Riccitiello: Battlefield 3, CoD ad campaigns could easily pass $100 million

While delivering a keynote speech at the Ad Age Conference in New York, EA CEO John Riccitiello pitched the marketing moguls in attendance on video gaming's increasing prominence in the advertising industry. Not just with regards to in-game ads -- though he did talk up their strength, citing President Obama's use of virtual billboards during his campaign -- but also on the growing market of video game advertisements themselves.

Riccitiello anticipates that Electronic Arts and Activision will drop "a couple hundred million dollars [worth of] marketing" on the next iterations of their respective shooter franchises, Battlefield and Call of Duty. We've got a better idea -- why not distribute that money directly to the fans, which they can then use to buy more copies of your game? Like, that just seems like Marketing 101.