Game On, Hold The Pepperoni

By Jeremy Caplan

For many video gamers, juggling a joystick and a pizza is second nature. What's frustrating is having to stop playing to order. Sony Online Entertainment may have solved that problem with the recent release of add-on features for the game EverQuest II, allowing players to order online from Pizza Hut without leaving their game screens, let alone their couches.

Now that consoles like PlayStation 2 and Xbox are increasingly hooked up to the Internet, gamemakers are looking for new ways to capitalize on that captive audience through interactive services and ads. Ad firms like Starcom MediaVest Group and Young & Rubicam have launched dedicated gaming units, and gamemaker Funcom has signed a deal with Massive Inc., a gaming-ad firm, to let players of Anarchy Online play free in exchange for accepting interactive ads. "Teens' media habits are fragmented," says David Tokheim, a vice president at IGN Entertainment, a digital-gaming company. "This is a new way to reach more of them."

In addition to inserting ads, gamemakers are experimenting with other novel ways of drawing revenue from multiplayer online gaming. "Pizza was just the first step," says Chris Kramer, spokesman for Sony Online Entertainment. "The next step is letting people buy music, clothes and DVDs within our games." Sony's game consumers, mostly 18-to-35-year-old males, will soon be able to charge such purchases to the same credit cards Sony has on file for their game subscriptions, Kramer says.

Sony isn't alone in that market. Microsoft recently announced a new micropayment system for Xbox, letting gamers make small purchases through their consoles. "Gamers want what they want when they want it and how they want it," says Tokheim. For now, that means pizza, pronto. --By Jeremy Caplan