Confirmed: Google Buys Adscape

RED HERRING confirms this week that Google will indeed buy Adscape media for $23 million. This comes a month after it was rumored that Google was interested in purchasing the in-game advertiser.

I wrote about this rumor last month. See the previous post: Rumor: Google to Buy Adscape.

In that post, I speculated that Google was really after the Adscape technology portfolio so that it could be applied to real-world advertising. Adscape still hasn’t confirmed any relationships with game publishers/developers and RED HERRING downplays the in-game angle, saying “an Adscape acquisition gives Google little beyond a few interesting patents.” The RED HERRING source only bolsters my earlier opinions.

But, let me play devil’s advocate for a few moments. What if Google isinterested in breaking into in-game advertising? Could they be successful?

In my opinion - not easily… Google excels at “automating” advertising markets. That is, they have tools that help advertisers perform research, purchase placement, target specific audiences, record click-through/conversion, invoice and share ad revenue with placement providers. Porting these tools and processes to support in-game advertising will be a major undertaking. Consider some of the following challenges:

  • Non-standard media formats (ie: DXT1 vs DXT5 vs JPG vs PNG vs [insert custom developer format here]).
  • Non-standard media sizes (ie: 256×256 vs 128×1024 vs. 200×600, vs. [insert custom texture format here]).
  • Non-standard visual appearances - ads must look appropriate in dramatically different gaming environments (ie: compare the visual experience you expect in a brightly lit sports stadium to that of the dark stealthy world of Splinter Cell).
  • Tools to support various gaming engines - (ie: Unreal vs. Doom 3 vs. Source vs Torque, etc…)
  • Tools to support various gaming platforms - (ie: Xbox, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Wii, Windows, Mac, Flash, etc…)
  • Tools to measure ad effectiveness for advertisers - How do you count “impressions”? How do you allow users to interact with advertisements?

I can’t comment on what is automated vs. supported vs. not-supported here at Massive, but I can tell you this stuff is hard! A company that only boasts a small patent portfolio and has no announced relationships with shipping titles probably hasn’t worked through all these issues yet. Which means Google has a lot of work ahead if it intends to serve in-game ads…

Related reading:

- Fry

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