Microsoft’s Massive in-game ad division has a new leader: former Xbox Live GM JJ Richards. As ClickZ notes, Richards is a natural fit for the new position—he helped initiate MSFT’s acquisition of Massive in 2006, and has helped grow Xbox Live into a viable community (not to mention a steady revenue source for MSFT). Richards takes the helm from Cory Van Arsdale as Massive hosts its first game advertising upfront—a chance to show off its successful campaigns and lure both advertisers and game publishers in for new deals. Massive announced two such deals with Activision (NSDQ: ATVI) Blizzard today:

—An open-ended deal to serve ads in various Activision games for Xbox 360 and PC : It’s a multi-year extension of a previously established deal between the two, and ratchets up the number of available titles to 18, including Guitar Hero: World Tour, and the Tony Hawk franchise.

—A new deal to run ads on Blizzard’s Websites and its Battle.net portal: It’s Massive’s first tie-up with the World of Warcraft developer, and also the first time that Blizzard will feature third-party ads on its sites. Battle.net serves as an information hub and community around Blizzard’s trio of MMORPGs—WoW, StarCraft and Diablo. 

The upfront caps off a few months of Massive tie-ups, including an exclusive deal to plug ads into various THQ (NSDQ: THQI) games (including Saint Row 2) and a deal with EA that runs through 2010 to manage ads in the Madden, NBA LIVE, and Need For Speed series’, among others.