Freemium game developer and publisher Glu Mobile is to allow US gamers to compete for cash prizes by integrating the Skillz tournament platform into several games.

Niccolo de Masi, Glu CEO, said the addition of Skillz will allow it to improve user engagement, retention and monetisation by attracting gamers wanting to win money with their game skills.

The first game to go live with the Skillz platform will be Android title Deer Hunter Reloaded, which has been downloaded more than six million times from Google Play and Amazon Appstore.

The tournament platform will be added to more games in the second half of 2013.

“Cash tournaments make games more competitive and fun for players, which typically means more users, longer sessions and better ARPDAU,” said Skillz founder and CEO, Andrew Paradise.

Glu also announced that it is expanding the distribution of its games in South Korea with Kakao Games and SK Planet’s T-Store, the largest operator-run Android marketplace.

“As leading brands in the Korean mobile market, Kakao Games and SK Planet’s T-Store offer us the opportunity to reach new mobile audiences that may not have previously discovered Glu games,” said Chris Akhavan, Glu’s President of Publishing.