itvt

–Makes its Multiplayer Games Available on Internet-Connected PC’s
–Reports Encouraging Usage Stats from its Blue Ridge Deployment

Interactive TV games company, NTN Buzztime, is making its multiplayer Texas Hold’em, Billiards and Trivia games available on Internet-connected PC’s, allowing cross-platform play against users of those games on digital cable. It demo’d the new capabilities at the NCTA National Show in Atlanta earlier this month, by inviting visitors to its booth to compete live against Buzztime subscribers on Blue Ridge Communications’ cable system in northeastern Pennsylvania. The company claims that the experience of playing its games on the PC and the TV is almost identical. The company’s games are currently available to around 300,000 digital subscribers on 10 cable systems in the US, including systems operated by Comcast, Time Warner, and Susquehanna Communications, as well as Blue Ridge.

In other NTN Buzztime news: the company says that 20% of Blue Ridge Communications’ digital subscribers used its interactive TV games service for an average of seven hours during February and March, the first two months that the service was available on that system. According to the company, its games were played over 200,000 times on Blue Ridge’s system in the first 60 days after they launched. If Buzztime’s value is averaged across Blue Ridge’s entire digital cable system for that period, the company says, Buzztime contributed 70 minutes of active play time across 100% of the system’s digital set-top boxes; in March, the company says, Buzztime contributed 40 minutes of usage across 100% of digital set-tops in the entire system. NTN Buzztime also says that Blue Ridge households that played its games increased the amount of time they played those games from 4.5 hours in February to 6 hours in March, for an average of 19 game sessions and 27 game sessions per household per month respectively. In March, the company says, players of its multiplayer Billiards game averaged 17 minutes per game, while players of its Texas Hold’em game averaged 12 minutes per game–demonstrating, it claims, the "stickiness" of its multiplayer ITV games. "Although we are in the early stage of this launch and have yet to begin the marketing campaign or offering player promotions, I am delighted by the amount of use Buzztime is getting in our system," Blue Ridge general manager, Mark Masenheimer, said in a prepared statement. "The number of our subscribers that play Buzztime and the amount of time they use it, makes it as popular as some of our most watched channels. That shows Buzztime is a valuable service my digital subscribers want in their homes."

Click http://www.itvt.com to subscribe to our free email newsletter, which contains all the news stories you see on this Web site, and additional breaking news and scoops, in-depth features, interviews, screenshots, videos, and other exclusive content you will not find anywhere else.