First of all, a short background: I started a gaming community website around this time two years ago. Since then it has grown to consist of quite a large forum and a games section which gets a fair bit of traffic. Currently there is no monetization in place, and I had promised myself never to monetize this as it is my "hobby website" (I opted to build scripts and whatnot to sell and make some money however that hasn't turned out to be profitable). I gave in a few weeks ago and installed AWSTATS to get a feel for what I could expect. Now, the community is mostly Flash game enthusiasts (developers and players)... Do you think AdSense is a good option here? I was thinking "image only" ads which are quite often Flash ads which would blend well with the high interactivity of the website. (Sorry, traffic was down past the 10th due to an issue I was having with my Amazon S3 account... the stats above are an accurate general representation) It gets considerable traffic from Google and as I've said the community is large so repeat visitors consist of a large portion of the traffic. If you want to offer any AdSense or other monetization advice, that would be great. I was thinking I could strike a deal with webmasters here or developers on the site, say 100 people pay $5 for a link, which is then rotated into visibility X times per day. It would be unobtrusive but provide good exposure that way. What do you think?
Dude, you need to get on adsense and read this... http://adsense.blogspot.com/2005/10/six-adsense-optimization-tips-for.html
Adsense seems like a good option, but be careful to not overdo it. Too many ads become annoying. It also slows the amount of time it takes the page to load.
Thats a nice steady traffic, i would advice you to use text/image ads instead of image only (mainly and to many, image ads have performed in lower PPC, but i have a site on which image ads actually performs good, so you can test it out). But don't get surprised if the earnings will not be what you expected them, your niche is a low paying one but with the traffic you have i believe you can easily manage to pay your dedicated server (presume you use a dedi for such forum) every month. You can always give it a try...there is no harm to do give it a try, and by time you will see the errors and bugs and fix them and improve your ad performance and revenue.
I'd say, you better go for providers who pays for CPM ads.. CTR and eCPM in adsense is quite low for gaming/arcade sites.
adsense is a good option but always look at other options too. best will be CPM based Networks as Abhik has already specified since you are getting a nice traffic and CPM based ads will earn you much.
I think you would do better with cpm or selling your own products, communities are a bit hard to monetize since they rarely click on ads.
Like some of the others have said, you're better off using a CPM network. Forums are notorious for their low CTR with CPC programs. You'll be lucky if you receive a 1% CTR.
adsense can be a great option for you. i have a friend who has similar web site to your with the same traffic and i know that he is earning great money
The only drawback would be that you mention your traffic being Flash developers, so they may be "in the know" about the ads and thus you won't get many clicks.
My opinion is that you should try to find sites with affiliate programs and control the ads displaying on your site. You will for sure find something who convert well and the pay out will be higher.
You might consider sponsors, like www.arboristsite.com does. Or www.lawnsite.com Yeah, it's like a christmas tree, but those sites probably make an okay income. The lawn one - he sells his own product stuff too. But still run the Adsense. So what if you get just one percent - even a half percent. You will probably get a couple thousand K per year anyway.
If you decide to use adsense dont't put it everywhere and make it look to obvious. Blend it in with the text of you site and you show be fine. But still think about you other options.
You have substantial traffic there; even bearing in mind gaming is a not a particularly strong niche as far as adsnese is concerned, it is no doubt that your best option is to go with adsense simply because you have great traffic.