Skill Gaming: New Funtech & GameAccount Deal
Published: Friday, May 13, 2005 Online-Casinos.com
SKILL GAMING MOVES
Funtech and GameAccount make new deals
Skill gaming was in the news this week with two commercial deals involving Andrew Rivkin's Fun Technologies and Game Account.
The GameAccount deal with Digital Gaming Solutions, a supplier of online casino and sportsbook gaming systems, is to provide a fully white-labelled skill gaming system with seamless login, real-time foreign exchange rate conversions and multiple languages.
The company says that the pay-per-play online games market is currently estimated at $169 million per annum and is growing at a faster rate than that for the overall online games market, but does not give a source for the numbers. Game Account predicts that the skill games sector will hit turnovers of $768 million by 2006.
The deal means that Digital Gaming Solution’s user clients will have access to GameAccount’s skill-based games through their existing gaming accounts. Several gambling companies, including FHM, Tiscali, Sportingbet, Paddy Power and the Sun Online, use GameAccount’s full back-end integration, supported by a suite of online management reporting and customer service tools.
GameAccount’s networked P2P games include Gin Rummy, Backgammon, 8-Ball Pool and Multi-player Golf.
DGS chief Darren Rennick claims that his company manages more than 3,000,000 hits per day and millions of dollars in monthly deposits and says that Game Account's DDOS attack-prevention facilities were a factor in the giving them the business.
FUN Technologies and its SkillJam gaming division, another provider of person-to-person skill gaming, also inked a licensing agreement this week, teaming up with Victoria Real Ltd., the creative communications producer and subsidiary of Endemol UK.
The agreement is to supply and support unique online, skill-based games based on three of Endemol's leading shows: 'Fear Factor', 'Big Brother' and 'Last Man Standing'. Victoria Real has access to the rights to develop games on all interactive platforms, based on Endemol's 500-plus programme titles.
Victoria Real is a pioneer of interactivity, distributing fully integrated applications across web, iDTV and mobile. Endemol, which became part of the Telefonica S.A. group in 2002, was established in 1994 as the result of a merger between the two major TV producers in the Netherlands.
"The competitive nature of these three Endemol games makes them exceptional additions to our suite of online games, and we believe they will be well received by our over 7 million registered players,” said Lorne Abony, FUN CEO.
