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In-game advertising group Massive announced it has signed with Blizzard Entertainment today, feeding the Starcraft and Diablo publisher ads through its Battle.net service. But don't expect to see any actual ads in those games.
Executives from Activision are dishing dirt on the company's upcoming releases at an in-game advertising summit hosted by Massive. That means more Call of Duty, more James Bond and confirmation on Tony Hawk's reinvented controls.
THQ has awarded Massive Inc. an exclusive contract to provide dynamic in-game advertisements for future THQ games.
Massive Entertainment — orphaned by Activision when it became Activision Blizzard and dumped all those Sierra-published games — has found a new publishing daddy in Ubisoft. The French pub has purchased the Swedish dev team and the World In Conflict property, the real-time strategy series Massive was responsible for.
Gamers have a "consistently positive" opinion of in-game advertising? That's what ad agency Massive, which is owned by Microsoft, found in a survey whose results it announced this morning.
Media research firm Interpret looked into four of Massive's advertisers: an unnamed fast-food restaurant, candy company and entertainment studio, plus Adidas footwear and apparel, and found the ads are having an effect, showing significant percentage increases in brand recognition when compared to those who didn't see the in-game ads.
With the Adidas promotion, for example, gamers who saw the ads in 2K Sports' Major League Baseball 2K7 said things like "Adidas is the only brand for me" and "Adidas is an inspirational brand" 70 percent more often than those not exposed to the ads.
And Massive's study seems to show gamers don't mind being influenced: 70 percent of gamers said the ads enhanced realism, fit the games they appeared in (universally sports games, except for the ads in Rainbow Six: Vegas) and that the ads "looked cool."
Don't know what Soviet Assault is? Do keep up. It's the next World in Conflict release: for PC owners, it's a big expansion, for console owners, it's a standalone title. Here's the first footage to go along with the first details, along with the first [sigh] developer diary.
World in Conflict is coming to the 360 and PS3. We already knew that. What we didn't know about this console-specific game is that it'll be called World in Conflict: Soviet Assault, and will take the PC game, give it console-specific controls and give you the chance to also command the invading Soviet forces. Yes, yes, In Soviet Russia, invaders command you, etc, etc. PC owners, for you, nothing else has changed: you'll get all the new content as an expansion pack, same time as the console versions arrive (which is "Fall").
World in Conflict: Soviet Assault - first details [OXM Czech, via Tiscali, thanks Jan!]
In a somewhat off-putting press release in-game advertising company Massive and Electronic Arts bragged today about their ability to shove more advertisements down gamers' throats with the extension and expansion of the collaboration of the two companies.
The deal will extend the contract between the two for two years, but more importantly expand the number of games that Electronic Arts will allow Massive to place ads in.
With the latest agreement, EA will further expand the opportunities available to advertisers by extending the participation of current titles in the Massive network as well as incorporating additional, highly anticipated games over the course of the deal. The wide range of EA content that will be available in the Massive network includes the next two iterations of popular EA SPORTS(TM) franchises including Madden NFL* football, NBA LIVE basketball, NASCAR* (R) racing and NHL(R) hockey.
While the press release spends lots of time explaining how wonderful this is for advertisers and how profitable it will be for Electronic Arts, it fails to mention the impact it has on gamers. I don't mind some in-game advertising, but reading a release like this makes me feel like these games are little more than glorified vehicles for advertising... and we're still paying top dollar to get them. How crazy is that?
Good news, console RTSers! Sierra/Massive Entertainment's acclaimed post-Cold War real-time strategy title World in Conflict is spreading from the PC to the Xbox 360 and PS3. Expected to launch fall 2008, these console versions won't just be a port of the original World in Conflict, instead including extra "new content" planned for both the singleplayer campaign and online multiplayer.
For existing PC players, this new content will come in the form of an add-on. Potential pricing has not been discussed. As for me, I just feel lucky that I'm no longer forced to own a PC to play a lot of games formerly reserved for the platform, even if the authenticity of experience isn't always duplicated.
Wow, those folks over at Massive Entertainment have issues, Christmas issues! But who doesn't. I mean who hasn't wanted to take out the neighbourhood with a flood or tanks and barrage of mortar fire?
