Nickelodeon to invest $100m in online gaming

by Staff, Brand Republic 20-Jul-07, 08:00

NEW YORK - Nickelodeon is to invest $100m in building online gaming sites, platforms and titles, including a subscription gaming site for pre-schoolers and the first site aimed at teenage girl gamers.

MTV Networks, owner of Nickelodeon, said it planned to become the leaders in what it described as "online casual gaming", an area that is growing in popularity.

New properties will include an ad-free educational games service called myNOGGIN, aimed at pre-schoolers; Nick Gaming Club, the first subscription service from Nickelodeon, providing a safe environment where children can play multiplayer games online; and NGames.com, the first major casual gaming site to focus solely on teenage girls.

Cyma Zarghami, president of Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group, said: "Across all of MTVN's online sites, gaming is an important original genre and we are committed to delivering fresh content to our audiences in all of our demos.

"This investment will not only benefit our audiences, but also our marketing and distribution partners."

The $100m will be spent developing properties over the next two years.