Mediaedge:cia examines how in-game advertising can best be used to create meaningful relationships between brands and consumers in "Playing with Brands," a new study commissioned from Telenation and designed to help advertisers better understand the optimum role for their brands within computer and video games.

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Overall, total U.S. video gaming ad expenditures are estimated at U.S. $185.6 million for 2005. (Source: Yankee Group) Specifically, spending is split between adver-gaming (games that are designed around a product and are made to promote it) and in-game advertising investments (reflecting products/brands placed in games, similar to the movie product placement process.) Though adver-gaming accounted for over 70% of total video games advertising in 2004, the allocation is expected to equalize in 2006. From 2007, in-game advertising is expected to be the preferred format for video game investments. In comparison, traditional U.S. media expenditures for 2004 is over $141,091 million, as reported by TNS-MI; and video game advertising is not reported by this major industry tracking service.

Though the most popular platform for games is still the PC offline, the online gaming community is experiencing significant growth. Mobile phone gaming shows a great potential for growth as cellular phone penetration has already reached close to 80% of households and entertainment availabilities, including RSS/podcast and network/broadcast content, are on the increase. Interest in consoles is likely to also increase as the next generation of game boxes have just been introduced to the market and will be available this Holiday season for gift giving.

Platform	% of U.S. gamers who used this platform in the last 12 months
PC (offline)	66%
Internet	58%
Console	54%
Mobile phone/organiser	31%
Handheld game player	29%
Arcade	21%
Chart Three  Source: Synovate Tele-nation survey 2005.