With the announcement of Quake Live this week, a new free to play through your web browser version of the shooter classic, advertising supported games got a huge boost. Once the market of cheap knock-offs and severely outdated classics, advertising supported gaming is now getting big name supporters such as id Software with Quake Live and Electronic Arts with Battlefield Heroes. That’s both good and bad news for gamers.

Interested users can now sign up via the QuakeLive.com web site to be part of the eventual beta test. Once live, the game will allow players to play a new advertising supported version of Quake right through their web browser. Ads will supposedly be dynamically targeted to players as they play. In other words, expect lots of ads for Family Guy DVDs. This is very similar to the model announced by Electronic Arts for their Battlefield Heroes game, which will game a cartoon look to the open field war game. That model does add in microtransactions, which presumably would be focused around new weapons and ways of customizing your character.

So, what does this all mean for gamers? In the short run, it means gamers will be seeing probably a lot of copycats trying to get in on the advertising supported game market. Don’t assume for a second that this is all going unnoticed by Sony and Microsoft. While Microsoft has already experimented somewhat with this concept, releasing the Toyota Yaris racing game for free on Xbox Live, they have yet to jump full force into advertising supported games. Such ads would make perfect sense in a Smash TV or Unreal Tournament style environment. Make the game itself a television show and include ads and product placements. The public is so used to this format it would be far less jarring than seeing Mario snack on a DiGiorno pizza.

Will all games eventually go this route? It’s hard to say. While some, such as the style noted above, will certainly experiment in advertising sponsorship, others simply wouldn’t be able to make the format work. Additionally, one has to consider if the advertising revenue is there to support multi-million dollar game development. Even advertising supported formats such as television have ancillary income from DVD and syndication sales. It’s a brave new world for gamers. Now, they simply have to decide if they choose to live in it.