Nickelodeon Online believes it's high time for high-speed games. That's why it has partnered with streaming software provider Into Networks Inc. to offer CD-ROM-quality broadband games for rent on Nick.com.
The move will do more than add another source of revenue: It will also tap an increasing number of young visitors with high-speed connections.
The first of these rentable games available for play at Nick.com is Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, based on the Dec. 21 Paramount Pictures/Nickelodeon Movies release of the same name. A three-day, $4.99 rental lets gamers take on the role of the young genius as he battles to save the world from the forces of evil before dinner time.
Why add broadband games for rent now? Because there's now a critical mass of high-speed users, said Nickelodeon Online general manager Mike Skagerlind.
About 35 percent of Nick.com's 1.47 million weekly unique visitors now employ a broadband connection, compared to the Web-wide average of 20 percent. Although Nickelodeon Online isn't quite sure why, Skagerlind suspects that's because much of the site traffic comes from its cable, and subscribers are more likely to have access to cable-modem service.
Given the large broadband population — and the fact that gaming accounts for about 50 percent of Nick.com's traffic — offering a broadband game seemed to be logical. "We think this is the right time. As soon as we went over a third of our audience, we thought that was a significant milestone," Skagerlind said. "We see and fully expect broadband to increase at quite a clip over the next year or so, and it is also very important to us to be able to expand the range of game-play options available on the site for our kid audience."
Into Networks supplies the delivery system and the back-office management tools, including customer service and credit-card verification. In return, it gets a share of the revenue.
"What we particularly liked about the Into technology is, you can test drive the game for a little bit and you can rent it if you like it," Skagerlind said. "It's a way to sample as well as to rent, and I think for our audience that is very appropriate because they might just want something for a short time, and it is a reasonable deal."
Going with a streaming rather than downloadable game offer allows for better quality, Skagerlind said. Because CD-ROM games are hefty, it isn't always desirable to provide downloads that can quickly fill up a user's hard drive. Streaming gets around that: The content stays on Into's server for three days, and the user gets to access it for three days.
"It's also a question of control," Skagerlind added. "If you want to rent it, it is time-limited. If it is on your hard drive, there is no control over it."
Selling to kids does require some added thought, since most will look to a parent or guardian to provide approval and — more importantly — a credit-card number. Kids who go to the Turbo Nick broadband section of the site and click on the Jimmy Neutron CD-ROM link will see a "bumper" notice alerting them that they are going to the Into Website to view or rent the game "and that a parent would be extremely handy at this point," Skagerlind said.
There are plans to add more CD-Rom games to the Nick Jr.com site by the end of the year — including one based on the wildly popular Blue's Clues.
"This is great, because it is another way to access a library of CD-ROMs that are readily available is stores," Skagerlind said. "It's just another form of distribution for them."
The uptake in broadband games already offers some encouragement. A free three-dimensional broadband offering —Otto's Killer Carvin' Snowboard Game
— is the site's most popular offering, 11 months after its January release.
"So when you have a really great gaming experience you find kids really do come back, because they are trying to get mastery," Skagerlind said. "That is the key thing in kid gaming — it is about mastering the game."
While he won't disclose exact figures on how much revenue Nick.com has projected to derive from games, "we are bullish on it," Skagerlind said. "We've got every reason to believe should be a success.
"Is it going to become as big a part as our advertising revenue overnight? No, it won't be," he said. "But it is certainly going to be, I think, a welcome addition to what revenue we already have coming in."
Nick.com has also created Turbo Nick, a pop-up interstitial panel on the site that highlights Nick.com's best broadband content. Skagerlind expects the list of rentable broadband game offerings will quickly grow.
"We think it is a fresh new way to deliver gaming experiences, because kids really do like to play games online," he said.
