The end is coming: Ads in games

I'm probably just behind the times on this, but tonight we were playing SSX3 on our Playstation and I noticed that all througout the game are billboards advertising the Honda Element and 7UP (though the 7UP billboards are upside down). The prior versions of SSX had billboards, but the contents were typically internal references within the game, or occasionally references to other Electronic Arts games.

Otherwise I kind of like the game, though it's painfully much harder than the previous two.