Social Games

This week’s headlines from across Inside Network

by M. Dorn on February 6, 2012 · 0 comments

A roundup of all the news Inside Network brought you from Jan. 30 to Feb. 4.

Inside Mobile Apps

Tracking the convergence of mobile apps, social platforms and virtual goods. 

Monday, Jan. 30

  • Pocket Gems’ Zombie Takeover for iOS provides undead fun in very short bursts
  • Emerging top paid iOS apps: Paper Monsters, Evi and the NFL
  • Why Seattle’s 5th Cell returned to mobile development after console success

Tuesday, Jan. 31

  • Christmas sends mobile marketing costs to a record, Fiksu says
  • Namco Arcade brings quarter-swallowing coin-op action to iOS
  • Emerging free iOS apps: Tappily Ever After, Tom’s Love Letters and Card Ace: Casino
  • Amazon says its Android Appstore tripled customers in the fourth quarter

Wednesday, Feb. 1

  • Inside Social Apps 2012 Is One Week Away – Feb 8 & 9 in San Francisco
  • Flurry’s analytics now support HTML5-based apps and games
  • Clones, Schmones: Buffalo Studios, Nimblebit’s jabs at Zynga garner publicity and not much more
  • Puzzle compilation BrainJewel to tax players’ wisdom on iPad
  • Gameloft’s smartphone, tablet revenues climb 64 percent to $ 25.4M in fourth quarter
  • New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: King.com, GSN, Mobile Deluxe and more
  • Emerging top-grossing iOS Apps: Stardom, Smurfs, Snoopy and Valentine’s Day
  • GREE reveals first details about new global mobile-social gaming network
  • Electronic Arts’ mobile revenue climbs 19% to $ 70 million in holiday quarter
  • Facebook’s platform paid out $ 1.4 billion to developers in 2011 — less than what Apple did

Thursday, Feb. 2

  • Habbo Hotel creators bring innovative platform game action to iOS with Niko
  • Zynga officially launches Dream PetHouse but stays quiet on Dream Heights
  • Beeline, Capcom’s mobile unit, sees revenues soar 68% to $ 52.6 million last quarter
  • New Hires in Mobile: Funzio, GREE and Glu Mobile
  • Two Gameview co-founders check out of DeNA while another starts a Canadian studio
  • Zynga’s market cap climbs more than $ 1B a day after Facebook’s IPO filing
  • GREE’s net income climbs threefold to $ 167M on $ 545M in revenue during holiday quarter
  • Emerging Android Apps: Triple Town, NFL Pro and Sonic the Hedgehog

Friday, Feb. 3

  • Capcom’s cult Nintendo DS hit Ghost Trick now haunting iOS devices
  • Despite Google’s “Bouncer,” malware is still a threat on Android
  • How two-man shop SixHourSoft went from indie to Atari
  • Mobile app roundup: DeNA, Take Two Interactive and Steam

Saturday, Feb. 4

  • New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: King.com, Stealth Mobile, Lolapps and more

Inside Social Games

Covering all the latest developments at the intersection of games and social platforms.

Monday, Jan. 30

  • Hidden Chronicles finds the top of this week’s list of fastest-growing Facebook games by MAU
  • Top 5 casino-themed Facebook games by popularity, with analysis
  • It’s Whammy time as Press Your Luck for Facebook revives 80s gameshow classic
  • Build an underwater empire with Kobojo’s Atlantis Fantasy
  • 2K is hiring for a new social sports game
  • RockYou taps into Facebook’s bingo trend with publishing deal for Bingo by Ryzing
  • Facebook tests ‘games only’ activity feed, might drop games ticker

Tuesday, Jan. 31

  • Spil Games positions itself as an alternative platform for social games with 170 million monthly unique visitors
  • Offer provider TrialPay raises $ 40M and picks up a new strategic investor with Visa
  • WeTopia brings Facebook players together to “Play for Good”

Wednesday, Feb. 1

  • King.com shoots for success with its latest Facebook game Hoop De Loop Saga
  • Funtactix brings The Hunger Games to Facebook
  • Inside Social Apps 2012 Is One Week Away – Feb 8 & 9 in San Francisco
  • Clones, Schmones: Buffalo Studios, Nimblebit’s jabs at Zynga garner publicity and not much more
  • New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: XMG, IMVU, Identified, Addmired and more
  • Inside Social Games starts scoring game reviews
  • EA digital revenue climbs 40% to $ 274M in holiday quarter
  • Zynga made up 12% of Facebook’s revenue in 2011
  • Go for the touchdown with ESPN Return Man

Thursday, Feb. 2

  • Marvel Avengers Alliance marries turn-based combat to rich comic book IP
  • New Hires in Social Gaming: Bossa Studios, Digital Chocolate and Wooga
  • Lead the slave revolt with the official Spartacus: Vengeance game from Starz
  • Zynga’s market cap climbs more than $ 1B a day after Facebook’s IPO filing
  • Facebook brings back games discovery module

Friday, Feb. 3

  • Sailing the high seas of Google+ with Pirates: Tides of Fortune
  • GameHouse focused on social, but isn’t betting on real-money Facebook gambling yet
  • Social gaming news roundup: Crytek’s GFace, Harmonix and Square Enix

Saturday, Feb. 4

  • New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Identified, IMVU, XMG, FashionPlaytes and more

Inside Facebook

Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, Jan. 30

  • Page tools dominate on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by MAU
  • Facebook tests photo viewer designs
  • Plink rewards consumers’ offline purchases with Facebook Credits
  • Facebook tests ‘games only’ activity feed, might drop games ticker

Tuesday, Jan. 31

  • New Facebook platform industry hires: Vitrue, TBG Digital, Wildfire
  • Games, mobile, Adele, Adidas, Google, ‘The Simpsons,’ more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook pages
  • Facebook gives users option to hide Ticker
  • Facebook promotes Timeline heavily ahead of IPO with apps like Movie Maker
  • Inside Social Apps 2012 is in One Week

Wednesday, Feb. 1

  • Yahoo, Pinterest, Zynga, greeting cards, birthdays, tabs, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by DAU
  • New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: GREE, Plumbee, Lolapps and more
  • Facebook files to raise $ 5B in initial public offering
  • Here’s how Facebook’s ownership splits between Zuckerberg and other early investors
  • Facebook reveals it actively increased ad prices in Q4 2011
  • Facebook says it has 845M users with 425M on mobile devices
  • Zuckerberg will take a $ 1 annual salary starting next year
  • Zynga made up 12% of Facebook’s revenue in 2011
  • Facebook addresses threat of Google, other competitors in S-1
  • Facebook’s platform paid out $ 1.4 billion to developers in 2011 — less than what Apple did
  • The details: Facebook spent $ 68 million on acquisitions last year
  • Facebook’s net income and revenues: $ 1 billion on $ 3.71 billion in 2011

Thursday, Feb. 2

  • Facebook groups get Timeline-like cover photos
  • Facebook hires and departures: data centers, engineering, legal, interns, more
  • Facebook career postings: engineering, communications, policy, legal, sales, more
  • Facebook likely to reject traditional mobile ad types in quest to monetize
  • Facebook brings back games discovery module

Friday, Feb. 3

  • Tabs, Windows, Shufflr, Phrases, Identified, more on this week’s top 20 emerging Facebook apps by MAU
  • Join Us at Inside Social Apps Next Week
  • Mobile usage pushes Facebook engagement to new heights
  • Facebook roundup: Politics, Super Bowl ads, more

Saturday, Feb. 4

  • Facebook hires marketing exec to boost brand image
  • New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Spooky Cool Labs, GREE, Plumbee and more



Source: Inside Social Games

Zynga’s market cap climbs more than $1B a day after Facebook’s IPO filing

by M. Dorn on February 5, 2012 · 0 comments

Zynga shares jumped almost 17 percent today after Facebook’s IPO filing yesterday revealed that the social network’s payments revenue climbed 20 percent quarter-over-quarter by year-end — suggesting Zynga might see a comparable boost in its own bottom line. Facebook added that the social game developer contributes 12 percent of its 2011 revenues.

At market close yesterday, Zynga was trading at $ 10.96 per share — slightly higher than the $ 10 price they debuted at in December‘s IPO. They opened today at $ 11.05 and peaked at $ 12.81 in just a little over an hour. By close, Zynga’s market capitalization was up 12 percent to $ 8.66 billion from $ 7.4 billion yesterday. Zynga’s Facebook traffic is also on the rise — up 1.9 million daily active users and 6.4 million monthly active users in the last seven days as recorded by our AppData traffic tracking service.

Zynga won’t share its fourth quarter earnings until Feb. 14, but that hasn’t stopped analysts from speculating that the company may report higher bookings for the quarter. If Facebook’s payments revenues went up 20 percent, Zynga might see a comparable rise. Facebook said its payments revenue rose to $ 188 million in the fourth quarter from $ 156 million in the previous one, suggesting that its platform may be doing a better job at converting gamers into paying for virtual goods.

In a research note republished on AllThingsD, Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian estimates that Zynga’s net bookings may have been $ 315 million in the fourth quarter.

Sebastian’s estimate is rough. Since Facebook reported $ 1.13 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter and Zynga contributes a 12 percent of that, Zynga may have contributed $ 135 million to the social network’s earnings. Baird believes 75 to 80 percent, or $ 101 to $ 108 million of that, is from virtual goods sales. If that $ 101 to 108 million is the 30 percent revenue share Zynga must give to Facebook, then the social gaming company keeps $ 235 to $ 250 million. Sebastian adds that an additional $ 65 million may have come from other platforms like iOS, Android and Google+.

Other gaming companies like Gameloft and Capcom have said this week that their mobile revenues ranged from $ 25.4 million to $ 52.6 million for the holiday quarter. That suggests that Zynga might easily have a $ 100 to $ 200 million-a-year mobile gaming business because it has similarly ranked games.

With Facebook delivering 93 percent of Zynga’s revenues, the two company’s futures are intertwined until at least 2015, when a five-year deal between the two expires. Zynga has taken steps to mitigate the risk of relying completely on Facebook by expanding into mobile and international markets.

Facebook, meanwhile, is trying to forge a stronger, more compelling games platform with improved discovery to offset rising costs to developers on its platform. Through Credits, Facebook takes a 30 percent cut of all in-game transactions. On top of that, social game developers are also a large source of advertising revenue for the company.


Source: Inside Social Games

New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Identified, IMVU, XMG, FashionPlaytes and more

by M. Dorn on February 5, 2012 · 0 comments

The Inside Network Job Board is dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities across social and mobile application platforms.

Here are this week’s highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at Addmired, Identified, IMVU, Stealth Mobile Startup, XMG Studio, FashionPlaytes, Inc. 6 Waves/Lolapps, Funcom Games Canada, Spooky Cool Labs, King.com, Mobile Deluxe,  Game Show Network, Plumbee, GREE International, Inc., Tapjoy and LolGames.

  • Technical Recruiter
  • Senior Operations Engineer
  • Acquisition Manager/Mobile Ad Buyer
  • Business Intelligence Analyst
  • 3D (Isometric) Environment Artist
  • 2D Digital Painter/Illustrator
  • 3D (Isometric) Character Artist – Modeler/Animator
  • Build/Release Engineer
  • Tools Engineer
  • Scalability Engineer
  • Erlang Infrastructure Developer
  • C/C++ Game Developer
  • UX Artist

  • Core Software Engineer

  • Senior Software Engineer

Stealth Mobile Startup

  • Senior Android Engineer

  • Data Jockey

  • Social Game Designer

  • Senior UI Designer
  • UI Vector Artist
  • Interaction Designer

  • Senior Java Programmer
  • Senior GUI / Flash Developer Social Games
  • Lead Designer Social Games

  • Marketing Director
  • Software Engineer – Games Front End / Unity

  • 3D Artist
  • IT Support Engineer
  • Game Developer – Social and Mobile Games

  • Senior QA Engineer-Mobile Games

  • Art Director
  • Senior Programmer

  • Head of Mobile/Senior Mobile Producer

  • Director of Business Development

  • Inside Sales Representative

  • Social Media Business Development Lead / Internet Guru

Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Social Games, Inside Facebook and Inside Mobile Apps through regular posts and widgets on the sites. Your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers, and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.


Source: Inside Social Games

Sailing the high seas of Google+ with Pirates: Tides of Fortune

by M. Dorn on February 4, 2012 · 0 comments

Pirates: Tides of Fortune from Israeli developer Plarium is a slick, polished new nautical-themed social game that takes its cues from more complex multiplayer strategy titles such as Kabam’s recently-closed Samurai Dynasty, Digital Chocolate’s Galaxy Life and Kixeye’s Backyard Monsters. The new English language version of the game launched as a 30-day exclusive to Google+ on January 11.

Early experiences in the game are taken up with a very lengthy tutorial that walks players through the building of their first buildings, what all the resources mean and the game’s technology researching mechanic. Rewards of the game’s premium “Rubies” currency are provided liberally throughout the course of these tutorial tasks and players are kept safe from attack during the tutorial period. An unfortunate flaw in the system, however, is that if the player completes a tutorial task before it has been formally offered as a “quest,” whether accidentally or deliberately, they are not given credit for having completed it and must do it again. If the task involved the spending of money or resources that the player now does not have, this may lead to protracted wait times or the spending of premium currency. It’s a small issue, but one which should be addressed to provide a slicker introductory gameplay experience — or to cater to those who wish to jump straight in to the meat of the game.

The game has very high production values. The artwork is detailed and well animated, and the majority of the tasks offered to the player are presented with full (though thankfully, given the questionable quality of the acting, optional) voiceovers. An unfortunate side effect of the detailed artwork on buildings is that it sometimes becomes difficult to distinguish buildings from one another without moving the mouse pointer over them, particularly if they are tightly packed together. The 45-degree isometric viewpoint also suffers from the usual problem that tall buildings can easily block out smaller buildings placed behind them, making them difficult to click on at times. Fortunately, as with most games of this type, it’s possible to move buildings once they have been built, meaning that such inconveniences can be avoided with a little rearrangement.

The game is strongly geared towards interaction with other players. Regular popups to invite friends remind players of the various benefits offered by having a large “crew” — the opportunity to claim loot from friends’ havens, the ability to recruit said friends as an army of undead pirates, and the ability to set up alliances. Alongside the usual friends mechanic, the game as a whole takes place in a large, persistent world populated by everyone else who is playing the game, or who has played it in the past. Glancing at the in-game map allows players to visit nearby players’ havens, set up trading agreements with them, scout their defenses or even attack them. Players are protected from attack until they reach level 9 partway through the tutorial, and attacking anyone over level 15 immediately surrenders a player’s “Novice” flag, indicating that they are ready and willing to engage in the full game.

Despite the few little interface niggles mentioned above, Pirates: Tides of Fortune is a polished game clearly ready for the prime time. Its complexity may put off more casual players used to simpler game mechanics, and the long tutorial may put off impatient gamers, but for those seeking a deep, complex and rewarding title in which they can play alongside a large and growing player community, Pirates: Tides of Fortune is a solid offering.

Play

While unlikely to enjoy universal appeal due to its complexity, Pirates: Tides of Fortune is well worth playing for its high production values and deep gameplay.


Source: Inside Social Games

Sailing the high seas of Google+ with Pirates: Tides of Fortune

by M. Dorn on February 4, 2012 · 0 comments

Pirates: Tides of Fortune from Israeli developer Plarium is a slick, polished new nautical-themed social game that takes its cues from more complex multiplayer strategy titles such as Kabam’s recently-closed Samurai Dynasty, Digital Chocolate’s Galaxy Life and Kixeye’s Backyard Monsters. The new English language version of the game launched as a 30-day exclusive to Google+ on January 11.

Early experiences in the game are taken up with a very lengthy tutorial that walks players through the building of their first buildings, what all the resources mean and the game’s technology researching mechanic. Rewards of the game’s premium “Rubies” currency are provided liberally throughout the course of these tutorial tasks and players are kept safe from attack during the tutorial period. An unfortunate flaw in the system, however, is that if the player completes a tutorial task before it has been formally offered as a “quest,” whether accidentally or deliberately, they are not given credit for having completed it and must do it again. If the task involved the spending of money or resources that the player now does not have, this may lead to protracted wait times or the spending of premium currency. It’s a small issue, but one which should be addressed to provide a slicker introductory gameplay experience — or to cater to those who wish to jump straight in to the meat of the game.

The game has very high production values. The artwork is detailed and well animated, and the majority of the tasks offered to the player are presented with full (though thankfully, given the questionable quality of the acting, optional) voiceovers. An unfortunate side effect of the detailed artwork on buildings is that it sometimes becomes difficult to distinguish buildings from one another without moving the mouse pointer over them, particularly if they are tightly packed together. The 45-degree isometric viewpoint also suffers from the usual problem that tall buildings can easily block out smaller buildings placed behind them, making them difficult to click on at times. Fortunately, as with most games of this type, it’s possible to move buildings once they have been built, meaning that such inconveniences can be avoided with a little rearrangement.

The game is strongly geared towards interaction with other players. Regular popups to invite friends remind players of the various benefits offered by having a large “crew” — the opportunity to claim loot from friends’ havens, the ability to recruit said friends as an army of undead pirates, and the ability to set up alliances. Alongside the usual friends mechanic, the game as a whole takes place in a large, persistent world populated by everyone else who is playing the game, or who has played it in the past. Glancing at the in-game map allows players to visit nearby players’ havens, set up trading agreements with them, scout their defenses or even attack them. Players are protected from attack until they reach level 9 partway through the tutorial, and attacking anyone over level 15 immediately surrenders a player’s “Novice” flag, indicating that they are ready and willing to engage in the full game.

Despite the few little interface niggles mentioned above, Pirates: Tides of Fortune is a polished game clearly ready for the prime time. Its complexity may put off more casual players used to simpler game mechanics, and the long tutorial may put off impatient gamers, but for those seeking a deep, complex and rewarding title in which they can play alongside a large and growing player community, Pirates: Tides of Fortune is a solid offering.

Play

While unlikely to enjoy universal appeal due to its complexity, Pirates: Tides of Fortune is well worth playing for its high production values and deep gameplay.


Source: Inside Social Games

Social gaming news roundup: Crytek’s GFace, Harmonix and Square Enix

by M. Dorn on February 4, 2012 · 0 comments

Zynga’s Reynolds, Nexon’s Kim appointed to ISAS board – Zynga’s chief game designer Bryan Reynolds and Nexon America’s co-founder Min Kim have been appointed to the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ board of directors.

Harmonix working on Facebook Game – Boston-based Harmonix, best known for its Rock Band and Dance Central franchises is working on a Facebook. Shacknews reported the news based on an updated resume for the company’s lead designer Brian Chan. There is currently a Dance Central Facebook app called Dance Central 2 Challenge. It has 2000 MAU.

Square Enix adds Facebook to FFXIII-2 – Andriasang is reporting that the Japanese version of Final Fantasy XIII-2 has been patched to add Facebook support to the game, allowing a player to post information about their game to their wall.

Crytek unveils GFace, a PC-mobile social game network — PC game maker Crytek has created a PC to mobile social gaming network. The GFace network is currently in beta and focuses on cross-platform, multiplayer gameplay.

Final Fantasy Brigade now has 1 million players – Square Enix’s first mobile social game Final Fantasy Brigade is proving to be extremely popular. The game, which is available on DeNA’s Mobage network, now has over 1 million users according to Andriasang.

Monster Hunter coming to Mobage – Capcom’s ultra-popular Monster Hunter series is coming to DeNA’s Mobage Platform. The game will be a collectible card-battle game and will be called Minna to Monhan Card Master, according to Andriasang. It will launch on both smartphones and feature phones on Feb. 21.

Japan’s social game market to double value by 2016 – The Nomura Research Institute has predicted that the Japanese social gaming market will be worth $ 5.1 billion dollars by 2016 according to industry watcher Serkan Toto, who translated the report.

Nintendo will allow devs to offer microtransactions - Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said his company will now allow third part developers on its Nintendo Network to offer microtransactions. Iwata revealed the information at Nintendo’s third quarter financial results briefing on Jan. 27.

DeNA, GREE continue legal slugging match — DeNA and GREE are continuing to play out their rivalry in the Japanese courts. In November, GREE sued DeNA, claiming the company was pressuring developers to sign exclusive contracts. According to Serkan Toto, DeNA is now suing for damages related to GREE’s actions.

[Launch] NASA releases new Facebook Game – NASA has released a multiplayer Facebook game called Space Race Blastoff that tests users knowledge of the space program.

[Launch] ESPN Return Man comes to Facebook - ESPN.com’s popular casual arcade game ESPN Return Man is now available on Facebook. The game was a collaboration between ESPN and Disney Social Games, and is the third collaborative release between the two studios. Our full review of the game can be found here.

[Launch] Microsoft Research launches new Facebook game - Microsoft Research has released its second Facebook, Doubloon Dash, in order to study the reactions of real people engaging in game theory like interactions.


Source: Inside Social Games

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