags and soda cans and on images of TV screens." However who believes Sony when they says something will work properly.

Microsoft signs with EA

According to Reuters in San Fransisco Microsoft will be pumping lots of ads into EA's popular sports games. This deal including the popular title Madden which is the best selling football franchise. Also NASCAR, NHL, Tiger Woods Golf, and upcoming skateboarding games are included in the agreement. This deal is a big win for Microsoft as it tries to out do its rivals like Google at putting ads in games.

Cory Van Arsdale the Chief Executive of Massive said that "we're making a network play" which means if they just advertised i Madden and nothing else the ads might not have an impact on the viewers but if they hit all of EA's sports games then the number of impressions and views goes way up and so does the number of repeat views. Massive is the company that Microsoft bought for $200 million to do in game advertising.

Massive has to compete with Google's Adscape which is the game ad service that they bought for $23 million they also have to compete with private companies like Double Fusion. Massive's job is to act as a broker between companies that want their ads to be in games. Game developers are eager to tap into a new resource of revenue so that they can spend more on development to make better games.

BMW

Why put advertising in games when you can make the game the advertisement. The idea is great and it does not annoy hardcore games because there is nothing to complain about. Europe's largest independent game developer teamed up with BMW to create a preview game. 10tacle created a free ware game for BMW to showcase the new BMW M3. The game allows players to test drive the new car before buying it and before its release to the public. According to Digital Battle The game can be downloaded free of charge and is being called the "BMW M3 Challenge."

The game was developed by 10tacle for a mid six figure budget which was supplied by BMW and other sponsor which were displayed in the game by other in game advertising besides the car itself. This type of innovation projects good things for in game advertising especially if they can come up with something like this. Creating a game from scratch to be an advertisement by itself is brilliant. However there must be results, if the game does not influence anyone to buy the car then it is a compete waste of money. If BMW continues to do this in the future then the concept would be working for them and green light other companies projects. 10tacle has said that they are working with a "world renowned firm" on a huge campaign that will be coming out at the end of this year. If they are successful then the future holds promise for in game advertising.

Double Fusion

According to Reuters Double Fusion a company that helps advertisers and game makers get together. They are coming out with a new piece of technology that will allow advertisers to do last minute ad campaigns in games like the way commercials are put on TV.

Game designers can now make and code specific locations for in-game ads during the development process. After the coding is done the content of the ads can be changed over the internet however the in-game locations cannot be changed and more cannot be added.

The program is called fusion.runtime. It is Double Fusion's new program that separates the in-game advertising from the development process. This will allow the game designers to make the game placements for the games and not worry about the ads themselves. Also the designers can put new ads in old completed games including old titles.

"With the fusion.runtime, you can get the code in the game, and figure out the ad-spaces later," Jonathan Epstein, Double Fusion's president and chief executive, told Reuters.

The new program adds almost unlimited flexibility to what was once a fixed constellation of advertising slots within a game, Epstein said.

"This allows advertisers to dynamically run campaigns," he said.

This could increase the growth of in-game advertising. I do not like the prospect of advertising in old titles though. Some games are classics and do not need anything else in them. It is better to just move forward and try and incorporate advertising into future gaming not past.

Not Microsoft

Microsoft is now getting involved with in-game advertising. Microsoft bought Massive a leader in gaming advertising in May 2006. They showed off their platform in Time Square in New York on the 25th of September. Microsoft put up the display for the annual Advertising Week conference. Microsoft showed off their dynamic in-game ads high above 43rd street. They showed clips of avatars stopping to look at in-game ads, like an avatar watching a trailer for the movie 300 and also Toyota ads on the outfield walls of a baseball field. The new technology for in-game ads is the whole dynamic thing because it can be changed by the advertiser at anytime. Now Microsoft the huge tech company is moving in for the lead in the industry according to Marguerite Reardon.

The industry as a whole is now estimated to be worth $514 million. The growth projections put it at $675 million by 2012. I personally believe that it will grow faster then this just because gaming both computer and console is evolving and becoming bigger then ever before. More and more people are playing games today. I also do not like that Microsoft is already on top of this because if I see Microsoft ads in games I will explode just like your computer when it blue screens.