Electronic Arts Will Advertise to You While You Play

Good old Electronic Arts announces to the world today that they have signed a deal to bring 'dynamic' in-game advertising to a selection of their most popular titles. The agreement is with Massive Incorporated, a subsidiary of Microsoft set up with one goal - to further the penetration of adverts into the medium of the video game.

Under the terms of the deal, which will affect only EA's PC and Xbox 360 titles - the first will be Need for Speed Carbon - a portfolio of games will be incoporated into Massive's Video Games Network. Massive will then work with developers of the games and decide between them what they are going to advertise, and where. The idea is that adverts will be placed in areas where people most susceptible to them will find them. This is different to the static roadside adverts you may have seen in recent Need for Speed titles, and is described as 'dynamic' advertising.

How it will manifest itself in-game is anybody's guess. Perhaps if you've been playing a game for four hours, you'll suddenly stumble across messages promoting comfy chairs and tasty burgers. Both parties seem pretty pumped about the deal, with EA's online commerce VP commenting that the feature would be "...not only nice to have, but... an essential component to create the fiction of being there. This agreement with Massive allows us to vary what relevant ads are served to the game player".

Massive head honcho Mitchell Davis had this to add:


See? They care about you, kids. They really care.