IGT and Playphone to offer popular casino game platform

DoubleDown Casino is one of the more popular free-to-play social casino game platforms, with most of its players coming from Facebook FB +0.47% and mobile. The company boasts over six million active players and 30 different games. It was purchased last year by slot machine maker IGT in a us$ 500 million deal.

In March, Playphone became the backbone for Verizon’s social gaming portal, which is arriving on smartphones this month. The platform allows for a single social gaming platform, allowing for gifts, in-app purchases, chats, and other social features. It has also signed deals with AT&T T -2.54% and Rogers.

Earlier this month, the company also announced that it had also gone international by becoming a branded social gaming portal for Claro Brazil, where it is launching with 150 games. That’s something that Playphone CEO Ron Czerny is particularly happy about, because he’s originally from Brazil. “I was one of the founders of a video game association in Brazil in 1995 when I was working for CapCom,” he said. “Now in 20 years I’ve seen both the first arcade machine and the first social gaming network there. It’s quite an amazing experience.”

Czerny has equally high hopes for integrating DoubleDown into the Playphone platform.
“Gamers love playing casino games and DoubleDown Casino is the world’s most popular social gaming casino. It’s a natural fit,” he said.

For IGT’s part, one of the big reasons for moving their popular games onto Playphone’s platform was to create a more seamless experience for its users, especially as more carriers are using it as a game portal for Android phones. “By partnering with PlayPhone we’re creating frictionless access to game play in the DoubleDown Casino for our players,” said IGT’s VP of Global Marketing John Clelland.

That said, current DoubleDown players won’t have to become Playphone users if they don’t want to. They’ll be able to play as a guest and still be able to invite friends and save their status. However, they’ll have to create a personal PIN to make in-game purchases with the games on Playphone’s network.

While that may seem as a hassle, Clelland sees the social tradeoffs to be worth it. “Players can invite friends; engage in tournaments; see where they land on the leaderboard; as well as send gifts and through the PlayPhone app,” he said. “They will be able to see what games their friends are playing and be able to join in as PlayPhone integrates social features throughout the entire gaming experience.”