Google takes another step into games

Google is to host a handful of Oberon Media’s casual games on its Orkut service – and developers are being encouraged to create even more for the portal.

Oberon has created a toolset that allows devs to create games for social networking sites that support Google’s OpenSocial platform, including MySpace, LinkedIn, hi5, friendster and Orkut itself.

Oberon has used the service to launch three of its own casual games on Google’s Orkut already – Rise of Atlantis, Scrubbles and Dream Day Wedding.

We warmly welcome the OpenSocial initiative as another platform to deliver casual gaming solutions for our partners’ consumers around the globe,” said Ezra Kucharz, EVP of North American online operations and global online platforms for Oberon.

It will encourage more interactivity among casual gamers, more viral spread among this audience and result in more opportunities to monetize this activity for our partners. Together with our developer partners, we will enable people to interact more closely through casual gaming on Google’s OpenSocial Standard.”

Interested devs should submit their game ideas to

socialgames@oberon-media.com

.