Study: Consoles will drive in-game revenue

With more gaming consoles being developed with online capabilities, users are increasingly playing one another from miles away. According to a new study from ABI Research, these consoles will soon begin driving in-game ad sales.

by Kristina Knight

In-game advertising is expected to reach $80 million this year and grow to more than $850 million in 2011.

“With the incorporation of ad clients directly into game engines — and through connections to ad servers — advertisers will be able to deliver advertising that reaches audiences in-game and through the walled garden game network,” said ABI research director Michael Wolf.

In addition to in-game ads, console vendors will also likely get a boost in revenue from casual game downloads onto home gaming consoles. In 2007, consumers purchased about $93 million in game downloads; by 2011 game downloads are expected to reach more than $1 billion.

The forecast is doesn't come out of the blue. Other researchers have predicted similar trends in online gaming and in-game advertising because of the number of users logging on to play games.

In May more than 53 million users logged on to Yahoo! Games, each returned multiple times to play. MSN Games is also a popular hub with 40 million unique users in May, and Miniclip saw 30 million unique users in May.