Microsoft subsidiary, Massive Inc., will announce today the signing of a multi year deal with Electronics Arts Inc. to sell rotating ad space in EA's online games. According to the Globe and Mail, "Massive's technology allows marketers to stream current and constantly updated ads directly into video games played online, either on the Xbox 360 console or a PC." The game company builds blank spaces within it's product for Massive to populate with rotating streaming ads via the Internet. The market for in-game console advertising was estimated to be worth about $12-million (U.S.) in North America in 2007, but that number is expected to balloon to nearly $650-million by 2010. “You're going to see a huge growth rate in console advertising because it's growing from nothing,” said market analyst Billy Pidgeon. “It's more nascent, but it will be important.” What surprises me is that this market is not larger than $12-million already! With the popularity of gaming on the rise and the prevalence of connected consoles, I would have thought that more money was changing hands here already...
