Live Ads to Be Found in Most of EA's Upcoming Games

According to Washington Post, game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. announced yesterday the sealing a deal with two ad companies that are to stream live advertising into its upcoming games. In-game advertising company Massive Inc., which was acquired by Microsoft this year, will be streaming ads into the Xbox 360 and PC versions of the latest Need for Speed game, along with up to three other yet unannounced EA titles, while the privately held IGA Worldwide Inc. will stream advertising to EA's futuristic multiplayer war game, Battlefield 2142, and will also provide advertising in two other also unannounced titles.

"Some areas naturally support the advertising," said Chip Lange, EA's vice president of online commerce. "If you drive around an urban environment and there's no advertising, the space feels naked -- and if the advertising is dated, the game feels old."

Such advertising could lead to live, in-game product placement according to Lange, where cars or other products are put into games to coincide with an advertiser's marketing campaign; however, he thinks this is a possibility still far down the road. "We've taken our time getting to here," he said. "We're beginning the learning process, as is the industry."

He would not say how much business in-game advertising represents for EA, but Nielsen Entertainment, a company dedicated to analyzing and conducting market research for the global entertainment industry, has estimated that in-game advertising was a $75 million market in the United States last year and will grow to $1 billion by 2010.

As long as advertising remains confined to driving and sports games, everything's fine. It's their crossing the line into other genres that worries me. Unsurprisingly, EA seems to have already done it.