It doesn't have the fanfare of digital music downloads, or the controversy of Internet gambling, but online gaming has quietly become one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet.
Revenues from online games - those five-minute diversions you play for a quick break but somehow end up clicking away on for two hours - will grow to US$953m this year, from $713m last year and $228m in 2002, says DFC Intelligence, a US-based research group.
SA company Trafficonomy is taking advantage of this trend. It provides games portals, which are "white labelled" versions of its own gaming engine, GameZBoost, to publishers and website operators.
In the year since it was launched, Trafficonomy has become the online game supplier to SA Web portals like IOL, Ananzi, News24 and Aardvark.
It has also set up games portals in the US, the UK and New Zealand. And its own gaming site, SkillPod.com, is growing exponentially.
Casual games are becoming so popular that the world's biggest media companies are offering a downloadable or online casual games page. USA Today, Yahoo, AOL and CNet all have online games available on their sites. "Our strategy is to partner established Internet sites, such as Media24 in SA or Tag International in Canada," says Trafficonomy CEO Mark van Diggelen.
It was while working for the online casino industry that he learnt about the importance of visibility and traffic. But he saw in gaming a different kind of opportunity and left to form Trafficonomy.
GameZBoost is customised for different countries and markets - from the US, Canada and the UK to New Zealand, SA and India.
"We have also started developing our own games and have just launched the first," says Van Diggelen. "This leads us into developing custom games for advertisers - advergames' - and games with in-game ads."
Far from the games in which roleplaying characters spray bullets, slay dragons and maim rivals in fantastic virtual worlds, casual games are typically the nonviolent puzzle, word, trivia and classic arcade-style games that have a growing appeal for all ages and both sexes. Most of them are sold via online download using a "try before you buy" sales model.
Other games are free to play online, but are usually limited in some way, such as the inability of players to save their progress midgame or post a high score.
Though Trafficonomy has begun developing its own games, Van Diggelen does not see the point of trying to compete in this market - the biggest companies are introducing a new game every day.
"We provide one-stop-shop solutions that range from free game sites and simple white labelling to full customisation of an advertiser's or publisher's requirements."
The company can deliver a fully supported, customised games portal within five to seven days, he says.
The online gaming platform, GameZBoost, offers more than 350 free play games, a player registration engine, high score boards, moderated in-game chat, a game tournament engine and a facility for users to challenge each other.
"Trafficonomy's own game site has achieved 50 000 registered users in the past three months, with around 200 000 unique users a month across all our game sites.
"Eighty percent of these players return to play on a daily basis."
These numbers are making advertisers sit up and take notice. "We average 2m banners served every month, and this is increasing by 20%-25% a month," Van Diggelen says.
