It would appear that using games as a potential advertising medium has today gained yet another ally, with Microsoft owned Massive Inc. coming to an agreement to include advertising in tandem with titles produced by Blizzard Entertainment.

Before your anger takes over, fret-not local citizens of Azeroth, as the advertising agreement will not enter the beloved virtual realm of World of Warcraft, but instead be placed on Blizzard's websites and be otherwise limited to BattleNet, which already contains advertisements for other Blizzard products.

Read full article by Steven Perdikis

Putting ads in games after release is a dishonourable tactic but hey, it doesn't affect me, I rarely buy from Activision Blizzard or THQ because of stuff like this.

If we could see how bad it'll get in the years to come I think more people would care. But the changes will be so gradual so as not to put the majority off-side.
Of course, if you like ads, there's no problem.

This is what I was thinking.

In the future, are we going to have popups in-game? Are there going to be mandatory ads that you have to watch?

EA already forces their logo to be displayed for a few seconds on game startup.

I don't see the problem with this. The advertising is either already there (Its just being changed to something else) or its a new game. Hell sport & racing games have been doing it for years, Who got all the Greddy packs and stickers in NFS:U?

I realy couldn't care less about in-game advertising.

In game advertising is fine as long as it doesn't detract from the experience - eg: standard coca-cola ads in WoW would be rubbish. On the other hand though, seeing real life products in FPS games is pretty cool, adding to the realism and all.

BUT - the publishers should be reducing the price of the games to match this new revenue stream. I don't agree with paying top dollar for something that's already had hefty financial support from advertising. This is the very same reason I cancelled my cable TV connection - goddamned adverts.

if this is you & your reading this your seed needs to be wiped from the earth

Yay! WoW characters are gonna run around in Nike gear, or mounts by BMW!

Nothing will be added in-game, other than advertisements on BattleNet (which already advertise Blizzard products anyway) and on their websites. It helps to read the entire article

The future is now!
In the sense of there already being games with mandatory ads you have to watch before/during play. I believe the free version of Far Cry was done in that fashion but I could be thinking of a different game.

In any event unless the games are free it is very unlikely we'll be dealing with popups or other too-intrusive advertising because any company that tries it will find that game selling extremely poorly. It's the same reason you don't get ad breaks in TV shows on DVD, even though they were often shot with ad breaks in mind (24). If you've paid for it you're not going to tolerate sitting through rubbish every few minutes.
Not something I'm remotely worried about happening. And honestly the few in-game ads I've seen I notice them once and then they're just another part of the scenery...

I don't mind the idea of in game advertising, as long as it fits into the scenery... like a modern-day tactical shooter having the odd coca-cola sign/product placement. It happens in movies all the time, and in most cases it hasn't bothered me at all.

But as other people have said, if it doesn't fit with the scenery (like a coca-cola ad in wow) it stands out too much and detracts from the experience. I'm just glad that kind of thing will be kept out of the actual games in this case ... for now.

I'll gladly put up with advertising in battle.net if it remains free. Battle.net is the best game lobby system in the business and you can't expect it to be top quality unless it's funded somehow.