I’ve done the first Contently Managed Podcast (all two minutes of it) on something that struck me after a chat with Iain Hepburn. Iain was pointing out to me that some wrestling games and Ultimate Fighter games now have ads running in-game promoting upcoming fight events, giving the game player the chance to go and take out a pay per view subscription to watch said event.

And it got me wondering: could we do the same for news/press releases?

Imagine it, you’re driving along in a driving game or a sandbox game like Grand Theft Auto or the Scottish-made Crackdown when, inbetween the music, you get the regular news bulletin from your local radio station or a summary of certain news items from an outlet.

Alternatively, imagine the setting had newspapers or large billboards as part of the ingame setting. You could put news events up there.

Of course it wouldn’t work for every game – and it might break the fourth wall for some – but there are some games that a) this could work and b) help be a source of revenue (after all the news company would have to pay for this).

Look at how many networked games machines there are in the world…

Now the downside is that there’s not really an easy way to clickthrough to read more past than what is uploaded to the game, but it’s news and it’s a way of keeping people informed (you could even give people categories of news – sport and so on – to opt in to).