Microsoft's Casual Games division has created a new plan that shares up to 20% of revenues from in-game advertising with developers. The cleverly named Ad-Share Program (catchy, ain't it?) applies to titles on MSN Games and comes in two flavors: Level I and Level II. (Again with the awesome names!)
Level 1 only gives devs 10% of the take, but places fewer requirements on the actual game they produce. Level II's reward is 20%, but the title must provide at least 10 hours of gameplay and be submitted for an ESRB rating. According to Microsoft's Chris Early, the top five participants in the Program should expect to take home around $250k when all is said and done. Given the low budgets of most casual titles, that's a pretty darn nice haul. We'll have to see if this line of thinking begins creeping into the XBLA space, too.
Microsoft to share in-game ad revenues with devs [GamesIndustry.biz]
