Ooo..an ad!
A Google executive predicts in-game ads will be a $1 billion business by 2010, reports GamesIndustry.
The statement comes from Bernie Stolar, head of Google's AdSense for Games division. Stolar says Google has been in talks with "every major publisher," presumably about including Google AdSense units in their online games.
Stolar says with media habits of young people shifting away from TV and toward video games, ad dollars will quickly follow. While sports games will probably be the heaviest with ads, Stolar says, other genres also have potential.
But, he warned, it's important not to make ads so pervasive they create a backlash. That said, he believes that by 2010, 80 percent of games will contain some form of advertising.
In July, Microsoft and EA developed a dynamic in-game ad platform for the Xbox 360. Google's budding interest in in-game advertising will likely bode badly at Steve Ballmer's breakfast table.
