'In-game ads will always make sense within the game'

Advertisers 'don't want to corrupt gamers' experience', in-game ad expert insists.

Advertising in games will only ever be contextual because advertisers don't want to suffer a negative backlash from gamers, one of the chief architects of the growing business has said.

In-game advertising is viewed by the games industry as a promising new revenue stream which could offset spiralling game development costs. It is predicted to be a $2 billion industry by the end of the decade.

Recently US president Barack Obama spent $44k on in-game advertising inside EA's Burnout Paradise and other titles during his election campaign push.

In-game advertising has drawn criticism from some gamers who are concerned over the appearance of intrusive adverts in game environments, such as fantasy settings, where advertising makes little sense.

However, Ed Bartlett, VP Publisher Relations Europe and Co-Founder of IGA Worldwide, Inc, a growing in-game ad network provider, told VideoGamer.com in an interview to be published tomorrow that gamers won't ever see in-game ads where they don't make sense because advertisers themselves don't want to be on the back end of a gamer backlash.

He said: "I think that from an advertisers point of view, if you look at what they're trying to achieve, and the connection they're trying to reach with a gamer, they understand that the magic, that kind of connection can only happen if it's something that's well received by the end user. If it's interruptive, if it's invasive, then people are going to backlash against that and it's having a negative affect on their brand.

"I think a lot of gamers, particularly hardcore gamers are quite worried about advertisers coming in and ruining their experience, but it really is true that these advertisers don't want to corrupt their experience because it's negative to them."

Bartlett, however, said that some publishers are experimenting with alternative methods of funding their games with in-game advertising, including "interruptive video" that plays at the start of a game, but said it will "always be opt-in" and never forced on the gamer where a paid product is concerned.

"There are already people trying to experiment with free to play premium games with a very invasive in your face ad-funding model," he said. "And a lot of people are happy to sign up to it, and again that's completely down to customer choice. But where we're involved, being contextual and very sensitively integrated, it will always be that way."

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