Inside Social Games

There are a lot of casual/social gaming sites out there, but very few that really have a captivating style to them. It becomes a challenge to stand out amongst the crowd, but there are those that find a way, and one such example comes yet again from the Far East.

Viwawa, a division of Pendulab, is one of the fastest growing social gaming networks in Asia. The Vivawa platform offers an interactive gaming portal complete with a slew of wonderfully creative online multiplayer games that not only encourage competition by challenging both the mind as well as twitch skills. Furthermore, the genres range from strategic fighting games such as “Wahlords” to culinary challenges for those would-be sushi chiefs with “Sushido.”

In addition to the great games within the site, users can also log on and create what the developers have dubbed a “Wawa.” Sounds cute, does it not? Well, that would be an accurate assessment as this Wawa is a personal avatar that has a very “chibi” (small and cute for lack of a better term) and Asian feel. As one might expect, these can be displayed for the world to see. In addition, users can engage in both live chat and forums, in which (oddly enough) trash talk and challenges seem to be encouraged.

The site celebrated its one year anniversary at the 7th Annual Asia Game Show in Hong Kong in December.

It seems like only yesterday that news arose that Psycho Monkey is suing Zynga.

Now, it appears that Psycho Monkey, the company founded by Mob Wars creator and former SGN employee David Maestri, has filed suit again for copyright infringement – this time against You Plus, Inc. Known as “The Godfather” in the MySpace app gallery, You Plus is the creator of the number one MySpace game, Mobsters.

Mobsters is a mob-themed RPG/Strategy text-based game that makes use of the social capabilities of the MySpace Platform for its core game-play. Players build a mob, do missions, earn money, level up, and compete against other players for glory and supremacy (okay, maybe not so much, but you get the point).

Ironically, this is another “Mob Wars Clone” that may be more successful that the title it is “cloning.” In 2008, Mobsters was actually the most installed application on the platform, and as of last month, had 13,330,928 total users on MySpace. That same month, Mob Wars for Facebook sat at 2,850,189 monthly active users. MySpace doesn’t publish monthly active numbers for its applications.

While little has been published by the courts regarding the actual suit thus far, precedents like these in IP around social gaming are sure to be an interesting trend this year. The outcome of this and similar cases will have important effects on similar games across social networks as well as the iPhone in the months ahead.

The suit was filed on February 12, 2009 with the California Northern District Court over “Intellectual Property – Copyrights.” The court docket, “Psycho Monkey, LLC v. You Plus Inc.” can be found here.

Earlier in the month, Electronic Arts and Hasbro announced that the two companies are collaborating on a brand new virtual world scheduled to launch in the Fall of 2009. The world will be based on the Hasbro toys “Littlest Pet Shop” and launch in tandem with the new toy line this Fall.

Little more is known for sure at this point, but based on the official announcements from Chip Lange, General Manager and Vice President of EA Hasbro, Littlest Pet Shop Online will be a “Safe destination where girls go to explore and interact with their virtual Littlest Pet Shop collections and friends.” This, in conjunction with the Fall release, suggests that the actual toys could be integrated with Littlest Pet Shop Online in some form or another. 1.8 million girls  have been “creating and tracking online pet collections” on Hasbro’s littlestpetshop.com already to date.

Brian Goldner, President and CEO of Hasbro, stated in their Q4 earnings call that the Hasbro Girls category grew a total of 13% with Littlest Pet Shop on top (up by 26%). Combining the line’s popularity with EA’s brand and their plethora of top games (i.e. games in the top 5 on the Nintendo DS in both Europe and North America), and things could go rather well for the new venture.

This isn’t the first dance for Hasbro either – Littlest Pet Shop VIP was launched back in 2007, and then later expanded upon by Pileated Pictures in 2008. However, there has not been any official word as to whether or not this new virtual world will be synergistic with the original or not.

[via Virtual Worlds News]

Always a company to develop very simple and environmentally-friendly themed games, Green Patch Inc. has yet another application to add to its “Lil” family. The company’s newest title, (Lil) Eco Racer, is accessible to users when playing (Lil) Blue Cove, and you can probably guess what it is about: Racing (well, sort of).

It would seem that everyone is going green, and the quest for fuel efficient and environmentally friendly vehicles has expanded to the Facebook gaming world as well. Eco Racer is very simple: When the player begins the game, they are granted access to a “Goofy Cart G2” with a staggering two horsepower. The objective, obviously enough, is to race against your friends and win more cash in order to upgrade and/or trade in (trade-ins also require X amount of won races) your car for a better eco-friendly ride.

The results of each race is randomly generated based on the type of car and the upgrades you own (as with most “racing” games on Facebook). Unfortunately, the game play gets worn out fairly quick as you can only race your friends once a day, but at the same time it does promote social play – any game play is almost immediately limited. However, as with (Lil) Blue Cove and (Lil) Green Patch, Eco Racer is connected to the other two, which means that anything you earn in those two games (GreenBucks) is also available for this newer one.

This combination of three games actually adds a rather interesting and somewhat unique feature to all of the Green Patch games. One of the overbearing issues for these games has been limited game play options, but since the release of Blue Cove players have been able to formulate earning strategies based on the earlier titles in order to advance in the newer ones.

Beyond game play however, Eco Racer wouldn’t be a Green Patch game if it did not have some sort environmental goal involved. Sure enough, that is the case, for with each race a player participates in they earn “Personal Carbon Credits” in addition to  GreenBucks. These are analagous to a “carbon offset” which is a financial tool that is used to represent a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (the stuff that causes global warming). Currently, these credits are used to make donations to the “Plant A Billion” campaign of The Nature Conservancy.

Though it is overly simple, (Lil) Eco Racer certainly has a good cause, and Green Patch’s dedication to a better environment has brought a lot of charm to its family of games with users. Granted, Eco Racer is different from their revious titles, but its connection to the two more established ones will certainly help its growth. If for no other reason, the game should slowly start to do well due to the connected GreenBucks system. Even if they don’t actually focus on Eco Racer, it’s likely fans of the previous two games will play just to get the extra income.

Recently, SGN released its Mafia title on the iPhone after months of legal battles between the company and David Maestri, the creator of Mob Wars, over the game’s rights. At the time of development, Maestri had been working for SGN, but in the end the two settled, and Maestri was granted the rights to Mob Wars while SGN won a full license to develop similar titles.

Maestri is pursuing IP matters around the game further, however: his company Psycho Monkey recently filed suit against Zynga, the developer of Mafia Wars, according to TechCrunch.

(Ironically, based on last month‘s numbers, Mafia Wars had around 700,000 more active users on Facebook than Mob Wars did.)

Anyone that has been involved in social gaming for a while could tell you that the two games play in a very similar, text-based, RPG fashion, as do many other “Mob Wars clones.” However, what a lot of social gaming people could also tell you, is that the majority of RPGs on Facebook play in virtually the same way as either of these mobster titles, and the only real difference is context and a few name/image swaps.

Precedents in IP around social gaming are sure to be an interesting trend this year. How far does copyright extend in these cases? The outcome of this and similar cases will have important effects on similar games across every major social network as well as the iPhone in the months ahead.

The court docket, “Psycho Monkey, LLC v. Zynga Game Network, Inc.,” can be found here.

It’s a little shocking to see how quickly Social Platform Games seem to be trying to travel up the gameplay ladder to inherit all the problems and pitfalls of the casual and core markets. It’s not that improving depth and quality aren’t important, but it’s also easy to forget that there are some unique qualities that can be provided by games on a social platform that drive success.

Traditional games are primarily focused on the experience of play. It’s the old “gameplay is everything” model, and while that’s still important, the equation has changed a bit. What a social player is most concerned about is status. After all, telling other people about how you’re doing is what Facebook does best, whether it’s what you’re watching, reading, thinking, or playing. In the end your “wall” is a billboard that gives you a chance to let other people know what you’re up to. It wasn’t all that long ago that only Presidents and movie stars got the kind of attention we’re all getting now.

And if you look at the early social platform successes, you can see that while the gameplay isn’t all that compelling your status is clearly something they all have in common. X-Wars games like Mob Wars are constantly telling you where you’re at, what you need, and what’s next. Scrabulous was also a strong a status game. It constantly let players know when it was their turn, and immediately gave them a “lay of the land” when they saw the game board. For users of these applications “where am I at?” can be almost as important as “what’s next?”

With players coming to your games looking for five minutes of fun you need a place for them to start and end that experience, and a strong status screen is always going to be the place to call home.

Andrew Mayer is a Social Gaming and User Experience Consultant with over seventeen years of experience in the games industry.

Okay, normally war is a bad thing, but it does make for some rather entertaining games. However, don’t let the title deceive you. World War is not another, tired WWII game. In fact it is more like a virtual WWIII that is being waged amidst the scorching plains of Facebook.

World War is an RPG, and as such it utilizes familiar features such as energy, missions, cash, etc. While this seems standard, there is a very curious aspect to this game that is truly ambitious: the developers have released it in localized versions, pulling together audiences from all over the world. Is the title starting to make sense?

Yes, that’s right, you aren’t just battling against local users, but collectively against users all over the world. There is a new country characteristic now that allows players to ally with their own, or any other country for that matter, and dominate the rest of the world.

Furthermore, the game has both micro and macro-management aspects. Obviously, you still do missions, recruit allies, and so on to level your own character (more on this in a second), but you also contribute to your country as a whole, and doing so benefits your armies as well. For example, once you reach level 20, you can start contributing to a Research and Development building. As this building levels up, the attack level of all the armies within your country will be increased.

There is also a bit of strategy involved in the management of the game. As you do missions and level up, you can purchase new units to balance out your armies. However, you can only command so many units so you have to carefully decide what is best for you to purchase. These units needed in order to complete various missions (as well as adding friends as allies), but also to attack enemy players. If you do not build a well balanced army, then you will most likely be wiped out, which is a slight hindrance to your goals of world domination.

Lastly, there is an interesting concept of a President, Vice President, and Secretary of Defense. This adds a unique reward that allows top players to broadcast messages of “profound” importance to their countrymen. Granted, it isn’t anything groundbreaking, but it is still a nice bonus.

World War definitely takes a fresh approach to the Facebook RPG genre, and games of this scale are rare. However, that rarity is what makes it refreshing. Competition has always been a driving force in any social game, but with such a grandiose approach, that feeling is compounded ten-fold. The best part is, the way this game is set up, there are dozens of cool features that could be added. Imagine a world-wide game of Risk mixed with the popular Facebook RPG elements the space is familiar with. Now that would be pretty impressive.

Oh monkeys and your shenanigans…. Giving monkeys water balloons; that’s just a recipe for disaster, or maybe great entertainment… depending on how you look at it. Well, Iminlikewithyou.com has done just that with a nifty little multiplayer title called Balloono, and if you haven’t figured it out already, it is the epic tale of water balloons and cute little monkeys.

This wonderful Flash-based title is a social and competitive game that pits you against other players in a live, strategic, multiplayer engagement. So here’s the deal: Each player starts out in a corner of the map, and separating them is a bunch of breakable (brown) and unbreakable (grey) blocks. Each player is armed with water balloons that pack quite a punch and explode both vertically and horizontally after a period of time. This explosion both breaks the brown blocks and kills any enemy monkeys it hits. As you break blocks, you can find and pick up power ups that let you drop more balloons, move faster, or give your explosions more distance.

Now that you have the basics, the real game can begin, and the objective: Be the last one standing. The game is partially twitch towards the end because there are so many bombs going off and everyone is moving pretty fast, but mostly it is about strategy and planning. You have to carefully place your balloons while avoiding not only their blasts but your opponents’ as well. Ideally, you want to try and trap them with well timed explosions – consider it like checkmate in Chess… only with simians.

Honestly, the only downside about the game is that eventually, the power ups begin to stack too much and the characters tend to move a little too fast, but perhaps that’s just from a non-veteran perspective. Beyond that, the only real quip is a slight lack in variety. Since you play against other people, the strategies will change, but more levels and designs would be nice.

Regardless, the game still looks great, and is a ton of fun (heck, it had 100,000 plays in the first day), which is understandable when you can play together with others. Iminlikewithyou.com,  built as a social/casual gaming/dating site, fully supports social interaction (chat, profiles, walls, etc) and allows you to join a game with other people at anytime. Even if you don’t know anyone, you can simply start a “Quick Play” game and hop right in without even registering. Even if Balloono is not your kind of game, the site is a wonderful network of players with a number of different fun, and well designed games such as Blockles and Jigsawce, and it is certainly a site to add to the “Favorites” list for any social gamer.

When it comes to creating a social game portal, there are pretty much two criteria: (1) There needs to be plenty of quality games to choose from, and (2) There should be some form of social interaction.

A new Facebook app called Tim’s Games is a gaming portal style application inside Facebook, and suffice to say, it’s not too bad.

Tim’s Games offers a rather impressive collection of Flash-based games to play that range across numerous types of popular genres such as action, driving, and puzzle based games. Visually, many of the games are reminiscent of old Nintendo consoles, and still others take a more familiar MSN Games look (i.e. Bejeweled style). As for the portal itself, it isn’t as colorful and visually appealing (Viwawa, for example) as some of the other bigger casual gaming sites out there, but in the end, look is merely superfluous (of course, that isn’t to say it isn’t important either).

Obviously, the app is tied into Facebook, which allows it to have a decent degree of social capabilities. Players have the option to post high scores directly to their news feeds, and this even sends notification to whomever was the previous high score holder. Furthermore, the app displays what you and your friends are playing or have played in the past, as well as a collection of various gaming statistics, thus making for a very basic social interaction.

Unfortunately, “basic” is the key word as these social elements are a bit dry and do not bring anything new or interesting to the table. However, being “basic” also lays the groundwork for more curious future elements. Tim’s Games actually only started in the middle of December, so it is not surprising that there isn’t a whole lot in regards to social features, but the developers say they intend to add more concepts such as head to head competition, public challenges, and even team-based matches.

In the end, the app still has work to be done, but it seems to be on the right track. Tim’s Games already has a pretty good collection of fun, casual Flash games, and if there are new social features on the way, then this app could be looking good in the future.

SGN announced earlier today that Eric Huynh, previously CTO of Worldwide Studios for Vivendi Games Mobile (VG Mobile), now Activision/Blizzard, will be joining the company as its new CTO and VP Engineering (a newly established position at SGN).

Before his time at Vivendi, Huynh was also the founding CTO of Gameloft (one of the biggest mobile gaming companies), founding CTO of Ubisoft, and CTO of Coktel Studio (a French video game developer). While at Ubisoft, Huynh headed up approximately 300 developers across nine Ubisoft subsidiaries.

Huynh will be responsible for product development across mobile and social networking platforms at SGN, and is certainly a big hire for the company. The move is also emblematic of the opportunity executives from larger gaming companies see in the social gaming space.

“Eric brings over 15 years of world class expertise in gaming product development, creation, and research,” said Shervin Pishevar, CEO of SGN. “His proven track record in implementation, driving R&D and establishing top quality studios around the globe will make him an important asset as we continue to grow our company and suite of games.”