EA Signs Massive In-Game Ad Deals

Electronic Arts has thrown in with Massive, Inc. to offer in-game advertisements on Xbox 360 and PC games worldwide.

Video game behemoth Electronic Arts announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Massive, Inc., to provide dynamic in-game advertisements for EA’s Xbox 360 and PC titles to clients around the world. Under the deal, downloaded in-game ad elements will be updated and changed in real time, keeping ads fresh, unexpected, and relevant for gamers. The first game to be “ad-ed up” will be Need for Speed Carbon, the next installment of the company’s Need for Speed franchise.

“The agreement with Massive is a first step in a detailed strategy for serving advertising in a seamless format that doesn’t disrupt game play,” said Chip Lange, EA’s VP of online commerce. “In places like a basketball court, football stadium or roadside in a racing game, advertising is not only nice to have[sic], but it’s an essential component to create the fiction of being there. This agreement with Massive allows us to vary what relevant ads are served to the game player.”

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed; Massive is a fully-owned subsidiary of Microsoft.

[Update: 31-Aug-2006: 1:30 PM]

EA has slipped another in-game ad deal out the door, this time with IGA Worldwide. Again, no financial terms have been disclosed, but the first title to benefit from the IGA ad partnership will be Dice’s Battlefield 2142. Like the Massive deal, in-game ads will be updated via the Internet and change throughout the game…although it’ll be amusing to see how a title set more than a century into the future integrates ads for, say, a “new” joystick hitting the market this year. There are only so many burned-out, fallen down billboards and tattered bedroom posters you can stumble across, you know?