High-traffic Flash-based gaming communities like Lumosity, Newgrounds and PopCap Games will be some of the first groups to utilize Flash's Low Level Virtual Machine compiler infrastructure. If these groups really do find the Flash customization as easy as it sounds, Adobe will be opening the floodgates to casual gaming. PopCap's titles alone have been downloaded more than 1 billion times by consumers worldwide. With reduced development time, it will be interesting to see the fortunes amassed by gaming houses. Some of the light games that have already been created using CS5 include Chroma Circuit, Fickleblox and Just Letters.

According to Eurogamer, Microsoft marketing executive James Halton commented on the Twitter and Facebook release saying, "It will be before Christmas. A lot of the background work's been done for a lot of applications that are coming."

In addition to this more social 360 Live community, Microsoft's most interesting entertainment efforts have been demoed, but they have not been released to the public. ReadWriteWeb recently covered a number of motion-based web interfaces and Microsoft's Project Natal is among the most anticipated motion interfaces for the gaming world.

Natal uses a sensor-based camera to recognize full body gestures, facial movements, depth perception and voice. The interface also allows players to scan real world objects like skateboards to interact with them in game play. With the integration of Facebook and Twitter, and the upcoming release of Natal, gamers will be able to record their own gestures and brag about their Xbox triumphs directly from their television screens. Alternatively, if your friends already heckle your lack of Skate abilities, they'll soon carry the heckling across networks, complete with screen captures and tweet annotation. Think of it as a modern-day America's Funniest Home Videos, only your avatar is the one getting kicked in the virtual junk over and over again. Love it or leave it, Microsoft is about to offer audiences a totally immersive entertainment experience. The Boxee community had better collect its rocks, it appears Goliath is on the move.

Click here to read Sam's take on the news.

Today, Google announced the launch of Google AdSense for Games, a flavor of AdSense built on Google's AdScape Media acquisition that allows advertisers and content producers to place ads within the content of online games.

But, that's a familiar position for Google.

The service, currently in beta, offers a variety of traditional AdSense ad units:

"As a beta user of AdSense for Games, you can display video ads, image ads, or text ads within your online games to earn revenue. You'll be able to show these ads in placements you define, such as interstitial frames before a game, after a level change, or when a game is over."

What's more, there are already a number of well-known companies participating, like Konami, mochimedia, and Zynga, which took on an additional $29 million in funding in July. Titles highlighted include Dance Dance Revolution, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Karaoke Revolution to name a few.

But just how well integrated are the ads? Google has provided the following demonstration of the service in action:

Content providers who are interested in participating in the program may apply if they have a minimum of 500,000 game plays with 80% of their traffic from the U.S. or the U.K.

Entering a market where Yahoo! and Microsoft already have a firm foothold is not out of character for Google. Nor is succeeding with that strategy. Clearly, it's a position from which they've managed to win, time and time again. It will be interesting to see if Google's series of come-from-behind victories remains consistent in the world of online gaming.

Steam's technology would definitely be a good fit for Google, which, thanks to YouTube and other ventures, is getting more and more invovled in the content distribution business. On the other hand, though, while pushing out 30,000 Mbit of data is surely no easy feat, we can't help but wonder about why Google would need to acquire them. After all, if anybody has a lot of experience in distributing massive amounts of data, it would be Google itself.

Overall, even though the Inquirer cites "well placed sources," we can't help but wonder if this rumor will pan out to be true. Maybe Google will only take over the Steam part of Valve's business, or the two will announce some form of partnership.

However, if Google really wanted to get into the game distribution business, buying Valve would make perfect sense. Games are not only a growing business (though PC games, which Valve focuses on, are suffering greatly from piracy), but also a growing advertising platform. Having control over the distribution mechanism for these Games might just make sense for Google.

What Will Google Do?

If this rumor turns out to be true, do you think Google is going to keep the Steam storefront open? Also, given Google's record of acquiring technology and then having it linger in the back of a server farm for years (think GrandCentral or Jaiku), do you think Google is actually going to make much use of this technology?

That's a huge number and one that I honestly think signals that with sufficient value delivered, consumers will still pay for software. This might be an anomaly of historic proportions, too, though.

For readers unfamiliar with WoW, there's a lot of video on YouTube, including the following parody of Weird Al's "That's Your Horoscope Today". It's not the catchiest tune but it's a good tour of what goes on in the game and it's been viewed more than 4 million times. When you build software that becomes a platform for user generated content all about your software - then you're in a pretty sweet spot. Perhaps that goes without saying for a company that has 10 million people around the world paying $15 per month.

This is a guest post by Muhammad Saleem, a social media consultant and a top-ranked community member on multiple social news sites.

Essential Elements of an ARG

Here are few of the 'must have' elements for a successful Alternate Reality Game:

1. Storytelling or narrative

Every ARG should have a captivating story to tell that extends beyond the product. For example, the Halo 3 guerrilla marketing campaign revealed specific elements of the third installment in the series, which would be interesting for people that are already fans of the game. These 'games' often serve as prologues for the product or event that they are ultimately marketing. Unlike with traditional advertising, these stories make the product/event more dynamic and more appealing.

Although ARGs are mostly used to market products that have found a loyal online fan base (e.g. video games, movies, music, and television), they can be used to market almost anything - as long as you have a story to tell. We saw this in Audi's "The Art of the Heist" ARG, which was made specifically to market the Audi A3, and Coca-Cola's "Zero will give you life as it should be" campaign for Coke Zero in Europe.

2. Discovery/deciphering and documentation elements

Any well-executed ARG will play its cards close to its chest and reveal information slowly, sporadically, using different outlets/ mediums, and over an extended period of time. The narrative should be broken into smaller pieces, often obscured or coded in some way, so that not only do they need to be found but also deciphered into something intelligible. As such, the discovery and deciphering elements allow different people/sources to 'discover' new information and forces them to work together as a collective to help the story progress.

While most people will be interested in closely following the story, to try and be the first to discover the next step (for fame/glory or just out of curiosity) there will be others that will play along just so they can document the game, analyze the marketing strategy, and learn from it.

3. Cross-medium interactivity

For an ARG to be successful, it has to use multiple mediums. It has to be pervasive and must be available and accessible on as many different mediums as possible. These mediums may include, but are not limited to:

• Articles or bits of information seeded online on blogs and news outlets
• Videos (clips, trailers, commentary)
• Print ads in magazines and newspapers
• Billboards
• Posters in shops
• People with placards on the streets
• Phone calls
• Radio or online audio broadcasts
• Email and snail mail

The more mediums you use, the more personal it becomes and the closer it gets to reality. Furthermore, with each medium you tap a potentially unique audience that you may not be able to tap into using other mediums (e.g. online/email versus offline/snail-mail).

4. Blurring the lines between reality and fiction

Because ARGs allow you as an individual and community (working together) to make decisions that have visible and often instantaneous results, or at least give the appearance of interactivity, they help blur the lines between reality and fiction.

For example, for the Halo 3 campaign, real people took to the streets and babbled indecipherable gibberish for days on end. Similarly, the Harvey Dent campaign was made to look like a real political campaign and at the same time required a 'grassroots' collective effort to unveil what was actually going on. When you walk into a store and are faced with a vandalized display and a floor littered with "The Joker" playing cards, in a sense you step out of theatrics and into an alternate reality.

Image from destructoid.com

Things ARGs Should Avoid

Just as there are some elements that any good alternate reality game must possess to engage an audience, there are other things that can completely turn an audience off. Here's a look at some of the elements that ARGs must absolutely stay away from.

1. Lack of interactivity, too linear

Too many ARGs give the appearance of interactivity and though it seems like the end result depends on your participation, the games are actually linear 'journeys' from point A to point B. No one wants to put hours into a puzzle when they know that their individual effort doesn't really affect the outcome.

2. Lack of a reward

People enjoy participating in ARGs because each puzzle you unlock gives you a new piece of information and helps progress a story. As I mentioned earlier, these games most often serve the purpose of a prologue. No one wants to participate if the reward is not tantalizing enough or there is no reward. The Coca-Cola Coke Zero campaign had this problem, because the participants ultimately realized that the campaign was merely for another flavor of Coke - information that in itself isn't 'virally appealing'.

3. No instant gratification

Just as important as having a reward is allowing readers to access it right away. We are living in a Web-enabled world where instant gratification is key and delayed gratification is like no gratification at all.

4. Too difficult

You don't want to just throw away the prize, but you also don't want to make getting to the prize so difficult that nobody wants to participate. There have been ARGs where I tried for a half an hour and then gave up, thinking that I would wait for someone else to solve the puzzle and just enjoy the findings; or I didn't bother going back out of sheer frustration. Finding the appropriate level of challenge can be one of the more difficult parts of any ARG-based marketing effort.

5. Same old game, different name

The ARGs that everyone talks about were successful because they innovated and came up with ideas and ways to engage that no one had used before. If your game is still using the same old tactics to market a different product, it's not going to work. Try to come up with something new, because the novelty value alone will be enough to draw in some people.

6. Too scripted, too commercial

An ARG by its very nature has to appear to be unscripted and non-commercial to succeed. Otherwise it just becomes an advertisement that people have to work for to see.

You have to keep in mind that on a very basic level, you must have a premise that people are interested in - or they could be interested in. Making an alternate reality game around cats will be difficult to market. It's much easier to follow the 4 steps above and avoid the 6 pitfalls mentioned, to take your good idea and make it a great success through ARG-based viral marketing.

ilove bees image from mitchrukat.com