Ads to Turn Casual Gaming into Major Revenue Stream

(from MarketingVox) Ads are changing the casual gaming world drastically, with in-game advertising for casual downloadable games producing a 200-500 percent revenue increase compared with ad-free "try and buy" games. Research firm Yankee Group estimates in-game ad revenues will reach $732 million by 2010, and the primary demographic audience, women over 30, holds 80 percent of decision-making buying power in the U.S. - making advertising in the medium all the more lucrative, according to Next-Gen guest writers Ran Cohen, director of emerging media at Eyeblaster, and Chris Houtzer, director of new media for games at RealNetworks. Ads can be integrated by adding logos into the game, but the real future is video ads, which can be integrated between levels of a game. RealNetworks and Eyeblaster are working together to create a video ad system. Video ads are presented every 10 minutes of play during natural breaks in the game. If a user decides to buy the game, the ads are immediately disabled.