Editor's note: The mysterious figure known as Superannuation in an expert at digging up what's hidden in plain view. All of what Superannuation finds is available to the public. These could very well be true gaming secrets. Read on...

I think I can tell when ad people are joking. I tested that skill recently at an in-game advertising event. The people from Take Two saying a BioShock Big Daddy would be a great pitchman for Black and Decker? Joking.

We've heard today that, as part of Microsoft's already-announced round of 5000 job cuts, up to 75% of the workforce at Microsoft's in-game advertising service, Massive, have been laid off.

In-game advertising group Massive announced it has signed with Blizzard Entertainment today, feeding the Starcraft and Diablo publisher ads through its Battle.net service. But don't expect to see any actual ads in those games.

Executives from Activision are dishing dirt on the company's upcoming releases at an in-game advertising summit hosted by Massive. That means more Call of Duty, more James Bond and confirmation on Tony Hawk's reinvented controls.

THQ has awarded Massive Inc. an exclusive contract to provide dynamic in-game advertisements for future THQ games. Under the terms of the contract, Massive will provide ads with existing franchises like the Saint's Row series as well as as-yet-unannounced titles. "With an open-world, mission-based game such as “Saints…

Massive Entertainment — orphaned by Vivendi Games when it became part of Activision Blizzard and dumped all those Sierra-published titles — has found a new publishing daddy in Ubisoft. The French pub has purchased the Swedish dev team and the World In Conflict property, the real-time strategy series Massive was…