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Video game publishers are being careful about how they allow advertisers into their domain, even as the medium falls increasingly under the spotlight as a refuge of that most coveted and elusive marketing demographic: males between the ages of 18 and 34. 

But the emerging market of in-game advertising has more to worry about than jarring juxtapositions.

Now that advertisers know where to place their products, they need a way to gauge the power of their pitches. Television ad prices are based on ratings. Internet billings are based on clicks. Video games lack a third party auditor, who can guarantee a set number of eyeballs viewing the ads. A few companies, including a division of ratings giant Nielsen Entertainment, are moving in to fill the breach.

Just as Nielsen Entertainment puts recording devices in people’s homes to measure television viewing patterns, Nielsen Interactive Entertainment is working with video game publishers to craft a system that monitors video game use inside households.

They have ample playing ground. In 2003, market research firm JupiterResearch counted 40 million video game players in the United States. By 2006 that figure will be at 53 million, Jupiter Research predicts. Forrester Research estimates that one in four American households will play games online by 2007.

Last year, video games, both consoles and PC games, generated $12.4 billion in revenue according to Jupiter Research.

Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park, California-based consumer research firm reported in April that video console games account for 6 percent of media use by men between the ages of 18 and 34. For teenage boys, that figure rose to 15 percent.

Read the article: www.redherring.com