Mark van Diggelen’s Casual Games Blog

SkillPod Media – South Africa’s leading provider of online casual and skill games that has gained a global footprint – is rolling out a slew of powerful new features for its gaming platform.

“It’s been a hugely productive period for us,” says Mark van Diggelen, CEO of SkillPod Media. “We’ve packed an incredible amount of development into not only our games platform, but also the features that surround it, which will add significant value to our users.” A glance at the recently deployed features fully bears out Van Diggelen’s words.

The SkillPod Media casual games platform now boasts registration integration with Facebook, OpenID, Google, Yahoo, AOL and all sites using the OpenID framework. This means that player accounts can be created with the click of a button on all of these sites.

Facebook Games integration has been completed, including single and multi-players game applications. Google Gadget integration is also fully available.
And of course no deployment would be complete without Twitter integration. In this case the platform can post tweets of users’ high scores and game activity.

New games and game packs

Themed clustered game packages have been created that wonderfully mirror real-world scenarios. There’s the Sports Village (where you can play outdoor games like American football, basketball, baseball and soccer) and the Games Room (where you can play pool, darts, air hockey and more). Extra features are available for subscribers, including direct links to friends on Facebook and other social networking sites, chat features, advertising, customisation, avatars and challenges.

A new premium subscription feature allows users to subscribe to premium games content and tournaments with prizes.

Tailored gaming products for international clients
New games that feature 3D imaging and intro movies have been developed and have proven to be hugely successful.

Adver-games have been developed for specific clients, catering for the FIFA 2010 World Cup, including Nedbank and Media Prima in Malaysia.

Unique features have been specially developed for the European Media Group, RTL. Included are a new tournament solution and a dynamic post-game screen platform that can feature promotional games, special edition games with prizes, dynamic score logging, integrated registration – and other features that give publishers full customisation control over content.

SkillPod Media has had a longstanding partnership with KTV in South Africa, to provide games content that integrates with the channel’s television programming. This contract has been renewed for the 4th year in a row and now includes the provision of the SkillPod Media casual games platform.

A new rapid deployment framework

To add to all of this, SkillPod Media will be rolling out a large number of new developments.

A key expansion will be online and mobile platforms into multiple new foreign territories, including non-English speaking countries. To this end, SkillPod Media has developed a Rapid Deployment Framework. This uses advanced XML framework for expedited deployment of online games portals to global partners. It also allows for rapid re-skinning and translation.

Increased revenue opportunities

SkillPod Media will soon complete the development of various new revenue earning opportunities for its clients. These will include: subscriptions and micropayments; the ability to customise games and sell them; licensing, usage and platform fees.
Also coming up is the rollout of a social gaming and MMOG platform for both online and mobile. Revenues from these will be in the form of micropayments, subscriptions, advertising and game sales.

Fantasy Tribe 3D gaming world
One of the more exciting future releases will be Fantasy Tribe, a social and MMOG gaming solution. This will provide a 3D world for players, with games embedded in various areas of the world. Easter eggs will be planted in various places, which will unlock extra games and bonus features. Users will be able to create their own avatars, with a micropayment system to allow players to “pimp” these avatars. Micropayments can also be used to obtain special features like shields, power-ups, weapons etc. There will be an integrated social networking aspect, allowing players to connect with friends, send messages, chat and issue challenges. Multiplayer games therefore form a large part of the platform. Fantasy Tribe will be heavily promoted on social networking sites like Facebook.

A multitude of new developments

In addition to all of this, SkillPod Media is also working on:

• improved multiplayer games for enhanced community building
• game lobby enhancements (including improved tables, rooms, chat and scoring)
• increased Facebook integration – play against your friends
• self-service in-game advertising solution
• development and deployment of USSD games
• avatar creation, with a micropayment system for avatar enhancement

There’s little doubt that very soon the SkillPod Media games platform will offer a quantum leap in casual gaming. One that will benefit players, publishers and advertisers alike.

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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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The Technology Top 100 (TT100) awards ceremony was held at Vodaworld last night. SkillPod media was awarded a certificate, as a finalist in the Excellence in the Management of systems category. The criteria for this prestigious award are defined by daVinci as follows. In a growing world of complexity, managing an organisation using a Systems approach is no longer a luxury, but is an essential element if an organisation wishes to be in the race. Emphasis is placed on testing the validity of the strategic intent by applying basic Systems Thinking. These organisations spend quality time upfront, debating the merits of new processes, products and systems, before making an investment, changing the product mix, or discounting. The culture that pervades the organisation is one of constructive engagement and recognition that every person in the organisation, irrespective of his or her position, has an important contribution to make. It is evident that these organisations are better prepared to solve problems in a more elegant way and find that they have fewer fallouts due to knee-jerk reaction decision- making.

The SkillPod Media team and shareholders are delighted with this award of recognition for the time, effort and investment that have been put into the development of the globally competitive casual gaming platforms and services, which are being used by many of South Africa’s top media businesses, including Media 24, KTV and Independent Newspapers. The platforms and services have been implemented with a number of leading international publishers in as far afield as Netherlands, USA, Poland, Luxembourg, Hungary and Ukraine. The next few months are an exciting time for SkillPod, with further expansion of the online games platforms into Turkey and Vietnam.

Mark van Diggelen, CEO of SkillPod Media, wishes to thank his amazing team, whom are amongst the most skilled and passionate people in the business, as well as the unwavering support from shareholders, Convergence Partners.

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Social gaming has become a vital, fun and exciting part in the average person’s day. Free social networking utility’s such as Twitter and Facebook connect friends, family and acquaintances online or via their mobile phones, allowing them to share in such a way that our forefathers would be appalled at the lack of old fashioned ‘communication’, but what do you expect in today’s rushed society? The real world social resonance on popular networking utilities is the perfect promotion tool. With technology developing at such a rapid rate, a deeper integration of popular social utilities into casual gaming is just what the doctor ordered!

Integration of Twitter
Twitter has really caught fire recently with all the high profile personalities starting to kick up their usage of it. It connects people in a whole new way, and SkillPod Media grabbed hold of this opportunity with both hands by integrating it into their casual gaming site SkillPod.com. Users are able to update their Twitter status from their profiles in order to stay connected in real time quickly and frequently. Each time a game is played, a tweet is automatically sent to Twitter, updating the user’s status to whatever game the user is playing. This user-friendly and convenient feature has sparked interest and awareness for SkillPod’s casual games immensely, creating an ever-growing snowball effect on the site’s traffic.

Up and coming Facebook application
With more than 250 million active users and an average of 120 friends per user, Facebook is definitely the most popular social networking utility. SkillPod Media is currently integrating its casual games engine into Facebook, which means that each SkillPod online gaming member will be able to invite their Facebook friends to join them in the seamless and consistently enjoyable fun of playing SkillPod’s online casual games for free – on Facebook! Full gaming functionality will be on offer, with regular tournaments being held, high scores will be able to be submitted and viewed by friends and the user will be able to challenge their friends scores on any of the high score games. Trophies will be given away as prizes if your score is in the top three!

In the pipeline…
According to Mark van Diggelen, CEO of SkillPod Media “All elements of SkillPod’s gaming platform are going to be integrated in a community gaming environment website, which will be big on user interaction”.  A community based environment is in store for users who hunger for a deeper interaction with their fellow gamers!
Between synchronous and asynchronous gaming, social gaming holds the promise of letting us have a little fun in a way that holds meaning. By keeping up to date on the social networking utility market trends and combining those trends with the best in online gaming, gaming fans can stay on track socially whilst enjoying their favourite past time – online gaming!

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Technology plays a central role in the life of today’s teenagers and young adults. It’s a crucial element for marketers to recognise in their attempts to attract the attention of these young consumers.

Multiple marketing solutions are required, with engaging and relevant content. Content that can be interacted with, customised and shared. Casual games provide the perfect combination of these factors.

The tech-savvy teen consumer

Teens are influenced by peers, enjoy absurdity and odd humour and speak their own language. Of course these generational traits are not new and could be said of any of the previous generations of teens. But what distinguishes this generation is the digital nature of their activities.

Teenagers are always connected. They spend 60% less time watching TV and 600% more time on the Internet than their parents – almost 17 hours a week. They text over 50 messages a week. As a result of digital media, they skim text and information quickly, get bored easily and are digitally expressive and creative.

The digital interactivity challenge for marketers

In order to successfully connect with teens, marketers need to find common ground with them – not only by using digital methods, but also by incorporating the characteristics of digital interaction in their marketing approaches.

Marketing material needs to be digital, and allow teens to customise content to suit their preferences. Everything needs to be shareable, downloadable, playable.

Casual games – a perfect marketing medium

Worldwide, 217 million people play casual games. Their attractions are myriad: stress release, boredom relief, relaxation, challenge and recognition, social interaction, and self-development. Casual games are fun, easy to learn and addictive. Gamers show high levels of loyalty and commitment – not only to the games, but to the game providers. Not surprisingly, a significant proportion of gamers are teens. More surprising, but no less true, is that female players make up a higher percentage than males.

Gaming is also not a solitary activity. Casual games provide plenty of opportunities for social interaction and community building. This is a big reason why casual gaming sites have found such popularity amongst teens. They are able to create their own identities using avatars and profiles, and use message boards and chat facilities. Tournaments add a competitive edge, with trophies, badges, power-ups and rankings adding a further aspirational component.

Casual game marketing success stories

Neopets is the original and largest global, youth-focused, online virtual world, launched in 1999, with over 40 million registered users. It averages nearly 12 million unique visitors a month and 30 000 new accounts created daily. Daily content is published simultaneously in 11 languages. The salient point is that 80% of the audience are children and young teens, attracted by Neopets’ rich activities and depth of characters, stories, games, quests, creativity and economy. The key to Neopets’ success has been listening and responding to its loyal audience.

Closer to home, the very successful KTV Games website reached 9 500 users within the first two weeks of launch and has since increased to more than 100 000 game loads per month. KTV Games aligns MNet TV themes with over 600 online games and tournaments.

The marketing benefits of casual games

Games offer plenty of branding and advertising opportunities and benefits. Traditional banner advertising on websites and game pre-loaders are used as games advertising mediums. Companies can brand games or have custom games developed. Gaming offers new promotional opportunities such as links to special events and product promotions. Cross media promotion opportunities are also opened up.

Gaming enables cost-effective and measurable community building. They are a proven user retention and acquisition method, with a 70% average daily return rate. There are limited barriers to entry and games can be made available in multiple formats: instant online play, mobile and downloadable.

With multiple marketing and advertising avenues, up-to-date technology, social media functionality and community-building capabilities, casual games are the perfect marketing vehicle to cost-effectively connect with the modern teen and young adult audience.

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SkillPod Media’s highly addictive online gaming platform hosts numerous exciting features which cater for a wide target market, therefore making everyone a winner in their own capacity!

Apart from merely taking a fun break to clear your mind, SkillPod Media offers skill enhancers and educational facilities such as practising that dreaded Maths, as well as touching up on your typing.

When asked what Mark van Diggelen’s, CEO of SkillPod Media, two favourite SkillPod games platform features are, he said “The “Create an Avatar” platform is one of the greatest new features being offered on the SkillPod games platform, it not only allows users to create their online persona but is an integral part of the overall community elements of the new SkillPod sites, where users can now create Friends Lists, chat with them, Message them, Challenge them and many other related features. In the future the users Avatars will be even further integrated by being used in the multi player game lobbies and users will be able to use their Pods to fully customise their Avatars. The Pods, virtual currency platform, has been enhanced to form the backbone of the transactions system and allows users to earn and spend pods across the various offerings of the games platform and will in the not too distant future be enhanced to cater for micro transactions, allowing users to customise their games, avatars and a number of other features.”

The deeply rooted highly competitive nature of users is encouraged to surface with features such as the high scoring system, public challenges and tournaments.

The interactive facilities such as the Game Leagues, Multiplayer facility and Challenges allow users to make new online friends and continually set new gaming goals for achieving.

The prizes up for grabs are extremely rewarding and will not disappoint, such as the Blacksite PS3 Game recently given away to a lucky winner. 10 bonus pods are earned by logging your high score for most of the high score games and for e-mailing and inviting your friends on the ‘Refer a Friend’ feature, should the invite prove to be successful, and the friend registers online.

Just by playing and making use of the fantastic online features, users get to view and monitor their online progress in their customised Profile, continually competing against themselves and measuring their continual success!

The Featured Game, Featured Tournament, Multiplayer Games and further game categories on the home page provides users continual feedback of the latest and greatest games and tournaments to play. It is virtually impossible for users to feel bored or uninterested with the games. A few of the newly added games guaranteed to spark interest include: Mahjongg Cooking, Fishtank Crashdown, Swim Race, Twenty20 Cricket, Pinball Soccer, Extreme MTB Trial, Dagwood Bar, Fruit Grab Claw, Urban Driving, Toy Castle Defence, Monster Jump, Alientopia, Fun Air Adventure, Playground, Mancala, Sandwich Shop, Easter Egg and Multiplayer Chess (which you can practise in private and beat everyone on the actual board game!).

The game Urban Driving teaches users that driving at reasonable speeds is rewarding, and Pinball Soccer sets the scene nicely for the all the current soccer fever in SA! Dagwood Bar provides users a wide variety of ingredients to choose from, and is a fun game which teaches users the importance of consumer satisfaction!

SkillPod Media’s online gaming platform is not to be missed out on, and is exceptional entertainment for all!

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