“Hmm, isn’t IBM a big player in ‘grid computing’ and isn’t that pretty tightly coupled with some MMOG initiatives? Or am I manufacturing memories again?”

Without doing some thorough research, I’d have to bow to your better knowledge.

But I do sort of allude to that being sort of the case at the end of the article.

“Who wants to link their music collection to a particular game,…[?]“

I wasn’t thinking about people linking their own music. I was thinking more along the lines of the game being the place where the player discovers new music, and is then able to buy the music from within the game.

All of which would be accessible outside of the game afterwards.

I agree that in-game advertising becomes a problem. But once you begin to see the likes of Second Life become more visually realistic, then in-game advertising would be functionally the same as in the real world, albeit ham-strung by the same problems.

However, as I mentioned in a previous article, there’s such a thing as product placement.

So creating buzz about a product or service within any given MMOG could be the driver of the sale, rather than an advert.

Once again, thanks for your time…

I can’t see selling music in-game to get much traction, unless the music could be accessed outside of the game as well. Who wants to link their music collection to a particular game, that they’ll no doubt grow tired of in a few months or a few years?

At the same time, in-game advertising hasn’t been very successful, since the gamer’s attention isn’t on the scenery where the ads are, but firmly on the action. Of course at this point I’m talking about real games, vs Second Life and other virtual social spaces. (The data I’ve read comes from Massive and their in-game advertising on consoles.)

I have no answers, though…

It’ll be interesting to see if Sony’s Home gets any traction, but with users and with advertisers.