Plenty of companies have made the social gaming leap, from developers, to companies that have never touched a video game before. Recently, Verizon announced its social gaming platform, Games Portal. It uses the PlayPhone platform and is set to be preloaded onto Verizon Android devices this year.

Verizon’s attempt to break into social gaming is beneficial for the company in many ways, and developers are benefiting from the use of the PlayPhone service.

Benefits for Verizon

Social gaming is a huge industry, and one that brings in a lot of revenue for everyone involved. Not only does it bring in direct revenue through games sales and micro-transactions, it also provides Verizon with a way to develop a captive user base for its service. While consumers will be able to uninstall Games Portal off of their devices, most people won’t go through the trouble. This gives Verizon a massive built-in installation base for the platform.

Benefits for Developers

Google Play is a great marketplace, but it is also saturated with thousands of games. It’s hard to get attention among the crowd, even if you have the perfect game experience for consumers. Verizon’s Games Portal is a curated and targeted collection of games. It has a lower selection than Google Play, but it’s not marred by a massive amount of poorly reviewed games. Developers who get on this platform can get noticed without the struggle Google Play brings them. The software development kit is also easy to use, making it even better for developers to get involved with. Since Verizon sells millions of phones per quarter, the install base that will see developers’ games is significant. If there is a large-enough adoption and active user base, developers who hadn’t considered the Games Portal and PlayPhone platform might stop by to add their games to the list. This is also a great move for developers who have existing PlayPhone games. They already know the software development kit inside and out, so it’s a simple matter to bring more games to Verizon.

Benefits for Consumers

Social gaming is a huge part of Games Portal, which works out well if you’re coming from Facebook and other social gaming environments that aren’t as easy to duplicate on the smartphone. You can see recommendations for games from your friends, as well as see how your score stacks up against them. Some games are multi-player, and PlayPhone is a platform-agnostic service, which means you can play against people on different Android versions, and even iOS. This extends the range of the userbase, especially once Verizon offers Games Portal to non-Verizon customers. For those games who already download games from iWin or another service but want more choices, this is a solid platform to use. It might take some time to see a lot of popular games you’re used to playing, but if Verizon plays their cards right, this could end up being a hit.

What are your predictions for the Games Portal on Verizon? Share them in the comments.