The Dutch multinational has already got to work making inroads into the market – spreading online casual versions of 'Deal' (as is the preferred internal shorthand) through the likes of King.com and more.

In February, the firm announced the formation of a Los Angeles-based casual games group – and appointed Eric LaVanchy as its first ever director of gaming.

That division is now busy developing casual games for new and existing Endemol programming, and also creating original games – under the guidance of LaVanchy and Endemol’s senior VP of digital media Jon Vlassopulos.

CasualGaming.biz sat down with the pair to discover just how ambitious Endemol is in the space, its acquisition plans and why there could be a Big Brother social networking game making its way to you very soon…

What appealed to you about the casual gaming market?

Jon Vlassopulos: We’ve been involved in gaming from a licensing perspective for a number of years, handling titles that lend themselves very well to the gaming space.

A couple of years ago in the UK we set up an online gaming [gambling] group and made it focused on betting applications and working with partners there. In the US, by law we’re no longer able to get involved in that sort of activity so we wanted to see what opportunities presented themselves in the North American market.

We brought in a consultant, and did a great study into the market opportunities in the casual market. As a result of that we saw strong overlaps with the current business and a low impact market entry. Eric was already working with us, so it made sense to appoint him to lead our games group in the US, but with a global output – to work with the UK office and potentially to share development in that territory.

Eric LaVanchy: There really are some strong overlaps between Endemol’s massively popular, broad television formats and the casual games market.

When it comes to casual games, the real honeypot at the moment is online PC titles; cheap to make and easy to distribute to a giant, hard-to-reach demographic. Would you agree?

EL: Online PC casual games is an area of focus for us. However, one of the conundrums of being involved in casual gaming is that it’s such a nebulous term. That said, looking at the distributed arcade platforms on the consoles – particularly WiiWare and Xbox Live Arcade – is certainly very interesting to us as well.

Do you have any firm plans on console?

JV: In the beginning, the focus is on downloadable online games – and we’re going to hold back our casual licences in that space. Once we get Deal and 1 vs 100 – the first two online PC titles we have coming out – we’ll look at how we can export them to other platforms.

In terms of distribution options, it’s always wise to keep our options open at this stage. The Xbox Live platform is much more advanced that PlayStation or Wii online. We’ve been in discussion with the different Microsoft groups – but the first focus is online PC gaming.

What payment model have you chosen? Are you involved in in-game ads?

EL: in-game advertising as well as traditional advertising and sponsorships overall is definitely an important revenue stream for casual gaming - and are all things we’re thinking about and are aware of. But at the same time, we’re considering multiple revenues streams. The try-before-you-buy model, as well as virtual items sales, digital economies and various ways of monetising through advertising are all appealing to us.

Have you come in early enough to be a major player in the casual space?

JV: We definitely don’t think we’re too late by any means. The casual games space is a natural evolution of our TV business. We don’t feel we’re moving resources or changing direction. We’re able to leverage our creative teams around the world and our producers – we’ve already got 1,100 formats to leverage game IP from. We also see in the next few years that the video games market and the TV market will become closer and we sort of see using casual games as television R&D – where we can test formats online as television shows. We see the business moving in this direction, and the fact we can commercialise it is a bonus.

Are you keeping a close eye on ‘established’ video games publishers such as EA, Activision etc. moving into casual and setting up their own casual divisions?

JV: This is not a competitive move by Endemol. We don’t necessarily see ourselves as competitors of EA and Activision – and I’m sure they wouldn’t see us as competitors either. I think it supports where our business is moving. The fact they’re moving in the same direction is encouraging to us. In addition, we won’t just be able to produce hundreds of games straight away, so there will still be a licensing strategy to partner with companies like those you mention.

EL: Broadly speaking, I think it’s wonderful that EA has reorganised themselves in part to focus on casual. That will make the overall part of the gaming industry grow faster and larger.

How will your licensing structure be setup?

EL: We certainly have retained – at least in terms of North America – the casual rights for some of the larger titles we have, and we’ll use those in full effect. We’ve already been speaking to a lot of the different distributors and portals for casual games out there, and there certainly is a large appetite for these kind of brands.

They recognise that this is a very good fit as well. It gives us something to lead with in terms of securing distribution, and then creating a pattern to get new titles either base don new TV formats or wholly native to online casual gaming franchise we want to roll out.

JV: The aim is not to be the only production resource for everything we ever do in the gaming space. There are a lot of great companies out there. We have licenses out there and continue our deal with King.com and others - especially in the mobile gaming space.

We’ll be opportunistic, where we have our own titles and it makes sense for our business, we’ll pursue that ourselves. We feel that the knowledge we’re merging into our core business is important regardless. We have 1,100 properties and we’ve got new shows coming out all of the time. It’s important we still have an active licensing side of the business as well.

Will this affect your business when it comes to boxed product?

JV: I think as rights holder around IP like Deal Or No Deal, on the one hand we’ll exploit it on our own means – whether that be through TV, games production or through licensing partnerships. We’ve got to slice and dice our licences in different ways. On DS Lite, for example, we’ll continue with Mindscape and we’ll continue with any licence deals we have to other platforms. When they come up for renewal, we’ll make the decision at that point – whether that’s with partners or more in-house.

Would you take development or publishing in-house?

JV: In general as we look at the business organically, we’re looking at M&A opportunities as well where appropriate.

Would boxed publishers fit into that strategy?

JV: Games publishers as a figment are interesting, but I wouldn’t say boxed gaming is particularly high on the acquisition list.

EL: The core company IP is a really good fit for casual exploitation, whilst how it fits in the more core market. The shrink-wrapped software market is much more of an open question.

How do you see the convergence between TV shows and gaming going in the next few years – and how can you best exploit it?

JV: We’re all competing on a daily basis for the number of hours where people allocate their entertainment time, so obviously the segment that is now moving from television to gaming is an interesting one to engage. We’ve been doing interactive television TV shows for about 11 years – so it’s almost like a casual video game on TV.

The console space is becoming more casual in general. We also think reality shows and newer formats lend themselves well to the internet platform. Providing more engaging for the viewer away from one hour or half hour episodes on TV – that’s very much is in our DNA.

Is there a typical Endemol consumer?

JV: Primarily, we’ve always been behind the broadcasters, so we don’t have an audience of our own. But in terms of the audience we programme to, it’s a lot of women, which is another reason we think the casual games space is interesting – there’s a strong overlap with that demographic.

We’ve got the slightly younger 18-35 demographic then the 25-55 year old female watching all the games shows and lifestyle shows. Through interactive television, we’ve been able to build some databases there, so we do know a little bit about them. Eric can leverage those databases to launch some of the titles we know people are already interested in.

Do you have in-house development resource? Will you be looking to acquire studios?

EL: We are building a development capability right now. The expectation is not that it will be 100 per cent capable of everything and anything we might imagine developing – and certainly working with and having this group outsource development partners is definitely part of the plan. That’s based in Los Angeles.

Does it carry the Endemol name? Does it have its own name?

EL: Not at this point, no.

Is a big part of what you’re doing going to veer towards a community-based audience – like a social networking Big Brother project?

EL: I would agree that’s an exciting idea. This is certainly something we’re thinking about. Big Brother’s a good example, and in the States so is Extreme Makeover: Home Edition – the audience for that is identifying themselves as people who are interested in that sort of content and giving them the tools and environment to develop a community around is certainly something we’re instead in.