According to a new advertising research report put out by marketing firm emarketer, in-game ads will rise more than one hundred percent in just the next 4 years. To give you an idea, right now the videogame industry makes $295 million a year by selling in-game ads. This report suggests that it will soon rise to around $650 million.
emarketer attributes its findings to the growth of the videogame industry itself, which it predicts will reach $21 billion by the same year (2012). Senior Analyst at emarketer Paul Verna said, " "At a time when other sectors of the digital entertainment industry are struggling with lagging sales and rampant piracy, the U.S. video game business is booming."
This was really inevitable; as our industry grows, the rest of the planet was bound to take notice sometime. Frankly, I don’t see what the big deal is about in-game ads. Yeah, I understand that there are places it should and should not be, but it has its uses in certain games. In a game like Forza, or Fight Night, where the products are already going to be in front of you anyways, I don’t see anything wrong with game makers trying to add a little cash to their pockets to help offset costs.
As advertising grows, and there’s more and more money to be made, the potential good it can do for gaming rises dramatically. Sooner or later this could turn into multiple millions of dollars per game. Which means the potential risks of the development investment goes way down. Which in turn means that publishers are more likely to take a chance on a dark horse project, and to give other games more time in the oven.
This could result in more original big budget games, and fewer half baked crappy ones. And who can argue with that? Whether or not the money thats made will actually go to that purpose instead of lining the pockets of some executive though, is another matter entirely.
