PS3 to Get Dynamic In-Game Ads

Sony Dynamic in-game ad

Madison Avenue's inroads into the virtual world have just been extended. Sony says it will now start running ads in PlayStation 3 games.

Sony has reached an agreement with marketing firm IGA Worldwide to provide dynamic in-game ads for the PlayStation 3. Shortly after the announcement, IGA Worldwide announced a deal making IGA Worldwide the exclusive ad provider for PS3 games developed and published by industry giant EA.

Games most likely to be effected by this deal are EA Sports games as well as racing games like Need for Speed and Burnout. The move by Sony is most likely to counteract Microsoft's buy out of advertising firm Massive and then creating a similar exclusive deal providing advertising for Xbox 360 games.

Don't Like In-Game Advertising? You're Out of Luck

In-game advertising is a growing trend, with dynamic ads the new money maker for game publishers. Dynamic ads are places in the game that do not have a designated ad on the game disc, but can be provided with an ad such as an upcoming movie release or other time sensitive ads. This results in much more revenue for game makers, since companies need to keep paying for the advertisements like TV commercials rather than a one-shot ad that will always be on the game disc.

Sony seems to be hitting the console advertising market pretty hard recently, with the release today of the first episode of Qore. Sony seems to be trying to squeeze every penny it can out of the PS3.

But really, can you blame Sony? The company still loses money on every system sold, and with big exclusive games like Lair and Haze falling flat money needs to be coming in from somewhere.

I wish Sony could get more income from less annoying means, like having more games. Although I should be careful what I wish for because Sony might take the next step and provide a game that is itself an advertisement, I'm looking at you Yaris game for the Xbox 360.

Comments

PSN is FREE. If In-Game advertising is one of the contributors to keeping PSN free for users, the Playstation community welcomes it with open arms.

superdynamite

June 05, 2008

2:48 PM PT