More In-Game Ads…This Time BY Gamers

Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes

Remember earlier this year when I wrote about Valve’s dispute over Subway ads that appeared on Counter-Strike servers without Valve being consulted? Pretty bad, but there are also many instances of games displaying ads which are “approved” by the publisher. As if that wasn’t bad enough, now MindArk PE AB of Sweden, publishers of the online science-fiction game Project Entropia, is offering a toolkit that allows players to create their own ads and buy time on “billboards” within the game to post them.

Through a PowerPoint-like system, players create animated ads and buy time on the billboards.

So far, the ads have been promoting player-organized in-game events like fashion shows and hunting competitions, as well as businesses like stores and hunting grounds, said Marco Behrmann, MindArk’s directory of player relations.

MindArk also announced a collaboration with New York-based Massive Inc., which distributes ads from companies like The Coca Cola Co. and Warner Bros. for inclusion in more than 100 games. Ads distributed by Massive will show up on billboards in Project Entropia. Source: AP via Yahoo! News

We Say: I keep wondering when I’ll end up logging into an MMORPG game the way I watch a movie in a theatre… you know, with about ten minutes of ads before I actually see the “feature?”

Alice Adds: The whole make your own ad concept just went south for the Chevy Tahoe. If you didn’t see the Chevy Tahoe Ads (hilarious) created in conjunction with the TV show The Apprentice, you can imagine what is going to happen here.

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