Regardless of their desires, Darwinism is driving computer and console game makers to seek out relationships with advertisers. With new titles now costing $15 million dollars (estimated to double and triple shortly due to new console capabilities), game makers can't afford to eschew ads when its competitors are putting that money against increased production values and keeping game retail costs low.

Game revenues, while now larger than Hollywood movie ticket sales, have been stagnating for the past three years, helping give impetus to game makers to seek out marketers willing to support new titles. Those advertisers have been encouraged not only by findings that young men are leaving the channels on which they've traditionally marketed - notably television - but also by new measurement systems in place that allow them to ensure that this money is actually attracting more than theoretical eyeballs.

A Chrysler exec said the huge automaker had a "wake-up call" when, after creating its own simplistic sports and puzzle games, the firm found that one in every 350 people who registered to receive the game bought a Chrysler within a year and a half.