Not all social items that cross the ISG table are games it would seem (at least not in the truest sense). A while back, an interesting and interactive social cartoon popped up and came all the way from the UK. Created by the people at stunnedbunny.com, the “Maximum” series involves everything from dating to band friendships.

As it stands, there are three interactive cartoons to choose from: Maximum Band, Maximum Toyboy, and 24 Hr Max. Each title deals with the social interactions between the player and the characters as they proceed through the story of each video. However, what is curious, is the differences between each title.

More for the female demographic, Maximum Toyboy and 24 Hr Max deal with relationships, and the primary objective is to find love. That’s not to say that only women like dating games… it’s just that the, ahem, “toy” is a “boy” (hence the name). Maximum Band, however, seems to be a little more entertaining for everyone as the player is presented with a group of “apathetic losers” that can’t sing, play, or dance and you have to figure out some way to make a band out of them.

Regardless of the game/cartoon you play around with, the quality is quite good. The characters all feel believable and are very well drawn (though the animation is a little stiff at times). Surprisingly enough, the voice acting is pretty good as well, which is a refreshing change from either (a) more text or (b) bad voices. Of course, it may just be the allure of the English accent, but it sounds good, nonetheless.

Unfortunately, the social interactions do feel a bit arbitrary sometimes. There never seems to be a “wrong” answer, but that also seems to be the point, as you create your own adventure. Nevertheless, it is still pretty fun to see the reactions of the characters based on your answers.

Overall, this isn’t a bad setup going on here by Stunned Bunny. The dialogue is amusing, and the social reactions to the player input is quite entertaining. It’s worth a look for developers, especially for those that are interested in dating games.

The iPhone’s app store has taken off, with over 500 million app downloads to date. That fact in mind, it is not surprising that rumors of new app stores for more and more platforms are beginning to circulate. The latest is Nokia, who recently showed off what they are calling the “Ovi Store” at the Mobile Word Congress in Barcelona.

So what is the Ovi Store? Officially, Nokia describes it as such:

“Offering a range of content including applications, games, videos, widgets, podcasts, location-based applications and personalized content, Ovi Store will be available on S60 and Series 40 devices. The first device to include the mobile storefront on board will be the Nokia N97, set to launch in June. Meanwhile tens of millions of existing S60 and Series 40 devices will be able to take advantage of the store from May. Ovi Store is unique in its ability to target content based on where you are, when you’re there, why you are where you are and who else has downloaded similar content.”

That’s right, content can be tailored to users based on where they live. Furthermore, greater sharing capabilities are generated through what has been dubbed the “social discovery feature” that will enable users to see who amongst their friends is using what, and said applications will be made readily available for them.

Suffice to say, the platform has a lot of potential, and as the largest creator of mobile phones in the world, Nokia expects their new store to acquire 300 million users by 2012. Furthermore, the company states that approximately 70% of revenues will be returned to Ovi Store developers.

For those interested, developers are able to register now for the Ovi Store, but must wait until next month before any content can be uploaded. The expected launch date is this May.

[via TechCrunch]

Just as any industry goes through growing pains, it seems like virtual goods are becoming increasingly regulated around the world.

It was only recently that the United States IRS was discussing the possibility taxing of income generated via virtual goods (something that is also happening in Turkey). Earlier, Korea began taxing transactions in 2007, followed by China in 2008 (which also led to an increase in virtual goods prices).

This time, it’s Vietnam – the Vietnamese government is planning to hold an upcoming workshop that is intended to address the legal status of virtual goods within the country. As it stands, said goods are only covered by a law dubbed, “Circular 60.”

Throughout the country, there have been numerous complaints regarding not only the theft of virtual goods but their use in gambling as well. This is where the limitations of Circular 60 come into play – as it merely treats them as “part of online games,” and not property in and of itself.

In Vietnam, property/assets are defined as “money, objects, and valuable documents” and “asset rights (ownership, right of use, right of determination,” but according the Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Van of the Vietnamese Ministry of Justice, these virtual goods only show “right of use” and not “true” ownership nor “right of determination.” This is the whole defining question of the coming workshop.

Though it is unlikely that the workshop will determine that virtual goods will be deemed “real property,” it is likely that some form of legal status will be given to the intangible items at some point in the future. We’ll be watching closely, as the country’s actions will set an important precedent for the future of virtual goods around the world.

[via Virtual Goods News]

A while back we covered the release of the “New Xbox Experience,” as Microsoft accelerated its move in a more social direction. However, new whispers have surfaced about possible additional new social features coming  in the form of user generated avatars.

Rare, the Xbox Live Avatar developers, stated earlier this month that new tools may be coming with a future update to the system.

According to Avatar designer, Dale Murchie, “There may be features coming that open up the expressive potential of the Xbox community, but we’re keeping quiet on that for now.”

For those that may not know, the original Avatars feature that was launched with the New Xbox Experience did not have customization capabilities. According to Murchie at the time, “User-generated content is a huge area that would not have been done justice if we had tried to cram it into the launch release of this project.” It was actually art head Lee Musgrave that gave the most blatant statement saying, “Creativity is going to play a big part in the development of the Avatars.”

Considering the overall benefit to Live, Microsoft would be remiss to not expand Avatars in this way as doing so opens up new doors for more microtransactions and virtual goods accessories.

Of course, there is always the concern for “bad” or “offensive” user generated content. However, Microsoft has already learned a lot about how to keep this from happening – the company already allows the submission of games but not directly to the public. These games are actually submitted through what is called the “Creator’s Club,” in which membership is a requirement for submission. Within this group, submissions are played and evaluated by peers, and thus only the higher quality creations make it to the public.

Though nothing is 100% confirmed or denied, this could certainly be an excellent addition to Xbox Live, and should a quality assurance method similar to the current game submission tools be implemented, then this (possible) new feature will be all the better.

[via Virtual Goods News]

When I was a kid my Dad was a wholesale travel agent. That meant that it was his job to travel around the world and find locations and services that he would bring together and sell to other people as a package tour. One thing he always pointed out to me was that travel was a “service business”, and that all the bells and whistles in the world didn’t matter if there wasn’t someone there to make sure the customers had the best experience possible, and to take care of problems when they didn’t.

In the years after my father first explained the concept of a “service business” to me the kind of high class travel packages he dealt in were history, vanished by cheap, deregulated airline seats that made it easier to fly first and ask questions later. The great destinations were still there, but individuals were more likely to pick up a guidebook and hammer together their own vacation that go on an expensive package tour that might cost twice as much, and give them only half of what they were looking for.

That history is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and I’m obviously not the only one.

Back at the dawn of the internet your relationship to the game was entirely built around the object that came in the box, whether that was a disc, diskette, or a game cartridge. And the customer service experience was owned by the retail store where you purchased the product. Most of them were pretty awful at it, but at least you had someone to talk to and even exchange the product with if things didn’t go to plan. And the chain of connection to the developer was a long one that passed from you, to the retailer, to the distributor, to the publisher, and they to the person who actually made the game.

One of the more surprising side effects of the internet has been the total disintegration of the multiple layers of middle-men that once stood between the player and the creator of the product. These days it isn’t that difficult to find a forum where you can leave your individual opinion on a product, or send an email directly to the developer. If nothing else you can show up to Amazon and join in a massive demonstration when it turns out that the DRM that is supposed to protect the product from pirates is protecting it from being played instead.

But whether it’s what we play, or how we play it, some companies are beginning to figure out that even though they are now directly responsible for dealing with their irate customers, that relationship is becoming as important as the product itself, and that if you treat them with respect, and give them what you want, it’s possible to thrive, even while other people are claiming that the apocalypse is just around the corner.

Businesses as diverse as Netflix, Vivendi, Steam, and iTunes all managing to make a tidy profit by defining their core of what they do around an ongoing relationship with the customer rather than simply focusing on the end profit, or trying to use DRM to redefine their software so that they can get back the control they’ve “lost”

For older media such as movies and music that’s a one way experience. Once the product is consumed the relationship is over, or at least reset. You want more movie? Then rent another one. Games are more in-depth experiences, and between multiplayer, co-op, product updates, user created and downloadable content, there are numerous points where you are directly in contact with your customer. The gameplay experience ends up simply being another point along that service chain. And social games push us even further out, demanding that the platform provides every user with appropriate, dynamic, and safe relationships that allow blur the lines between users and content creators.

Like every great challenge the rise of the service business also an opportunity. In this case it’s about leveraging the service equation to find new and innovate from the expectations of the customer. If the user comes into the experience knowing that they’re getting into a relationship, and looking to find out what more you have to offer, it’s a win for everyone.

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

Fresh from the folks at Zynga comes their latest game for the iPhone Scramble Live. Sound familiar? It should, because the game is a mobile version of the original word game, Scramble, that garners over 1.2 million users each month on Facebook. It is being released on both the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

Scramble Live marks yet another social game for the respective Apple platforms, and is the first word game for the iPhone that allows live competition between not only other iPhone and iPod Touch users, but also anyone on Facebook through Facebook Connect. The game combines simple game mechanics (quickly finding words within a grid) with the iPhone’s built in accelerometer and multi-touch technology. Players can actually rotate the game board, by, well, rotating the phone.

Currently, there are three modes of game play:

• - Solo: Traditional ladder mode pitting you against a friend’s high score.
• - Live: Compete against others in real time.
• - Play & Pass: Play with up to three others on the same device.

“Games are more fun when they are played with real friends, which is why we wanted to give iPhone and iPod Touch users the opportunity to play a classic word game with people they know,” said Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga, in a statement. Zynga has also developed Live Poker for the iPhone, which it released late last year.

According to Zynga, the game is available for all first and second generation iPhones and iPod Touches. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the game will be free, but it isn’t too terribly expensive at $2.99 for a limited-time launch offer. After the launch, the game will be available for $4.99 at the iTunes store.

So MySpace is usually a fairly “calm” when it comes to monthly changes, but this month actually had some rather unusual developments. Not only were there a few drastic ranking shifts this month, but also a few new faces to the charts, which, surprisingly ranked quite high. Nevertheless, it was certainly a lucrative month for the Top 25 MySpace Games.

• The Top 8 games held their ground this month (as they normally do), especially You Plus’ (aka “The Godfather”) Mobsters and Zynga’s Mafia Wars, who stayed at #1 and #2.
• Appearing out of nowhere at #9 is Poker Palace with 2,706,709 users this month. While it is not uncommon to see a new game appear in the Top 25, it is quite rare to see a new title debut in the Top 10. However, considering its success on Facebook (currently #15 with 2,682,095 monthly users), it doesn’t seem too far-fetched.
• As with the Facebook rendition, YoVille from Zynga also jumped in rank from #12 to #10 with 2,259,606 users, bumping down Heroes, Gang Wars, and Dragon Wars.
• Appearing at #14 is another interesting app tailored to the younger, female demographic dubbed “Sorority Life” with 1,598,461 users. The numbers are likely due to the large teenage demographic found on MySpace.
• And as always, the 20-25 rankings shift and churn as they often do, but this time, the title Overdrive decided to take a nice leap out of those standings (previously #23) and land at #18 with 1,362,283 players.

It is certainly nice to see this rate of growth on the MySpace platform and two new games appearing for the first time in the Top 15. The past month has been more activein the space than it has been in times past, but that begs the question as to whether or not that trend will continue. And with Maestri’s suits against You Plus and Zynga still going through the legal process, there is certainly the possibility that things will stir up further. Should a ruling against the two companies come to pass, it would create a precedent that could drastically alter all of the RPG titles on not only MySpace, but the social space as a whole.

The last month has been quite the competitive one. Normally, it wouldn’t be unusual for games to switch rankings (even by a large margin), but this month had some seemingly staggering shifts. So here they are, the Top 25 Facebook Games for March 2009.

• First and foremost, Zynga’s Mafia Wars took home a monthly user base nearly 4 million people larger than that of last month (7.4 million vs 3.8 million) and moved up from #9 to #4. By the same token, the growth has not been as prominent for Mob Wars with its monthly user count dropping by half and its ranking from #11 to #13.
• Geo Challenge has worked it’s way up to #6 overall, and is now the 2nd most popular Playfish game on Facebook, second only to the behemoth that is Pet Society.
• Out of left field comes YoVille, with over a million users gained. This puts it at #7, and ahead of most of the Playfish titles (which, last month, were almost all in the Top 10).
• World War is loosing a bit of steam, as it has decreased by about 300,000 users. Has the novelty has worn off? Next month will tell more.
• And finally, there are Zynga’s Street Racing and Vampire Wars that just recently found their way on the boards, coming in at #22 and #23.

Suffice to say, it has been a huge month for Zynga as they now hold six titles within the Facebook Top 25. Normally, this chart has been dominated primarily by Playfish’s suite of six apps, but now the charts are evening out. While Playfish still holds the numbers over Zynga, should the latter’s upward trend continue that may very well change.

Anyone who has spent time in the social games space is aware of the size and popularity of the Facebook platform. With approximately 5,000 games running on Facebook, the company plays a vital role in the future of gaming on social networks.

In a recent interview, VentureBeat spoke with Gareth Davis, Facebook’s program manager for games on the Facebook Platform, talking about the past, present, and future of gaming on Facebook. Davis joined Facebook in the middle of 2008, bringing expertise from his background in games production and design.

Of the 600,000 developers on Facebook, Davis says that the top 10 games alone reach 50 million players (with overlap). Overall, Facebook games reach 150 million players (that’s more than the Wii, Xbox Live, and World of Warcraft combined) and growing around 10% a month.

Davis goes on to point out that, with Facebook, there is no need for a huge marketing budget, it’s free to build on Facebook, and developers keep 100% of their revenue.

Of course, it is up to game creators to determine how best to actually make money. There are any number of choices to be found amongst the top applications: Perhaps the most common, according to Davis, is the use of some form of advertising. However, many top developers have also looked to premium services, sponsorships, and microtransactions for virtual goods.

With a gaming space as lucrative as Facebook, it is a wonder that the gaming giants have not paid more attention. Electronic Arts has been the most aggressive thus far, says Davis, with their creation of applications to support their title, Spore. While they don’t contain much in the ways of game play, it is a step in the right direction, as the titan continues to learn “how social games are different from the traditional games, and how casual is different from hardcore gaming.”

However, despite the fact that the cost of developing Facebook titles has historically been low, that’s changing according to Davis. “There is a bifurcation. The social game companies raised a lot of money. They are making money already. The money is being used so they can grow. They are hiring more professional game talent, which is raising production values, their production cycles are getting longer. Games like Pet Society are more like virtual worlds that are an ongoing service. They require more time and investment of money. You will always see a hobbyist environment where you see a lot of innovation too.”

This is the future of gaming folks. Whether you’re a big or small developer, the communication channels of Facebook provide equal chances for distribution within the space. But with huge names like EA slowly moving into the area, where will things go from here? We have already seen high quality games (both 2D and 3D) and virtual worlds from companies such as Playfish and Zynga…

To read the full interview, definitely check out VentureBeat.

Twitter has an API, followers, messaging, and social promotion. So why isn’t Twitter used as more of a social platform for games?

Well, more are coming. Mappdev has recently released a beta version of a Twitter-based game dubbed, “Whose Tweet?”

The game is extraordinarily simple. When you start, you shown 20 random status messages one at a time. With each message, you are given a choice of six of the people you follow on Twitter, and the objective is to connect the message with the proper person. Once you have completed all 20, you are presented with your score that you are able to publish to your Twitter feed.

As you can imagine, the game has limited entertainment value, and relies heavily on following enough people on Twitter to be challenging. However, Mappdev says Whose Tweet is, more or less, an “experiment in social games for Twitter.”

This particular title is actually based on a different game (built by the same people) called The Status Game on Facebook. It will be interesting to see if there are actually Twitter users interested in a game.

Considering the increase in Twitter for social and casual games (i.e. Twoof), a “yes” is possible, but it will take time to know if this spike will stick or if it is just a fad.