Feature: Social success wanted - the race is on (part 2)

Facebook generation

Chili/Winamax

Chili’s social integration began with the launch of Chiliconnect in April 2011, with the innovation allowing players to sell percentages of their action or make last-longer bets with the help of Facebook and Twitter accounts – the product was completely owned by the iPoker skin rather than the network on which it sat before merging its dot.com B2C poker arm with Poker770 this year, and CEO Alex Dreyfus said at the time that “”The link between Chilipoker players and the fact that you can speak to players is the most important part. Facebook is just the cherry on top of the cake.”

In October the operator took a more active approach with the introduction of US-facing social poker network Chiliplay, launched on Facebook as well as being made available on various desktop and smartphone devices. Chiliplay takes the freeplay model, targeted at the United States among other markets, with director Rohin Malhotra describing it upon launch as “Technically the most advanced on the market today.” It uses software from Winamax, developed by the operator in-house with Winamax CEO Canel Frichet suggesting it represents “The first time such a high quality network will be made available on Facebook.”

More recently Dreyfus admitted of Chiliconnect that “Chili is too small to use a tool like that and make it successful. We want to bring it on to a bigger scale with a bigger platform,” turning the operator’s focus towards its “iGaming Platform” which has since been sold to Bally Technologies, with a freeplay social poker site launched last month [May] with the branding of the platform’s first partner, Golden Nugget, which also allows players to share results on their Facebook wall.

Gamesys

In many ways Gamesys was one of the early movers in the social space, but crucially also one of the first to embrace Facebook, launching free-play games on the platform as far back as 2009. Its flagship product remains Jackpot Joy Slots, launched in June 2011. Jackpot Joy Slots attracts 1.8m monthly actives on Facebook with Gamesys claiming that more than 6m people have played the game since its launch. The success of the social offering has seen Gamesys founder Noel Hayden launch a social gaming development subsidiary, iwi, in order to continue to grow the brand.

Iwi has evolved into a B2B operation through its partnership with PopCap Games ““ sold to Electronic Arts for a rumoured $1.3bn in July last year ““ developing both real-money and social sites. Most recently the companies collaborated on Lucky Gem Casino, a slot-focused Facebook offering, which AppData estimates to have attracted over 1.3m monthly active players over the past month. Gamesys supply PopCap with the social gaming platform for Lucky Gem, as well as customer service, product and IT solutions.

However, all mention of iwi has disappeared from Gamesys’ sites, suggesting that the division has been folded into the larger businesses. Whether this means the subsidiary was loss-making is unclear, but it seems that it no-longer exists as a stand-alone entity. Aside from Jackpot Joy Slots, Jackpot Joy Casino, which offers roulette and blackjack alongside the slots offering, has only 190,000 MAU, and Super Fun Town, similar to Zynga’s FarmVille and CityVille, which launched in 2010, only attracts 5,000 monthly players.

IGT

At this stage IGT has probably made the most aggressive move to quickly establish a presence in the social gaming sector through its acquisition of Double Down Interactive for up to US$500m in January this year. Paying such a hefty price for a business which is barely two years old represents a huge gamble for IGT, but also shows the company have a huge amount of success in the Facebook platform.

Double Down’s 5.3m monthly active users help draw in annual revenues of around $10m, with the casino showing consistent growth. Player volume has increased by 13% since the beginning of the year ““ an increase which should continue after IGT announced plans to roll out a Double Down variant for mobile devices. Still, there have been signs of change; in an analyst call following the purchase of Double Down IGT CEO Patti Hart was very bullish about the prospect of increasing revenues from the vertical, saying: “We intend to drive meaningful value from this rapidly growing distribution platform that reaches a new, but complementary, demographic of gamers.”

Such proclamations quickly changed by time announcement of IGT’s quarterly results in April this year, when the aggressive proclamations were tempered with notes of caution. Hart said that Double Down was “providing accelerated revenue growth” but admitted that “[IGT has] only had it for around 85 days, so not a full quarter yet, but we feel very comfortable that it is outperforming expectations,” she said.

IGT have been slowly but surely tweaking Double Down to include a number of their own products and games on the platform, such as its branded American Idol and Brady Bunch slots, as well as giving the lobby an overhaul, and most recently adding a Texas Hold’em game.

Probability

Probability’s Facebook integration began in earnest in Q4 2011, and so far consists largely of allowing players to share results via their accounts on the social network. However, in order to speed the process along, the sharing process is incentivised with bonuses going the way of those who choose to make friends aware of their activity with the mobile operator’s LadyLucks brand. The single-click sharing element helps minimise the distraction from gameplay and could ultimately be followed by more hands-on social apps on the network itself, although Probability has no plans to go down this route.

Ones to watch

Bwin.party

Merging the operations of the two egaming giants may have delayed the development of a social gaming strategy, but bwin.party is currently working towards the launch of a social department led by co-CEO Norbert Teufelberger, which is likely to incorporate social poker products already backed by the operator as well as an acquisition which Teufelberger was keen to stress will not be “an aggressive acquisition similar to the ones our peers have done,” showing huge progress to a few months earlier, when he admitted that social he “Never believed [social] was something that’s going to materialise and “¦ underestimated how powerful it would be.”

It is unclear which company is the intended acquisition target, with several names having been linked, but it is believed to be designed to supplement the company’s existing social products and enhance the current offering rather than act as a stand-alone social brand. Teufelberger is expected to announce the conclusion of the deal later this month.

The two existing social poker apps being backed by bwin.party, WPT Texas Hold’em Poker and Aces Hangout, have allowed the operator’s brands to begin developing a presence on both Google+ and Facebook, but with varying levels of success.

WPT, developed by San Francisco-based company Hands-on Entertainment featuring bwin.party’s World Poker Tour branding, rewards players with prizes including chip sets and trips to live tournaments. After launching in 2010, the brand saw monthly actives rise to 260,000 by late 2011, only for this number to decline significantly, dropping by 100,000 to 160,000 at the time of writing, according to AppData. However, figures are unavailable for the mobile game WPT Hold’em Showdown, launched for both Facebook and mobile devices.

It is more difficult, however, to gauge the success of Aces Hangout, the fast-paced poker game released on Facebook’s rival network Google+. Created by Dennis Hettema of Swedish games developer Hettema & Bergsten, the product allows players to play face-to-face with webcams, similar to 888’s Poker Cams.

While it could be argued that WPT makes bwin.party an early mover in the social gaming space, the lack of unified social strategy and impending acquisition suggests that the operator has enough potential to become a leading operator moving into this space, even with the launch of Win Interactive in late May, making it a company to watch rather than one which has already made its move into social.

PKR

Known to be developing a social offering, but unwilling to share its plans, PKR has admitted it has “a number of ongoing research and development projects in the pipeline,” refusing to specify. One such project which has launched, however, is a free-play roulette offering for mobile and platform devices, which is thought to be a way of testing software ahead of a wider launch of mobile and social products.

Playtech

While not working directly on Facebook, a number of Playtech’s freeplay offerings allow players to sign up via their account on the social network. Among these are SodaPoker and the US-facing Calshark, launched in partnership with the California Online Poker Association (COPA) and SciPlay, while Playtech’s recent licensing agreement for Viaden’s assets had looked to add Zeda Poker ““ including its Apple App Store integration ““ to the portfolio. Calshark, however has since entered into SciPlay’s sole control following the restructuring of its JV with Playtech in January, while May’s licensing agreement marked a sharp strategic u-turn for the Israeli company after earlier plans to acquire both CTXM and Viaden. CTXM’s Slots Farm app already brings in 1.3m monthly active users, and the originally mooted €95m figure seemed to signify a particularly strong commitment to social. The software provider said it expected the deal to give it access to “a broad range of social gaming platforms and products,” but it is too early to determine whether changes to the structure of the deal are indicative of a change of tack.

PMU

While Pari-Mutuel Urbain has developed an all-but unassailable market-leading position in the French egaming market, its use of Facebook is limited to that of a communication tool for both corporate and commercial channels. They maintain a page to communicate with members of the press, which is used predominantly by players, and commercial pages for the latest news and advertising on the company’s poker and sportsbook offerings. Under the terms of French regulation, however, they are unable to offer skill gaming products on Facebook, and have no plans to launch social betting or poker offerings.

PokerStars

Seemingly silent on the social front while continuing to push product development with Zoom and multi-lingual mobile apps, PokerStars nevertheless has generated a strong presence on social networks purely as a marketing and advertising tool with its primary official Twitter account boasting more than 85,000 followers and representative player Daniel Negreanu almost double that amount.

However the recent launch of the operator’s BOOMplayer was the result of strong preparation far-reaching social integration, and appears to give a greater idea of its longer-term social strategy. Integrated with several social networks including Facebook, Twitter and Russian-language network Vkontakte, it allows players to share, replay and comment on hands played with few apparent language barriers.

However it seems to signify a reluctance to launch one’s own app on any particular social network, a policy perhaps made more viable by the existing brand strength and market-dominating player liquidity held by the company.

Sportingbet

While Sportingbet has made little noise about social, the company is incredibly cagey when discussing their social strategy. Aside from advertising the brand has little presence on social networks, but remains keen to urge customers to “watch this space” as far as a social offering is concerned.

Virgin Games

Launched a mobile site at the end of last year initially with a number of Microgaming slot games. Now on page one of organic search rankings after working closely with an SEO consultant. Currently experiencing more success in mobile than online due to lack of competition in that space.

According to Virgin Games’ commercial director Josh Morris the operator views social as a “massive opportunity” and is preparing a “social proposition” launch potentially by the end of this year. Morris remains tight-lipped and will only go so far as to say that “the area will be in slots”. “After coming back from California recently it feels right for the Virgin brand to be there,” he says. “Social is all about having and fun and being entertained and we feel that we have the right brand to offer that as well as take advantage of the current appetite for social games.

“The [social] opportunity is separate with virtual currency the here and now, but in future the convergence of cash models is a huge opportunity and the synergy between mobile and social is something we’re keen to take advantage of.”