Fortnite maker Epic Games’ Unreal Engine has teamed up with Bidstack, a native in-game advertising platform, to enable video game developers to monetise their titles by creating ad space within their games.

Developers using the Unreal Engine will soon be able to use a Bidstack plugin to choose areas within their games where they could make native in-game advertising available. They can pick any appropriate surface including virtual outdoor billboards, sporting pitch-side hoardings, decal stickers on the sides of vehicles, and prints on character clothing. Developers can also retrofit ad opportunities into existing games.

Eventually, games using the Unreal Engine will see their ad inventory become automatically available to advertisers to buy programmatically through Bidstack’s network of demand side platforms.

“Our new arrangement with Epic’s Unreal Engine enables developers of all sizes, by adding Bidstack’s technology to their game, to open their ad inventory to global media buyers and potentially attract advertising revenue from the world’s leading brands,” said James Draper, Bidstack CEO.

“This collaboration with Epic also gives advertisers an expanded access point to the gaming community, making it even more attractive to advertisers seeking to reach gamers, at a time when revenues from video games are larger than music and video combined.”