Activision and Nielsen Entertainment have partnered to measure the effectiveness of ads placed within video games. The two companies are launching a test using the newly-released Activision video game, Tony Hawk's Underground 2 to determine how long and how often players interact with brands.

Click here to find out more about Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 video game.

Andy Wing, chief executive officer of Nielsen Entertainment, stated, "I expect the Activision/Nielsen Entertainment partnership will be a milestone in media history books; the chapter on how video games became a dominant force in our culture and a magnet for advertising dollars."

But a chapter on how video games became a dominant force doesn’t seem to take into account that video gaming is unequivocally already a multi-million dollar dominant force in our culture today and its impact and usage is growing at exponential rates.

The more important question to address is can the value of in-game placement really be proven? We asked Dr. Ian Bogost, founder of Persuasive Games, and editor of the powerful insider blog on advergaming, Water Cooler Games, to give his insight. “A question to ask is is this latest partnership more of an invention to make it possible for ad agencies to push media buying into games? My concern is that I haven’t seen any evidence these measurements or the data gathered will actually correlate to people’s buying habits,” noted Bogost. “They can measure all day, but can they prove the results of their data and that it actually has impact? I have not seen that happen yet, so how these gathered results can be proven out is really a question as well. The concern is that it might be more of a way for the ad industry to justify the ‘buying’ of in-game ads to the media purchasers.”

Nielsen and Activision’s testing will take place over late 2004 to early 2005. Nielsen Entertainment will also conduct pre- and post-test surveys to understand perceptions of in-game advertising, as well as the impact on brand awareness and recall.