SkillPod Media, a Convergence Partners’ investee, has put a lot of recent effort into developing games for Apple iTunes and Android Market.

SkillPod’s motto is ‘Play Anywhere, Anytime, Playtime’. In the words of SkillPod CEO, Mark van Diggelen: “The name of the game is convergence. Players don’t want to be restricted as to when they play and what device they play on. We’re concentrating on making sure that players can play their favourite games wherever they are, with whatever they have in their hands.”

This is the latest element in the company’s all-encompassing strategy that has seen it roll out its casual and skill game platforms for entertainment websites and portals, and on social networking sites like Facebook.

Skillpod Press Statement

Convergence Partners investee company SkillPod discusses growth and prospects of casual gaming industry in South Africa. Mark van Diggelen, CEO and founder of SA casual and social gaming company SkillPod, says that although game development in SA is not as big as it is internationally, local programmers are taking a keener interest in it as a career path.

“In the past two years, there has been more interest, but it will still take two or three more years before we start seeing a real increase,” he says.

Casual gaming has enjoyed a boom in recent years, spurred by the growth of smart devices. Companies such as Apple and Google have also made it easier for potential developers to distribute their content through application stores.

One of the most popular and addictive casual games is Angry Birds, developed by Finland’s Rovio Mobile. Angry Birds reached a milestone in sales on Monday, with 10m downloads across various platforms. US company Zygna, which makes FarmVille and CityVille, has also cashed in. Zynga was recently valued at US$3bn.

Some social games now incorporate micropayments, which represent a new revenue stream for developers. However, it has been tough for SA developers to use these channels because they’re not all available locally.

However, he says companies like Amazon, which has made contributing content to stores more accessible to people outside the US, are changing the game. “Nokia realised SA developers couldn’t get their content into its store, and now helps developers load their content,” he says.

SA companies have been slow to take advantage of the growing social gaming market, but Van Diggelen says easier distribution and better education has started to increase the profile of games development in SA.

“There are now courses at SA tertiary institutions specifically tailored for game development, though there aren’t enough. When the education system starts to focus on the space, South Africans will start seeing game development as a viable career option,” he says.

Casual gaming in SA remains a relatively untapped market — only 10% of SkillPod’s customer base is local. The bulk is in Europe.

SkillPod has developed a platform for social and casual gaming that is being used by publishers and game specialists. In SA, media companies Media24 and Independent Group use it for their casual game services online.

The company has about 750 games on its platform. They integrate fully with micropayment services and social network platforms.

See attached Article from TechCentral

“If the first month of 2011 is anything to go by, then the rest of the year is going to be an incredible one” according to Mark van Diggelen – CEO of online and mobile casual gaming business, SkillPod Media, in which Convergence Partners has a strategic equity investment. “We’ve just completed a 7 month period of R&D, where we redeveloped our online and Facebook casual games platforms, adding a host of new features targeted at personalisation, customisation and monetisation.” As a result of this development the response from new and existing clients has been incredibly positive, with 20 new projects already confirmed. These include a number of new casual games portal deployments in the Middle East (these sites have been fully customised to cater for the Arabic language and the reading of content from right to left), UK, USA, Vietnam, Europe and South Africa.

He adds that the uptake and response from new and existing clients has been incredibly positive, with 20 new projects already confirmed. These include a number of new casual games portal deployments in the Middle East (these sites have been fully customised to cater for the Arabic language and the reading of content from right to left), UK, USA, Vietnam, Europe and South Africa.

The new platform caters for publishers wishing to quickly and cost effectively deploy a casual games offering either onto their existing portal or as a new standalone solution, this can either be a full white label solution or a full featured Facebook application. The platform allows publishers to customise the “Look and Feel” of the site, import logo’s, add tracking scripts (such as Google Analytics), add banner tags, customise backgrounds, manage the message of the day, change themes, setup tournaments, translate the site and the most popular games.

The added benefit of the platform is that publishers, large or small, can immediately start earning revenues from their user base, these revenues are derived from traditional advertising and from micro payments. The platform is fully integrated into PayPal and Moneybookers, additional payment mechanisms will be added on an ongoing basis. Micropayments are earned when users use their virtual currency credits (Pods) to buy in-game power-ups, customise games, when virtual gifts are bought and sent to friends, when users create contests and enter tournaments, micro payments are also used when users customise or pimp their avatars. Other revenue earning opportunities include: sponsorship of site backgrounds, backgrounds in the avatar platform, pre-roll ads, surveys, sponsorship of merchandise in the avatar and virtual gifts store and finally revenues can be earned from in-game advertising.

SkillPod has developed a number of API’s for their games, these include secure high score API’s, post game screens, power-ups, translation and game customisation API’s. The intention is to make these API’s available to the greater game development community, the developers will need to integrate the API’s and then submit their games for approval, where after they’ll be published across our global network of games portals. The upside being that the game developers share in the revenues earned from the various API’s that make use of the micro payments platform. SkillPod is already working with a number of 3rd party game developers across the globe, interested developers should get into contact with SkillPod to discuss the partnership opportunity.

Content is king and we know full well that we need to create unique titles, to not only add value to our publishing clients games offerings, but stand out in the various mobile app stores, and have thus embarked on the creation of a number of exiting new game titles, these games have been built from the ground up and aren’t clones of existing titles. We’re very excited about these titles and will be publishing them across multiple platforms, including: online, mobile web, PC download and more importantly they’ll be published and formatted for distribution through the Nokia Ovi Store, Android Market and the Apple App Store.

The ongoing growth and success of SkillPod Media has received a lot of attention from local and international investors, as one US based venture fund said, “SkillPod continually pops up on the radar”. This interest has resulted in SkillPod’s management team partaking in discussions with a number of parties that have expressed an interest in investing in the business, some of these discussions are already at an advanced stage. SkillPod’s current shareholders (Mark van Diggelen and Convergence Partners) are looking for a strategic partner that not only has access to financial resources but more importantly would be well positioned to assist with the strategic growth and expansion of the SkillPod games network, across the globe.

Publishers can contact SkillPod to discuss their casual games requirements, we’re able to offer publishers a turnkey solution or an out of the box option, with a self service solution currently in development, this offering will allow publishers to register, download the games solution and immediately access the backend to start setting up and customising their new casual games portal, all in a matter of minutes.

See attached link

Skillpod Media, the online and mobile casual gaming business in the Convergence Partners portfolio of investments was featured e-TV’s Tech Report on the 21^st October 2010. The programme highlighted the world leading platform developed by this SA company an the growth of casual gaming globally.

Please check the clip to find the missing info

Skillpod has launched its new mobile gaming platform, Gazuma. This drive onto the mobile phone is an extension of the highly successful online casual gaming platform developed. The platform currently has 20 mobile game titles, across a number of game genres. SkillPod will be adding 12 – 18 new titles a month. All the game titles can be fully customised, re-branded, translated and have the potential to include advertisers branding in them. The platform has been setup to manage promotions in the form of advertising, sponsorship and game sales. Publishers further have the option of offering the mobile games site as a free to play, subscription based and or time based access options.

View the Full Press Release

View the full Press Release