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Kotaku
Ubisoft's vice president of US publishing Jay Cohen just wrapped up his quick keynote at DICE, titled "Ad Nauseum or Adding Value?", focusing on the need for more in game advertising. He was pretty convincing, prefacing his talk with the well-known Japanese Final Fantasy IX Coca Cola ad, a spot he called "elegant."
HIs core message was "in game ads will make you rich, make you famous and make you better." Cohen drove home that product placement in movies reached $1.5 billion in the US alone last year ("10% of the gross revenue of the game industry"), that Casino Royale had made $70 million before it even opened in theaters, that developers and publishers need to "take the money."
Obviously, one of the bigger concerns for in-game ads was gamer backlash. But that's exactly why Kotaku is up on the big screen. Ubisoft's Rainbow Six Vegas advertising Easter egg, sponsored by AXE, got them tons of positive press from mainstream media and hardcore gaming outlets and, yep, even Kotaku.
