Mark van Diggelen’s Casual Games Blog

Completed projects:
- Integrat, Play4Games mobile portal. Completed integration & deployment, interfaced into their High Gate billing engine.
- Completed the clean up of the SkillPod logo, feedback has been really good.
- Completed the new registration integration, including Open ID, Facebook Connect, Google, AOL, Yahoo accounts, etc
- Completed integration into Moneybookers global payment providers platform
- Deployed 14 multi player games onto the Facebook Application framework
- Completed 10 new games for mobile and online, including 5 multi player games for mobile
- Completed the development of the Subscription solution, will start rolling out next week. Interfaces with new registration framework, Moneybookers and the new premium games
- Added additional Social Bookmarking features, including: Facebook Like, Google Buzz, Twitter, Email and Facebook status update
- Partnered with Spelpunt (Europe’s largest multi player game provider) and completed the integration
- Media 24 are finally interfacing fully into the online platform, including co-registration, high scores, etc
- RTL Post Game screen project
- RTL Tournaments project
- 6 new titles added to Nokia Ovi store
- Partnered with Prize Voucher for the provision of sponsored prizes for the tournaments, the beta test is running SkillPod and IOL
- Completed an adver mobile game for Malaysia
- Completed an adver game for Nedbank
- Roll out of an online platform for Turkey
- Roll out of an online platform for Vietnam

New developments:
- Developing a showcase 3D style driving game
- Completing the centralised distribution platform for the mobile solution
- We will begin the rapid deployment framework for online early next week
- We’re in the process of developing a sport village style cluster of games
- Finalising the agreement with SAB Media for the deployment of a mobile solution in India
- Roll-out of the mobile platform for Turkey
- Roll-out of the mobile platform for Vietnam
- User and advertiser game customisation platform
- Convert the following games to mobile multi player versions: 8 Ball, 5 in a Row, Connect 4, Battleships and Backgammon

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RTL Nederland, part of the leading European entertainment network RTL Group, has launched a new online gaming platform Spelsalon.nl. The new site offers a wide choice of casual games, supplied by SkillPod Media and supplemented with games from a selection of third-party games developers. The number and variety of games is set to grow in the near future. “This deal increases SkillPod’s reach into Europe and opens up opportunities for a number of deployments of our robust casual games platform with RTL Group across Europe”, says Mark van Diggelen, CEO of SkillPod Media.

Arno Otto, Managing Director of Digital Media (RTL Nederland), commented that “the global gaming market seems to match the entertainment market in size. The demand for online gaming is growing exponentially. The combination of a strong market player like SkillPod Media with the entertainment value of RTL Spelsalon.nl creates a star in online games.”

What does the deal encompass?
With the launch of Spelsalon.nl, RTL Nederland has implemented a custom SkillPod Games solution, which makes use of their XML (extensible mark-up language), API (application programming interface) and white-label engine. This approach allows RTL Nederland to integrate the data received via the XML feed into their proprietary content management system and thus display the content as per their website’s design templates. “With this structure, future enhancements and new modules can be quickly and seamlessly integrated into the publisher’s website, without having to fully redesign the layout to accommodate the new features”, adds van Diggelen.

The features included
SkillPod has provided a number of custom games solutions that contribute to the overall games offering for the Spelsalon.nl games portal. This includes the development of a secure solution for the logging and recording of high scores; for this purpose, API’s have been developed and provided to a number of third-party game developers whose games are also being used on the portal.

The data query features include a list of games containing all relevant information such as images, flash path, description, help; a list of all games per category; a player profile listing, and all relevant information such as high scores, friends and messages; sending of messages; top most-played games; recently played games; favourite games; player transaction history; and search capabilities.

Why the hype?
This API has the advantage that it allows companies such as RTL Group to exercise full control over how the games display, what games display and how players can interact. The solution allows for single log-in functionality as well − meaning that players can use a registered OpenID on a publisher’s website with SkillPod being able to interface with that OpenID, allowing secure and seamless passing of player data, and enriching the user’s experience. “We were looking for a flexible and high-spec games solution that could be adapted and tweaked to fit the requirements of our different group business units and that could be expanded upon in whichever territory it was launched; SkillPod has provided that.” said Ian McClelland, Head of New Media, RTL Group.

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In fact what is a casual game? Well wiki has a detailed answer, but basically it’s a simple game designed to appeal to wide audience. Typically casual games are not big budget and not action-based; they are normally puzzle/card-type games that you can load and play straight away with the mouse. Casual games don’t generally “punish” the player, they are more of a progressive “fun/addictive” experience.

Current examples of casual games include Bejeweled 2 Deluxe, Diner Dash: Flo On The Go, Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst, Luxor: Amun Rising, Mystery Solitaire: Secret Island, and even platform games like Super Granny 3.

Anyway, so who plays them? Well it’s not spotty teenagers who buy Half Life or who download pirated games with BitTorrent – no Siree! In fact you often hear that it’s mainly women over 30 – is this true? Yep, you bet. I was just given a report from Popcap, one of the largest developers and distributors of casual games on the Internet, and it includes details of a recent survey that they did of casual gamers.

Check it out:

§ 76% of Players are Female! Yep, so it’s no use making gore filled zombie-fests.

§ Average age of 48. Wow, so some younger developers might be making games aimed at someone just like their mum – imagine that!

§ 89% Are 30 or Older. So basically only 11% are teenagers and in their 20s.

§ 71% are 40 or older and 47% are 50 or older. So nearly half of casual gamers are over 50! You better think about that carefully when designing a casual game.

§ 88% of players overall indicated they experienced stress relief from playing casual games. So casual games need to be fun and progressive but not “stressful”.

§ 74% of all respondents cited mental exercise as a benefit. Aha, so they can’t be mindless games either. They need to keep the grey cells going.

Popcap claim this was the largest ever survey of casual game players (the survey was done in August 2006). Now, a few things may mean that their statistics are slightly skewed (as with all surveys): a) only a certain type of person takes surveys, perhaps women over 50? b) we don’t know where Popcap did the survey. If it was on their site, perhaps it attracts a certain kind of casual customer that is a bit different from Reflexive customers for example. c) we don’t know how many people took the survey. However, I suspect that the survey is pretty accurate to be honest.

A cool thing about women over 50 is that they probably have a good source of income and some spare time on their hands and aren’t afraid to spend money on games. This is great news for *good* casual game developers. Compare that market to say the market for some kind of Indie First Person Shooter game… Imagine I made a low-budget FPS game (haha); well the teenagers and young men that would maybe buy it mostly spend their money on big budget retail games for PCs and consoles or they pirate games (sad fact but true), and so my FPS game would have to compete with those factors. Therefore it would probably not have much chance. Having said that the casual game market is becoming increasingly competitive with game development budgets rising and many more games entering the marketplace everyday.

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