Businesses are quickly cashing in on the latest marketing craze: placing advertisements in video games.

Massive Inc., a division of Microsoft, has developed a technology that allows businesses to incorporate advertisements into video game software. They are actively serving ads in PC games and Xbox 360s that have been activated with Xbox Live accounts.

A study conducted by Nielsen Entertainment showed that the ad campaigns run by Massive Inc. resulted in brand familiarity increasing by

64 percent, although the results varied from game to game.

Derek Adams, junior in computer science, plays role-playing games, fighting games and 2D action games for about six hours per week. He feels the advertisements detract from the gameplay.

“The arguments most often put forth by publishers are that it lowers the cost of development and that it adds realism,” Adams said. “First of all, if in-game advertising lowered the cost of development, I would expect to see that reflected in the price of games. As it stands, many games for current-gen systems have price tags

$10 higher than last gen.

“As for realism, I find the opposite to be true. Advertisements are not just instances of a product. If I walk down the street in real life, I see maybe 10 [to] 15 different vehicle manufacturers. In a video game, you’d be lucky to see five different vehicles from a single manufacturer – the one paying the publisher for the exposure. Ads in games don’t add to the immersion and any cost benefits gained certainly aren’t passed on to consumers,” Adams said.

In fall 2004, Massive Inc. began to place ads in video games per the request of its original CEO, Mitch Davis. Davis was disappointed by the various fake advertisements he had witnessed in games and strived to place more realistic ads in games so that they would represent real life.

Alison Lange, Massive Inc.’s marketing director, clarified the company’s target audience.

“Many of the game titles we place our ads in are geared towards those generally male, 18- to 35-years-old,” she said.

Lange said Massive Inc. has an extensive research group that does decided work with gamers, consumers and advertisers. Lange stressed, the ads don’t disrupt any gameplay.