British government starts pushing social distancing via in-game ads

Enlarge / Why would you ever go outside when you have Dirt Rally to play inside?

As governments around the world urge their citizens to "Stay at home, save lives," the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is using in-game advertising to get that message in front of a younger audience of video game players.

The messaging is already appearing through in-game banners in Codemasters' Dirt Rally 2.0, which will be offered as a free PlayStation Plus title this month. Rebellion titles like Sniper Elite and Strange Brigade, meanwhile, will display the message before the start of each game. And King's Candy Crush Saga will insert the PSA amid the usual interstitial advertising for millions of free-to-play players.

"At Codemasters we came to realize that technology within our games, which enables the remote updating of banners within the virtual environment, could be repurposed to assist with the coronavirus communication effort," Codemasters VP of Business Development Toby Evan-Jones said in a statement. "It's fantastic to see conversations already being sparked amongst our community."

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