Sony has struck a deal with IGA Worldwide to place ads in PS3 games. Gamers may see, for example, a character drinking from a branded bottle, or ads around the sides of virtual sports stadia. The ads will change over time, refreshed via the user's internet connection.
Pioneering games firm Electronic Arts is to be the first to feature ads in its games.
Google has patented technology that would allow it to analyse the behaviour of game players and use the analysis to show them targeted ads, reports The Guardian. This targeting could be sophisticated - creating a psychological profile based on the gamer's style of play and interaction with other gamers - or fairly simple - as the patent suggests, 'In a car racing game, after a user crashes his Honda Civic, an announcer could be used to advertise by saying 'if he had a Hummer, he would have gotten the better of that altercation', etc'.
Privacy campaigners worry that this might give Google and its advertisers an unacceptable amount of sensitive private information. Google says it does not currently plan to roll out the technology.
Google's expansion into new markets continues apace as it finalises a deal to buy in-game advertising company Adscape for a rumoured US$23 million.
In-game advertising is one area where Google has lagged behind Microsoft, which bought the in-game ad provider Massive in May 2006. Google will presumably want to integrate the in-game ads with AdWords, as it is trying to do with newspapers, magazines and radio.
