In light of Intel's recent investment in IGA, a firm primarily known for paying Counter-Strikelike advertising in games:

Basically, the gaming industry wants users to buy their products at retail and then watch constantly updated in-game ads. Unlike the TV model, which offers consumers a compelling free product in return for the advertising, the gaming industry offers nothing, not even a discount (though one could argue that games would be even more expensive without this extra revenue; whether this is true or not is a question for another day). Perhaps when the novelty of the practice wears off, gamers will be less tolerant of having their attention sold to advertisers. Or perhaps not; big-name ads lend a certain legitimacy to gaming that players seem to enjoy, which is good news to companies like IGA and to financial backers like Intel.

I've mentioned before the shadiness of inserting ads into luxury products while not reducing the cost, but this is the first time I've read that gamers actually like these ads, and I have to wonder why. Does corporate sponsorship give gamers a feeling of cultural legitimacy which gamers feel their hobby otherwise lacks? I wouldn't be surprised if that were it: gamer insecurity seems to lead to a lot of foolishness, from persecution complexes to endless pseudo-intellectual diatribes about games as art. Florian Eckhardt

Intel Wants Your Eyeballs [Ars Technica]