Our sister site, Gamasutra, ran an announcement Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group president Cyma Zarghami made at this week's Casual Connect conference in Seattle. According to Nickelodeon, it's committed to invest $100 million over the next two years in development, distribution and creation of casual gaming titles, sites and platforms.

According to the company, the investment is a part of MTV's strategy to secure a leading role in the gaming space -- including casual, console and handheld games, as well as related media, which includes virtual worlds. Of the initiatives announced, Nickelodeon also says it'll use some of the money to add new multiplayer games and tournaments to Nicktropolis.

The investment will also support the expansion of AddictingGames to include casual MMOGs with the introduction of AddictingWorlds. AddictingGames recently partnered with Habbo, adding another virtual world to its existing partnership with sister site Neopets. According to the article, increased emphasis will be placed on user-submitted games on the site, including more prominent upload capabilities and game-making engines.

Also announced was the upcoming transformation of Neopets 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 the goal of launching a new game every other year.

"Particularly in the kids' space, with more than 86% of kids 8 to 14 gaming online, we see great momentum for online casual gaming," said Zarghami. "This investment will not only benefit our audiences, but also our marketing and distribution partners."