A few weeks after its younger sibling Nickelodeon said it would put up $100 million to develop online and mobile casual gaming initiatives, MTV Networks unveiled plans to invest more than $500 million in both online and mobile video games over the next two years, Reuters reports. The investment is part of a change in global strategy, which has put a certain primacy to incorporating the development of games at the inception of all new programming proposals and not as an afterthought, the company says. While the article notes some cautionary views about whether large, often hidebound organizations as large as MTV can garner substantial returns on investing in gaming, MTV points to preliminary success with its existing properties such as Xfire, which helps connect players, GameTrailers, Neopets.com and virtual world Nicktropolis.

Meanwhile, in related news, Shockwave, the casual gaming site part of MTVN, has done a deal with with Nokia to deliver Shockwave’s portfolio of Flash Lite mini games to consumers through the Nokia Content Discoverer client, embedded in Nokia devices. More here.