MTV Networks Announces $100-Million Commitment to Online Gaming

NEW YORK/SEATTLE, July 18: MTV Networks' Nickelodeon Kids
and Family Group says it is committed to investing $100 million over the next
two years in the development, distribution and creation of casual online gaming
titles, sites and platforms.

“Across all of MTVN's online
sites, gaming is an important original genre and we are committed to delivering
fresh content to our audiences in all of our demos," said Cyma Zarghami,
the president of Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group. "Particularly in the
kids' space, with more than 86 percent of kids 8 to 14 gaming online, we see
great momentum for online casual gaming. This investment will not only benefit
our audiences, but also our marketing and distribution partners."

According to a recent Comscore
World Metrix study, 25 percent of web users are frequenting gaming sites and
the number of unique visitors to online gaming sites is almost 217 million, up
17 percent since last year. The average online gamer visits a gaming site nine
times in one month.

The Nickelodeon Kids and Family
Group investment will roll out over the course of the next two years, primarily
in 2008-09. Initiatives include myNOGGIN, a subscription service where
preschoolers can play educational games and parents can track their progress.
This will launch this fall with Charter Communications, Cox Communications and
Insight Communications. It will also become available directly to consumers
online in the fall through a subscription model. myNOGGIN will be advertising
free, and will build upon the preschool offerings Nick Jr. and NOGGIN.

The Nick.com website will
expand its New Game of the Week franchise to include multiplayer features. The
first new effort in this space is 3D Slimeball on Nick.com. In addition,
multiplayer, cooperative gaming will become part of the Nicktropolis virtual
world.

For the first quarter of 2008,
Nickelodeon will launch the Nick Gaming Club, a subscription offering with
multiplayer games, 3D avatars and community features. It will include games
based on Nickelodeon properties as well as others.

Also slated to launch early
next year is The-NGames.com, a casual gaming site focused solely on teen girls.
The-N.com, which previously focused on social games for teen girls with games
like Slasher, Avatar Mall and others, will partner with AddictingGames to
produce this new site.

AddictingGames' offerings,
meanwhile, will be expanded to include casual MMOGs with the introduction of
AddictingWorlds, a way to introduce a variety of virtual worlds. In addition,
increased emphasis will be placed on user-submitted games. Shockwave will
become the games destination for families, and Neopets (www.neopets.com) will
be transformed into Neostudios, which will focus on developing new virtual world
gaming experiences online, while continuing to grow and evolve the existing
ones. The first of these will launch at the end of 2008 with a goal to launch a
new one every other year.