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Microsoft Peddles Product Inside 'Madden'

by Tim Stevens on July 26, 2007 at 10:05 AM

Microsoft Pumping Ads into Madden 08Last year, in a strong vote of confidence for in-game advertising, Microsoft purchased video game ad peddler Massive Incorporated for $200 million. Now comes the pay off, with EA announcing it'll use Massive's technology for advertising in all of its biggest sports franchises, including 'Madden,' 'NASCAR,' and 'Tiger Woods.' Massive works with advertisers and game developers to enable the former to pump advertising into games, downloading ads on the fly and replacing them as necessary to ensure that, say, an ad for the new Harry Potter book isn't still showing on in-game billboards 12 months after its release.

The last time in-game advertising was valuated was in 2005 and it was said to be just a $50 million market. However, in-game ads are expected to balloon into a $1 billion industry by 2010 and this deal with 'Madden,' one of the biggest properties in all of games, definitely puts Microsoft in a good place to capitalize on it. But, with Google buying competing game ad network, Adscape, the Redmond-based company certainly isn't alone.

Interestingly, this deal with EA Sports comes just a week after the announcement that the former Xbox chief Peter Moore is leaving Microsoft to run EA Sports, causing many to speculate the that two companies, which until fairly recently wanted to have little to do with each other, may be working more and more closely in the coming months and years. Who knows, maybe we'll finally get Bill Gates as an unlockable player in 'Madden.'

From I4U News

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Tags: Madden 08, Madden08, Microsoft

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