Sony’s starting a new advertising platform designed to make in-game ads easy and open on the PS3. The move will likely catalyze the in-game ad market, which is becoming increasingly complicated for ad-serving companies.

The new platform will offer an open solution for the three major in-game ad serving companies to get ads in front of PS3 gamers, says AdAge. The companies — Double Fusion, IGA, and Google’s AdScape — will attempt to sign deals with any major PS3 game publishers. Those with the most favorable catalog of games offered on the PS3 are likely to get the most out of the developing situation. 

Though the open ad platform is favorable for all-things-PS3, it also further complicates the in-game ad market.

Microsoft sells all of its in-game ad-space on the Xbox 360 through a company it owns called Massive. As a result, all other in-game ad brokers can’t sell ad-space on Microsoft’s console. This is very unlike Sony’s open approach, which allows for any ad-serving company to potentially get its ads into any PS3 game — as long as the company bring the right amount of cash and a signed contract to the table.

There’s also "baked-in" ads, but unlike Sony’s and Microsoft’s solutions, these ads are permanent, meaning that a baked-in ad never changes. For example, in a cut-scene during a video game, the main character might drink a can of soda clearly labeled "Coca-Cola". This will never change and it will always be a Coke can; however, dynamic ads change. A dynamic ad might take the shape of a billboard in a Grand Theft Auto game, and every time you drive by the billboard, a different ad appears. As you can see, there are many options for in-game advertising.

The problem with many options is that there may be too many options. This could make in-game advertising difficult to sell and buy as an advertiser may need to deal with up to three different groups (Massive, Sony’s open platform, and baked-in ads). When you factor in all the other parties and issues an advertiser has to deal with when attempting to get ads into a game, maybe in-game advertising won’t look so great anymore. 

But through all this speculation, we must always remember the golden rule: competition is always good for somebody — long live capitalism!

Related:

Entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 4:44 am under Advertising, Internet, Microsoft, Technology.

Read more entries by Danny Mendez.
Stumble It!