Hi Nerds.  What?  It’s a term of endearment.  And this week, it’s particularly relevant.  Welcome to the Digital Digest gaming special.  Now before you all come at me with burning torches, blunt instruments and pitchforks, let me admit to you that I am a 100% bona fide gamer myself.  It took me 40 hours, 46 minutes and 31 seconds, but I 100%’d Red Dead Redemption.  Just thinking about the Max Payne Movie fills me with dread.  I own a Halo: ODST Limited Edition Xbox controller.  I’m yet to prestige on any of the latest incarnations of Call of Duty, but I do run a gaming blog (granted, I haven’t uploaded anything to it since June, but it still exists).  So there, I admit it.  I game.  I am a game man.

And so are millions of people across the globe.  In fact the inspiration for this week’s Digital Digest came from the news last week that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 sold $400 million worth of units in a single day.  Not only is this is the biggest launch of any game ever, it’s the biggest launch in the entertainment industry, ever.  It’s also worth mentioning that that $400 million figure comprises only of sales in the US and the UK, meaning that this figure will be even higher still when the final launch figures from around the globe are also compiled.  $400 million.  While you let that figure sink in, here’s some clichéd uses for $400 million dollars that you will often find in news reports that assist our tiny little human minds in comprehending such large sums of money.  For example, you could have paid Christian Ronaldo’s transfer fee from Manchester United to Real Madrid three times over.  You could pay three times the asking price of The White House, fill the grounds with 52 Bugatti Veyrons‘, and then flick a match and watch them burn just for fun.  You could buy 2,000,000,000 chomp bars (20p a go now, I know, I was outraged to), and build a chomp bar city.  I’d call it Chocolatetopia, and live on Caramel Avenue, a sub district of Nougartville Iowa.

The long and short of it is that the gaming industry cannot be ignored as the past time of geeks and freaks anymore – and advertisers know this.  In 2008, the gaming industry was worth $6.4 billion in the US, compared to a combined value of $6.3 billion for both the music and video industries combined.  Therefore, in game advertising, while not a new idea (remember Cool Spot?  Or Zool?) has become far more prominent in recent years.  From the glaringly obvious billboards in NBA 2K11, to the… well… this in Fight Night Round 3.  According to IGA Worldwide, not only is there a case for in game advertising, but it works.  They believe that the global in game advertising market is to reach $2 Billion in 2012, with 70% of gamers perceiving brands as innovative if choosing to advertise in game.  With over 75% of gamers playing games socially either online, or still hunched all around the TV moaning at whoever’s chosen to be Oddjob again in Goldeneye’s multiplayer mode (short, little, hard to target chump), there’s also a huge potential for this advertising to spread via word of mouth too.

One of the more interesting uses of In Game Advertising this year could be found, unsurprisingly, in one of the most original games of the year: Portal 2.  A quick scroll and click through the in game menus to ‘extras’ reveals a submenu simply titled Super 8.  Clicking this reveals an interactive trailer, built on the Portal game engine, that allows users (Gamers? Nerds?) to ‘play’ an extended and interactive version of the Super 8 trailer.  It’s very, very clever.  And a little bit geeky.  But quite sexy.  It’s basically Voderman.

So, there you have it.  An innovative way of flogging more stuff to the masses, coming to a console near you.    That’s it for yet another week.  I leave you with potentially the world’s most famous gaming internet meme.  Plus, a video that almost makes you feel sorry for Siri – but don’t you dare.

It’s exactly what she wants.