This isn’t happening in CoH (as of yet), but I expect it’s a trend that will continue in the online gaming industry: ad placement in virtual environments.
After updating my version of SWAT4 to the latest patch from Vivendi, I soon discovered that the game was phoning home to grab posters to place in the enviroment of the game’s levels. Not only did it do this for every level that was played, but it also informed the advertisers of how long each poster was viewed, and by which gamer. Expect to see this kind of advertising and brand placement becoming standard fare in the very near future.
Now, I don’t know that this is an intrinsically evil thing. My biggest worry, in fact, is that it will cause a hit in performance. But it’s still vaguely … disturbing.
(via J-Walk)