Those who were making some handsome cash with AdSense referral, bad news for them is AdSense Referrals were retired at the end of August 2008. But while closing down one Goggle did open up to new dimension to publishers by starting to offer AdSense for feed. But hey there is more, Google just announced a public beta for AdSense for Games. Yes that’s right beta users of AdSense can display video ads, image ads, or text ads within online games to earn revenue. They’ll be able to show these ads in placements they define, such as interstitial frames before a game, after a level change, or when a game is over.  Sweet isn’t it?

Hold on before you get carried away! In order to be eligible for beta testing "AdSense for games"-you must have 500,000 game plays/day and 80% of your traffic must be from the US and/or the UK. So now you know why heavy weight publishers like Konami, grab.com, Archade Town, HeavyGames and others are on board.

This can be considered as a turning point to both Game advertising as well as for any Flash based RIA (Rich Internet Application) advertising. Reason: Practically this is the first time AdSense officially has been incorporated into Flash. There are ready-made hooks by Google which will allow publishers/Game creators to show contextual advertising. Flash has been always been the driving technology behind RIA and as well as those Rich flashy adds (MS SilverLight yet to make a foothold). But unfortunately we haven’t seen any good example of AdSense (or other Contextual ads) inside of RIAs.

We see so many Flash ads everyday, it would be a total waste of possibility if we can’t deliver or come up with solution to deliver contextual ads within those. I strongly believe Google’s AdSense for games can be the flagship of this whole RIA-Contextual advertising revolution.