Game Maker, Advertiser Strike Virtual Deal

The end is apparently upon us, as a massively multiplayer game has gone completely free -- with the help of a plethora of in-game advertising billboards meant to defer direct costs to gamers, according to this GamesIndustry.biz report.

Massively multiplayer game specialist Funcom has announced that the free version of its online RPG Anarchy Online is set to feature dynamic in-game advertising billboards, thanks to a new deal with Massive Incorporated.

This is an inevitable conclusion (or beginning) of online games seeking to expand their audiences. Removing the barrier to entry -- the upfront cost -- is no different than news sites using banner ads, and not subscriptions, to draw in readers.

My writing partner John and I are working on a story about Alternate Reality Gaming, which essentially moves games from the PC and blends them with the communication devices that we all use in the real world (phone, pagers, ect). The result is a stunningly complex group-think game, which requires strangers from around the country to work together to solve problems.

The big problem, though, is that these games cost a lot of money to make -- so they have been used, at least in their most popular forms, to promote a movie (A.I.: Artificial Intelligence) and a video game (Halo 2). In other words, the games were giant marketing tools (that doubled a wicked cool games).

So there is little surprise that games which started as commercial ventures, have fallen back, in some small part, to marketing vehicles.