NEXT GENERA
THE 15 WEBSITES, GAMES AND COMPANIES SET TO DISRUPT THE ONLINE GAMING INDUSTRY IN 2013
ith this year’s ICE exhibition upon us again, gaming companies from around the globe will congregate for four days in order to showcase the technology, games, platforms and visions they have been working on for the past 12 months and which they believe will de?ne the market for the next 12 months to come. The appetite for innovation, social and mobile in particular, as well as potentially disruptive technology is building up once again, after what many in the industry believe to have been a number of years in the doldrums. Operators, including a number of large sportsbooks such as William Hill, SkyBet and Paddy Power have already launched and continue to launch innovative mobile and tablet brands, apps and products they would never have considered investing in several years ago. New start-ups, often headed up by entrepreneurs from outside the gaming space, are emerging as new technology, and a new, younger demographic are demanding more engaging content that can be accessed anytime, anywhere and on the move. Meanwhile, a number of funds have surfaced, including Cashcade founders Simon Collins and Patrick Southon’s NewGame Capital, an investment partnership with an initial £16m to spend on monetised digital gaming, as
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well as Burlywood Capital, founded by former Sportingbet chairman and founder Mark Blandford, ex-Gala CEO Neil Goulden, former Ladbrokes chairman and veteran executive Sir David Michels, and Panmure Gordon investment banker Andrew Burnett. Burlywood has been active since August, raising close to £50m, half of its £100m target, in which to invest in what it describes as the “digital Pay2Play sector”. Gaming is no longer what it once was. It has become a far more complex beast and one which now attracts a far greater audience, both of investors and of consumers, following its expansion from simply placing a bet or depositing cash into a fruit machine to a form of entertainment that covers online, social, mobile both for casual and cash players. According to Burlywood, Pay2Play is forecast to grow three times faster than the £800bn global and media entertainment industry in the next ?ve years, creating a sector worth more than £100bn by 2016 – more pro?table even than the ?lm industry. The companies, games and platforms we have chosen to cover in this issue are some of the ones we believe could make their mark in the coming year, and possibly disrupt the status quo that so many in the industry have complained has not changed for too long.