More ads in games

Our young gamers may escape their arch nemeses in video games, but there's no escaping all the ads. "The fictional landscapes of video games are increasingly being dotted with product placements, pitching everything from athletic shoes to movies," the Associated Press reports.
They're on buildings and billboards along virtual city streets, and they're simply products (cars, food, etc.) appearing in the games, just as in the movies. The way advertisers see it, TV viewership is going down and gaming up, and "video games now attract not just hard-core gamers, but people of all ages and more women than ever." Game sales surpassed movie box-office receipts last year. Another reason why advertisers are migrating to this medium: With game consoles connected to the Internet, ads can be updated anytime, long after games are sold. Here's the BBC on this later in the week.