Microsoft, EA sign sports game ad deal from Reuters reports Microsoft signed a video game ad deal with Electronic Arts.

Microsoft will feed EA’s games, such as Madden, NASCAR, Tiger Woods, NHL and Skate, with advertisements. Cory Van Arsdale, chief executive of Massive, a game ad company Microsoft bought last year, said, “The real issue here is that we’re making a network play. If I just had ‘Madden,’ while great, it would be of limited value to advertisers.”

EA is the number one independent video game maker. The video game ad market in 2005 was only $50 million but is expected to grow to $1 billion over the next few years.

Google is also working towards placing ads within video games, with their acquisition of Adscape for $23 million.

Related Topics: Microsoft: adCenter | Microsoft: Partnerships | Search Ads: Contextual

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz