Mark van Diggelen’s Casual Games Blog

In the world of casual gaming it’s a norm that games are playable online with the option for the user to generally purchase them to play offline. When it comes to mobile gaming the norm is that users only have the option to buy. They then need to install the game to play it on their handsets. SkillPod Media is currently breaking this mould with the launch of their new mobile games platform gazuma!

With the high penetration of mobile handsets that have internet browsers for users to surf the web, why not allow users to play their favourite games without the need to first install them? This is the motivation behind the development of the gazuma! mobile games platform, says Mark van Diggelen, CEO of SkillPod Media. The mobile phone has bridged the gap between the PC and laptop and allows users to manage their digital lives, from their mobiles, by receiving and sending email, surfing the web, managing their Facebook profiles, posting fresh Tweets on Twitter. Why then should they need to first download games to satisfy their gaming needs, adds van Diggelen.

SkillPod Media has been developing casual games solutions and games for the past 6 years, and has a thorough understanding of the market and more importantly what the gamers are looking for. The new mobile games platform allows users to play the games directly from their handsets Internet browser, with this they are able to log game scores, enter tournaments, win Pods (SkillPod’s virtual currency platform), challenge friends, build friends lists (with Facebook integration), message friends and buy the games to download and play offline.

A number of unique solutions have emerged from the SkillPod R & D team, which include the ability to play Flash games via the handset browser, whereas handsets typically attempt to download the Flash file. Other innovations include the secure high score logging systems and the ability to deliver the content dynamically through the content management system, which was built from the ground up. SkillPod ranked playability and ease of use at the top of the priority lists and much effort has been placed on these functions – the feedback from users has been incredibly positive.

SkillPod Media has been publishing its games on the Nokia Ovi Store since mid December 2009 and we are delighted with the results thus far, adds van Diggelen. These developments have resulted in SkillPod having developed a number of unique solutions for specifically the new Symbian S60 version 5 handsets, which include the ever popular Nokia 5800 and newer N97 handsets. A few of these innovations include the controlling of the orientation of the screen, by locking the screen for the game orientation, be it landscape or portrait. Again emphasis was placed on the overall user experience with full screen game play being the default mode, with the necessary game controls being populated within the game itself. Users are able to control the volume of the game, ‘play again’ features and log scores through the native high score systems developed by SkillPod.

This is the first generation of our new mobile games platform and we’ll be adding a host of new features in the coming months, emphasises van Diggelen. The strength of the platform lies in the fact that the solution can easily be customised via white labelling or XML, this gives the publisher total control over the integration of the mobile offering. More importantly, partners have an immediate income stream as all the online games have download versions that users can download and pay for through a host of payment options, including direct billing to their mobile accounts, PayPal and credit cards – all in their local currency. SkillPod Media has partnered with the international payment provider Zong, for the various payment options which are country and currency specific.

The platform currently has mobile game 20 titles, across a number of game genres. SkillPod will be adding 12 – 18 new titles a month. All the game titles can be fully customised, re-branded, translated and have the potential to include advertisers branding in them. The platform has been setup to manage promotions in the form of advertising, sponsorship and game sales. Publishers further have the option of offering the mobile games site as a free to play, subscription based and or time based access options.

All enquiries can be sent through to SkillPod Media – info@skillpodmedia.com.

In summary the gazuma! mobile games platform offers the following features:
- Mobile Games, playable via the mobile browser;
- Tournaments;
- Challenges;
- Game Ratings;
- Game Info Pages;
- Secure High Score Logging;
- Player Profiles;
- Pods System;
- Messaging;
- Friends Lists;
- Buy & Download Games;
- Facebook Connect Integration – registrations, challenge friends, etc;
- Global Payment Gateway Integration;
- Links to Nokia Ovi Store, and in the future Blackberry and Android titles will also be available.

The platform will offer publishers the following opportunities:
- White Label Solutions;
- XML Feeds;
- Revenue Share Opportunities;
- Custom Games;
- Translated Games and Site.

Advertiser Opportunities:
- Branded Games;
- Customised Games;
- Links and Banners;
- Tournament Sponsorship;
- Game Pre-roll Ads.

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admin Casual Games, Game Development, Industry News, Mobile Games, SkillPod News cell phone games, cellphone games, games, Mobile Games, mobile games platform

SkillPod Media started with its mobile strategy sometime ago and has taken this time to finalise the games content and more so the new mobile games platform that’ll be launched and on offer to publishers from February. More recently SkillPod started with the deployment of its Flash Lite based mobile games into the Nokia Ovi Store, the games have been available for a couple of weeks now and includes 15 of the 40 titles available. The response really hasn’t been bad, says Mark van Diggelen, CEO of SkillPod Media, with some typical superstars enjoying downloads from 55 countries.

There is definitely a purchasing trend towards the handsets that have the Ovi Store links pre-installed on the handsets, such as the new Nokia N97 and 5800. SkillPod has also recently partnered with the new BuzzCity mobile portal Djuzz, which will also be launched in the next week or two as well as the ever popular Australasian mobile portal, Cellmania.com. We’ll add 4 to 5 new titles a month to the Ovi Store and our other mobile partners, adds van Diggelen.

The new mobile games platform will be a feature rich offering and will initially be launched as an internal mobile brand, offering a showcase of the solution and the available games titles. The new SkillPod Mobile Games Platform will allow users to register online or from their mobile handsets, users will have the ability to customise the interface from a selection of skins on offer, they’ll further be able to play the games through their handsets browser, log scores, challenge friends and enter the various tournaments on offer. Users will be able to purchase their favourite games for installation on their handsets, these games will feature local high score logging, for offline gaming fun. SkillPod launched its virtual currency system, Pods, almost 2 years ago whereby users earn and spend Pods when the play certain games, enter tournaments and challenge friends, the Pods system will also be introduced into the Mobile offering.

SkillPod will be launching a number of titles for the ever popular Apple iPhone and it’s baby sister the iPod Touch, titles will also be available for the Blackberry and Android handsets towards the 2nd quarter of 2010. The mobile platform will be made available to publishers as either a white labelled version or through our robust XML solutions, various revenue models are available for publishers to share in the sales of the mobile games.

SkillPod will be offering advertisers and publishers the option to customise, rebrand and/or translate the games for their mobile offerings, thus opening up additional revenue streams for partners.

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There’s a lot of hype around social media and social networking and how you need to position your product / service and / or business through these new marketing mediums and this tends to cause states of panic amongst those that don’t fully understand the mumbo jumbo of the new media realm.

SkillPod Media, a casual games solution provider, has actively embraced the various social media offerings to effectively promote its games solutions to the consumer and business markets, we feel it’s time to share some of these insights with the greater online community, says Mark van Diggelen, Founder and CEO of SkillPod Media.

Facebook
The team at SkillPod Media have used the Facebook environment to achieve a number of goals, the first is that the platform is used to stay in touch with existing clients, through proactive communication when new features are released, wishing them on special events such as birthdays, business successes, etc. More importantly SkillPod have taken their existing casual games solution and integrated it into the Facebook application API. With this SkillPod has been able to promote its platform and games to a new market and has seen an increase in traffic to its primary games portal www.skillpod.com. SkillPod also manages a group on Facebook – for general promotion and discussions.

Twitter
Twitter has to have the most hype around it at the moment as it’s a great tool for quick updates or as they call it ‘micro blogging’. Again SkillPod has used this technology to actively promote game activity, in the form of new high scores being logged, on the players Twitter profile. Users of the SkillPod platform activate their Twitter accounts, for the system to automatically update their profile, when they log a new high score. This feature gives excellent exposure of the SkillPod brand to all the players’ followers. New features, promotions and uploaded videos are also posted regularly on Twitter.

Google Gadgets
Google – the brand we love to hate nevertheless has some really great products to ensure maximum exposure for your product. SkillPod has opted for iGoogle Gadgets, out of the number of solutions on offer. To date we’ve added over 100 of our games to the iGoogle Gadget platform and the response has been amazing with 100,000’s of game plays a week. This service has a direct link to the increased traffic to our main games portal and has the added advantage of earning revenue for the business, through the running of the Google AdSense ads on the pages.

Mochi Media
Anybody that’s in the games business or for that matter wants exposure for their product / brand should be embracing the Mochi platform. We use it in a number of ways, the simplest being to add additional titles to our games catalogue. We’ve also included the Mochi ad delivery solution to our games, again earning revenue from this. But more importantly all the games carry strong SkillPod branding, with links back to the site. The results from this medium are almost instant and we saw our overall traffic more than doubling within 24 hours of adding the first few titles to the platform. Over the past few weeks we’ve learnt a number of secrets of how to tweak the content and add it to other networks. Overall the traffic is mind blowing.

Blogging
Blogging is generally regarded the ‘old man’ of social media, as it’s been around for quite some time. Blogging is used as an additional channel to publish press releases, new game titles, product updates, etc to the great blogosphere. This is definitely a medium that should not be overlooked, however it does need to be managed, as the bulk of comments are spam related.

LinkedIn and Viadeo
LinkedIn and Viadeo are two of the best tools for building business relationships within the thousands of communities and groups available to join, and again, are a valuable resource to stay in contact and keep the information flowing when it comes to new products, launches, clients, etc. SkillPod manages and belongs to groups on both sites, and gains tips on a daily basis regarding social media. There are many discussions to take part in, and much needed networking to be done on a daily basis. SkillPod also manages groups on various other sites such as Google’s Groups, Viddler, Flickr and Dailymotion.

YouTube and other video sites
This world has gone video mad, and we ourselves can’t fully understand why 500,000 people would watch someone else play a game of Mah Jong on YouTube. It doesn’t help going into analysis paralysis as the fact remains people watch all types of videos. SkillPod now records game play videos on numerous video sites of its most popular games and had a couple 100 views in the first week of going live. All the videos have the SkillPod branding and links to the main games site including the vital tabs, making it easier for viewers to search for and find our videos. We live by the premise that any free exposure is good exposure!

Apart from uploading video’s, photo albums have also been created and uploaded on sites such as Flickr and Dailymotion of SkillPod’s best new re-skinned games.

Social Bookmarking
The idea behind social bookmarking is to include links on your site to informative, useful and interesting sites, which is what SkillPod is in the process of doing with many popular sites worthwhile being featured such as Viddler, Flickr, Mister-Wong, Digg, Faves etc. We are also currently working on integrating our best social media website efforts in one offering on Netvibes – which offers a collective presentation of your social networking. SkillPod has included its recommended bookmarks on Mister-Wong and Delicious, and in so doing increasing its website traffic.

As social media is becoming more prevalent, people will also rely on their friends and networks for recommendations, as opposed to only using search engines. If you administer a winning and viral social media program, the natural residual result delivers your search engine optimisation. To stay ahead of the game, you need to have a strong personal brand and need to know how to use innovative social media to maximum effect. You will get more business and attract clients by getting valuable content out there in your niche area that links to your site and is easily distributed by readers.

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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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Have a look at the new RTL.nl games site: http://www.rtl.nl/spelletjes/spelsalon/snel/

They’re using the SkillPod Media platform for the SkillPod games as well as games from 6 other game developers, we provided our high score API to the game developers, for integration into their games – all their games have been translated and loaded into our platform. The solution uses the OpenID platform to manage the user registrations. We supply the games feeds, high scores and top ranked games via XML feed and then deliver the player profile pages, messaging, friends lists, personal scores, etc via iframes – this forms the foundation for phase 1.

For promotions they are using banner ads across their sites + have created a number of TV ads with their local celebrities to promote the site and so far the results are mind blowing. They’ve setup profiles and logged scores for their celebrities and then use these as challenges to the users, further to that they’ve created custom quizzes, etc, under the TV Spelletjes section, that are linked to shows and celebrities – this is a great strategy to differentiate yourself in the market.

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SkillPod Media has provided the games for the DSTV Kids channel Koowee. SkillPod translated a number games into Afrikaans, these games were specifically selected for the young viewers of the Koowee channel, aged between 3 and 6 years of age. The solution is delivered via XML feed to the client and then integrated into their intenral CMS platform. The response to date has been pretty good.

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