Yahoo to offer free ad-supported games

By Tim Conneally | Published 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.

Comments

View comments by with a score of at least

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

|

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

|

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

Score: 0

|

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

Score: 0

|

Swing from a tree in the wind, spammer.

Score: 0

|

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

|

Just what we need... more Adware

Score: 0

|

snore, MSN has done this for years!!

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

Score: 0

|

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

|

Microsoft's Ray Ozzie: 'Nobody's going to be 100% open'

The mobile apps ecosystems of the world may converge over time, led by apps being ported over across platforms, according to the Chief Software Architect.

Will Firefox beat IE9 to Direct2D rendering?

Just days after Microsoft executives gave conference attendees a peek at a new rendering technology, a Mozilla contributor revealed he's working on the same thing.

Where there's smoke: Apple warranty stance raises troubling questions

Carmi Levy | Wide Angle Zoom: Smoking can be dangerous not only for your lungs, it appears, but for your Apple hardware warranty.

AOL's decision to rebrand as Aol. takes a bad brand and makes it worse

The idea behind the social Web is to crowd source before bringing out something new. But not at AOL, which new logo debuted with a cry of "fail!" across the blogosphere and Twittersphere today.

Microsoft 'worked with Apple' for Silverlight on iPhone, says Goldfarb

By not making such a big deal out of trying to stream video to the iPhone, Microsoft got a big deal out of it, revealed the Silverlight product manager.

Clicker.com cuts through the Web video chaos

In a world where homemade video and Hollywood movies travel the same pipeline, it's good to have a real search engine to cut through the clutter.

A case study in improving software: What Office 2010 can learn from Notion 3

A music composition product gambles with a complete overhaul, in an effort to make headway against two well-known competitors in a tough market.

Kindle 2 update adds battery life, native PDF reader

Amazon has pushed out an update to the Kindle 2 e-reader that lengthens battery life and adds a native PDF viewer.

Safari on iPhone gets competition from a $1 browser app

Apple likes to say it gives iPhone users a full browsing experience, but a new competitor tries to incorporate more desktop browser features.

Action Replay maker sues Microsoft for Xbox 360 'predatory technological barriers'

Third-party video game accessory maker Datel has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft over the Xbox 360's recent Dashboard update.

Microsoft's Bob Muglia and Ray Ozzie on Silverlight vs. standards

Bob Muglia: "We're trying to provide people with an environment that has capabilities that you just simply can't do today in the standards-based world."