A recent post in the official AdSense blog unveiled the new "AdSense for Games", the new Google-branded advertising platform that has been in the works for nearly a year and aims at making the currently under-monetized Flash game market at least as profitable as the rest of the World Wide Web content.

According to ComScore, Flash games are one of the hottest trends of the moment, with an estimated 25% of Internet users, or 200+ millions worldwide, playing at least once a week, their ranks growing each year by an astonishing 17 percent. Last year, the Yankee Group reported that entire video game advertising market reached $77.7 million in 2006, projecting to almost $1 bln by the end of 2011: even if such figures are too optimistic given the global financial crisis, all indications are this market will keep growing steadily in the near future.

Clearly, this means a great profit potential from this business, and many companies have already embarked upon the task of monetizing such games properly, but are too often forced to face the difficulties for game developers to embed advertisement into their software in a way that is engaging for users without interrupting or interfering with the user experience.

Microsoft first acquired in-game advertising company Massive in early 2006, arguably setting the pace for both Yahoo! and Google itself, which bought the small Adscape Media for $23 million not late after Microsoft's acquisition in order to develop a similar product. Other key players that have been on the market for several years are — among others — Double Fusion and NeoEdge, which are mainly specialized in video-based advertisement.

In other words, the advent of Google in this market was far from unexpected, but given the position of the search engine in the online advertising market, it is certainly a competitor to be feared. In its current "beta version", AdSense for Games targets (for

obvious reasons) browser games players only, or users who play Flash games directly into their browser windows as opposed to downloading a copy of the .swf file to play offline.

Developers who wish to take part in the "for Games" beta can fill out a simple form and have their software reviewed. The current requirements restrict eligible applications to those featuring a minimum 500,000 game plays per day, a 80% US- or UK-based traffic composition and are capable of SDK integration, among other things. In exchange for that, the selected publishers will be able to display remunerative text, banner, and even video ad formats from renowned companies — some of which are also in the gaming industry — such as Konami, Arcadetown, Demand Media and Cafe.com.

Judging from some of the introductory videos in the original AdSense blog post, it would seem that publishers will be able to fully customize exactly where and how the ads are to be shown, something that is most likely to be achieved by embedding a piece of code in a specific spot within the Flash application, in much the same way website publishers choose where to embed the traditional AdSense code into their websites.

Jonathan Epstein Double Fusion CEO, reacted to the Google announcement by declaring 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 [...] The battleground here is not between ourselves and Massive and Google [...] it's getting games their rightful share of the ad dollars, as opposed to TV, print, and [traditional] online ads."

While — also given the stiff competition — analysts agree that the new AdSense for Games won't be an overnight success, game developers most certainly share Epstein's wish which might eventually end up, if possible, to push the Flash market in the direction of an even faster rise.