Everyone knows that online casual gaming is a huge and growing market – comScore numbers show 25%+ of people who use the internet play games online. Google just announced that they will be enabling online game developers and publishers to monetize their creations in a new way with AdSense for Games. AdSense for Games, which is in beta, will enable developers to add video ads, images ads or text ads within games where ever they see fit. For now only game publishers with a minimum of 500k plays will be allowed to participate. The Google AdWords team will initially sell the game ad placements directly to advertisers, but publishers will be able to filter which ads are shown within the game.
AdSense has enabled website owners to easily monetize their content in a effect and easy manner for awhile now – even though the pay-out per click is low, you cant beat the ease of use. AdSense for Games will have a similar impact for those online games (if it gets released into the wild) that don’t have ad integration deals. However, making it this easy for anyone to add advertisements within games opens up a cornucopia of issues – including people creating games solely to place ads in it and the obvious “overdoing it” in regards to the amount of ads shown.
Here are a couple videos explaining how AdSense for Games works and how it can be effective for advertisers:
