Double Fusion Signs Take-Two Deal

Officials from in-game advertising firm Double Fusion have announced that the company has signed a deal with publisher Take-Two Interactive to place adverts in up to nine different games from the 2K Games and 2K Sports labels. The deal will initially only involve static adverts but may expand to include dynamically updated online adverts. The first games to benefit from the deal will be MLB 2K8 and NBA 2K8 in the spring. The deal covers the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and Wii formats, with the company also seeking Microsoft’s permission to include adverts in titles for the Xbox 360. The latter is complicated by Microsoft’s acquisition of rival in-game advertising firm Massive Incorporated, which precludes dynamic advertising from other companies. It is unclear whether static advertising will be allowed, with Double Fusion CEO Jonathan Epstein indicating that, “We can’t make any guarantees.” Nevertheless Epstein, as quoted by The Mercury News, described the deal as one of the company’s biggest to date, saying, “We're very confident that this will both give 2K some great revenue - and also be a very profitable deal for our company.” Take-Two Interactive are the twentieth publisher to sign a deal with Double Fusion, with previous clients including THQ, Ubisoft and Midway. The company also recently announced a partnership with Emergent Game Technologies to integrate the company’s in-game advertising technology as an inline feature in the Gamebryo Element game engine and toolkit.