Our partner, Massive, gets acquired

Microsoft acquired Massive, our advertising engine partner, for $200-$400 million. That's pretty big news. Honestly, I wasn't sure if I saw this coming, especially from Microsoft. I can see why they want to do this though, seeing as they are moving the 360 towards online, it makes sense for them to own the number one in-game advertising company.

This worries me slightly since there is a definite conflict of interest now for Massive. How do you deal with non-Microsoft publishers when you yourself are a publisher. I can imagine all sorts of situations but the most simple example I can give you is: An advertiser wants to reach a certain audience, if there are two titles on the market you can advertise to and one is a Microsoft title, how do you objectively spread the money around? It's tricky.

I'm not worried now but I will be in a year or two.

Joystiq article here.