WildTangent Launched BrandBoost, a new advertising platform enabling marketers to reward gamers with complimentary game play and digital goods for social games, massively multiplayer online titles, and virtual worlds.

BrandBoost builds on the company's Sponsored Session advertising model, which allowed users to pay for gaming sessions with either WildCoins tokens (purchased with real money) or viewing ads from brands like Proctor & Gamble, Kraft, General Mills, Toyota, Disney, Sony, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, and Activision.

WilTangent notes that it's already deployed the platform on Sony Online Entertainment's free-to-play MMO Free Realms, Outspark.com, and OMGPOP.com. It also plans to announce additional partnerships with social game developers that will extend the company's strategy to social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

The new platform is designed to work with various setups; after viewing an advertisement, users can unlock a free game session in a downloadable game, a free one-day subscription to a subscription-based MMO, or virtual items, boosts, and special in-game privileges in social games, MMOs, and virtual worlds.

BrandBoost's ads typically comprise of a video with a branded, interactive skin; they can also include branded mini-games that users play before accessing the main game content. The experience is supplemented with companion ads that run before and after the experience, and the platform supports third-party ad serving and targeting capabilities, too.

WildTangent points to a recent Nielsen survey of 27,000 consumers indicating that more than 85 percent of gamers prefer not to pay for digital game content, arguing that brands have a "significant opportunity" to play a role in the online games ecosystem. The company adds that in its own game network, 95 percent of consumers chose to access content for free by engaging with brands.

"BrandBoost enables brands to address the enormous scale of social gaming and virtual worlds with engagement based advertising that is non-intrusive and delivers tangible value to gamers," says WildTangent's EVP David Madden. "We've created a paradigm in which gamers are seeking out ads because they know that their experience will be enhanced with access to content that is typically behind a paywall."