Games

In-game advertising predicted to reach $US850 million by 2011
The worldwide market for advertising integrated in video games connected to the Internet will rocket from $US80 million in 2007 to $US852 million in 2011, according to ABI Research.As gamers connect consoles to the Internet for online gaming and commerce, publishers and their console partners increasingly will look to reach them through advertising, ABI notes. "In many ways, console vendors and game publishers view gaming services as an ever-more attractive 'channel' to reach an active demographic," says ABI Research Director Michael Wolf. "In the past, static advertising meant that publishers and their ad partners could not create real-time marketing messages. With the incorporation of ad clients directly into game engines — and through connections to ad servers — advertisers will be able to deliver advertising that reaches audiences in-game and through the walled garden game network."ABI Research sees in-game advertising as just one of the new revenue streams that will benefit from the conversion of console gaming into connected gaming. Online downloading of entertainment content such as movies and TV shows will grow as Sony and Microsoft nurture their respective video offerings, it says. All three major console vendors will experience strong growth in casual game download revenues. ABI Research forecasts the casual and classic game download market for gaming consoles to grow tenfold from $93 million in 2007 to $1.1 billion by 2011. "At present, all three game console vendors are investing heavily in online gaming and commerce infrastructure," says Wolf. "While these investments are not profitable today, we expect mounting acceptance of the online channel as one of the primary mediums to get new content on the console, causing online gaming to become a significant contributor to revenues for all three vendors within three to four years."