During its fiscal third quarter financial results call, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman talked about the media empire's current positioning in the virtual world and online entertainment space:

"As I discussed during our last call, we're continuing to expand our leadership in the area of virtual worlds and casual online gaming, creating new homes for growing communities of avid fans and loyal consumers. Our virtual worlds, and we have ten of them today, are focused on particular interests, such as our Nickelodeon brands on Nicktropolis, or the lifestyles of our cast found in Virtual Newport Harbor," Dauman said.

He continued, "On the gaming side, we're tapping into very robust growth opportunities. As of August, 45% of all Internet users worldwide accessed some gaming content online. If you look at our sites on an aggregated basis, categorized by comScore’s gaming information on online gaming, our sites collectively have grown faster than each of the top five gaming destinations and we ranked number two in the world in terms of unique visitors."

Dauman also said Nicktropolis earned nearly 50 million game plays in August, a double-digit increase over the previous month. "We're looking forward to expanding Nick's franchise to incorporate a multiplayer focus and more self-published games," he added.

He also provided details on the development of the company's business model for online content, commenting, "As our online audience base grows, we are developing subscription-based services as yet another way to monetize our content. We have already launched MyNoggin.com, a personalized, premium subscription service for preschoolers and their parents, that features curriculum-based learning through game play. We also introduced a paid item business on Neopets. Consumers can pay for virtual items through PayPal or purchase prepaid cards at Target. Game Nation 2008, which is scheduled to launch on Nicktropolis in the first quarter, will also be a premium subscription service."