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?
It#DY#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#DY#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#DY#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#DY#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#DY#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.
