British Intelligence to recruit gamers

Government Communications Headquarters, a branch of the British Intelligence services, will be advertising its careers in videogames.

The move, made through its recruitment partner TMP Worldwide, will be handled by Massive Inc, and will see ads for GCHQ careers in PC and console games including titles from the Tom Clancy franchises, Need for Speed Carbon, and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

Recent research has indicated that gamers are open to the idea of in-game advertising, provided the copy is authentic to the game's environment and not intrusive, and this one month campaign which starts at the end of October will aim to give GCHQ visibility to an audience that's being served less and less by traditional advertising methods.

Laura Robertson, GCHQ's account director at TMP Worldwide, commented: "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."

No specific details as to the type of jobs that GCHQ was hoping to target with these ads were released, and the ads themselves simply point people to the service's web site.