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New mantra for mobile gaming: Integrate or die

By Dustin Rideout

As a marketer who has spent the better part of my career focusing on the digital channel, I used to have the ?integrate-or-die? debate with my traditional channel colleagues on an almost-daily basis.

Thankfully, the times are changing, and our conversations now focus more on whether we are using each channel enough and in a consistent manner.

This evolution that marketers have gone through has got me thinking about a similar and emerging trend within the mobile and social space. Not that long ago, in-game advertising was being heralded as the next big marketing opportunity, then mobile gaming and most recently in-app advertising with the massive growth of mobile applications ? thanks iPhone.

But now what? Doesn?t it all still seem so disconnected? Is a common platform ever going to emerge, and will social integration ever go beyond just sharing stuff with our friends on Facebook?

One company that seems to be trying to answer these questions is SocialDeck, a Canadian start-up funded in part by BlackBerry?s recently announced $150 million Partners Fund.

Founded only last year with a vision of enabling ?anywhere, anytime, anyone? gaming, the company has launched several titles for the iPhone, Facebook and BlackBerry using its social gaming platform technology which enables simultaneous game play across multiple mobile devices and social networks.

SocialDeck?s technology also facilitates viral content discovery, distribution and monetization. I sat down with founder/CEO Anish Acharya and discussed where he thinks the future of integrated mobile and social gaming is going and what opportunities exist for marketers.

How has technology for peer communication and collaboration on mobile devices changed over the last year or so?
The most critical change we've seen in the mobile industry is the ability for mobile applications to get wide and cost-effective distribution through application stores like Apple's App Store and RIM's App World.

While the app store channel is hugely powerful, the flood of content has made it increasingly challenging to get noticed. Additionally, the array of application choices available to mobile users has driven down engagement.

SocialDeck is focused on enabling social games ? casual games that you play with your friends on a social platform, which has traditionally been the social network, but is now increasingly the smartphone.

This type of application addresses key challenges by (1) driving distribution through viral channels ? it's more fun if you play with your friends and send invites ? and (2) driving engagement ? playing with your actual friends is much more engaging then a single player experience.

It's key that a player be able to engage all of their friends, regardless of device, service, or platform being used ? this is made possible by SocialDeck's cross-platform technology.

Advertisers are all clamoring to figure out how to leverage social channels. How could advertisers potentially use Socialdeck?s technology to expand reach or increase customer engagement?
Games are a powerful way for users to interact with a brand. The perceived value is increased significantly when the brand is facilitating a social interaction between friends.

The SocialDeck solution demonstrates how mobile games and social networking platforms such as Facebook can be seamlessly connected so users can engage with one another, regardless of the device, service or platform being used.

This is compelling from an ROI standpoint because the majority of the value created is through the social experience. The games can reach a wider audience who are more engaged then with other types of advertising, and the cost is lower because the actual game is relatively simplistic.

In Shake & Spell, a SocialDeck-produced game, users can tweet their high scores and post wins and losses to their Facebook page, which drives awareness and distribution.

Do you think your cross-platform audiences will be as receptive to advertising as traditional mobile gamers seem to have been?
I think they will be more receptive to brand-based advertising in the form of games because they can engage friends across devices, not just the friends that have a single device. The cross-platform experience makes the gaming experience more valuable, which ultimately creates value for the brand.

Location-based targeted advertising makes marketers salivate, how could cross-platform leverage this and make it even better?
Location-based gaming is a powerful way to combine offline and online interactions.

A great example of this is Foursquare, a location-based game that allows a player to become the "mayor" of a real place they frequently visit. That player can then provide coupons to friends, incenting them to visit the location or business.

Again, this experience is only valuable if you can interact with all of your friends, regardless of device, service or platform.

Up to this point the mobile phone has been the ugly stepsister of the PC and console ? games were ported from the more powerful platforms resulting in a poor experience on the phone.

With LBS we have a chance to create a unique gaming experience from the ground up on the phone.

Existing Web games can provide users incentives to visit other Web sites. Analogous to this, location-based mobile games can give users incentives to visit physical locations. The ability to use a game to drive human traffic to a location is an incredibly powerful concept.

We are talking a lot about the opportunity across different mobile and Web-based platforms, but what about the first screen, our televisions? What are your thoughts on future integration within SocialDeck?s platform?
The TV has incredible opportunities for a cross-platform social gaming experience. Imagine playing along with Jeopardy with a group of friends on different devices, all while watching it on TV.

Moving forward we see the TV becoming a critical access point for the same social experiences that we enjoy today on the mobile phone and the Web.

AT THE CONCLUSION of my interview with Anish, I began to see how social games could drive better distribution and engagement than other types of mobile applications.

A critical component of social gaming is playing with your friends, regardless of how they are consuming the game.

In a multi-device world, mobile and Web-based applications will only achieve the greatest distribution and engagement through cross-platform support, truly allowing users to interact with whomever they want, regardless of device type. However, this is still yet again another emerging channel, and it will take a few bold and curious advertisers to explore the opportunity.

Dustin Rideout is a senior account director and digital strategist at Tribal DDB Canada, the Toronto-based integrated digital and interactive marketing division of DDB Canada and a member agency of Tribal DDB Worldwide. Reach him at .