EA Launches ‘Lemonade Tycoon,’ Its First Ad-Supported iPhone Game

imageGames Publisher Electronic Arts (NSDQ: ERTS) has launched its first ad-supported iPhone game called “Lemonade Tycoon,” based on a old, but popular PC game. The game is notable because its one of a few titles that the company is offering for free on the iPhone.

The goal of the “Lemonade Tycoon” is to run a successful lemonade stand, by constantly tweaking the product’s price, the stand’s location and the recipe. The player must weigh whether to buy more sugar, ice cubes, lemons, or cups, while also considering a pricey premium location. Once you’ve guessed the winning combination, you start your day and customers starting buying. If the juice is too sour, or too sweet, you may lose sales. For a free game, it’s a high quality experience and actually is fairly addictive.

Greystripe is both serving and inserting the ads into the game. EA Mobile VP Adam Sussman told mocoNews the model is an experiment. “It’s a dynamic market, and we are learning,” he said. (Update: In an earlier version, we said the ads were coming from AdMob. An EA spokesperson provided us with incorrect information.).

More on the ads after the jump…

For now, the ads appear during every few levels, and aren’t very intrusive. Interestingly, the first couple of ads are gathering demographic information, such as gender and age. Other ads were for the new Nikon CoolPix camera or for an album on iTunes. EA is fairly upfront about advertising paying for the game. On the download page on iTunes, the company writes: “We are able to offer you this complimentary version of Lemonade Tycoon because of the tastefully integrated sponsor messages.” Eventually, you could see how a game like this could be a completely branded experience, like “Tropicana’s Lemonade Typcoon.”

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