When click equals ka-ching!

Some years ago, a light-hearted pastime called "spot that plug" made the rounds of my friends. It consisted, simply enough, of making note of occasions when TV shows and movies engaged in "product placement," where some commercial product was placed in a scene where normally some nondescript item would have been used - for example, a can of Coke on a table instead of some can just labeled "Soda" or with the name of some non-existent company. Or, alternately, a character asking for a "coke" instead of a "cola" or "pop."

Usually such placements were subtle, casual, and not much (if anything) was made of them in the program or movie; rather, they were just a natural part of the scene - which was exactly how they were supposed to work. Yes, it was advertising, but spotting it, when it was supposed to fly below our radar, provided an amusing diversion from some otherwise inane programming.

Oh, the innocent days of youth. AP for Saturday brought the disheartening news:

As a member of the Elite Operations Division in the video game "True Crime: Streets of LA," the character Nick Kang must find his way to a truck heist at the flagship Puma sportswear store. Lucky for him, he has a Motorola handset with built-in global positioning system technology.

In the online game Everquest II, players don't need to leave their fantasy world to satisfy hunger pangs. They can click an icon and have food delivered from the nearest Pizza Hut - within 30 minutes.

Product placement in video games has gone big time: Ad revenues to the game industry are predicted to reach over a half-billion dollars a year by 2009.

And it's gone blatant.

The strategy of insinuating ads into video games was a hot topic at this week's E3 video games trade show, where Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft unveiled their next-generation game consoles. ...

A virtual recreation of Times Square, for instance, would include billboards for products. A NASCAR game might include actual car models decorated with real ads.

And games can do what no other medium can - force players to interact with an ad.

In "Underground 2," players have to perform tricky skateboard stunts involving a Jeep. In the Ubisoft game "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell," players must use a Sony Ericsson cell phone to deal with some challenges.

And it's gone invasive.

Nielsen [Entertainment, the TV ratings outfit,] already has paper diaries in the homes of some gamers to document their game-playing. Now, in conjunction with Activision and Jeep, Nielsen has embedded an electronic marker in each Jeep image included in "Tony Hawk's Underground 2."

Each time a Jeep vehicle is used or appears on the game screen, the electronic tag sends a signal over the Internet to Nielsen, which tracks the hits.

Yeah! Product placement! Brand identification! Forced interaction! Corporate tracking of your game-playing! That's sure my notion of freedom!