Games Industry Wire

We first talked about Google’s rumored purchase of Adscape back in early January. The sale has been finalized and it appears Google is rapidly developing the new branch.
According to a patent abstract Google is looking to target their ads to the player. Here’s the abstract:
Information about a person’s interests and gaming behavior may be determined by monitoring their online gaming activities (and perhaps making inferences from such activities). Such information may be used to improve ad targeting. For example, such information may used to target …read more

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Google, an industry leader in everything advertising, has been expanding its offering in recent months including the long awaited debut of Google’s Audio Ads program. Now it appears Google will be venturing into game advertising.
In-game advertising involves advertising being directly inserted into web-connection games.  This is the next logical step for Google and for the web-based  gaming industry since this is largely a smaller based company operation right now. To get a head start in the new media Google is looking at acquiring AdScape Media which is an already established company in the industry.
This series of moves follows Microsoft’s purchase …read more

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I swear, every quarter Sony’s marketing morons are botching another idea. Where does Sony find them?
Here’s the stupid, fake blog that Sony’s marketing minions have set up.

Read more after the jump.

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Ruiter blogs on Why Companies Choose To Enter Second Life, and I think he hits the nail on the head, especially here:
- Participating makes your company look like it is on top of things and new developments.
- Trying to use the media attention around SL to get media attention for the company (you will need a good story though)
- Just plainly seeking out what the hell this SL is all about (learning by doing / experimenting). I am sure a lot of companies are actually in SL incognito!
- Finally, in terms of marketing budgets this is all peanuts: for UDS …read more

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Jay over at the Zero Boss is partnering with Lucas Arts to giveaway Thrillville, an amusement park sim for the PS2, PSP and XBox. If you have a Nintendo or PC, sorry… But he says to submit anyway and he’ll think of something to give you.
More on the game and the contest:
Thrillville is rated E for Everybody, making it suitable for kids of all ages. To win a copy for yourself or your family *, simply leave a comment describing either your favorite theme park, or a notable experience – comic or tragic – that you’ve had at …read more

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GamesPolitics.com, a blog on, you guessed it, politics as it relates to the gaming industry, was purchased by the Entertainment Consumers Association.
In fact, ECA announced two important developments today:
First being that the ECA has acquired GamePolitics, a critically acclaimed clearinghouse for politically-oriented news and opinions about video games, and secondly being a partnership with NCsoft on the PlaySmart Information Program, a first of its kind public service program geared toward educating consumers on Internet safety and protocol.
The ECA is an advocacy group for gamers. If you are interested in joining the ECA, the price is $19.99 per …read more

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We’re working with the government pretty actively in trying to understand what it is we need to do,” said Alan Bowman, general manager of entertainment and devices for Asia Pacific and Greater China. “We’re taking a very careful approach in China.”

Bowman said. “We’re going to make sure that we make the right moves, develop the right content, have the right partnerships in place. It’s not something you want to rush in and do.

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Apparently, Engage put in-game Subway ads in Valve’s Counter Strike. But, Valve, who should have given permission, didn’t give permission. From GameDAILY Biz (an essential games industry site, btw):
Now, however, Valve Software appears to be furious over the matter. “At no time did Valve grant permission nor discuss these advertisements with Engage. As such, this is now a legal matter. Advertising or any other commercial use of our games requires our written permission,” Valve’s Doug Lombardi told GamePro.com.
It’s not clear if a lawsuit has been filed yet, but it would certainly seem like a legal battle will …read more

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