Two industry experts, one from game creator Netamin and one from in-game ad firm Double Fusion, offered their thoughts on the potential for advertising integration within massively multiplayer online sports games, in an interview with BusinessWeek.

Using the game Ultimate Baseball Online as an example, Sean Mackay from Netamin and Julie Shumaker from Double Fusion outline the current state of and possible future for in-game ad placement. Success is largely dependent on both the targeting of the ads at the right audience and the ability to find a happy medium between serving up ads and not interfering with game play.

Ad delivery has evolved greatly since it was first put in place in console-based games to its present state of dynamic ads served online.

Within a game such as Ultimate Baseball Online, they say, the ad delivery is more natural because the baseball audience is familiar with viewing ads. Whether sponsored scoreboards or breaks between innings, ads are part of the shared dialect of baseball watching. That presents as many opportunities in the videogame as teams and broadcast networks have been able to find on television or radio.

More MMOGs, specifically more sports games, will likely appear in the near future and present their own opportunities for ad placement.