BlueBat launches gamification engine for online gaming developers

Vancouver-based BlueBat Games has launched a new gamification engine for social casino and gaming developers that claims to boost player engagement using gamification strategies and mechanics.

The BlueBox Engine solution is optimised for online casinos and designed to help operators leverage their social media presence by providing back-end services including payment solutions, analytics and user authentication, to allow companies to focus on game development and marketing.

It uses representational state transfer (REST) architecture, allowing games to be integrated across multiple platforms or social sites such as Facebook or Google, regardless of whether a game’s native platform is Unity, Flash or HTML5.

BlueBat Games chief executive Kenny Huang said: “We believe designers should be freed up to focus on the game itself, as opposed to dealing with multiple APIs and conflicting protocols.”

Huang described the BlueBox Engine as doing the “heavy lifting” to allow its clients to “keep their focus on more important things like great game play, customer satisfaction and ROI.”

The BlueBox solution has recently been integrated with social gaming platform GoPlay, a destination site that offers partners’ games to land-based casinos in a widget that can be integrated into websites, similar to IGT’s DoubleDown Casino.

The solution allows the bricks-and-mortar venues to develop greater customer engagement and drive repeat visits by offering physical prizes for playing free-to-play games on its site.

“The social casino genre is a rapidly growing segment of the games industry, particularly as new US regulations to legalize real-money online gambling loom on the horizon,” continued Huang. “Existing online gambling sites and casinos are seeking ways to tap into the social virality that has benefited companies such as Zynga in order to build brand loyalty; while other game developers are shifting toward social gambling to tap into a huge player base.

“We offer each a turn-key solution that reduces the friction and complexity inherent in such titles.”

BlueBat was founded in 2011 by Huang and technical director Tim Harris, two former Electronic Arts software engineers who worked on several of the publisher’s sports franchises for consoles, including the FIFA and Madden series.

The company is headquartered in Vancouver, with Huang based in San Francisco, and released its first Facebook game, Lucky’s Bank Penny Slots, as proof of concept of its social casino engine.