WebProNews

You know what they say about work and play, so even as Yahoo gets eyed by Steve Ballmer, interrogated by investors, and generally abused by Carl Icahn, here's a nice side project: it's trying to offer a lot of downloadable games for free.

Around 400 of the things are expected to become available by year's end.  What players might view as a catch - and what Yahoo hopes they won't - is the fact that the games will be supported by advertising.

 Yahoo Focuses On Free Games

"Top technology providers, Double Fusion and NeoEdge, will sell and integrate pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll video ads into the Yahoo! Games catalog," according to a corporate statement.

For the sake of saving money and having fun, people will probably be able to get past this detail.  The real problem (from Yahoo's perspective) might be getting them to click on the ads - are folks who play free games really that interested in spending cash? - but any income will count as welcome income.

Now, to return for a moment to more serious stuff, it seems the gaming news didn't do much for Yahoo's stock - it's currently down 2.18 percent for the day.