Posts Tagged ‘casual games’

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PopCap appoints Robert Chamberlain to CFO post

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

One of the biggest names in casual gaming, PopCap, announced yesterday that they’ve appointed Mr. Robert Chamberlain to the position of Chief Financial Officer. Having served similar roles in a myriad of companies including, F5 networks, Onyx Software and Watchguard Technologies, Chamberlain brings over 30 years of financial experience, 20 of which are in the technology sector, to the table at PopCap. Chamberlain’s track record is nothing short of stellar, demonstrating sound financial guidance and has arranged a number of IPO’s as well as company sales. Chamberlain will arrive at his new office on August 31st, and will replace temporary CFO Karla Horwitz, a partner with Tatum Executives. Ms. Horwitz has built and grown the PopCap finance team for the past 17 months.

popcap_logo_rgb“We’re thrilled to have a seasoned financial veteran like Bob joining our management team and overseeing finances,” said Dave Roberts, CEO at PopCap. “He’ll oversee a sizable team of finance and accounting professionals while also providing critical expertise to our overall expansion plans. As we mature into a sizable corporation, it will be invaluable to have him guiding our financial future in every key respect.”

Most recently, Chamberlain has served as CFO at Watchguard Technologies, Inc., where he lead a team of 62 across various company departments including finance and accounting, manufacturing, IT, HR, facilities and legal services. Previously, Chamberlain successfully managed an IPO for F5 networks, guided PhotoDisc through a merger with Getty Images, and negotiated the sale of ElseWare Corporation to Hewlett-Packard.

“PopCap’s something of an anomaly in the software business – and a rarity in the technology sector as a whole,” Chamberlain said. “Profitable from day one while growing to nearly 250 fulltime employees in ten years while never taking outside funding, which is a major accomplishment. Best of all, the company has tremendous potential, in terms of geographic, platform and channel growth – and I’m excited to be a part of it.”

Remember, PopCap is one of the rare games companies today that seems to have their fingers in just about every pot. Their flagship product, Bejeweled is a mesmerizing; some might say addicting title that has sold over 25 million units across all platforms. It’s even been incorporated into World of Warcraft as a mini-game. Based in Seattle, PopCap games are based on the premise that games should be fun and easy to learn. Their timeless series of games have been downloaded over 1 billion times, and show no signs of slowing. And as far as cross platform is concerned, PopCap is the only casual games developer with a leading market share across all major sales channels, including Web portals, retail stores, consoles, mobile phones and MP3 players.

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Casual games maker Oberon Media dives headfirst into the microtransaction end of the pool

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Late last week major casual games maker Oberon Media announced that they’ve made a big move, signaling “only the beginning” of a greater strategy of getting involved in the world of free-to-play/microtransaction supported titles.

logo_oberonBased in New York, Oberon Media develops and publishes games for casual web and most game platforms. Signaling a major shift in the way the company seeks to monetize their products, Oberon Media’s i-play division has launched Bubble Town: Party Planet (an upgrade to Bubble Town, a title that’s been played over 120 million times) on Facebook, featuring a free-to-play methodology. As with 99.44% of all free-to-play titles, Bubble Town: Party Planet allows players to use RMT (Real Money Transactions) to purchase virtual items and goods for their in-game characters.

“Oberon delivers a quality gaming experience for all devices and environments, and we see huge opportunity and growth potential with MTX-enabled content. It is our goal to bring a whole new casual gaming experience to players, and a profitable platform model to our Game Center partners,” said Don Ryan, Oberon Media Chief Operating Officer. “We decided to enter this category with Bubble Town: Party Planet because Bubble Town™ is I-play’s most successful online franchise. The new version will entice both new and old fans of the series as it brings the experience to an even higher level.”

Traditionally, Oberon Media has stuck to it’s founding principles of ‘Try before you buy’, whereby gamers can play an unlimited title for one hour, and if they enjoyed it, they’d then be asked to purchase the game. Not a bad philosophy, but in today’s microtransaction focused (and financially beneficial for developers and publishers) market, this concept seems a bit dated. Enter stage left, Oberon Media’s massive shift in their core business plan.

With this in mind, Oberon Media’s CEO Tomer Ben-Kiki stated in an interview that it pays to be cautious. Ben-Kiki admits that by getting into the game in 2003, Oberon Media was a bit late to the first generation casual games party. However, Oberon Media is still very well and alive today, perhaps owing some of the success to the overall quality of their offerings. This quality, combined with Oberon Media’s decision to white label their games, had led the company to publishing it’s products across 250 different sites.

Adding to his ‘caution is key’ statements, Ben-Kiki states that a diversified games portfolio is the wisest and financially sound option for Oberon Media. He says that Oberon Media doesn’t want to invest too early in some gaming platforms where profits can remain relatively small, and competition crowded and cutthroat.

“We want the platforms to be mature enough,” Ben-Kiki said. “Once we roll out the business model, we will use it across a lot of platforms where our games are. I see virtual goods as a very important addition. But it is not causing an earthquake in the casual space.”

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U.S. online gaming market grows 22 percent Year over Year

Monday, July 13th, 2009

Leader internet measurement firm comScore released on Friday new data that reveals the United States online gaming market attracted approximately 87 million visitors in May 2009, a 22 percent gain over May 2008. The data points to a slumping economy as a primary driver, as more and more Americans are increasingly seeking out cheaper entertainment options.

Coming up big again this year is Yahoo! Games, bringing home the bacon with approximately 19.4 million visitors, up 6 percent from May ’08, filing their way through the big Y’s offerings. EA Online took the number two spot with 18 million visitors, a healthy 34 percent increase YOY. Nickelodeon Casual Games with 14.8 million visitors, and Wild Tangent Network with 13.8 million visitors (a 16 percent increase) took spots 3 and 4 respectively. And while these numbers are in their own right, impressive, the best newcomer award clearly belongs to GSN Games Networks which saw 6 million visitors in May 2009, representing a stellar 563 percent increase over May 2008 traffic.

comScore data 1

“Online gaming continues to be one of the top gaining categories over the past year growing at ten times the rate of the total U.S. Internet population and reaching nearly one out of every two Internet users,” said Edward Hunter, comScore director of gaming solutions. “And the growth in the category is occurring not only at the top gaming destination sites, but also through viral distribution platforms, including widgets and applications. In fact, some online gaming companies that distributed their games across sites are reaching as many people as the top online gaming sites.”

Also included in the data is comScore’s noting of a growing trend in the online gaming space: distributed content. These distributed content platforms include widgets and applications. comScore has found that these methods of distribution can often put creators of said delivery mechanisms numbers similar to gaming portal destinations. For example, accord to the comScore data, MochiMedia reached a combined total audience of 16.9 million in May ’09, which in effect, would put them in spot number 3, above Nickelodeon Casual Games. Likewise, Games2Win was visited over 1.8 million times in May ’09, which would put them squarely within the top 20 online gaming destinations.

comScore data 2

“The power and reach of viral content distribution is well captured by comScore Extended Web Metrix,” said Alok Kejriwal, CEO and Co-Founder, Games2win. “With these latest consumer traffic numbers, we can now effectively present and strategically leverage our accelerating audience reach, and share data with our advertisers, marketers and partners that represents a holistic view of who is playing our games and from where.

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Free to play big guns slated for Austin GDC.

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

The GDC Austin, held from September 15th – 18th at the Austin Convention Center in Texas, recently announced its initial set of speakers and conferences, at it appears as though free-to-play is going to be a dominant theme this year.  Sony Online with Free Realms, Gaia Online, and Neowiz with Crossfire are all on tap for the coming conference.

Austin GDC 2009This year’s conference includes six online-centric ‘tracks’ for the Main Conference.  Tracks are focused on business and marketing, design, social networking and community, services, production, and programming, and include a number of free-to-play, microtransactions powered talks, including one from fatfoogoo client, Rebel Monkey’s CTO Jeffery Kesselman.

Initial highlights from the GDC Austin include:

  • Erik Bethke, VP Product Development, Neowiz Games is expected to present “Metrics and Monetization – Case Study of a Million Concurrent Players” whereby publishers and operators can tighten up their understanding of metrics used to derive decisions made for online games.  Likewise, these metrics play a crucial role in determining how best to monetize publiser’s online assests.
  • Craig Sherman, CEO of Gaia Online will be presenting “Next Phase of Casual Games: How to Make the Free-To-Play Model Work for You”.  Sherman will present the benefits of an online gaming model, how the model is working around the world, specifically comparing free-to-play in the U.S. vs. Asian market, why the model is a big hit with game devs, and perhaps most importantly, how to remain profitable with a f2p title and the future of the gaming landscape.
  • Rebel Monkey’s Chief Technology Officer, Jeffery Kesselman will be presenting “The Monkey Wrench: Design and Architecture of an Online Environment”.  Kesselman will lay out how Rebel Monkey successfully combined open source technologies, to formulate Monkey Wrench, the platform currently powering CampFu.  He’ll focus on design and architecture elements, but will also share lessons learned during the implementation process.
  • Massive social games company Zynga will be represented by Brandon Barber, VP of Marketing when he delivers his talk, “What Are The Stickiest Design Models and How Are They Monetized?”  He plans to illustrate to attendees just how that can navigate the rapidly changing state of play, retain and audience, and make some coin while they’re at it.  Barber will also highlight how “Microtransactions within the game itself, such as the purchase of virtual goods are the most viable form of revenue.”

Again, this is just the first round of announcements that will undoubtedly be released over the coming weeks.  However, it is particularly interesting to note that the GDC Austin did not choose any other topic to entice potential attendees in.

If these six tracks weren’t enough to wet your appetite, don’t forget that the GDC Austin also features the Game Audio and Game Writer Summits, as well as the Independent Games Summit, AND the brand spankin’ new iPhone Game Summit.

Everything’s bigger in Texas.

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Stillfront AB back at it with free-to-play fan immersion game: Terminator Salvation

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

As we reported on last year, Stillfront AB’s fan immersion game, or FIG as they’re now known, Wanted was the first successful web-based game that had a Hollywood tie-in.  Well it looks like they’re back at it, this time with a fig based on the latest installment in the Terminator series, Terminator Salvation.  The game was recently released in browser format, with a facebook application arriving shortly.

picture-2Following the film’s plot lines, players are drawn into the post apocalyptic world where machines are the governing body, and humans must fight for their lives and the salvation of their entire species.  This free-to-play game does not automatically assume that all players will be willing to fight for the human race, and instead presents players with the choice to join the machines or the humans at the time of sign up.  A simple and familiar mechanic, players fight their opposition throughout the game, always struggling to gain the upper hand.  Taking cues from social network casual games style play, the web based version allows users to recruiter others to their side of the fight.  However, these recruitment techniques do come at a price, there’s always the constant danger looming that your new recruit might just turn out to fight for the other side.

“We are extremely excited to be part of one of the greatest movie franchises ever,” says Marco Ahlgren, CEO Stillfront AB. “The concept of different sides fighting against each other is new to the genre of casual web-based gaming, and I believe it will change the future for all FIGs to come. As we’ve seen with the Wanted FIG, the game will provide an exciting, addictive game play experience for the players while utilizing a micro transaction model to generate revenue and establishing a strong online brand awareness leading up to the release of the film and well beyond.”

Perhaps I’m missing something here, but “The concept of different sides fighting against each other is new to the genre of casual web-based gaming,” ummm…really?  Again, maybe I’ve got something all wrong, but that’s not exactly a new concept.  Perhaps Ahlgren is speaking to this form of play in a FIG?

As we’ve recently seen, Hollywood is taking a decided interest in what’s been termed as, “the entertainment industry’s most highly-sought commodity”, and the Terminator Salvation FIG is just another step in the right direction.  Adding microtransactions to the equation not only provides studios with additional income revenues, but in these early stages, also puts the concept front and center right in front of their eyes (and wallets).  As the interest in gaming continues to grow, don’t be surprised to see FIG’s become a solid and steady part of the overall promotional budget from big name studios.  Stillfront AB has already announced that they’ve got three more FIGs in development, and have inked a deal with Bigpoint.

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Niko Partners project Chinese online game market to reach $8.9 billion by 2013

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Niko Partners, a leading research firm focused on providing market intelligence about the Chinese video game industry, recently released data from it’s most recent study, citing $2.75 billion in revenue from online games in China in 2008.  The study collected data from over 70,000 points in 10 Chinese cities over the course of March 2009.  The figure is generated from this data and includes new online game market segments, strong sales of (illegal) game consoles, and 23 million PCs in China’s 170,000 internet cafes.  Based on this data, Niko Partners projects that the online game market will continue to flourish with a massive 26.4% compounded annual growth rate over the next five years, with revenues to top out close to $9 billion in 2013.

report_cover“Average spending per Chinese gamer is rising to the point where a 26% increase in gamers resulted in 61% more revenue for online games in 2008,” said Lisa Cosmas Hanson, managing partner of Niko Partners. “Niko’s conclusion is that China’s online market has plenty of room for growth in the next five years, and much of that growth will come from beyond the major metropolises where the number of Internet cafés, home PC penetration and Internet usage are all on the rise.”

The 2009 Annual Review and Five-Year Forecast Report on China’s Video Game Industry, available from Niko Partners is a comprehensive survey and review of the 2008 – 2013 PC online, PC offline, casual games, social networking games, console, handheld games and hardware market.  It provides the most current and largest market intelligence of the Chinese gaming market including gamers, internet cafes, regulations, online game operators, games, hardware, distribution, retail, outsourced development, and vital info on trends in the supply and demand chain.

Highlights include:

  • Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) accounted for 77% of 2008 online games revenue, with advanced casual and casual games making up the balance of 23%.
  • Webgames and games on social networking sites expanded the casual game segment, offering more games to new and casual gamers as well as to hardcore gamers who play MMORPGs.
  • Sales of next-generation game consoles continue to climb, though entirely via illegal imports as there has been a ban on consoles since 2000.
  • By 2012 the number of online gamers should reach 119 million, a 17.7% CAGR.

The report is now available from Niko Partners, and includes:

  • Annual Review & Five-Year Forecast Report
  • Chinese Gamers Study in 4 City Tiers
  • Six-Month Update Report
  • 10 hours of consulting time
  • On-site presentation about China’s market

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LA Games Conference features stellar lineup, April 28-29

Monday, April 27th, 2009

Kicking off tomorrow, the LA Games Conference features an outstanding collection of speakers and panelists from across today’s gaming landscape.  The conference is slated to have over 250 senior decision makers from games, media, entertainment and tech companies all under one roof.

lagc_logo_2009Held at the historic Roosevelt Hotel, in Los Angeles, California, this year’s conference features a number of presentations and talks by a number of industry leaders.  Featured keynote speakers include:

Nolan Bushnell – founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, CEO of uWink and Chairman, NeoEdge.

We’ve previously highlighted Bushnell’s innovative concept and use of microtransactions in the traditional ‘diner’ setting.  Bushnell is expected to talk about his thoughts on game consoles like the Nintendo wii and the new and emerging landscape of gaming (presumably with a heavy focus on microtransactions).

“Distribution of Games and Digital Media – A Glimpse of the Future”

Mike Yuen – Senior Director, Game Services, Qualcomm

Yuen is expected to give his thoughts on what drives the move towards digitally distributed content.  He’ll also be discussing Qualcomm’s investment in the new wireless 3G game console in developing countries, called Zeebo.  This new console targets middle class gamers in emerging markets including Brazil, Russia, India and China.  This console plays only downloadable games, combating the piracy of disc based games.

“Casual is the New Black – If You Want to Avoid the Red”

David Roberts, CEO, PopCap Games

Quickly becoming one of my personal favorite gaming destinations, PopCap Games’ CEO David Roberts plans on discussing the future where innovations in casual games help create the environment for tomorrow’s hardcore game experiences.  Roberts will lay out the PopCap vision of bringing games to the other 80% of the market that even the broadest appealing casual games have yet to reach.

“Finding Money in Games”

Mitch Lasky, General Partner, Benchmark Capital

Given the current economic situation, Lasky’s talk on the latest investment trends and opportunities in games and digital media, might just be the one not to miss.  A 20+ mobile gaming, new media, and interactive entertainment business veteran, Lasky has served as EVP of Mobile and Online at EA before joining Benchmark Capital.

Other top panelists and Moderators include:

John Kavanagh, SVP, Interactive / Head of Games, Paramount Pictures

Gareth Davis, Platform Manager, Facebook

Spencer Hunt, VP, Game Production & Digital Development, Sony Pictures TV Int’l

Kuk Yi, Managing Director, Best Buy Capital

Bill Young, Western Region Sales Director, Electronic Arts

Jason Oberfest, SVP of Business Development, MySpace

Robert Norton, Managing Director, North America, King.com

Jana Friedman, SVP of Worldwide Advertising Sales, Double Fusion

David Reitman, VP, Content & Ent. Practice, Switch and Data

Kate Connally, Vice President, AddictingGames/MTV Networks

Bill Kispert, VP, Interactive, NBC Interactive

Jesse Redniss, Vice President, USA Network Digital

Ned Sherman, CEO and Publisher, Digital Media Wire

Eric Goldberg, Managing Director, Crossover Technologies

Nick Williams, Director, Media &, Entertainment Insights, OTX Research

Jay Baage, VP of Content, Digital Media Wire

Anu Shukla, Founder and CEO, Offerpal Media

Scott Scherer, VP of Product Management, Hands-on Mobile

Michael Rubinelli, SVP of Game Development, Genius Products

George Kurtyka, 3P Account Manager, Nokia

Nash Parker, Director, Emerging Technology & Media, Alcatel-Lucent

Braden Moulton, Senior Manager, Partner Development, Massive (Microsoft)

Nichole Goodyear, CEO & Co-Founder, Brickfish

Michael Chang, CEO & Co-Founder, Greystripe

Vijay Rao, VP, Director of Open Planning, Optimedia US

Ted Cohen, Managing Partner, TAG Strategic

Kyle Laughlin, Senior Director, Yahoo! Games

Bob Ferrari, VP, Publishing & Bus. Dev., Sanrio Digital

Michael Cai, Vice President, Video Games, Interpret

Kyu Lee, President, Gamevil

Mike Vorhaus, President, Magid Advisors

Dave Long, CEO/Co-Founder, Exponential Entertainment, Inc.

Matt Palmer, EVP & GM, Stardoll Network

Jim Drewry, Executive Director of Marketing, Turbine

Michael Rosenberg, COO, Future Ads (Owner and Operator, Gamevance.com)

Teemu Huuhtanen, President, N.A., Sulake Inc. (Habbo)

Matthew Bellows, VP, Consumer Strategy, Vivox

Ryan Barkan, Senior Director, Advertising & Video Games, Primary Wave Music

Mark Friedler, Partner, Worlds and Games LLC

Greg Short, Executive Chairman, EEDAR

Tim Chang, Principal, Norwest Venture Partners

Bjorn Book-Larsson, COO & CTO, K2 Network

John Canning, Principal, MediaSherpa

Dennis Fong, CEO & Founder, Raptr

Alex Hackford, Head of A&R, Sony Computer Entertainment America

John Hayase, Exec. Director of Development, Sony Online Entertainment

Steve Hoffman, CEO, RocketOn, Inc.

James Hursthouse, Bus. Development Director, Japan/Korea, BigWorld PTY

Dave Laux, Global Executive, InterActive Media

Nicole Lazzaro, President, XEODesign, Inc.

Calvin Ng, CEO & CSO, iLemon

Ken Rutkowski, President/Host, KenRadio

Tommy Tallarico, President, Tommy Tallarico Studios, Inc.

Dan Yue, Co-Founder & CEO, Playdom

David Zemke, Director of Marketing, Glu Mobile

Ethan Titelman, VP Media & Ent. Group, Penn, Schoen & Berland (PSB)

Jon Snoddy, Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer, Big Stage Entertainment

Ron Williams, CEO, The Zeev Exchange (Zeevex)

Stay on top of the LA Games Confernece at www.lagamesconference.com

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Hi5 layoffs could have a silver lining

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

Hi5, the world’s third largest social network hasn’t exactly had it easy this April Fools day.  Both VentureBeat and TechCrunch lit up the airwaves yesterday with reports of this, that and the other.  Let’s take a look at what happened, and what’s going to happen.

hi5logo_300dpi_3300x2550The social network news reports were abuzz yesterday afternoon when rumors were confirmed that hi5 had recently failed to secure another round of funding.  According to MG Siegler’s source, the deal was as good as done, just in need of a few signatures.  This wasn’t just pocket change, as the deal would have been somewhere in the $30 million range, effectively doubling it’s previously raised $35 million.

VentureBeat’s source admitted that hi5 was now down to one group  – the group focusing on entertainment, gaming and microtransactions.

Hold up.  Let me get this straight. The world’s third largest social network was passed over for additional funding, and are now down to the gaming/microtransaction group?  Seriously?  With 62 million monthly visitors, this could be downright huge.

Enter stage left – the silver lining

Ok remaining hi5 folks, take a second and give a deserved lick to those wounds.  Layoffs are never fun.  It’s comeback time.

And coming back they are.  Hi5 has just announced a partnership with games distributor and ad network Mochi Media.  Mochi will introduce 200 flash games initially, with plans for many more to come.  Games on hi5 is not new, as they introduced their virtual currency, Coins, in December of last year, and approximately 40 games back in February.  However, in the newly introduced Mochi Media games, hi5 coins will allow users to buy virtual items, download a select number of games, and access special, or additional features.  It might be fair to say that hi5 is arriving fashionably late to the party, as the site has on average 62 million users per month, but hasn’t really nailed down how to monetize these users.  Given Tencent’s conglomeration of an instant messaging client, social network and web portal recently reported over $1 billion in revenue from a variety of virtual goods, and Habbo recently announcing their $60 million in virtual goods sales (although I’ve also seen $70m and $74m – dang € to $ conversion), chances are hi5 is still very much in the running.  Earlier this month the company stated that they were aiming towards a $25 million take this year, with half of the revenues stemming from virtual goods, half from currently existing advertising.

Again, hi5 may have sustained a significant blow when additional funding fell through, but clearly they’ve already been working on monetization via microtransactions and virtual goods sales, so they’re already one step closer to a complete re-invention of themselves.  Will all of those 62 million users stick around?  That is yet to be seen.  My guess is that sure, some of them may go when they start to see dramatic changes to the site, but on the other side of the coin, by re-inventing themselves as a primary gaming destination, and combine both forms of revenue generation, we might very well see not only the return of hi5, but perhaps a hi10.

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Survey says – In-Game Advertising trumps Traditional TV Advertising

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Mountain View, CA based casual gaming advertising network NeoEdge Networks has released preliminary data that suggests that video advertising within games is more effective than traditional TV advertising.  The study is not yet complete and ready for publication, but reports are indicating that online gaming audiences are more likely to remember brands that are experimenting with pre, mid and post roll video ads inside web based games.  Whether or not this recollection is positive or not remains to be seen, but according to NeoEdge, it’s all good.

ingameadvertising1NeoEdge is conducting the study together with research agency Frank Magid Associates, and explain their reasoning:

The research goal was to determine both the value of online video advertising inside of casual games and the most efficient use of video advertising in casual games. In partnership with advertiser Zappos.com, casual game players across the NeoEdge Network were intercepted with a survey request after game play. Consumers saw one of ten different online video advertising scenarios, which varied number of ads seen, frequency of ads and additional ad products. Over 2,000 consumers participated in the research study and over 1 million ad impressions were used to conduct the comprehensive research.

EVP at Frank Magid Associates Vicki Cohen explains that the preliminary numbers indicate a quintuple increase in unaided brand awareness over TV advertising where a game included a zappos.com ad.  Over 80% of all those surveyed identified Zappos.com as the ad provider that “allowed them to play the game for free”, and 56% had a more favorable impression of Zappos.com due to the trade off of watching an ad – play the game for free.

Granted, in-game advertising surveys conducted by an in-game advertising agency must be taken with a grain of salt.  Regardless of the possible (read: keep it in mind) bias of the survey, the numbers and results speak for themselves and are interesting to note.  After all, both Google and Sony are eyeballing in-game advertising in a big way, and depending on which data you’re looking at, projections in this segment range anywhere from $732 million to $1.8 billion by 2010.

Now this study seems to paint a bright and rosy picture for the in-game advertising industry, but lest we forget, in-game advertising provider IGA is on rocky ground, and just recently, VentureBeat’s survey indicated that microtransactions, and not in-game ads were the ones to watch over the coming year.  Given the current economic conditions, and the online advertising rate freefall, I’m not completely convinced that the NeoEdge Networks survey will serve as anything more than an optimistic outlook in troubled waters.

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SPIL GAMES – world’s top casual games destination

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

Casual, free-to-play games portal SPIL GAMES saw a 75% increase in traffic and revenue year-over-year in 2008

SPIL GAMESSPIL GAMES provides over 4,000 online casual games through over 50 localized game portals in almost 20 languages.  Through a series of smart segmentations, SPIL GAMES is able to target Families – gamesgames.com, Tweens – agame.com, and Girls – girlsgogames.com.
According to recent comScore data, SPIL GAMES’ worldwide traffic grew 75% in 2008, resulting in the company jumping from the number 5 spot in early 2008 to the number 1 spot by years end.  SPIL GAMES itself is reporting a 269% increase in traffic from the United States as well as a global revenue growth of 125% over 2008.

And it’s not just the US market that has taken notice.  The casual gaming giant saw increases in traffic from many other territories across its network.  After the US, the United Kingdom saw an increase of 113% year-over-year, 52% in France, and 19% in Germany.  These traffic increases are not just a coincidence, as SPIL GAMES’ greatest concentrations of advertising revenue streams occur in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, and France.  The team works closely with advertising partners from around the globe to develop ad solutions and provide in-game advertising seeding that reaches targeted audience segments.  Ultimately, this makes SPIL GAMES not just an attractive destination for gamers, but for advertisers seeking the captivated attention of a highly valuable market.

“We are particularly proud of reaching the number one ranking in casual game portal networks worldwide. SPIL GAMES is a stand-alone, fully-dedicated and independent portal network, while competitors like Yahoo! Games and MSN Games are general portals with a channel for casual games. And, over the last year, we’ve been dedicated to growing our audience through a strategy focused on providing quality, fun-to-play, localized, and segmented portals,” said Peter Driessen, CEO of SPIL GAMES.

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