• by Lynn Russo Whylly , February 27, 2007

Oh, to be a fly on the (virtual) wall. Gaming advertisers have long wished they had better insight into players' behavior, both on and off gaming platforms. But soon they'll have one more tool in their arsenal for achieving that goal, with the launch of Nielsen's GamePlay Metrics service this summer.

"Nielsen's goal is to produce an integrated view of the digital consumer's media consumption activity and habits," says Jeff Herrmann, vice president of Nielsen's wireless and interactive services division. "There's a whole lifecycle of marketing to consumers, and we have a vision to be the end-to-end conduit."

Starting with data from its People Meter technology, GamePlay Metrics will provide basic usage data and cross-media consumption. Product consumption will be tracked by Nielsen's Homescan program and through its sports division, FANLinks.

"I think Nielsen's product will be a great complement to all the data sources we already have," says Art Sindlinger, vice president and director of Starcom USA.

Sindlinger feels the challenges Nielsen faces are twofold: how broad a set of titles can be reliably tracked, and reconciling when the experience expands and goes to multiple dimensions.