The availability of games via digital television, the internet and mobile phones is fast becoming the norm and something soft game designers are keen to be part of. Helen Fletcher spoke to those getting involved to find out more...

Normally, if you fancied playing a game of skill or chance you would head down to your nearest pub or amusement arcade. However, as internet download times have got quicker, digital television has become more advanced and mobile phone handsets have become more sophisticated, the choice available to gamers has increased dramatically.

Investments in new technologies and the impact of overseas markets have shaped the interactive gaming industry and driven more users online.

For traditional gaming businesses and new media brand owners, the interactive gaming market now presents an opportunity to diversify existing product portfolios and drive additional revenue streams from new markets and users.

According to JPM Interactive’s Duncan Cheadle, the ability to develop SWP offerings, based on popular franchises, is one of the most successful and lucrative routes to entry within this market and new media organisations such as BSKYB (British Sky Broadcasting), Virgin and Granada, have already secured substantial revenue by extending developed franchises into interactive games.

"Granada’s interactive Coronation Street Pub Quiz was hugely successful for us," said Cheadle. "Mainly down to the fact the brand itself is widely recognised by a diverse group of potential gamers."

Games for Sky customers started life as a free service, but their potential was soon spotted and Tetris - Sky’s first pay to play game - was launched in 1989.

David Bishop, head of interactive games at Sky, told InterGame: "2001 saw us start to work with external channel partners such as Cartoon Network and later Nickelodeon and Disney to provide pay to play games directly through the channels.

"Our biggest group of players are the stay at home mums, aged between 25 and 55-years-old, who tend to play the quiz and puzzle games," said Bishop. "The second biggest group are children aged between seven and 11 years old, with the split between boys and girls being 60/40."

Sky customers can pay 60 pence for one game, buy a bundle of 15 games played over 24 hours for £1.50, or for quiz games can have three games for £1 or pay 60 pence per game.

Commenting on why Sky Games has been so successful, Bishop said: "People have a lot of choice on how to spend their leisure time. Sky aims to be an entertainment provider rather than just a digital television provider and games complement this ethos. It is also a convenient way of playing a game and having a bit of ‘me time’ for 20-40 minutes."

Both licensed and generic skill games are available through Sky Games and according to Bishop there is a real mix as to what is popular; of course well-known television quiz shows such as Deal or No Deal and Who Wants to be a Millionaire have had the same success they’ve had in the coin-op sector, but the generic games, which Sky has developed, have also become brands in their own right.

For Virgin Media customers, games have been available through their digital TV box since it took over NTL and Telewest. They are designed and delivered by a selection of third party providers and cover arcade and multiplayer, classic, kids, puzzles, quizzes and strategy games.

Michael Pollitt, product manager, TV, told InterGame: "We work with companies including Two Way TV, Jetix, Freethinking and Kidstime, to name a few, which develop the games that are then managed and billed through the customers’ monthly bill."

For Pollitt, there are various reasons why people choose to play games through their set top box. "Not everyone has a PC or a mobile so digital TV provides people with easy access to games with a simple billing process. It is also very difficult to damage the hardware and it is a safe environment for children to play in."

For Cheadle, there are three main reasons why the interactive gaming sector is growing. Firstly, in the UK, at least, gaming is one of the most widely accepted forms of entertainment. As a result the UK government has adopted an approach that allows UK companies to operate effectively under certain policies and legislation rather than suffocating them. According to Cheadle, only through this approach can consumer trust be fostered, which is needed for the market to continue to grow.

Secondly, the huge penetration of broadband enabled homes has allowed operators and broadcasters to take advantage of internet connected set top boxes and offer interactive services.

"In essence the rise of the broadband return path has given new relevance to interactive TV, opening up the need to interact with video on demand servers, advertisers and web site operators," said Cheadle. "It has enabled developers to deliver feature rich and immersive game play beyond still images and such creativity is vital to secure consumer interest and market growth."

But where the real market growth lies and the vital force within the interactive gaming industry, according to Cheadle, is a company’s ability to push its SWP assets beyond existing platforms such as interactive television.

Konami has been at the forefront of gaming since the early days and the company has continually evolved as new technology has, allowing it to deliver the game experience to consumers in various ways and across all platforms.

James Anderson, product planning manager at Konami, told InterGame: "It is important to develop each game for each platform and to take into account the limitations of some platforms and the advantages of others so you can give the players the best experience possible."

Anderson went on to say that it is important to make sure the product is suitable for new markets in terms of the player demographics and that there is little point in making a product where there are no suitable consumers.

Konami recently entered the UK SWP market for the first time with its Frogger Hop Trivia game. Based on a classic arcade title from the 80s, it has been adapted to incorporate a question and answer and prize element, meaning it will appeal to a broader market.

Commenting on the benefits of new platforms and their impact on the coin-op industry, Anderson said: "By offering games on different platforms we are able to offer them to a bigger market.

"Not everyone goes to pub sites, so we are introducing a genre of games to new players, which could result in more people trying the games on terminals when they go out as they will recognise the game from another platform."

UK manufacturer Barcrest Group has also been keen to get involved in the interactive sector and in 2005 launched its first game for IDTV - Elvis Top 20, which was followed by Cashino then Rainbow Riches, with Monty Python due later this year.

Robert White, managing director, IGT-UK, told InterGame: "Barcrest Group’s success with video game content created the ideal opportunity for the company to expand and seek out further markets for its games.

"Under the agreement with Sky, Barcrest designs the games, which are then written to the Orbis OpenBet platform. The games are then marketed by Sky and released under the Barcrest Games brand."

IDTV is not, however, the only platform Barcrest is looking to get its games onto and the development of games for mobile and internet gaming started in 2007, with the first mobile game set to be Hi 5.

"Hi 5 lends itself well to mobile gaming with colourful graphics and straightforward game features that will play well on the mobile platform," said White. "For the internet Barcrest has developed its classic, top-performing games Cashino, Big Bucks and Rainbow Riches.

"Successful originally as UK Section 16/21 games and later as UK Category B3 and C games, they have become brands in their own right and will have massive appeal due to their ‘casino’ style game play."

White doesn’t feel, however, that the company’s involvement in the interactive sector will see it move away from the traditional gaming market where its roots began.

"We remain committed to the development of leading reel-based products for our traditional UK markets," he said. "With 40 years experience in this sector it remains at the heart of our business but we will continue to invest in the development of new products and new markets."

New forms of technology do not, however, come without teething problems and although the IDTV market seems quite advanced, the mobile gaming market is one that, up until recently, has been held back by technology issues.

Commenting on how the interactive game sector has evolved, Marcel Puyk, chief executive of Cellectivity, said: "The technology has evolved rapidly and the online experience has become very good as a result of the developments in flash technology and bandwith.

"Until fairly recently, however, the mobile network performance, the cost of data and the performance of individual handsets, was hampering the growth in the area of mobile connected gaming."

Cellectivity, based in the UK, has been involved the interactive games sector since 2002 when the company launched its Bet2Go application on the O2 mobile network. It has since provided fully managed mobile gaming portals to a number of UK mobile operators, giving the network user access to the best available mobile gaming and betting content in an easy to use manner.

Compatibility has, for a long time, been one of the main areas of concern for the mobile gaming sector. However, according to Puyk, this is no longer the case.

"Even though there is no single standard for operating systems for mobile handsets and the combination of network settings and phones can run into thousands of different setups that need to be supported, mobile developers have presented systems to support this," he said. "Nevertheless the mobile is a special device and mobile betting and gaming products have to be developed with this in mind.

"You can never hope to squeeze an online experience into a mobile, so it is key to focus on the capabilities of the device and on the user experience."

However, Ilja Laurs who, in 2000, set up Midas Baltics, a Lithuanian based mobile R&D subsidiary of Midas Interactive, a UK-based games publisher, feels there are still in fact compatibility issues for some software developers.

With this in mind he set up GetJar, an online mobile application distribution and developer community that provides developers with the means to test their application for free with thousands of GetJar’s Beta-testers on hundreds of devices.

"Because of the fragmentation of the market, over 2,000 different models have to be tested individually if a game designer is to ensure its product will work," said Laurs. "And even then there is no guarantee that the game will be compatible with every handset.

"With the UK gaming market currently worth £83m, with over £29m spent on downloaded games that never get played, this is an issue that needs to be addressed."

But what about the games themselves - is any game suitable for interactive gaming?

For Robert Henrysson, chief executive officer of Jadestone, casual game design has to promote low entry barriers, easy access and short but frequent game sessions, as well as an opportunity to challenge and play with friends.

"A slow-moving, complex strategy war game might have some benefits of going online but probably wouldn’t be a huge market success," he said. "Everything can benefit from digital distribution; whether you want to make the game downloadable versus server based is a decision that needs to factor in game functionality, customer expectations, piracy and accessibility."

Jadestone, based in Stockholm, is one of the leading developers of fully managed online game solutions and its portfolio of games includes football management game Championship Manager Online, the GamArena skill games network as well as several innovative mobile games.

"If you look at the casual games sector of online games it has grown immensely over the last five years with both casual offerings and hardcore games opening up the market dramatically," said Henrysson. "One trend that will influence design over the coming years is user involvement. Online games have committed players who can be an enormous asset in the design of the games and corresponding services like community features."

For Robert Unsworth, sales director for France and the UK, for Digital Chocolate, the community and social networking element is something that could definitely become a strong part of the mobile gaming sector’s future.

"The amount of possibilities available on mobile handsets have grown considerably over the past few years," said Unsworth. "If you look back at some of the original games on the Nokia handsets, such as Snake, the games available today are much richer."

Digital Chocolate, set up in 2003 by Trip Hawkins, founder of EA Games, develops games and applications for mobile phones and is based in California, US.

"A lot of developers are now trying to leverage a social interaction element into their games in order to try and compete with other platforms," said Unsworth.

With this in mind Digital Chocolate has set up a virtual café, which players access through their handset and can invite other people to play classic game titles, encouraging them to move away from the ‘checkout’ mentality associated with mobile gaming.

With this in mind Mytopia network, which launched last month, is, according to the company, the world’s first online social gaming community where people can play casual games together in real time. Available through social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and hi5 to name a few, it is another example of how far the interactive gaming sector has come and the possibilities available to traditional game developers.

Users can play with family and friends in private game rooms or with the community at large in the public area. Games are played for points, which can be traded for virtual or real-world items. Users must prove themselves in live matches to improves their skill rank and gain access to exclusive tournaments.

The interactive gaming sector is growing by the day and this can only be a good thing for the coin-op industry. The crossover of games and brands means, as Anderson pointed out, there will no doubt be a crossover of players.

People who play online might not consider themselves to be ‘gamers’ and may never consider playing a game on a terminal. However, if more and more of the games available on terminals become familiar because of the choice available online, then maybe, just maybe, online players will drop £1 or E1 into an SWP and vice versa. The same theory could also be applied to tournament type games currently operated by coin-op manufacturers and soon online players could play against terminal players.

The traditional causal/soft gaming industry in some parts of the world is no longer as strong for various reasons, so as technology develops and further opportunities arise, it is up to the manufacturers and designers to take their success from one market and expand into new ones.