In-game TV-style advertising coming to PC and console games

This week will see the launch of advertising platform called playerWON. It allows PC and console devs to code TV-style video ads into their games.

Platform holder Simulmedia, a TV ad tech company, has already signed deals with major gaming brands including Electronic Arts and Tencent.

playerWON lets users watch short video ads in exhange for content like skins or in-game currency. Simulmedia claims that players are willing to watch up to 10 ads per day. That’s based on year-long test the company conducted.

For developers, that system obviously enables additional revenue streams from their F2P titles. For advertisers, that means unlocking a new demographic of gamers aged 18-34. Moreover, as explained by Axios, “ads that run twice per hour would have an average cost per thousand (CPM) of roughly $20 — which is dramatically cheaper than what most marketers would pay for to run ads on TV or even via some streaming services.”

The company plans to launch in-game ads in around a dozen games by the year’s end. We are yet to see how both the console and PC ecosystems will respond to this new model.