The economy is not doing very well and the consensus is that the advertising market is taking a big hit on all sides, including Internet ads. But is in-game advertising also taking a similar hit? Not according to Massive, the in-game ad division of Microsoft.

In a blog posting on Microsoft's Advertising web site its general manager JJ Richards states, "For our 2009 fiscal year, Massive achieved an impressive double-digit year-on-year revenue growth in the face of one of the worst economic crises of the last century." He adds that they have already exceeded their target for the first quarter of their current fiscal year by 100 percent just one month into that new year. In addition, Massive says its in-game ads now reach "40 million Xbox and PC gamers in 31 countries."

About six months ago, it seemed Massive was having issues as Microsoft laid off a quarter of its staff members. Since then it scored deals with a number of publishers to offer in-game ads for their PC games.and renewed their ageement with Blizzard to provide ads for their Battle.net web site.