Atlantic Lottery unalarmed by British troubles with Geosweep

The Atlantic Lottery Corporation says it is not alarmed the latest version of the game Geosweepfailed to catch onin Britain and looks forward to better results when the game is relaunched in March.

"The team at Geonomics has been making adjustments based on live player feedback and ongoing market research; this is standard practice in game development," said ALC spokesperson Courtney Pringle-Carver in an email to CBC News.

"Were aware of the refinements to the beta version of the GeoLotto UK game.Once the game is fully optimized, out of beta form, and supported by a marketing effort, well be watching how it performs."

Geosweep originally launched in Britain three years ago as a map-based lottery game and has undergone several adjustments already.

In the British version, the country is dividedinto more than59 million separate squares which can be "occupied" for a fee.Originally the fee was set at 10 pence per square per day but after a year that was lowered to onepence. Then last year the fee wasraised to 1 pound to find a system that would appeal to the public.Prizes have also been adjusted up and down but nothing has seemed to click with the public.

It was originally promoted as a likely hit with younger playersor the so-called Facebook generation because it's played exclusively online and utilizes Google Maps technology. And even though sales have never showed much life in Britain, ALC executives were smitten with the game and spent millions to invest in the company behind it and millions more to launch a version of it in Atlantic Canada. The Atlantic Canadiangame was abandoned last summer following a little more than a year of disappointing sales.

In March the British game, which was renamed Geo Lotto in its last makeover, is switching to a weekly game instead of adaily oneand the squares on the game map are being redrawn so they are all the same size.

ALC says it still has faith in Geonomics, the company behind the game.

"There is no change to the status of our investment," said Pringle-Carver.