With many titles now expected to feature in-game advertising, its worth considering what the impact will be on the games industry moving forward.
I think more money to developers means more possibilities for technology and improvements in games although I think everyone would have concerns about being blasted with advertising when playing games as it is such a pain in the butt when using the internet.
Balance is important and relevance in the advertising is essential for it to work. The 30 yr old games player is probably interested in different things to the 13 yr old for example.
Tampa Highway was the first taste of in-game advertising that the Battlefield community was offered with Intel taking part. Previously there have been many examples of branding and product placement like this certainly within sports titles where I think it actually enchanced the realism of the experience.
GTA, although featuring bogus companies and brands helped to add realism to the game by featuring ad's and billboards... you see it in real life.. so that should make a game more real?