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Yahoo to offer free ad-supported games

By Tim Conneally, BetaNews

July 10, 2008, 6:43 PM

Yahoo has announced that it will be offering ad-subsidized versions of popular casual games for download, and anticipates as many as 400 will be available by the end of the year.

Yahoo Games prominently features games with unlimited free trial versions as well as for-pay downloads. Today, the company announced it will be adding free, ad-supported versions of those downloads.

The company expects more than 400 ad-supported games by the end of the year, coming from 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.

These games will feature pre-, mid-, and post-roll advertisement delivered by ad company NeoEdge, and served on the fusion.runtime technology from Double Fusion.

In other areas of ad-supported gaming, EA, which has been testing the model on its Battlefield franchise with the Pixar-inspired Battlefield Heroes, is also expected to launch its game before the summer is out.

Add a Comment (9 Comments)

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By mmoak

posted Jul 11, 2008 - 9:00 AM

This is sounds like good news. I have friends who are retired and they play a lot of the BigFish games and this well free up some finances for them. A lot of those are 20.00 a piece and I count 17 on their computers.

Ads on games are nothing new.

Score: 0

By fabyon

edited Jul 11, 2008 - 9:33 PM

If they join the BigFish club the games are only 6.99 each. I have the feeling your friends went for that option.

Score: 0

By sturgess

posted Jul 11, 2008 - 6:30 AM

Free games, I'm all for it. Don't mind an advert or two.

Score: 0

By mahaseo

posted Jul 11, 2008 - 5:36 AM

yes i agree with mfaccone
http://www.magnewin.com

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jul 11, 2008 - 10:22 AM

Swing from a tree in the wind, spammer.

Score: 0

By Hellcat_M

posted Jul 11, 2008 - 3:49 AM

I think its a step in the right direction. PopCap and GameHouse are pretty well known and with the f2p games it could make them even more money. I hope it works out for them

Score: 0

By mfaccone

posted Jul 10, 2008 - 9:46 PM

Just what we need... more Adware

Score: 0

By mdotwills

posted Jul 10, 2008 - 9:06 PM

snore, MSN has done this for years!!

be original guys, thats what you've gotta do if you wanna win!

Score: 0

By AntiochMedia

posted Jul 10, 2008 - 8:41 PM

Okay... well there's something that Google isn't doing... Yahoo would actually do themselves a HUGE favor at pushing their gaming portal to the forefront of what they provide...

Score: 0

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