Feature: The coming of age of TV gaming
As NetPlay TV signs a deal to launch seven-day-a-week TV Gaming on UK terrestrial TV channel Five, eGaming Review looks at why the gaming industry has the know-how to monetise gaming on both small screens.
TV GAMING IS AN all encompassing term. Taken in a pure TV context, it means gaming on the TV with millions of viewers watching a game show fronted by some well-known presenters encouraging them to play, bet or gamble via text, interactive button or the web.
But taken in a pure online context, or at least one where TV gaming combines elements of TV content production with the internet, either as a play-along option or a player acquisition tool, TV gaming essentially stands for an egaming vertical where live casino gaming products are offered to players over the internet.
Regardless of the formats and mediums TV gaming takes to get out there, the fact is that the vertical continues to attract strong interest from operators, service providers and broadcasters alike.
The reason as ever is that it can lead to significant revenues for all concerned, but in these chastened times of credit crunch and economic slowdown, traditional TV broadcasters are turning to gambling as a serious income stream to make up for the shortfall in advertising they have experienced over the past few years.
The timing of this feature also coincides with Playtech last month announcing an agreement with TV gaming company NetPlay TV where the latter will transfer all its online brands, which include Bingos.com, Eurotelemillions.com and Supercasino.com, over to the Playtech platform in return for supplying the Israeli software firm with live gaming content.
The time is now
Guy Templer, business development director for NetPlay and previously managing director of TV gaming content production Two Way TV, which was acquired by NetPlay in April this year, believes the Playtech deal will allow him and NetPlay to develop live, TV-type gaming content in the full knowledge that it will be distributed to Playtech’s gaming consumers.
But just as importantly, Templer says TV gaming’s time has come. “In many ways, this (the Playtech deal) represents the coming of age of TV gaming and it’s now time to turn it into a proper vertical. It has been on the outskirts of the industry for some time and is finally getting the attention it’s always needed to make its mark on the industry.”
Although most of the output NetPlay will produce for Playtech will be online, Templer says the paths of TV broadcasters and companies like Playtech will cross sooner rather than later through business-to-business deals.
Even if much of this is driven by the recession and the drop in advertising revenues for the broadcasters, Templer says the egaming industry’s know-how and ability to set up transactional processes, in other words getting money in and out of customers’ accounts effectively, puts it in a great position to monetise gaming on the small screen.
“ITV have been through a number of partnerships that have bumped along but never made much headway, while Sky has been a lot more successful in leveraging its TV platform for gaming,” he says.
“But the ability of the industry to set up transactional processes means gambling is the most sustainable model for TV gaming. Gaming provides a completely different model to others that have been used by TV, such as the premium rate services it ran a couple of years ago where punters are churned through at a rate of knots.
“Gambling runs a different pay out, the customer retention management is much stronger and the lifetime values of players much longer than anything the TV world has ever been used to. It needs to be nurtured and developed.”
Templer has been a long time advocate of the TV gaming format and says the betting-based models work because they create winners, which creates loyalty and repeat play, which in turn creates a sustainable business model.
But while gaming on the TV still has some way to go before it reaches the Saturday night mainstream audience, Templer says online there will still be a difference between the straight up live dealer products and those NetPlay will be producing.
“We will bring some TV magic to the content we produce. It will be offered as pure entertainment and fun and we will play to all those things, with presenters creating tension and interacting with players,” he says.
Another company that has exploited the medium of TV is the Poker Channel Europe. Managing director Chris White says distribution has been the key to its success so far.
“One of the key factors in our success to date is that we have been able to get distribution across Europe and that has enabled us to build audiences throughout 20 countries and reach into some 17 million homes,” White says.
Prime position
The Poker Channel Europe’s TV output acts as a major player acquisition tool, according to White, but the company has also been selective in how it has presented itself. By broadcasting from 9pm to 4am in the UK, but 24/7 in continental Europe, it is not classified as a gambling show and is able to sit alongside the FX channel in the UK or Eurosport in Holland, both with audience demographics highly suited to playing poker.
For all the talk of egaming becoming a mainstream activity though, is the Poker Channel Europe trying to find the magic formula that will bring masses to the TV screen?
“We’re trying to find the best format to attract players and convert them into quality sign ups for our advertisers. We have done that producing heavily branded dotcom coverage and action footage from poker events and so far it has worked,” says White.
Knowing if your content is relevant to the audiences you are targeting is the most effective way of producing a profitable TV gaming format. Getting the balance right between TV entertainment and driving audiences to gaming sites is also what White’s company aims to do. “Becoming a mainstream destination is fine but what’s important is what’s profitable. It matters more that we reach the relevant audience with good content,” he says.
Templer for his part says: “It’s about taking this format into a converged environment and we’re also doing more projects for mobile to drive that. Whether media companies get involved and become operators is by no means certain but there will be a shake up of the format. More companies have been getting involved, Sky, NetPlay, Smart Live and Mirada. Who is left standing over the next few years will probably end up shaping much of the TV gaming we get to see on our screens.”
The Poker Channel Europe and NetPlay are just two of the companies looking to combine the TV and web platforms to produce gaming formats that attract millions of players. If the former can continue to exploit its UK Ofcom licence to broadcast into Europe and NetPlay’s content is pumped out to all Playtech licencees, the TV-web gaming conundrum might be some way towards being resolved.
This article first appeared in the August edition of eGaming Review.