Social gaming firm Zynga has reintroduced offer-based ads around its games which it says will be checked for quality by a new internal review board.
Zynga reportedly made one third of its revenues from commercial offers before suspending cost-per-action advertising in November 2009.
These ads offer players virtual currency for partaking in surveys or signing up for trials on behalf of Zynga’s commercial partners, but were withdrawn from the company’s games following accusations that users were being scammed into signing up for services such as mobile phone charges or mail-order products that were disguised as free.
Despite being hit with a class action lawsuit over the ads, Zynga has now reintroduced them to provide “users who don’t have access to online payment methods the ability to make in-game purchases while having a compelling game experience”, CEO Mark Pincus wrote on his blog.
The offers are from eight companies - Netflix, Discover Card, Blockbuster, HSBC Direct, Gamefly, Book of the Month Club, SnapFish and The New York Times - with more to be phased in over time as they meet Zynga's "new standards".
“We have set up a team that is dedicated to checking the quality of any offer we display,” said Pincus. “This group reviews each offer and applies a strict set of standards for content and user experience before it can be displayed. We also have technology in place that will regularly check offers to verify that only Zynga reviewed offers are displayed.
“Offers represent a valuable channel for advertisers, users and developers. They enable advertisers to sponsor a user's game session or item purchase in return for their attention, affiliation or purchase. For some users, this enables a purchase they could not have otherwise made or justified. For developers like us it represents incremental revenue to fund our games.
“In addition, you will be seeing new brand engagement ads tested in our games. PetVille will test ads from Visa, Sprint, Xbox, Timberland, MTV, TV Land, CW and HTC. This type of brand engagement will allow users to gain currency in a fast and easy way.
“Looking forward, we hope to partner with the industry to develop standards and policies for advertising around social games and virtual goods to ensure that our users have meaningful game experiences from companies they can trust.”