Inside Social Games

Players in the U.S. social gaming industry are growing increasingly curious about China — for good reason, given the size of the market, and the wave of developers building for platforms like Facebook from within the country.

Today, we extend last week’s look at social gaming ecosystem on RenRen.com with additional information from our conversations with Chinese game developers and industry insiders to deliver an overview of the social game developer landscape in this challenging, yet fascinating, market.

The Powerful SNS

We’ve previously noted that many of the major social networking services (SNS) in China do not have platforms that are open to any third party developers. These closed platform SNSs include big players like QZone, Kaixin001, and 51.com who collectively make up around 40% of the Chinese social networking market. While apps and games are an integrated part of the social networking experience on these sites, all apps are either developed in-house or, to a very limited extent, acquired from outside developers via a one-time license sale. The ‘closed’ nature of these limits the number and variety of apps that the platform hosts, and prevents any kind of developer ecosystem from blossoming around the platform.

With so many social networks keeping their platforms closed to third party app development, the ones that are open, like RenRen.com, exert extraordinary sway.

Developers no longer listed, now “From a third-party developer”

In contrast to QZone, Kaixin001, and 51.com, RenRen.com / Kaixin.com (two sites owned and operated by the same parent company, Oak Pacific Interactive) have open platforms that host hundreds of third party apps. Over the past few days, we noticed that RenRen removed developer names from its user-facing application directory. RenRen previously displayed the name of the developer or publisher responsible for each app in its user-facing leaderboard, as you can see in this screenshot we took two weeks ago.

Now, all third-party apps are simply labeled with “From a third-party developer.”

While RenRen has not released specific information as to why they made this change, one of our sources in China suggests that it may be a nod to regulators from China’s General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) and the Ministry of Culture, who last October underscored an existing requirement that all developers of online games (traditional or social) must obtain licenses to operate. While it’s unclear exactly why RenRen would suddenly choose to obscure individual developer brands in their app directory, it could indicate that the social network is acting as the licensed publisher for these games, subsuming the identity of individual developers, and thus working around any licensing issues.

Barriers to entry: Approval and regulation by the GAPP and the Chinese Ministry of Culture

In October of 2009, China’s GAPP reiterated an existing regulation governing China’s online games industry; among other stipulations, developers of games are required to obtain licenses to operate in order to build and publish games online. While this regulation was written for all “online games,” and most likely with more traditional online games and hardcore MMOs in mind, social games (which are of course still online games) have been bundled in as well. In the eyes of the regulating institution, social games are online games, and so should be treated exactly the same as other online games in China.

This makes sense logically to the GAPP (online games are online games), but not financially for social game developers. China’s Ministry of Culture reported in January that revenues from MMORPGs climbed to around 20.38 billion RMB, or 79% of total online game revenues. Casual games – including social games – grossed 3.55 billion RMB in revenues, or just 13.8% of the industry’s total sum. Although social games aren’t making the kinds of revenues as traditional online games, they are now subject to the same rules.

The GAPP requires that game operators have a minimum of 10,000,000 RMB (1,464,560 USD) in registered capital, a prohibitive sum for many social game developers themselves. Games are also subject to general approval by the GAPP before they can be considered to be in good standing.

When it comes to social games, tough requirements like these have been heretofore handled by the social networks that operate the games, not by the developers themselves. But, while developers previously relied on partnerships with bigger publishers who held these licenses, it’s now not entirely clear who will be responsible going forward. Added to the GAPP’s new attention to these rules is an ongoing regulatory battle between that body and the Chinese Ministry of Culture over who should control online games. For specific details on this, see our previous coverage of this regulation and of the ongoing turf wars between the GAPP and the Ministry of Culture. These shifts in the regulatory landscape have combined to create significant uncertainty for developers. For now, what’s clear is that all of the big social platforms already have licenses and approvals in place, and can use them to protect – or obscure – the identity of individual third-party developer brands as needed.

There is one more factor that shifts the balance of power in favor of social networks. In China, app-related revenue is collected first and foremost by the social networks themselves, who then distribute appropriate shares of revenue to third-party developers.

As a result of both the increased barriers and the way that revenue payouts are currently handled, we may be seeing more leverage shift into the hands of the social networks themselves, and away from individual, and especially smaller, game developers.

We’ll follow up on this article later in the week with a look at revenue in Chinese social games, and what the future holds.

Over the last year or so, we’ve seen many mainstream game developers begin experimenting with social gaming. The most recent of these was a Facebook app for Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, but while it made use of the social graph, and by extension, the networks 400 million users, it was only a small sliver of the gargantuan MMO — mostly a way to post about your activities on the main WoW site. That move looks like it will soon be followed by Electronic Arts’ #1 console game, Madden NFL.

For those returning to Earth, Madden NFL is a long-running game, licensed by the NFL and developed by EA Tiburon in Orlando, Florida. Each year, the game is improved with a new rendition and, according to statistics reported by NPD Group Inc., has sold 63 million copies total in the United States alone. In an interview with Bloomberg Television on Friday, EA Sports President, Peter Moore said that “we have to make ‘Madden’ more accessible. You’ll see us on Facebook going forward.”

Considering the acquisition of social developer Playfish for up to $400 million last year, this is likely to be the EA brand Playfish President and General Manager Kristian Segerstrale talked about recently with the Wall Street Journal (and what company executives have been hinting publicly for months prior). He said that the social gaming space ought to mature in the next 12 to 24 months, making established brands a more important way to get users attention.

As for a Facebook rendition of Madden NFL itself, no official announcement has been made, but according to Moore, the adaptation will be a “simpler experience.”

This is not EA’s first dance with Facebook versions of its console titles. Already the console developer has released social versions of other titles, including Need for Speed Nitro, and new console game Dante’s Inferno — not to mention the apps built by Pogo, the company’s casual gaming group. Madden looks to be the biggest social effort yet, and we will be sure to let you know more when we do.

One part educational, one part social, and two parts pet-caring game, virtual world Moshi Monsters, from Mind Candy, has been seeing solid growth since launching in 2008. It now has more than 12 million total registered users, with especially strong numbers in the last 9 months, chief executive Michael Smith tells us.

Here’s a closer look.

The basic play of Moshi Monsters is familiar enough. Players create an avatar based on half a dozen templates, customize their coloring, and are tasked with caring for their new monstrous companion. Like in Playfish’s Pet Society, the user must feed and keep their monster healthy and happy. Of course, since these are “monsters” and not “pets,” they are treated a bit differently, and as it seems, lack of bathing is one such difference.

Hygiene aside, players improve said stats by feeding it various monster-themed foods and, well, buying it stuff. In tandem with this, the critter’s mood will change as well, resulting in different demeanors and random commentary that is spoken in a Sims-like gibberish.

This leads to the core point of Moshi Monsters, which is the decoration of your own virtual house. The space is a simple 2D flat that is more or less the same as that in Pet Society style games, and like said games, it can be viewed and visited by other players.

When other players visit you, they are capable of leaving friendly messages on a little post board for viewing whenever a user next logs in. Players can also send each other gifts as well, which, as you’d expect, can consist of decorative furniture, food, etc. Unfortunately, in order to send anything, one has to sign up for membership.

Luckily, there was still enough to see and do to get a good idea of what was going on in this virtual monster town. Among the various streets are a myriad of shops to see and visit. Most sell foods or furniture for your house, but what is most noticeable is the level of detail that went into everything.

Tthis level of polish is worth noting. Most everything you see in Moshi Monsters adds to the believability of this digital world. Whether it is your avatar commenting on something you pass by, startling an construction worker by clicking on them, or watching a little creature fly up and eat your mouse pointer during the loading screen, there is something that most everyone will remember seeing after a few minutes of play.

Of course, should players play longer than a few minutes, they will begin to level up via a handful of means. Experience towards each level is gained primarily by buying stuff for your home, but players get the largest boost from a range of mini-games from what is called the “Puzzle Palace.” Each of these games can be played as much as you like, and consist of simple educational games that vary from math to spelling. However, the one that earns the most reward – in both experience and the in-game currency, Rox – is the Daily Challenge that sticks together a random assortment of all the puzzle games.

The game has also recently introduced a couple new features to take advantage of its community. One is printable trading cards, showing users stats — this is an offline way to make the game more relevant to kid’s lives. Another new feature is a “Games Starcade” shop, where users can by virtual arcade games to put in their rooms. Friends who visit the room can then play the arcade game.

For a kids game, Moshi Monsters is a wonderful creation. Frankly, the only complaint is that it really does push the membership in the fact that about half the content is limited to a $6.00 a month membership. Obviously, it’s not really the cost that raises a question but the fact that players don’t really have the full picture regarding what they are purchasing (in the locked areas).

Frankly, if you’re looking for a good kids game that’s both fun, and might even teach them something, than Moshi Monsters is certainly one worth a look.

Happy days continue for Birthday Cards and Zoo World, the two biggest Facebook apps from RockYou, on this week’s list of fastest-growing games by monthly average users (MAU), from AppData. The pair seems almost unstoppable, with Zoo World, the more game-like of the two, potentially ready to break 20 million users next week.

Here’s the full list:

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Birthday Cards	45,831,329	+4,588,556	+10.01
2.	Zoo World	18,008,311	+1,802,177	+10.01
3.	FarmVille	76,677,249	+1,200,774	+1.57
4.	Truth about friends	590,265	+590,117	+99.97
5.	Happy Island	11,146,511	+534,124	+4.79
6.	Gangster City	1,233,329	+527,156	+42.74
7.	My City Life	798,564	+520,032	+65.12
8.	Little Warrior	1,497,204	+440,125	+29.40
9.	My Town	1,961,793	+410,417	+20.92
10.	Wild Ones	2,603,987	+406,294	+15.60
11.	MindJolt Games	16,454,075	+344,935	+2.10
12.	Go to Hell	347,382	+281,970	+81.17
13.	Mafia Wars	24,650,755	+252,460	+1.02
14.	Texas HoldEm Poker	25,306,358	+239,485	+0.95
15.	開心寶貝	1,355,142	+196,668	+14.51
16.	PetVille	18,133,636	+181,872	+1.00
17.	Band of Heroes	1,158,846	+170,070	+14.68
18.	Friends For Sale!	5,351,271	+164,341	+3.07
19.	SPP Ranch!	265,854	+139,277	+52.39
20.	Country Life	8,156,867	+138,984	+1.70

As we’ve noted before, RockYou has encouraged the growth of Zoo World in part by actually putting a copy of the game within Birthday Cards; players who get hooked will probably tend to go ahead and install the regular version of Zoo World for daily play.

However, the app company doesn’t seem to be hanging onto its players very well. Between a fifth a quarter of the average successful game’s users will visit daily; Zoo World, by comparison, is at 13 percent.

To think of it another way, Zynga, the most successful gaming company on Facebook, has about 70 million daily users. RockYou has roughly a third of Zynga’s MAU, but it would have to multiply its DAU by more than 10 to reach those numbers:

Skipping down to Gangster City, this new Mafia Wars-style game from Playfish is continuing to do fairly well, although it isn’t exploding. Little Warrior, from an unknown developer, popped up in the rankings a couple weeks back with GC, but is growing even more unevenly.

Two more to point out: My City Life and My Town. As the names indicate, both of these are city builder / Sims-style games. Broken Bulb Studio’s My Town has been appearing consistently on our lists of top growers, but it’s worth noting that My City Life, though it appeared more recently and is from another unknown developer, is currently growing more quickly.

Gowalla and Loopt Use Check-Ins to Help Haiti – Last week, the roundup mentioned Loopt and its desire to promote check-ins for its location-based, mobile social network in the form of deals at real world locations. Now, every check in at Chipotle, Panera Bread, or Whole Foods will lead to a donation of $1 to the American Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders to help in the Haiti earthquake relief.

In line with Loopt’s charitably, another location-based app, Gowalla has also launched a check-in charity campaign dubbed “Hearts for Haiti.” The event will take place on Monday, February 8th in the San Francisco Bay Area, and whenever someone checks-in at one of three specific locations (noted below), at specific times, Gowalla will donate $50 to the American Red Cross in that person’s name. The goal is to raise $20,000.

• 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Peet’s Coffee & Tea in Emeryville at 5959 Shellmound Street, Suite 85
• 2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Peet’s Coffee & Tea in Mill Valley at 88 Throckmorton Avenue
• 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. Barenaked Ladies concert at Infusion Lounge

AppFund To Seed iPad Apps – CNET and E! Online co-founder, Kevin Wendle has partnered with MusicNation to form the AppFund, with the sole goal to help fund entrepreneurs and startups that wish to launch applications on the new Apple iPad (or any other tablet, for that matter). The investment amount will range anywhere from $5000 to $500,000 depending on the complexity of the app. However, proposals for funding are encouraged to be made immediately in order to be part of the first wave of iPad applications this summer.

[via TechCrunch]

Celebrate Valentine’s with Wizard101 – The free-to-play MMO, Wizard101 will be bringing some special Valentine’s virtual goods to the wizarding world this month. The goods will be purchased via the game’s virtual currency from a non-player character, Valentina Heartsong, but as a special promotion, the developers will be hosting a special contest that will give away some of said items for free.

All players have to do is follow @Wizard101 on Twitter, and each weekday, until the 12th, a random follower will be contacted through the social network to claim their free virtual gift.

Civilization on Facebook – Though it was announced in October, Sid Meier’s Civilization isn’t quite ready for Facebook yet. Publisher, Take Two, told Variety that it’s going to still be a little while until the popular franchise makes its way onto the social network. But fear not, as they also said that the game’s open beta ought to be “sometime in June.”

Star Trek Online Virtual Goods – The highly anticipated MMO, Star Trek Online launched with an interesting surprise: Apparently, developer Cryptic Studios and publisher Atari are bringing some very hefty virtual goods to the table. Currently, players can purchase two special races from the game’s in-game “C-Store” using the virtual currency, Cryptic Points. For 240 Cryptic Points – $3.00 – players can purchase the Federation Klingons race, and for 80 Cryptic Points – $1.00 – the Federation Ferengi race. Currently, however, the virtual currency can only be purchased in increments of 500, or $6.25.

TrialPay Gets in on Valentine’s Day – Offers company TrialPay is running a little something special for Valentine’s Day as well. Currently, the company is offering new and existing partners a $250 Amazon.com gift card. In order to qualify, new partners must complete 30 transactions via TrialPayduring the month of February, while existing partners must launch a new Valentine’s Day Campaign and complete 50 transactions.

Assassin’s Creed II Multiplayer Coming to the iPhone – While an iPhone rendition of Assassin’s Creed II has been noted to come out in early February, word is that Ubisoft is to release another, online version, Assassin’s Creed II: Multiplayer. Soon, players will be able to use Wi-Fi to compete with up to three other players in a deadly game of hide-and-go-seek as each assassin tries to kill the others before being killed themselves. What is most interesting, however, is that the game will feature not only a built-in friend’s list but Facebook integration as well that will allow the posting of up to 24 achievements to their social networking feed.

[via Kotaku]

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Papermint is a new virtual world, of sorts, focused more on self-expression than goal-oriented gaming, and targeting women ages 15 to 35. From European developer Avaloop, it focuses on being colorful, peaceful, and more oriented around pursuits like becoming a designer, judge, celebrity or gardener.

Requiring no download nor any separate registration screens, the game was pretty easy to get in to. Players create an avatar (called a Wobble) and start out in a bland grayscale world, with a 2D, Paper Mario-like art style, set in a 3D realm. The only real color stems from a portly looking woman, who acts as your guide for how to play Papermint.

The game walks you through the basic steps of play well enough, and upon finishing the tutorial (actually, you can leave at anytime) you’re on your way to fun and adventure. Right? Sort of, but first the highlights.

First and foremost, the level of personalization is phenomenal. Players can explore this bizarre world, turning things they touch to color, and harvesting the colors themselves. Already, there was something amusing to this virtual means of bringing the world to life, but learning that you could harvest the colors – from plants, anyway – was especially surprising.

Apparently, players can take this color and use it to create custom designs for their virtual clothing. Without going into all the details, players can learn and improve various professions such as gathering or designing, and based on their skill can make better and more elaborate creations to wear. Frankly, this was a phenomenal idea when it comes to self-expression, and easily the best part of Papermint.

Beyond the virtual careers of gathering and designing, players can also step into the roles of a Court Counselor that can perform weddings between two characters, or a Judge that can actually halt the communication of others (don’t worry, it’s not easy becoming a judge).

Of course, the game is still primarily about self-expression, so when they aren’t “working” players are also able to rent a virtual space called “flats.” As expected, this becomes an area for them to decorate with furniture and items they’ve collected during play, as well as a space to host virtual parties.

In order to do anything, one, of course, needs money, so Papermint incorporates the increasingly common in-game and virtual currency combination for monetization purposes. The in-game currency is dubbed Mints and grows around the Papermint world. As you can imagine, it’s not terribly difficult to get, but it does only last for 24 hours, coaxing users to use it or lose it. Furthermore, Mints are worth half that of the buyable virtual currency, Paper Coins, allowing those that spend a little real money to earn their virtual rewards faster.

Apparently, this wasn’t enough personalization as even the way your character moves can be reflective upon your mood. Beyond chat or animations, such as waving or dancing, players can actually set the mood of their avatar, thus changing both their facial expressions and even the way they walk. Consider it virtual body language.

Frankly, the only major complaint for Paperment is that everything is so focused on expression that there is almost nothing else to do. As one walks through the game, they can discover some mini-games here and there, but most of the time seems to be spent wandering around. Luckily, there are promoting social events (for example, a sort of virtual soccer game), but, sadly, these were all at X, Y, and Z times, so there wasn’t really anything to just grab the user and pull them in at the immediate time of play. For 15 to 35 year old females looking for serious gaming — or anyone else for that matter — Papermint is probably not be for them, but for some casual socialization, then yes, you might find it to be just perfect.

All in all, this is still a very creative new virtual world with a wonderful social outlet, and something that could be big with the target audience.

In the small world of the iPhone’s top game publishers, Ngmoco looms large. Its releases include early iPhone hits like Maze Finger and Doctor Awesome and the later, more graphically mature Eliminate and Star Defense; in all, the company has had just under a dozen successful games, far more than most can claim.

We sat down with co-founder and CEO Neil Young to get his perspective on where mobile gaming is headed in the future — whether on the iPhone or another platform. Note that this interview, like our last one with SGN’s Randy Breen, runs a bit long; just click through below to get the full read.

Inside Social Games: I feel like I have to ask: What’s your view on the iPad? And on Google’s new Nexus One?

Neil Young: I’m very bullish on the iPad. The negative commentary I read on the internet reminds me of when the iPod came out. I think real humans will be amazed with the iPad. It’s going to be a very important computing device, and potentially the death of the netbook. In a couple year’s time it’ll be huge.

We’ll have titles at the iPad’s launch and support it through the year. You can think about four classes of products that you could build for the iPad. The first is an iPhone app sold through the app store. You do nothing at all, no work. Class two is to take those products and up the resolution to make them look good on a larger device. I expect a bunch of people will do that because it’s the easiest thing to do, and they’ll try to position themselves as leaders. The third class of things will be to take products that are being shipped on the iPhone OS and make enhancements and changes to really take advantage of the screen format. It’s not just about resolution, it’s actually having more real estate for function. The last thing you can do is build native applications that can only ever be on the iPad, not on smaller devices.

For Ngmoco, we’re going to predominantly live in that third category for now. We’ll take our games and add to them for the iPad.

Android continues to make improvements. I don’t think the Nexus One has done very much to change the commercial profile of Android. It’s still very clearly far behind the iPhone OS devices. Having said that, I think the Nexus One is a piece of hardware, in terms of its form and processing power, that’s pretty impressive. It’s really the tight integration between operating system, applications and hardware that’s lacking. My sense is that there are a few more turns of the crank before Android gets into the ballpark.

ISG: All of your games so far have been in the top 25. Do you see that continuing as competition increases? And as the market grows, is it even necessary to be at the top of the charts?

NY: Certainly as the market expands, the value of a chart placement will increase, even for lower positions. The beauty of free to play games is you disconnect your revenue model from chart position. It’s important to get as many people as you can into the game, for sure, but you’re not making money only when the game is in the charts. That’s the difference from the paid side –- there, if you’re not in the top 100, you’re not making money. In the top 50, even. On a free to play game, it’s really about usage. Once you’ve got a customer, they could theoretically stay with you forever and pay you forever. You’ve changed your monetization from being in the chart to maintaining a relationship with a customer. That also means you get to think differently about the way you design, about how the games get into people’s hands, how you treat your customers.

ISG: You’ve been around for about a year and a half, and have a number of games that, from the outside, don’t seem very similar to one another. What has happened so far, and what’s your direction?

NY: We released the first two games in October 2008, intentionally priced one at free and one at 99 cents, because those were the lowest and second-lowest friction price points, and heavily instrumented the software to report back on every session. We were fortunate that both of those games went right to the top, so we took the data and iterated on it, and it helped inform a lot of what went into our first big game, Rolando, which we did with Hand Circus.

After that Christmas we embarked on two strategies. One was the Plus+ network, which is embedded in our games and some other people’s products. From the outside, Plus looks like it’s trying to be Xbox Live for the iPhone. But the stuff that’s really unique about Plus today is what happens in the cloud: the building of an account relationship with the customer, a social graph, a follower graph, feed-in systems, and now with games like Eliminate, synchronous multi-player. Virtual goods, a storefront, game servers –- there’s a really meaningful game developer platform there. The developers need these ways to create a relationship with the customer over time.

In concert with that, in Q1 and Q2 of 2009, the average price of the top 5 games dropped to an average of $1.68. As we released Star Defense and Rolando 2, we started to see the affect of that pricing pressure — we were disappointed with their performance relative to the pace of the market growth. What we knew was that people were downloading games, but it was only the ones they liked that they used a lot. So we needed to revisit our thesis. We decided that if we can’t make a game free to play, we’re going to kill it. We needed to learn about the free to play market, so we acquired Miraphonic, which published Epic Pet Wars. On the surface that game looked derivative of [Zynga's Facebook game] Mafia Wars, but we were drawn to it because it seemed like it had character. We took that learning and drove it into Eliminate and Touch Pets midway through their development. I would argue that the freemium implementation in those two is, candidly, clumsy. They’re sort of jammed in there.

So that’s the phase that we’re in now. We released those games in November, and we’ve been living in the freemium world since. Eliminate and Touch Pets not only both went to number 1, but we’ve been able to constantly re-promote them into the top of the charts. The same thing is true of Epic Pet Wars. We’re growing our daily active users every day. And the next releases will be better, without such clumsy monetization models.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a new gang in town, but instead of tearing the place down, they seem to want to build it up. This week’s AppData list of most rapidly growing games still under a million players is ruled over by a set of town-building games, although a few other interesting entrants also made it on.

Besides the new faces, there are a few notable absences. Where is Gangster City, and what happened to Little Warrior and Band of Heroes? You won’t see them here; Playfish’s Gangster City is the standout, with over 100 percent growth during the week to 1.1 million players, but the others have also passed the fateful mark.

Here’s the list:

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	My City Life	698,494	+535,098	+76.61
2.	Truth about friends	523,925	+523,784	+99.97
3.	Go to Hell	273,931	+257,768	+94.10
4.	MiniPlanet	558,648	+221,714	+39.69
5.	Sanalika	501,359	+147,149	+29.35
6.	Kingdoms of Camelot	670,480	+133,490	+19.91
7.	Jumping Dog	108,671	+108,655	+99.99
8.	Funflow	101,589	+101,414	+99.83
9.	Flowers for Friends	503,076	+100,625	+20.00
10.	SPP Ranch!	186,246	+89,777	+48.20
11.	Cité des nuages	618,950	+84,752	+13.69
12.	Spot The Difference	568,182	+81,769	+14.39
13.	COLLAPSE!	955,478	+77,955	+8.16
14.	Ninja Warz	874,625	+72,530	+8.29
15.	Street Rides	149,536	+65,715	+43.95
16.	SuperPocus	202,272	+65,242	+32.25
17.	Zapapa	185,326	+60,583	+32.69
18.	Social Pang	174,760	+55,756	+31.90
19.	Roulette Madness	132,832	+49,514	+37.28
20.	Happy Slots!	192,538	+47,450	+24.64

My City Life almost sounds more like an app for scheduling bouts of heavy drinking than a game. Its developer is an unknown, but the game appears fairly well built, if along standard lines; you start off with a handful of houses and an abbreviated strip of road and build from there, with the usual entreaties to invite friends.

It’s in good company with two games following close behind: MiniPlanet and Kingdoms of Camelot. There’s a bit of a “Sims” vibe going in the former, while the latter lets you enjoy the pseudo-slavery of medieval serfdom, with quests and fighting thrown in.

Number three is Go to Hell, a promotion for the new console game Dante’s Inferno. The gameplay on Inferno, by the way, is pretty great; but the Facebook game is a bit of a single-joke throwaway on the theme of sending friends and various Facebook Pages “to hell”. Players, not to be fooled, seem to mostly be sampling and moving on.

There’s one more worth mentioning: Funflow, at number eight. This isn’t a game, exactly; it’s instead a social gaming app built for game discovery and score keeping. It’s built by King.com, one of the internet’s larger gaming portals, which is apparently trying to find its way onto Facebook.

Zynga is partnering with Microsoft’s MSN Games site today and providing its hit game FarmVille using Facebook Connect. This is the first time a Zynga game has gone live on a destination gaming site, and the partnership will include more titles and game availability on Windows Live Messenger in the coming months. This is the first of what we expect will be several examples of social gaming driving the adoption of Facebook Connect across the web.

FarmVille, with around 75 million monthly active users, has been the breakaway social gaming hit on Facebook. While Zynga offers its games on many other social networks, it has only previously branched out to its own destination sites, like FarmVille.com. Like the game will on MSN Games, FarmVille.com uses Facebook Connect as its sole user identity service.

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