Romeo's BLOG » Google As Game Publisher?

Google As Game Publisher?

2008-09-13 15:22:31 Category : news

Will Google Play Games?

With Google increasingly willing to explore areas beyond its search engine roots, the website of business magazine Forbes has released an article discussing: Is Google as a videogame publisher within the realm of possibility?

The details are as below:

It's not as crazy as it might sound.

Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) already has its toes dipped in the gaming waters on a couple of fronts. "Google Lively," an avatar-based social interaction site, launched in July and appears to target "Second Life" players. And in March 2007, the Internet king acquired in-game advertising firm Adscape for ?23 million.

So far, Google hasn't done much with either. After an initial surge, "Lively" users are minimal--and Adscape has been quiet since the takeover. But the understated nature of these divisions could be temporary.

"The way Google works is they try a lot of different things, and they're OK with putting out sub-par products initially to get things moving," says Colin Sebastian, senior vice president of equity research at Lazard Capital Markets. "People are pretty forgiving of that ... since they're good at upgrading their products."

For its part, Google has downplayed talk of entering the game publishing or development arenas. At a conference in July 2007, Bernie Stolar, Google's Dean of Games (and the former head of both Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ) Computer Entertainment America and Sega (other-otc: SEGNF.PK - news - people ) of America), said the company was solely interested in the advertising potential of games--nothing else. The subsequent release of the virtual world "Lively" raises doubts and questions, though.

Is "Lively" meant to be a testing ground for a new delivery method for Adscape? Or is it more?

The paths Google could take to develop a bigger presence in the gaming industry are varied. With its financial war chest, the company could easily acquire one or several casual game development houses, using those to deliver in-game advertising via Adscape.