Yahoo Announces Ad-Supported Online Gaming

July 28, 2008

Yahoo has announced that Yahoo Games will be offering more than 400 ad-supported downloadable games to its online users. This large collection of games from top casual games publishers will reach Yahoo's gaming audience by year end.

Yahoo Offers Gamers Demographic to Online Advertisers

In-game advertising will not only allow Yahoo Games to monetize its games offering, but will also provide advertisers access to the coveted gamers demographic. Kyle Laughlin, head of games for Yahoo, said, "In-game advertising is a win-win for Yahoo Games and our partners, and our users. Yahoo Games will monetize our games experience while providing the most popular games free to game enthusiasts."

Technology providers, Double Fusion and NeoEdge, will sell and integrate pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll video ads into the Yahoo Games catalog. Paid downloads without advertising will also be available to users on Yahoo Games.

Yahoo Games Reaches Key Female Demographic

Yahoo Games Double Fusion will lend its core expertise, fusion.runtime technology, and its ad sales force to enable ad-supported Yahoo games. For advertisers, the partnership brings the opportunity to access highly targeted reach to one of the most important consumer demographics - females 35 to 54 - at a time when they are fully engaged. By working with Double Fusion, Yahoo will be to make more games available, for longer or, in some cases, unlimited free trials.

Yahoo will also leverage NeoEdge's NeoARM ad enabling technology along with the NeoAds advertising network and NeoEdge ad sales team to deliver a suite of ad-supported casual games giving Yahoo an efficient way to insert ads into its game library without requiring the game source code. NeoEdge also enables advertisers to reach the key female demographic.

Online Games from Top Publishers Through Yahoo Games

At launch, ad-supported downloadable games on Yahoo Games will be available from publishers including Alawar Entertainment, Anarchy, Big Fish Games, eGames, Floodgate, Freeze Tag, FreshGames, Funkitron, Gogii Games, GameHouse, Gamemill Publishing, HipSoft, I-Play, iWin, Last Day of Work, Legacy Interactive, Ludia, MumboJumbo, pixelStorm, PlayFirst, Playrix Entertainment, PopCap, Reflexive Entertainment, Sandlot Games, Sugar Games, TellTale Games, TikGames, uclick, Worldwide Biggies, and Zero G Games.