Dynamic Video Game Ads Gain Support

Video games are about to become more interactive. In-game advertiser Double Fusion disclosed Tuesday it has signed a deal to integrate its technology into a video game development tool suite from Emergent Game Technologies.

Emergent's Gamebryo Element game engine and toolkit will now have drop-down menus that incorporate interactive in-game ad placements similar to the way developers might add color or texture to objects in games.

Integrating tools into menus in the Gamebryo Element game-engine lets developers easily make in-game ads clickable and interactive, said Jonathan Epstein, president and CEO of Double Fusion, San Francisco.

"Technologies on the market have in the past required developers to define events," Epstein said. "If the online video game requires a player to click on a billboard sending them outside the video game to gain a hint that advances them to the next level, in the past the developer would have needed to go back inside their tools and create a path in the game."

The easier the process to integrate ads, the more likely name brands like General Motors and Procter & Gamble will want to reach consumers through cars rushing down the highway, or rotating stadium advertisements and flashy billboards positioned next to highways, experts said.

More after the jump...