This Week In Social Games

This week in social games jump started with Neil's discourse on awesome social features. We reported the advent of FireFly's DIY MMO platform, Interview with Mitali Pattnaik of PlayFirst regarding their Chocalatier Facebook game, Gaia Online's new CEO, review of Zynga's PokerBuddy for Facebook that lets you learn how to play Poker, Google's stunning acquisition of Slide, SponsorPay's revenue increasing power for virtual worlds, Snoop Dogg's success in virtual item sales, a hypothetical scenario of Metal Gear for Facebook, Social Gold's belief in subscription-based monetization, Heyzap and Bigpoint's new deal, and Zynga's acquisition of Japanese game development company Unoh. 6 Awesome Social Features In Today's Facebook Games Having played nearly every social game I've seen for the last few years, I've come to notice a few games that raise the bar on making a game social. By this I mean that certain games provide an experience that really lets you interact with your friends in a special way, something different than the thousands of games that simply ask you to send gifts and receive bonuses. I thought I'd list out a few of my favorites, and also ask our readers to let us know what games provide you with special social experiences. FireFly MMO Platform Lets You Build Your Own Game And Monetize It With PlaySpan Social Game developers Trilogy Studios announced today that their FireFly platform - a framework that allows developers to more easily create industrial strength Massively Multiplayer Online games - will leverage PlaySpan for monetization. PlaySpan will be FireFly's preferred partner and enable FireFly based games to use subscriptions and digital goods monetization. Trilogy is already using the platform to create a series of games for social networks, the web, PC and Mac. Interview: PlayFirst GM Mitali Pattnaik Discusses Emotion in Chocolatier Facebook Game [Video] Just a few weeks ago, PlayFirst announced their new Chocolatier: Sweet Society Facebook game, and a few weeks prior we had a chance to sit down with Mitali Pattnaik to discuss the title and her work at PlayFirst. Chocolatier is a game where you run a chocolate store and must do everything from set your store layout to actually mix the chocolate in the factory in the back. The game sets itself apart by really emphasizing the sound, texture and look of the chocolate making process, and in my talk with Mitali she explains how PlayFirst emphasizes the emotional aspects of the game with an emphasis on appealing to a female audience. Gaia Online Names (fluff)Friends Founder Mike Sego As New CEO That anime-style virtual world with 8 million users known as Gaia Online has a new leader, and his name is Mike Sego. He has been the Chief Product Officer at Gaia Interactive (the parent company) for the last year, and we were thoroughly impressed when we interviewed him at this year's Social Gaming Summit. Before that, he was the founder of one of the first successfully monetizing Facebook Games, (fluff)Friends. Learn From Zynga Poker Bots Using PokerBuddy Pro for Facebook Strength, in poker, comes through patience and knowledge. You need the patience to resist calling with your Jack-Queen offsuit out of position, and the knowledge to understand your cards and your opponents. The game is a delicate balance of moves by the players at the table, and understanding your 'position' is just the first step of a long process of learning the game. It's for this reason that EV-Plus has launched PokerBuddy Pro to help aspiring Poker players improve their game as they play Zynga Poker on Facebook. Google Splashes into Social Gaming; Acquires Slide for $182M Google has continued its social gaming acquisitions by reportedly agreeing to purchase Slide for $182 million in a deal to be announced Friday. This news follows soon after their investment in Zynga of $200 million, which has been rumored to be the first step towards some sort of Google games platform. At this year's Casual Connect, I had the opportunity to talk with the Google Chrome App Store product managers and there's no doubt that they had a new vision for how social games could be played through their browser. SponsorPay Boosts Offer-Based Revenue in Virtual World Smeet by 60 Percent It's more important now than ever for offer companies to distinguish themselves. The hot topic of in-game promotions has been the center stone for many monetization companies' content-marketing efforts with companies like Peanut Labs and Offerpal media releasing tips and best practices on how to increase revenues. The latest study comes from Europe-based SponsorPay that boosted virtual world Smeet's offer revenues by 60 percent while converting 21% of non-paying customers into paying ones. Snoop Dogg Sells $200K+ in Virtual Items, Demonstrating Value of Branded Goods Thanks to virtual goods, Snoop Dogg can throw an extra pool party or two: Since 2008, he's been offering a line of Snoop-branded avatar clothing, pets, and virtual gifts on virtual worlds like WeeWorld, Gaia Online, and Zwinky. And while each of those items typically cost consumers mere pocket change, to date Snoop Dogg branded virtual items have grossed over $200,000 in sales. That's according to a new branded virtual goods market report from Viximo and Virtual Greats (the company which collaborated with the hip hop star on moving his virtual merch.) As Snoop's success suggests, associating a real world brand with virtual goods often equals much more sales. Imagine: Metal Gear for Facebook Being in the Facebook game industry, I'm often looking for parallels between the rise of the consoles and the rise of the Facebook gaming world. Seeing as I just had the chance to finish the excellent Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker title for Sony's PSP, I thought I'd use this week's Imagine series to look at what Hideo Kojima and his team at Konami could do if they were to create a Metal Gear game for Facebook. Social Gold Bets On Subscriptions To Best Monetize Gamers Tagged has been growing steadily in user registration and reputation over the last few years, and with 80 million registered users they've recently discovered they can monetize well, too. They recently implemented the Social Gold subscriptions platform - which allows users to purchase subscription packages to buy multiple items - and are announcing a few key metrics relating to that launch. Heyzap To Distribute Bigpoint's Browser-Based MMOs One of the companies we particularly admire here at SocialTimes, Heyzap, has been quite active in the social gaming space with announcements ranging from launching a social gaming browser with Fizzik and Spry Hive to raising a round of $3M in funding from Union Square Venture Funds in June, 2010. Heyzap continues to form partnerships with companies with their latest one with Bigpoint - developer of browser-based online games. Zynga Japan Continues To Expand With Acquisition of Unoh A week after Zynga announced plans with Softbank to distribute games across Japan, they've also announced plans to purchase a Japanese game development company called Unoh.Â This deal with Unoh will likely have the team joining the newly formed Zynga Japan office, which purportedly plans to dominate the Japanese mobile space and port Zynga's great social hits to the Japanese mobile market.

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This Week In Social Games - Aug 6, 2010

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Azam Khan