Over the past year, we’ve begun to see the first inroads of advertising into massively multi-player online games. First, an older version of Anarchy Online became free to anyone who does not mind ads. Second, for a time, EverQuest II introduced a ‘/pizza’ command that lets player order a real life pie without leaving their keyboard. Then, SOE announced that they have partnered with the same folks powering Anarchy Online’s advertisements to put them into Planetside and The Matrix Online.

For developers and publishers, this represents a new frontier of income that has long been established in other entertainment mediums: digital product placement. Yet, how have consumers reacted? To date the range of emotions have gone from indifference to anger. As we look to the future, I want to examine firstly whether this path is a fair one, and secondly what forms are most appropriate for players and effective for advertisers.

The number one response from gamers upset with in-game advertising is something akin to: we pay our fees, thus we earned the right not to be advertised at. Simply put. You’re wrong. You pay for cable. You pay for movies. You pay for sports tickets. I hate to tell you, in this culture, you pay for advertising, and the fact that you have not to date in online games is probably about to change.