Washington Post coverage of in-game ads

The WP has a nice profile on what's going on with in-game ads.

Read it here

Seems to be the moral of the story is relevance to lessen the intrusion of the ads. I totally agree with this, but I think there's another variable no one is talking about, the expended cost of the consumer.

I understand that relevance and immersion is critical if you're advertising on a game where someone has already paid their hard earned cash. But will the consumers be more lenient when the game is free? I think so.

Consumers are used to ads for radio, tv and print. I dare anyone to try putting an ad in the middle of a movie in the theater. Probably not going to work. Apply this to the game world and I think we'll find that consumers can enjoy free games with ads.