SkillPod Media blazes a trail of innovation

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 packsThemed 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 clientsNew 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 andmicropayments; the ability to customise games and sell them; licensing, usageand 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 andadvertisers alike.

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