Castletown Corporation/SkillPod Media deal

Castletown Corporation (UK) and SkillPod Media (SA) have agreed a deal to create a major drive into User Generated Content of casual games yielding increased traffic and income from existing asset bases. By combining SkillPod's library of world leading games with the 'IMADE' technology developed for Castletown's own website 'ikoncity.com' they have produced a unique online application that allows users to create and run their own individually created games and contests. The deal also means that other commercial operations can use the software to create branded games for use in their own websites, creating value for their users and avoiding costly production costs.

Castletown's Executive Director, Chris O'Farrell said 'Imade is unique - the only one of its type online. Users can choose from a wide variety of games and customise those games by changing the rules, uploading their own images, adding their own music, backgrounds and links. Send them to friends or challenge them to your own created competitions. IMADE is great for all types of sports clubs, bands, film producers, social network sites - in fact any site that wants to increase interest in its products through the use of the best entertaining games which will be played time and time again.'

Imade currently resides only in www.ikoncity.com but it's soon to be launched across several networks with leading global online entities through distribution deals already agreed. This will see imade available for clients through its white label technology on hundreds of leading celebrity and top games websites. For independent game developers who want to expand their distribution and increase traffic, there is a special API which allows them to use IMADE and add their game to the library. The best games will also earn revenue share if they become popular and achieve minimum plays. Whatever the level, all games played contain links decided by the developer.

The deal with SkillPod sees them supplying 300 online games in the next 12 months during this initial phase of the IMADE launch through distribution deals already in place.

Mark van Diggelen, leading shareholder and CEO of SkillPod said 'This is a great opportunity to expand our global reach and monetize existing assets at minimal cost. We see the exploitation of UGC as a key to unlock additional traffic through greater involvement of game fans everywhere. We know our games are already very popular and we continue to develop new winners, but now we can see them adopted by users across the world to create their own personal versions or branded games to support commercial campaigns, thus opening up our products to whole new groups of internet clients.'

Declan O'Farrell CBE, chairman of Castletown Corporation, said ' IMADE makes it possible that game developers, gamers, promoters and marketing departments can all benefit from this alliance. Branding in games isn't new, but allowing users to create their own branded version, online, at no cost, is a real break-through.'

Chris O'Farrell is attending Casual Connect in Kiev from the 20th to 22nd of October.

For more information on Imade and having Imade on your own site please contact contact@ikoncity.com.