Recently at the Casual Connect conference Google representatives announced the upcoming "Adsense For Games". Google's purchase of AdScape Media back in March combined with the incredible virtual world applications constructed with Google Maps and Google Earth have left everyone wondering if we were going to see games produced by them, or at least a games portal. Instead what they've planned is a system where content producers are able to make video and text ads available for purchase within their games.
This will all start with web-based games but PC and console games will soon follow. This is especially timely as many virtual worlds, such as Toontown, are moving to an ad-supported free to play platform. If Google is able to make these tools truly easy to integrate (as they have with everything else they've produced), this may make it much easier for a small group to create a 3D startup.
We'll have more on this as information becomes available.
