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Activision Suspicious about In-Game Advertising

Google remains optimistic

By Vlad Constandes, SEO News Editor

30th of January 2008, 18:16 GMT

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A screenshot from Battlefield 2142 with an in-game ad

Gaming always provided a good alternative for relaxing and getting away from what surrounded the player in real life. No worries except that you won't kick the boss's arse or that your base will be

overrun if you don't defend it well enough. Now that starts to look like a hazier dream that you once had. With the breakthroughs made in graphics and the reality factor kicking in big time in order to provide people with an almost life-like experience, all the others have begun shouldering in games.

Take advertising, for example; long ago, the only paintings to be found in games were either copies of real ones or pictures of naked women (Duke Nukem) or of the creators of the game, who featured such Easter eggs. Now it has become a full scale industry, with projected revenue for 2008 of about 670 million US dollars, a mind blowing sum.

Activivion's Bobby Kotick doesn't believe that advertising in games would be so beneficent and seemed skeptical of any immediate benefits, as the Financial Times reported. "It's early days. I wouldn't go in that direction myself." In-Game advertising looks good from afar at the moment, it will probably be more appealing once it's been pioneered and well documented by other smaller companies and producers.

I mean, sure, you wouldn't mind awfully to see that in your PDA as a manager in any sports simulation, there are some ads pushed in, but if they get annoying like being anywhere some blank wall is featured, you'd feel like shredding that wall to pieces if you had the opportunity or blowing it up for that matter.

Meanwhile, Google seems to think that advertising, in any possible form, is beneficent for everybody. I would think so myself if I had an ad-supported empire at my feet.

TAGS:

activision | google | advertising | games

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