The expansion of in-game advertising has been reported on and argued over for some time now, but the British government is beginning to take an interest.

Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, has announced that it will start to use in-game advertising to find the spooks of tomorrow.

GCHQ is using TMP Worldwide recruitment and Massive Inc. in order to place ads in games for both consoles and PC such as Need for Speed and the Tom Clancy series.

"Although press advertising still plays an important role, it's now just one element of an integrated approach to recruitment that forward thinking clients like GCHQ are spearheading," said Laura Robertson, GCHQ's account director at TMP Worldwide.

Companies are increasingly turning to in-games advertising following research that has suggested that properly placed, non-intrusive ads go down well with gamers.

>> Link - Official Site/GCHQ