Sony Creates In-Game Advertising Business Unit

Sony Computer Entertainment America has announced the creation of a new in-game advertising business unit. The company also announced that Darlene Kindler has joined the company as director of Network Advertising, effective immediately. In her new role, reporting to senior vice president of Sales and Business Development Phil Rosenberg, Kindler will be responsible for SCEA's in-game advertising strategy across all PlayStation platforms, including PlayStation Network and work with external publishers. It appears likely that, as with Microsoft's Massive division, this new Sony division will be the gatekeeper to third-party publisher's ads appearing on the PlayStation 3. In addition, the division will be intimately involved with the Home online world, which will "...present opportunities for SCEA to deliver dynamic, relevant advertisements in game." Kindler's appointment to the new unit comes on the heels of SCEA's recently-announced partnership in July with Nielsen Media Research, which aims to develop measurement systems for game network advertising. Through the partnership, SCEA will share its game network data from PS3 and PSN, which includes PlayStation Home. Sony says it is continuing to explore ways to incorporate dynamic advertising into other online environments. Kindler was most recently vice president of Publishing for Adscape Media, an in-game advertising company that was acquired by Google in March 2007. In her previous role at Nintendo, she was part of the company's early start-up team and was one of the key people credited with establishing a European distribution network for Nintendo. "Darlene has an ideal blend of experience within the video game industry, including in-game advertising, making her a perfect fit for this newly created position," said Rosenberg. "She will be tasked with the important role of working closely with our internal teams as well as our third-party publishers and external advertising agencies to develop business and marketing strategies for our newly formed online advertising group."