Every week, we'll examine the most popular Facebook applications (according to MUA, monthly active users), as well as the social network's up-and-coming apps that have picked up the most users in the past seven days.

Zynga's newly launched PetVille shot up to the top of the "gainers" list, attracting almost 10 million new users after a little over a week. Going by just these initial numbers, the virtual pet adoption game appears to be following in the footsteps of the studio's other recent hit FishVille in terms of rapid early growth.

Speaking of FishVille, the aquarium simulator dominated the chart for the past month but fell to #11 this week, though it still added 2.2 million players (+8.3 percent) to its total userbase. The other Zynga game in the Top Ten, FarmVille at #8, shows little signs of any waning popularity as it picked up 2.5 million new gamers, representing a 3.4 percent growth for the already supremely popular title.

Virtual Christmas and birthday card/gifts applications accounted for nearly half of the top ten list this week, which I suspect will remain the case for next week, too, if not more so. CrowdStar's Happy Pets, despite the popularity of its new rival PetVille, is still growing though at a slower pace compared to Zynga's product. The #4 game brought in 3.2 million new virtual pet owners (+30 percent).

RockYou!'s Zoo World, another animal adoption game (but taking place in a zoo setting), returned to the top ten after dropping out last week, as it enjoyed 2.4 million new users (+36.4). While Mob Science's Snowball Fight slipped from #7 to #10, it actually attracted significantly more new users this week (2.3 million) compared to the last (1.5 million).

Continue reading "Top 10 Facebook Apps And Upstarts, Week Of December 15th" »

Chinese mobile internet company KongZhong announced that it will acquire MMORPG developer Shanghai Dacheng Network Technology Co., Ltd. with a deal worth up to $80 million in cash and stocks -- the final amount for the transaction, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2010, will scale with Dacheng's 2010 GAAP net profit.

KongZhong hopes to combine its mobile game business with Dacheng's proprietary 3D game engine and development skills to transform Dacheng into a multiplatform leader in what it believes to be the two fastest growing segments in China's game market: 3D MMORPGs and mobile titles. The company aso believes its expertise working with major Internet sites in China will help support the growth of its gaming business in the coming years.

Based in Beijing and Shanghai, Dacheng has produced multiple free-to-play 3D online titles like World of Kung Fu (operated in the U.S. by VestGame Entertainment), Kung Fu On Web, TI: Cross Fire, Crazy Party, and most recently Loong.

"We believe that the success of Loong, one of the most anticipated games in China for 2009, reflects the strength of our proprietary 3D game engine, Dazzler3D, and of our development capabilities," says Dancheng's CEO and founder Zhen Yang. "By joining forces with KongZhong, we believe we will be able to more rapidly build up a robust portfolio of 3D MMORPGs and to further extend KongZhong's leadership in the Chinese mobile game sector."

A week after social games and applications developer RockYou revealed a shuffle in its executive positions, including the departure of Ad Networks vice president Mihir Shah, advertisement provider Offerpal Media announced that Shah is joining its ranks as Chief Revenue Officer.

RockYou's own former chief revenue officer, Ro Choy, also reportedly left the company last week to pursue a CEO position at an unidentified social media, as his wife Lisa Marino took over his position at the studio. The change in management follows just a month after RockYou secured $50 million in a Series D round, bringing its total funding amount to $119 million since launching in late 2005.

At Offerpal, Shah will manage the ad company's commercial activities, including revenue growth and user acquisition. He'll also oversee the firm's relationships with advertisers, developers, and publishers. He brings more than 17 years of experience growing Internet and technology companies, beginning his career as the founder, president, and CEO of LiquidLink.

"These are exciting times for the entire social advertising industry, and Mihir's extensive background in rapidly growing successful Internet advertising companies puts us in an aggressive position for 2010," says Offerpal CEO George Garrick. "As CRO of Offerpal, Mihir will maximize revenue opportunities and expand our 160 million user accounts exponentially. We're thrilled to have him on board."

Shah's departure from RockYou will mean a few less headaches for the executive, as his former company is currently dealing with security issues following a hacker's attack its servers that could have compromised as many as 32 million users emails, passwords, and social network account information. RockYou is also drawing criticism for waiting 10 days to comment on the data breach, according to a report from TechCrunch.

Indie games portal Kongregate launched Konduit, a new application platform enabling developers to integrate the site's community features, like achievements and virtual goods, into their own standalone browser-based games.

With the platform, developers can use Javascript, Actionscript, or REST APIs from their own backend to take advantage of Kongregate's social and virtual currency features features such as leaderboards, player achievements, a virtual item locker, profiles, multiplayer (with cloud hosting), user-generated levels and sharing, dedicated game forums, a site-wide leveling system, and chat.

Underserved Coe Social Gamer Market

The company admits the architecture is similar to what social game outfits work with on Facebook and other platforms, but describes its site as a social portal targeting core gamers. Kongregate believes browser-based games created for the hardcore gaming audience are often too complex to succeed on what it calls "mass-market social networks", leaving an underserved segment in the free-to-play gaming space that it hopes to capture with the Konduit platform.

Continue reading "Interview: Kongregate On Launching Konduit, Capturing Core Social Gamers" »

Social advertising and analytics company Sometrics launched its in-game Shop & Earn Shopping Feed, a new product enabling consumers to earn virtual currency for participating social games and apps when they make online purchases from the company's retail partners, similar to earning airline miles or cash back when using a credit card.

The firm says the Shopping Feed includes hundreds of global shopping offers from brand-name retailers. Online game publishers can integrate it with a custom iFrame that displays shopping offers alongside their titles. Users can browse through the different products by category (e.g. automotive, clothing, electronics, flowers) or by individual retailers.

Sometrics's Shopping Feed is similar in both concept and execution to Offerpal's Online Shopping Rewards Program launched earlier this month. Both services present an alternative for both consumers wanting to earn in-game cash and social games developers/publishers to the lead generation ads that have come under fire in recent months for scam-like offers.

"This is a no-brainer for publishers who want to give their players an easy, safe and secure way to earn virtual currency and deepen their participation in and loyalty to their favorite games," says Sometrics CEO and co-founder Ian Swanson. "This is a loyalty program that taps into a method consumers are already comfortable with – earning points or virtual currency for purchases they would make anyway at their favorite stores. It’s a great way to start monetizing gamer users who don’t want to pay to play."

Publisher and developer True Games announced the release of Warrior Epic Sagas, an iPhone game based on its free-to-play, browser-based MMORPG Warrior Epic, now available for free on iPhone and soon launching on Facebook.

Developed by Good Game Productions, the recently established San Diego-based studio dedicated to bringing MMOs to Facebook and iPhone, Sagas is designed to present a small portion of the strategy, role-playing, and battles available in the online MMORPG. Players who want to experience the full title can register to join Warrior Epic's community through a button in the Warrior Epic Sagas app.

In the iPhone/Facebook version, players can complete quests and earn gold, prestige, experience, and loot with parties of up to five warriors. They can spend gold to purchase their Warrior's gear or spend prestige to buy new Warriors. Missions in Warrior Epic Sagas can take anywhere from a few minutes to a full hours. You can see screenshots of the iPhone version after the break.

"This is the perfect outlet for players who just want to get a taste of the game, or need their 'fix' while they are out and about," says True Games's director of New Business and Product Development Peter Cesario. "We think this is a great way to introduce new players to the game, while also giving our current players a fun Warrior Epic mobile experience wherever they may be."

Continue reading "True Games, Good Game Release Warrior Epic: Sagas For iPhone" »

Hamburg-based online games published and developer Bigpoint announced that its relaunching its Bigpoint.com portal to focus on core gamers, creating a new BiPogames.com portal dedicated to mini and casual titles, and integrating social elements into both platforms.

Bigpoint.com, which claims more than 97 millions registered users worldwide, will shed its selection of casual titles to emphasize its free-to-play massively multiplayer online products for the core gamer audience like War of Titans, Darkorbit, Gladius II, Deepolis, Mafia 1930, and many others.

The portal now includes new social networking and community features for chatting with friends on the site, posting in-game news on their personal "walls", and coordinating clan activities and other group events through Facebook and Twitter. The studio has also edited the site to provide more information on individual titles, present sorting functions for game genre and popularity, and more.

Bigpoint's casual titles will now appear on a separate portal, BiPogames.com. The site (which doesn't look available at moment) is hosted by a mascot named Bipo and offers community features of its own such as user recommendations, ratings, and personal walls. The publisher notes, "A connection to other social networks such as Facebook or Twitter is also possible".

"As a developer and publisher, Bigpoint will continue to cover the entire game spectrum in the future," says CEO and founder says Heiko Hubertz. "With the relaunch of Bigpoint.com, we want to offer our users even more community features. In today's world, it's not just a must to offer a wide selection of exciting games to players, but a requirement to give them the opportunity to maintain a social network.

He continues, "With the removal of the casual games content, Bigpoint.com can concentrate more on the core gamers. In addition, we have observed that the demand for mini and casual games has been increasing steadily. We want to provide these players with their own portal with BiPogames.com, and in so doing, give them exactly the content they are looking for."

58% of all users have bought virtual goods from inside free-to-play games, significantly more than more traditional titles, according to a study by digital goods monetization firm PlaySpan.

Based on a survey of 2,425 of PlaySpan users who had bought digital goods from publishers within the last year, VGMarket found that 58 percent of users bought goods from within a free-to-play game -- the highest proportion -- while 34 percent of users made in-game purchases in MMOs and 23 percent made purchases from social games.

Traditional online PC, console, and casual games saw much lower digital goods pickup: 12 percent, 9 percent, and 9 percent respectively.

And not only did free-to-play games see the highest purchase penetration among users, they also generated the most money on a per-user basis. The average user's expenditure on publisher-sold free-to-play digital goods over the course of 12 months was $75, compared to $60 for MMOs, and $50 for social network games.

As with the penetration statistics, more traditional gametypes saw lower annual expenditure, but those games of course also derive their primary revenue from up-front purchase cost. Respectively, online PC games, online console games, and casual games saw digital goods spending of $40, $36, and $29.

And as for what people are buying? Spam doesn't lie: People like purchasing in-game currency. Among both publisher-sold digital goods and digital goods sold by external parties, currency was by far the most-wanted commodity.

Among publisher-sold goods, 73 percent of buyers bought currency, 40 percent bought weapons, 32 percent bought wearable items, and 30 percent bought subscription codes. Third-party-sold goods saw similar proportions.

Of those who buy, 24 percent say they do so every day, while 65 percent say they do so at least once a week, which indicates why annual figures are so high despite individual transaction costs traditionally being quite low.

Mobile social gaming technology provider Scoreloop announced that its infrastructure and toolset for the iPhone now supports Android. Publishers and developers for Google's mobile operating system can now take advantages of Scoreloop's Core Social white-label technology and Premium Integration Services.

Some of Core Social's iPhone offerings now available for integration in Android projects include social features like online high scores, acheivements, player challenges (through Facebook, email, or Scoreloop's auto matching system that pairs opponents with similar skill), profiles, social network integration, score/achievement posting, virtual currencies, and more.

Scoreloop's technology also allows for play across the two platforms. Games that are available on both the iPhone and Android share the same online leaderboards, and players on one platform can challenge users on the other. Additionally, they can sign into the same game on two different platforms using only one login.

The tech provider offers Core Social and Premium Integration Services for free to companies by monetizing through referral revenues and coin purchases. To demonstrate its products, Scoreloop offers a demo game, Bug Landing, on both the iPhone App Store and Android Market for others to test the cross-platform play. It adds that iPhone users will see a push notification about challenges even if they're received from an Android player.

"We continue to have great success on the iPhone and we are now bringing social gaming capabilities to Android for a complete cross-platform experience," says Scoreloop CEO Marc Gumpinger. "We are still dedicated to the iPhone, but publishers are extremely limited by device fragmentation and the fact that most friends aren't on the same handset."

He adds, "When it comes to mobile social gaming, we are helping our partners reach players cross-platform. Together with our partners, Scoreloop is focused on the common goal of providing a quality game with an excellent end user and brand experience."