Live Gamer Makes Two Acquisitions to Expand From Virtual Goods Platform to Ad Network

Live Gamer, which for the past few years has been focused on building a platform to monetize games through virtual goods, has acquired two ad-based companies to help expand more into the freemium-based models.

The New York-based company has acquired gamerDNA Media, a videogame ad network; and BrandPort, an advertising platform. The terms of the deals were not disclosed.

Now game developers can partner with Live Gamer to monetize games both through virtual goods, which users must pay for, and through advertisments, such as videos that users must watch to earn virtual goods within a game.

Andrew Schneider, president and co-founder of Live Gamer, said advertising can make a difference to a game developer that may only be getting 10 percent of its players to pay for games. “How many players aren’t monetizing? It’s a dramatic uplift in revenue, and brand marketers love this because they [gamers] are engaging in ads,” he said.

Under the acquisition, BrandPort will be renamed Ad Elements and will provide a video platform, which allows a player to watch a video to earn an in-game item. GamerDNA Media is one of the larger game-focused ad networks in the U.S., reaching more than 48 million unique monthly visitors worldwide. It works with advertisers such as Blizzard, Best Buy, KFC, Sony Computer Entertainment, Wal-Mart and Namco, to insert pre-roll ads into games.

After users watch a video, they often have to answer a question about the clip or rate the video in order to be awarded the virtual good.

Other companies are in this space as well, including WildTangent and hi5, which are both promoting their own social networks; and AdColony on mobile.