FROM JUST A VIRTUAL IDEA, ADVERTISING IN VIDEO GAMES IS NOW A MASSIVE REALITY

Blue Chip Advertisers Join Rapidly Expanding Massive Advertising Network to Reach the Coveted Gamer Audience

NEW YORK CITY—April 11, 2005—Massive Incorporated, creator of the world’s first video game advertising network, announced that its network has successfully completed the beta testing phase and will expand its dynamic ad serving capability into 40 leading titles from 10 top game publishers before year’s end. Global advertisers, including Coca-Cola brands, Comcast’s G4, Dunkin’ Donuts, Honda Element & Honda S2000, Intel, Paramount Pictures, T-Mobile, Universal Music Group and Verizon, are utilizing Massive to reach the elusive youth demographic, particularly 18-34 year old men, a group that increasingly shuns television in favor of video games. For the first time, advertisers are implementing real time, in-game campaigns to a weekly audience estimated to reach several million gamers by the end of 2005.

Current titles in the Massive Network include Ubisoft’s “Splinter Cell Chaos Theory” and Funcom’s “Anarchy Online”, as well as “Mall Tycoon” and “Ski Resort.” Massive’s combination of leading publishers and premier game titles definitively demonstrates that contextual advertising in video games is the freshest and most effective way to reach a vast audience, allowing brand marketers to connect directly with their audience’s lifestyle.

“Our dynamic video game advertising network gives marketers an efficient, highly flexible solution for reaching the growing, global gaming audience,” said Mitch Davis, CEO of Massive. “The Massive Network represents an entirely new media that combines the most engaging, active entertainment medium with contextually relevant advertising that positively enhances the consumer experience.”

A Powerful Ad Infrastructure to Leverage a Dominant Entertainment Medium
Once considered a pastime for a niche male audience, video games have rocketed into the mainstream:

• In 2003, men aged 18-34 spent 30 billion hours playing video games, spending more time with this medium than watching prime-time television¹
• Video games represent an $11 billion U.S. entertainment industry—larger than Hollywood box office sales²
• Over 20 million or 70% of all men aged 18-34 are gamers³
• In 2003, more than 239 million games were sold—more than two per US household⁴

Faced with increasing media fragmentation, brand marketers are challenged to find new ways to reach consumers in their targeted demographic. No flexible advertising infrastructure has existed to allow global brands to reach gamers in an active, integrated, and meaningful way that connects with their lifestyle…until now.

The benefit of the Massive Advertising Network is that it is the first and only of its kind to allow advertisers to reach a large aggregated audience of gamers through real time delivery of advertising across top-selling video games. The ability to achieve reach and frequency makes advertising within the Massive Network the most efficient solution for marketing to young men. Brand marketers can tap into the nation’s largest entertainment industry using a familiar model that is similar to purchasing television advertising. The dynamic nature of the Massive Network gives advertisers the opportunity to target gamers with different messages based upon geography and time of day. Ad messages are customized to contextually fit each game environment and served to locations within the game which are pre-selected by the game’s creative developers. Advertisers receive daily reports of audience data from the Massive AdServer which provide full insight into campaign delivery and facilitate the ability to adjust campaigns in real time.

By delivering ads seamlessly to fit the context of the game environment, Massive has created the most effective model for reaching young men. Gamers are completely engaged in their play—they are not multi-tasking or fast forwarding ads. Unlike their consumption of television and other media, gamers are 100% focused on the game.

In addition to creating the network and technical infrastructure to deliver advertising contextually into video games, Massive has formed a strategic partnership with Nielsen Interactive Entertainment, who will provide third-party accountability and measurement for video game advertising through the Massive Network.

"Interest in video games as a mass medium will grow exponentially as more and more advertisers get an up-close feel for the power in-game exposure will have on their brands,” said Michael Dowling, General Manager of Nielsen Entertainment’s Interactive Group. “Massive’s announcement today will help to hasten that growth and marks an important step towards in-game advertising becoming an essential advertising medium.”

Transforming the Business of Video Games
Based upon data from its beta phase as well as in-house analysis, Massive predicts that advertising through the network can contribute $1 to $2 in incremental profit per unit, transforming the game development and publishing model by providing a significant new source of revenue beyond retail sales and online subscriptions. The Massive Network enables publishers to capture additional value from their games by aggregating a much larger audience that can be more effectively marketed to advertisers. The additional revenue is especially compelling to publishers faced with greater retail price pressure, increasing pre-owned game sales, piracy concerns, high pass-along, skyrocketing licensing fees, and escalating development costs.

"Ubisoft believes that Massive’s dynamic advertising network will play a key role in helping video game publishers leverage their content to create new revenue opportunities in an increasingly challenging global market,” said Jay Cohen, Vice President of Publishing at Ubisoft. "We decided to integrate Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory into Massive’s advertising network because of their technology and experienced integration team.”

"Anarchy Online has been running in the Massive Network for three weeks, and the response from our audience has been very positive. The contextual advertising delivered by Massive adds realism to the game play experience and is being received very well by the player base,” stated Ole Schreiner, Project Director for Funcom. “The revenue we’re generating allows us to offer an advertising supported version of the game and use the ad dollars to further support game development, so the innovations create a win-win situation for all.”

How the Massive Advertising Network Works
The Massive AdClient SDK integrates into video game engines at the development stage and handles all connections and communications with Massive’s AdServer, allowing the game to dynamically download advertising, contextually into the game. The technology works across all platforms. Using texture replacement, the game engine blends the advertising into 2D or 3D game environments as part of the normal rendering and display process. The technology fully captures ad delivery activity on an aggregated basis, preserving the privacy and security of all players. Data is reported in an aggregated format—no individual information is gathered, and Massive does not store cookies or other persistent information on individuals’ computers.

About Massive Incorporated
Massive Incorporated has created the world's first video game advertising network across all platforms. With its patent-pending technology, Massive dynamically serves advertising across the largest aggregated network of premier video game titles and delivers measured results on consumer interaction with this brand messaging. Massive allows publishers and advertisers to capitalize on the largest cultural and economic entertainment force in the world. Massive is backed by DFJ Gotham, DFJ New England, RRE Ventures, NeoCarta, Tobat Capital, and Newlight Associates. www.massiveincorporated.com.

¹Nielsen Entertainment Study
²DFC Intelligence, Gartner Group
³NPD Group
⁴Electronic Software Association

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