SkillPod Media Casual Games Solutions

At a time when hyperbolic marketing claims are thrown around with abandon, SkillPod Media is steadily establishing itself as the real deal when it comes to pulling off online marketing coups.

The company specialises in creating gaming platforms for some of the major entertainment and news portals in South Africa and around the world, which provide valuable online advertising opportunities - in what is one of the most lucrative and successful formats currently available.

New deals and partnerships will see SkillPod media expand into Eastern Europe and China, as well as beginning to make inroads into the massive US Telco market.

 Games portals for Kagiso Media 

In South Africa, new online games portals have been launched for East Coast Radio and Jacaranda, under an agreement between SkillPod Media and Kagiso Media. The games are part of the new ‘Buzz’ content offered on the websites. The focus for these sites will be on creating branded games for both of the media properties and their advertisers. Players will be enticed with tournaments offering a range of well worthwhile prizes.

CEO of SkillPod Media, Mark van Diggelen, is excited about these new games portals: “We’re delighted and rather proud to be working with a partner as eminent as Kagiso Media, and to be recognised as being able to provide the kind of entertainment and advertising value that a media powerhouse like this requires.”

 Social networking success in Eastern Europe 

Turning abroad, SkillPod Media has inked a deal with Gadu-Gadu, Poland’s largest social networking website that serves around 6 million regular users. This deal will see the SkillPod games platform fully translated into Polish. Over 200 SkillPod games will be made available to Polish users, localised for this advertising market.

The deal will later see expansion of the games platform to regions including Ukraine, Bulgaria and Romania.

 Two huge markets: China and US Telcos 

SkillPod Media is also at an advanced stage of concluding an agreement that’ll see it rolling out its games platforms to portals with significant reach in the massive Chinese online market. “The Chinese market is notoriously difficult to break into,” says Van Diggelen. “Regulatory issues mean that you can’t just go ahead and start marketing there. By partnering with key local players we are managing to fast-track our efforts.”

At the other end of the spectrum, The EZ Phone Bill, a US based Telco, will shortly be offering live games supplied by SkillPod Media. The approach will target customers who use the Telco’s systems for traditional telephone service billing - offering them access to content services, billed directly to their telephone accounts. The focus will be on games tournaments with prize rewards.

Success with Google Gadgets

A recent test launch of Google Gadgets has been a resounding success. Consequently SkillPod Media has increased its Google Gadgets offering to 38 of its most successful games. More popular games titles will continue to be added, with multi-player games set to become available in the near future.

In-game ad placement – the placing of ads alongside or within online games – is poised to break through into the mass consumer market in South Africa. One of the country’s foremost online games suppliers, SkillPod Media, has inked a deal with Brabys Ad Sales.

In its 103 years of operation, Brabys has become Southern Africa’s most comprehensive business directory, and has built a huge online ad sales presence on the back of this. SkillPod Media and Brabys Ad Sales have forged a strategic relationship, where the experienced and accomplished Brabys ad sales team will sell ad space on SkillPod Media games. These games appear on some of South Africa’s busiest websites, including IOL, Ananzi and 24.com.

It’s the perfect partnership to bring global in-game advertising to the mass online market in Southern Africa. The solution will give advertisers the opportunity to brand games with ads that appear before the game loads, and have strategically placed branding or product placement within the actual games.

The massive potential of in-game advertising

Research indicates that most gamers aren’t bothered by this form of advertising – partly because it brings an element of realism to the games. As a result, in-game ads promise better return on investment than traditional banner ads, as they are not actively ignored or disliked by players.

In-game advertising thus holds the potential to be a more effective method of reaching online consumers – particularly the elusive 18- to 34-year old male market, and female consumers, who make up more than half of all online game players. A recent report from Forrester Research indicates that in-game advertising is also the most successful way of reaching teenagers online.

  The Yankee Group estimates that spending on in-game ads will reach $92 million in 2008. Longer term predictions put the total value of the in-game ad market at up to $1.8 billion by 2010 in the US alone.

The SkillPod Media/Brabys deal means that South African advertisers can now start to realise this potential. The in-game ads will be published across the SkillPod Media network of partner sites in South Africa, which will also benefit the publishing partners, as each of them shares in the revenue generated by the ad spend.

Further global distribution with Google and TELCOs 

  SkillPod Media’s white label solution for casual games is proving to be a winner, with a mass of publishers using the solution in South Africa, New Zealand, India, UK, Ireland, Canada and the USA.

  The SkillPod Games application on Facebook was another step in the right direction, as social networking sites become an important element of all of our daily lives. It allows users to play games where it’s most convenient for them - and means even more in-game advertising opportunities for businesses that are looking to penetrate the crucial social networking market.

  Now, in a very interesting development, international TELCOs are looking at getting involved in the distribution and sale of gaming content to counter their revenue losses from users migrating to VoIP solutions.

SkillPod Media has also started migrating many of its popular games to Google Gadgets, allowing these fun games to be accessible to the mass global market. The company intends launching around 100 games on the Google Gadget platform.

New SkillPod media multiplayer games 

  SkillPod Media has added 6 new multiplayer games to its already massive selection of games, which includes 500 online games, 250 downloadable games and lots of other gaming content. SkillPod launched its multiplayer Pool game almost 2 years ago and this has proven to be unbelievably successful, with around 500,000 unique visitors playing in the region of 7 million games of pool a month.

The new multiplayer games include Checkers, Darts, Four in a Row, Dots, Dao and Twenty Five. The games are free to play and are supported by advertising. Publishers are able to partner with SkillPod Media to create white label versions of the multiplayer games solution.

SkillPod Media, a foremost South African owned online casual gaming supplier, has hit the ground running in the new year - launching 2 new games platforms on large online entertainment sites and rolling out a number of new features on its successful online gaming platform.

And just in case anyone thought the company was slacking off, it has also launched its own Facebook games application and formed a partnership with a world-renowned game development house.

SkillPod Media, until recently known as Trafficonomy, provides free and skill games to large gaming communities in South Africa and internationally. It is also the leading supplier of online gaming advertising in SA.

 New gaming site launched for 24.com 

SkillPod Media has launched a casual games site for the 24.com group. Situated at FunGames.24.com, it integrates casual games with 24.com’s other social networking features like blogging, photo albums and messaging. This gives the user a combined entertainment and social networking space all in one, accessed via a single global user account.

“With the much-vaunted rise of Web 2.0, entertainment websites are looking to expand their features to offer a combination of entertainment and social networking abilities to users, all in one space,” comments Mark van Diggelen, CEO of SkillPod Media. “This year is being predicted as the year when social networking will start to mature after the hype of 2007, and our partnership with 24.com signals its intent to seriously build on last year’s momentum. On the gaming side, this is something that SkillPod Media is ideally poised to assist with,” he continues.

 Leading Irish entertainment portal partnership 

SkillPod Media’s other new partnership is with Entertainment.ie, a leading Irish entertainment portal. The portal offers a wide range of international entertainment news, reviews, events and competitions tailored for the Irish market - movies, TV, music are all covered in a variety of media formats. The portal has chosen SkillPod Media to supply free games for its users.

“We’re very happy with the way our international client base is growing,” says Van Diggelen. “We are now represented on websites and entertainment portals serving diverse audiences, from India to Canada, including the UK and USA.”

 SkillPod games on Facebook 

The runaway success of Facebook prompted SkillPod Media to develop a Facebook games application. Facebook users can now get access to 500 games on the SkillPod.com portal, via the Facebook interface. This gives the company a powerful new reach in the social networking market.

 Partnership with a world-renowned game development house

Another new development is the launch of PC Games, a partnership with world-renowned game development house, Nano Games. There are currently 5 titles on offer for purchase and download. Plans are afoot to debut a level-based game soon, consisting of 12 chapters with a new level available each month.

 New games platform features 

To further enhance its offering for all its new partners, SkillPod Media has updated its games platform with a number of new features. In addition to playing online, users can now download versions of the most popular games – 220 games in total are available for download. New games have also been added to the online selection, including 70 high score games and 30 premium games.

Online gaming supplier, SkillPod Media, has launched two new games portals for major clients, one in South Africa and one abroad, further consolidating its position as one of the emerging dynamos in the casual and skill games sector of the Internet.

 New Webgames portal finding immediate success

Webgames.co.za is the new South African online games initiative of Interface Media,
owners of the successful Webmail email service. The site was launched under a month ago, and has already started to deliver the kind of visitor attraction that is a hallmark of SkillPod Media games portals. It has achieved a visitor return rate of 76%, a sure indicator of approval from gamers. Visitors spend an average of 18 minutes on the site, which is well above the industry norm for web sites.

These numbers give Webgames an extremely sound basis and an excellent opportunity to leverage advertising revenue off their new games platform. “We’re in the business of creating revenue streams for our clients, via the games portals we provide,” says Mark van Diggelen, CEO of SkillPod Media. “While games are obviously great fun, as the Internet matures, the emphasis is moving from a “fun” web site being a cost centre to an actual revenue stream in areas which were traditionally viewed as fun stuff for visitors,” he explains.

Irish Times games portal driving ad revenue

The other new SkillPod Media-powered portal is the Irish Times games channel at ireland.com – a premier web portal for Irish residents and Irish people abroad. The deal was brokered by SkillPod Media’s North American partner, Tag International, based in Toronto, Canada. The site launched with a lucky draw competition to encourage player registrations, and the team at the Irish Times is greatly impressed by the success of the portal thus far. It has delivered beyond expectations and, in keeping with their business drivers, is providing access to much-needed ad revenue.

 4th-generation games management platform SkillPod Media is currently developing its 4th-generation games management platform, which will comprise a number of enhanced features, including more than 50 games that can be loaded onto the Sony PSP console. There will also be a large number of games that can be downloaded for offline play.

The new platform, available from October 2007, will also feature:

• more than 150 new casual games
• a variety of multiplayer games
• over 150 Flash Lite mobile games
• a member subscription engine
• a range of members-only games and tournaments

SkillPod Media also plans to start selling its first shooter-style games, which will be digitally distributed to coincide with the launch of the new platform.

 The new platform follows on the heels of the very popular enhancements in the current version of the platform, especially the game syndication feature, which allows gamers to add their favourite games to their own web sites and blogs. More than 2 300 players have taken advantage of this capability.  More international partnerships in the pipeline SkillPod Media has secured more brand new partnerships with publishers in Australia and North America, and will be launching new games portals within the next few weeks.

Advertising within highly engaging gaming experiences have significant positive impact on purchase consideration, ad recall and “coolness” perception of brands, according to a Nielsen Entertainment study conducted for Microsoft’s Massive Inc. 

The research shows that ad campaigns from blue-chip brands that ran in the Massive videogame network significantly improved key brand metrics between control and test groups, Microsoft said.

Key results of the study revealed that between control and test groups…

• Average brand familiarity increased 64%.
• Average brand rating increased 37%.
• Average purchase consideration increased 41%.
• Average ad recall increased 41%.
• Average ad rating increased 69%.

The study was executed with clients across several major advertising categories, including automotive, consumer packaged goods (CPG), quick service restaurant (QSR) and technology tools.

Highlights of findings within those specific advertiser categories include the following:

• Automotive: The automakers included in the study achieved a 69% increase in purchase consideration among likely car buyers from control to test groups.
• CPG: The CPG client achieved a 71% increase among those who consider the snack food advertised a “cool brand” from control to test groups. Among the key demographic of males age 18-24, brand familiarity rose 63% from control to test groups.
• QSR: A QSR ad featured in the Massive network saw its rating (those who “liked it a lot/liked it a little”) rise 39% from control to test groups.
• Technology tools: The technology client achieved a 70% increase in brand rating from control to test groups.

About the study: More than 600 gamers across North America were recruited for the study and divided into a control group and a test group. Both the control group and the test group played the same game, “Need for Speed Carbon,” published by Electronic Arts Inc. The control group consisted of those who had played the game but were not exposed to ads delivered from Massive. The test group had played the game on a connected Xbox 360 system or PC during the time the ad campaigns were live and had the opportunity to be exposed to the ads delivered by Massive. Both groups were asked the same set of questions about the ads and brands included in the study, and the differences in their responses were evaluated and classified as a lift in the particular branding metric measured.

As the demand for fresh online games continues to expand, SkillPod Media is consolidating its position as a leading games development agency and the first choice for some of South Africa’s top brands. Linked to this demand is the market’s growing awareness of the marketing opportunities provided by advergaming and in-game advertising. Consequently, SkillPod Media’s game development skills, experience and in-depth understanding of online advertising are being used by a growing number of blue-chip clients.

“South Africa’s leading online brands have realised the enormous marketing opportunities that games provide,” explains Mark van Diggelen, CEO of SkillPod Media. “We’re developing customised games for them that perfectly capture their own brand themes and activities, and that link up with their offline activities. This multi-channel approach has proven to be the most effective way of deriving return on investment from internet marketing,” he says.

Marketing via online games not only gives advertisers access to the teenage and 18- to 34-year old male market, but also to the elusive online female market. Research has concluded that 64% of online gamers are women, and that      active gamers spend as much as a quarter of their leisure time playing games online.

 SkillPod Media’s expertise becoming sought after 

It’s no wonder then that more and more prominent brands are turning to SkillPod Media to help them reach these markets through customised casual gaming experiences. “We’re finding ourselves increasingly at the centre of a push by leading companies to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by online gaming,” says van Diggelen. “We’ve spent the last year honing our game development skills, and marrying these skills with our existing and growing understanding of online marketing and advertising methods,” he continues. “We’re now in a position to offer a complete online gaming solution to our clients: custom game development, marketing strategy and ad placement.”

The hallmarks of a successful online casual game are that it must be easy to learn and highly captivating – no matter if it’s a game that takes 5 minutes or 5 hours to play. SkillPod Media’s “Space Miner” game, developed completely from scratch, epitomises these qualities. It has already been played over 215 000 times in the two weeks since its launch. The company now plans to develop a mobile version that will be made available to mobile gamers internationally.

Blue chip clients are benefiting

OUTsurance and KTV are the latest companies to partner with SkillPod Media for casual game development. The OUTsurance game has been developed for the Gun Run Marathon sponsored by OUTsurance. It is a running-themed game with strong visuals of Cape Town and OUTsurance branding. Player’s race against the clock to collect as many water bottles before the virtual noon day gun goes off.

KTV is currently using 3 puzzle games that SkillPod Media developed for them, based on their television themes - Monday Mayhem, Freak Friday, and Pre-K for their younger viewers. The puzzles all focus on skills development, with various levels to ensure that children at different skills levels can all enjoy them. Skills have to be mastered in order to progress from one level to the next, providing the perfect mix of learning and fun.

SkillPod Media has also just completed a Market Day game for KTV, which prominently brands KTV and Wimpy, the primary sponsor. KTV’s K-alien mascot features prominently in the game to provide strong offline identification.

 “We’re extremely happy with the progress we’ve made with our original customised game development,” concludes van Diggelen. “We set out to firstly prove our ability to ourselves with games on our own portals before offering our services to clients, as we’re acutely aware that the online channel is above all about successfully delivering on your promises. We’re satisfied that this measured approach is now paying off for our clients.” 

Not a month goes by without SkillPod Media making new inroads in the international online gaming market. This South African owned company provides free and skill games to portals that serve large gaming communities in South Africa and abroad. Hot on the heels of launching a games channel for the Globe and Mail, the largest newspaper in Canada, SkillPod Media has rolled out games platforms for two of the most popular portals servicing residents of the British Isles.

 Top British portals adopt SkillPod Media’s games platform

The first of these is the vibrant UK-based Your Music Entertainment web site - YMEMusic.com. Games add an extra layer of attraction and interactivity to a site that already offers a range of music and entertainment resources for UK musicians and their legions of fans.

The other coup has been the adoption of its games by the Irish Times on its Ireland.com web site. This site is a premier web portal for Irish residents, as well as Irish people abroad.

Both these endeavours have been joint initiatives between SkillPod Media and its Canadian partners, Tag International. “As a South African company we’re extremely proud of our growing international presence,” says Mark van Diggelen, CEO of SkillPod Media. “Having become one of the top games suppliers in South Africa, with clients like Ananzi, Media24, IOL and M-Net’s KTV brand, we have been very keen to increase our existing presence in the global market,” he continues.

 Enhancing the gaming platform

Never content to rest on its laurels, SkillPod Media has also forged ahead with enhancements to its game platform features and functionality. “In this business there is no such thing as standing still,” notes van Diggelen. “You’re either moving forwards or you’re sliding backwards, which is why we are constantly innovating and improving on our games offerings,” he explains.

Top of this list are 20 new games in a number of different genres: Word Games, Strategy Games, Sports Games, Puzzle Games, Driving Games and Kids Games. “While all gamers have their favourites, new games are critical to maintaining interest as well as attracting new players and growing the popularity of our game sites,” van Diggelen says.

This growth is certainly borne out by the numbers. SkillPod Media’s games site network has shown consistent growth of 20% month on month, with the past month seeing a huge surge in game plays, jumping from 400,000 to 600,000. SkillPod Media’s own flagship South African games site, Skillpod.co.za, has achieved in excess of 1,8 million pool games played in the past 6 months with 75,000 registered users from across the globe.

Overall game site functionality has been improved, with a particular focus on player interactivity. Advanced search features have been added to assist with challenging friends, and when viewing weekly scores, players can click on another player’s name to see their geographic location, favourite games and the last 3 games that they played. The weekly high score boards are more informative, with players able to see current and historic data, linked to their own time zones. Games can now also be launched directly from the weekly scores sections.

Good news for SkillPod Media’s advertisers is that game tournaments pages have been given added functionality in order for campaign success to be more accurately measured. 

“All these improvements have made our game networks even more attractive for players, and will provide even better return on investment for our advertisers,” concludes van Diggelen.

In a ground-breaking development for linking up the internet with TV in South Africa, the online gaming company SkillPod Media has been contracted by M-Net New Media to provide online games for the KTV Games Channel. This partnership will see the launch of a number of TV channel web sites offering interactive games over the course of the year.

The KTV games site will link up with the channel’s TV programmes, and will feature many of the characters that are familiar to children across South Africa. The games will be aimed at the children’s audience of KTV, and will combine fun-filled games with an educational aspect. The site will feature puzzles and colouring games that enhance the development of many faculties in children, while keeping them entertained at the same time.

 “This implementation is a strong example of how the web’s vast potential can be harnessed by creating continuity between the Internet and other media, especially TV,” says Mark van Diggelen, CEO of SkillPod Media. “These opportunities have long existed with Internet technology, but for various reasons the potential is still largely untapped. The significance of this deal is that it will create continuity between offline and online experience, particularly in terms of education and children’s early development”, he continues. Jason Probert, Head of M-Net New Media believes that “the kids of today are as comfortable online as on-air, so it’s a natural progression for us to extend the KTV brand via online games. We’ll be developing tournaments and competitions that encourage interactivity across both platforms and look forward to making ktv.co.za the ultimate online destination for South African kids.” 

The M-Net deal is just one of the many deals and developments that SkillPod Media has been involved in, the sheer quality and number of which show just how far this South African online games solutions supplier has come, and how fast it is moving – both locally and internationally.

 More games for News24

SkillPod Media has supplied the Cricket World Cup game on the 24.com CWC content portal, which has been a wild success as World Cup fever gripped cricketing fans. It has also just rolled out a fresh batch of mind games on the News24 site, including hugely popular games like Scrabble, Crosswords, Word Search, Sudoku and Word Cube.

 “What we’re seeing is a vast appetite for absorbing online games – we always knew there was great potential, but we’ve been quite taken aback by just how popular our games are,” notes van Diggelen. Publisher of News24, Elan Lohmann adds further perspective: “We have seen a good uptake for Sudoku and are aware that the Guardian UK online has been successful with their crossword. I would like to provide my users with relevant games that appeal to the type of person who is interested in current affairs and challenging their mind while at the office. It’s better for you then a smoke break.”   Growing international success

As part of its global increasing global expansion, SkillPod Media, together with it’s Canadian based partner Tag International, is also in the final stages of launching the games channel for the Globe and Mail, the largest newspaper in Canada, with at least 3 more sites about to go live in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada.

In India, their partnership with ibibo.com is proving to be hugely successful with the games sites exceeding beyond all expectations.

While SkillPod Media has to this point provided a games platform containing third-party developed games, it will soon launch its first game that has been fully developed in-house, and are confident that it will prove to be a massive hit globally.

 Significant advertising opportunities

As the network of 28 games portals that are run by SkillPod Media expands locally and internationally, so do the opportunities for advertising, including advergaming and in-game advertising, both for South African companies wanting to reach a local audience, and for international companies  those wishing to bolster their market reach overseas.

SkillPod Media offers brand owners and marketers the ability to place advertising inside the game screens within which the games are played, to place products within existing games and even to have their own custom games developed.

With international marketing companies treating this advertising avenue as an important part of any comprehensive marketing campaign, SkillPod Media can offer the kind of advertising reach to South African companies that few others can, averaging 3 million banners served every month, and increasing at a rate of 20% - to 25% per month, according to the company’s latest reports.

04 May 2007 OUTFRONT GAMES BECOME SERIOUS BUSINESS By Sasha Planting It doesn’t have the fanfare of digital music downloads, or the controversy of Internet gambling, but online gaming has quietly become one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet. Revenues from online games - those five-minute diversions you play for a quick break but somehow end up clicking away on for two hours - will grow to US$953m this year, from $713m last year and $228m in 2002, says DFC Intelligence, a US-based research group. SA company Trafficonomy is taking advantage of this trend. It provides games portals, which are “white labelled” versions of its own gaming engine, GameZBoost, to publishers and website operators. In the year since it was launched, Trafficonomy has become the online game supplier to SA Web portals like IOL, Ananzi, News24 and Aardvark. It has also set up games portals in the US, the UK and New Zealand. And its own gaming site, SkillPod.com, is growing exponentially. Casual games are becoming so popular that the world’s biggest media companies are offering a downloadable or online casual games page. USA Today, Yahoo, AOL and CNet all have online games available on their sites. “Our strategy is to partner established Internet sites, such as Media24 in SA or Tag International in Canada,” says Trafficonomy CEO Mark van Diggelen. It was while working for the online casino industry that he learnt about the importance of visibility and traffic. But he saw in gaming a different kind of opportunity and left to form Trafficonomy. GameZBoost is customised for different countries and markets - from the US, Canada and the UK to New Zealand, SA and India. “We have also started developing our own games and have just launched the first,” says Van Diggelen. “This leads us into developing custom games for advertisers - advergames’ - and games with in-game ads.” Far from the games in which roleplaying characters spray bullets, slay dragons and maim rivals in fantastic virtual worlds, casual games are typically the nonviolent puzzle, word, trivia and classic arcade-style games that have a growing appeal for all ages and both sexes. Most of them are sold via online download using a “try before you buy” sales model. Other games are free to play online, but are usually limited in some way, such as the inability of players to save their progress midgame or post a high score. Though Trafficonomy has begun developing its own games, Van Diggelen does not see the point of trying to compete in this market - the biggest companies are introducing a new game every day. “We provide one-stop-shop solutions that range from free game sites and simple white labelling to full customisation of an advertiser’s or publisher’s requirements.” The company can deliver a fully supported, customised games portal within five to seven days, he says. The online gaming platform, GameZBoost, offers more than 350 free play games, a player registration engine, high score boards, moderated in-game chat, a game tournament engine and a facility for users to challenge each other. “Trafficonomy’s own game site has achieved 50 000 registered users in the past three months, with around 200 000 unique users a month across all our game sites. “Eighty percent of these players return to play on a daily basis.” These numbers are making advertisers sit up and take notice. “We average 2m banners served every month, and this is increasing by 20%-25% a month,” Van Diggelen says.

Ads are changing the casual gaming world drastically, with in-game advertising for casual downloadable games producing a 200-500 percent revenue increase compared with ad-free “try and buy” games. Research firm Yankee Group estimates in-game ad revenues will reach $732 million by 2010, and the primary demographic audience, women over 30, holds 80 percent of decision-making buying power in the U.S. - making advertising in the medium all the more lucrative, according to Next-Gen guest writers Ran Cohen, director of emerging media at Eyeblaster, and Chris Houtzer, director of new media for games at RealNetworks.Ads can be integrated by adding logos into the game, but the real future is video ads, which can be integrated between levels of a game.RealNetworks and Eyeblaster are working together to create a video ad system. Video ads are presented every 10 minutes of play during natural breaks in the game. If a user decides to buy the game, the ads are immediately disabled.