EA, Microsoft Ink in-Game Advertising Deal

Industry giants Microsoft and Electronic Arts signed an in-game advertising deal that will deliver dynamic advertising for the latter's sports titles on both the PC and Xbox 360.

Among the covered titles are the Madden, NASCAR, Tiger Woods and NHL series, as well as the upcoming game Skate.

"The real issue here is that we're making a network play. If I just had Madden, while great, it would be of limited value to advertisers," Cory Van Arsdale, Massive CEO told Reuters. "We need to build an overall network and this is a major stepping point to have us do that."

Arsdale's company was bought out last year by Microsoft for $200 million. Microsoft's arch rival, Google, bought another game ad company, Adscape, for $23 million in March, and also made a bid for the EA deal.

While no financial details of the deal were disclosed, Microsoft's Peter Moore announced that he was leaving the company to head EA Sports last week.
The development also follows on the heels of another in-game advertising deal struck a few days ago by Ubisoft.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz