GDC 2008: Quake Live to be free ad-backed web game

A large chunk of future games might be free-to-play and depend solely on revenue from in-game advertisements and paid downloadable content. Ad-backed games stand to revolutionize the games industry and the revolution might have just commenced. In January 2008, EA announced an ad-backed online multiplayer game Battlefield Heroes and, now, id Software has heralded its own free ad-backed game, Quake Live.

Quake Live is essentially a free version of Quake Arena III that was released in 1999. id Software, the publisher of the popular Quake series of games, has entrusted…