Yesterday Google launched Adsense for Games, an in-game advertising system initially designed for browser-based Flash titles. Publishers will be able to display video, image or text ads, and also customise their placement via the Flash SDK, opting to show ads before the game, between levels or when the game is over. From Googles Adsense Blog:
Members of our AdWords team will sell your in-game ad placements directly to top brand advertisers, and you'll also see contextually targeted text and image ads based on content and demographic information. In addition, you'll be able to control the ads you see on your pages using our filtering options.
Google has helpfully produced a video to show what an Adsense for Games placement will look like. I can't get the bloody thing to embed so here's a link to YouTube.
Several partners have already signed up including indie game stronghold, Armor, and Konami, which is planning to produce Flash versions of games like Dance Dance Revolution and Frogger. As for advertisers, according to VentureBeat, Sony Pictures and US telecommunications giant Sprint are on board.
The response from rival in-game ad companies has been interesting. Jonathan Epstein, CEO of DoubleFusion, enthused to CNET, "it confirms for all parties...that this space is of interest to one of the largest media companies in the world. Google does not enter into markets that don't have billion dollar-plus potential for them". In other words, Google brings legitimization to an ad market still struggling to make headway against more traditional media channels like TV and print. Although, of course, you would have thought Microsoft's ownership of Massive might have had a similar effect.
If this is a success, Google is certain to roll the service out to mobile games and eventually to console. Perhaps if the tipping point for in-game ads is yet to happen, this is the moment of imbalance. Stats seem to show that players are okay with in-game ads as long as they're in context. But when titles with in-game promotions become the majority, and when those in-game placements multiply as Google boosts the image of the sector, will this still be the case?
