Forget overrated game reviews. With the recent launch of TweetMyGaming, gamers will be able to find out the hottest games available across all platforms. Powered by the gamerDNA Helix API, the site compiles video-game conversations from Twitter in real-time, offering visitors several new elements that gaming websites can never provide – comprehensive user-based opinions, live updates, and even tips on almost every game in the contemporary market today.

In addition, TweetMyGaming.com displays 22 of the most talked about games on Twitter. Currently, ‘The Sims 3’, ‘World of Warcraft’ and ‘The Beatles: Rock Band’ are ranked as the top three games. The site also allows visitors to view feeds from a specific title or genre.

While TweetMyGaming.com may be relatively new, such websites present great testaments to Twitter’s dominant clout in the gaming industry, despite it being touted as a social-networking and micro-blogging page.

Copious amount of social games are being produced for Twitter.com weekly. Just recently, we reviewed a variety of Twitter applications ranging from dating to everyone’s favorite mafia-esque games. And we expect to see a lot more in the weeks and months ahead.

With more than 13 million total users, Mobsters is the #1 MySpace game. Since the game’s developer, Playdom, revealed itself to the world in March, the company has been growing. During April and May, Playdom hired 23 people. Today, it announced the hiring of a new CEO: EA COO John Pleasants. Co-founder and current CEO Dan Yue will move into a product strategy role.

While at EA, Pleasants was responsible for businesses including the casual portal Pogo as well as the company’s mobile and social networking efforts.

“Online gaming is the fastest-growing sector of the gaming industry, and social gaming, in particular, is transforming the way people play and experience games,’ said Pleasants.”

In addition, as the company moves toward a studio model, it has brought on two industry veterans as executive producers: Dave Rohrl and Sean Clark.

Before joining Playdom, Rohrl was a senior member in production and design for Zynga, one of Playdom’s major social competitors. In addition to his experience there, Rohrl held similar roles at PopCap, Electronic Arts (Pogo), and The Learning Company. Having produced more than 24 different game titles, Rohrl brings 15 years of experience to the table. At Playdom, he will oversee a Playdom studio focused on new intellectual property.

Also an EA/Pogo veteran is Sean Clark, who was Studio Director for New Platforms. He has a background in casual, downloadable games. He also managed a startup social games studio. Perhaps most impressive, however, is the 14 years he spent at LucasArts. There, he led development on some of the company’s most popular titles, including Sam & Max Hit the Road and Escape from Monkey Island. In total, he has around 20 years of experience. He will oversee a studio focused on role-playing games.

“At this point in Playdom’s growth, it makes sense for us to tap the expertise of accomplished industry veterans like Sean and Dave,” said Yue. “Bringing them on board will allow us to both innovate more quickly and introduce more games across more distribution channels.”

With nine titles within the Top 25 of MySpace, popular games on Facebook, and the addition of Poker Palace to hi5, the success of the company is certainly apparent. It will be exciting to see what new games emerge.

What is GameGround? At this time no one seems to be too sure. All anyone really knows is that the platform is currently in its early stages, who’s funding it, and who’s behind it.

Just this month, the Israeli startup closed a $4.1 million round of funding from Sequoia Capital. Previously, the company had also raised a $2 million seed round from various angel investors and founders.

The team behind GameGround is very experienced. The company was founded by former Blizzard VP of Global Business Development Itzik Ben-Bassat, gambling site 888.com founder Guy Margolin, and former MTV executive Shaul Olmert.

Both Olmert, son of the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and Ben-Bassat left their respective positions at MTV and Blizzard around the same time in late 2007. Since then the two have been involved in a handful of other Israeli startups such as Wix.com, SundaySky, and a few still unannounced companies.

Ben-Bassat, acting Chairman for GameGround has not been very talkative publicly about the new company. He had said that GameGround is looking to expand the degree in which the Internet ties into computer games – certainly an ambiguous statement reminiscent of the PR department at Blizzard.

The GameGround website describes the service this way:

Access never before available personal stats and gameplay analysis across all your games. Brag about your latest triumphs to friends and a vibrant and passionate community. Pick up tips, tricks, and hints. Receive live streaming feed announcements when your friends score big wins. Discover new games and events with recommendations based on your personal usage patterns.

So GameGround could become some form of social gaming discovery platform similar to Raptr, but we’ll see. Here’s more copy from the site:

“Gaming. It runs in your blood.
For you, gaming is more than a mild diversion. It’s a way of life. And soon, life is going to get a whole lot more exciting. Introducing GameGround, an all-new personalized gaming center built around advanced technologies that aggregate all your web-wide gaming activities into a single online destination.

At the heart of GameGround is a powerful yet simple-to-use Personalized Command Center that gives you total control over every facet of your gaming experience. From this console, you’ll have the ability to tap into comprehensive, never-before-existing data for any game you play, no matter where on the web you play it, no matter who you play against. This is an unprecedented innovation that simply cannot be found anywhere else in the world of gaming!”

[via VentureBeat]

PayByCash, a subsidiary of PlaySpan, recently released PayByCash Code, possibly the most accessible pre-paid product in the PayByCash arsenal. The code works just like a credit card number. Unlike other payment methods available, it requires no changes to the merchant’s ecommerce system.

Here’s how it works: A user merely has to visit a game in which the merchant accepts the PayByCash Codes. The merchant must provide a PayByCash badge on the checkout page. This will send users to the PayByCash site, where they will buy the code with their method of choice and then use the code on the merchant site to essentially vouch for the purchase.

“We’ve removed the need for merchants to modify their ecommerce systems in order to accept various countries’ popular payment methods, especially those used by credit-constrained or unbanked consumers,” said Kevin Higgins, President of PayByCash.

Credit card companies have been approving less and less applicants, and even cancelling unused accounts. Furthermore, there are predictions that lines of credit may be cut by trillions during the next 1-2 years. Consequently, PayByCash estimates it has a lot of potential customers that lack bank accounts or who don’t have access to credit cards.

PayByCash also offers The Ultimate Game Card.

In September of 2008, Raptr made its first appearance connecting game players across a multitude of platforms. However, the social discovery company has just added yet another, and quite possibly its most significant connection yet: The integration of Facebook Connect.

Now, account holders can sign-in using their Facebook accounts. Doing so will allow them to connect with Facebook friends that also use Raptr. Just like with Facebook games themselves, users can easily send invitations to their Facebook friends in an effort to increase the amount of their Facebook friends who also use Raptr. Conveniently enough, the addition also allows for non-account holders to sign up for Raptr using their Facebook accounts without the need for creating new usernames and passwords.

In the end, however, the best feature comes from publishing what your friends are currently playing into the Facebook News Feed. We have seen this with the previous versions of Raptr, as users share what badges, achievements, and rewards they earn. They could also recommended games. Now, with Facebook Connect, the players for Halo 3 can now see what players for Mafia Wars are doing.

This marriage of platforms is advantageous to both users and developers alike. Not only does it connect more people across more platforms, but it effectively allows for viral growth for many games. Already, Raptr supports a couple thousand games, all of which can be broadcast through Instant Messenger (IM), Twitter, Friendfeed, and now Facebook. Since players can see each other’s playtime as well as their reviews, the potential distributional growth of games connected to Raptr should grow even more.

Not too long ago we took a look at the latest musical app for the iPhone from the folks over at Smule called Leaf Trombone: World Stage. With rhythm games such as Leaf Trombone and Ocarina, Smule has been doing wonders for those of us with “less” than quality musical talents. In a nutshell, these games take the iPhone and turn it into a wonderful-sounding instrument. However, it is the social World Stage of Trombone that has piqued our interest most.

Luckily, we recently got a chance to speak with CEO of Smule, Jeff Smith. Here’s what he had to say:

[Inside Social Games] Thanks for your time Jeff. From what we understand, Trombone is doing much better than Ocarina. What are some of the numbers you are seeing thus far?

[Jeff Smith] Ocarina’s downloads are approaching a million, but shipped Nov 6th. Leaf Trombone has crossed over 100K downloads and continues to grow, noting that Leaf Trombone has only been shipping for a month.

In terms of the user community, Ocarina’s users created 1450 online scores of Ocarina songs in the past six months. By contrast, Leaf Trombone users have created over 2000 online songs in just one month.

[ISG] Have any of these been particularly surprising to you? Pleasantly surprising I hope.

[JS] We were particularly surprised at the rate of growth for online song composition by the user community. These songs, once written by a user, are available for anyone using the application to play and compete on the world stage. This allows our users themselves to enhance the experience for everyone else.

[ISG] Indeed, the sharing of compositions adds a lot to the games social elements, not to mention the popular “World Stage” feature. What other social tie-ins does Trombone have?

[JS] We actually integrated Leaf Trombone directly into Twitter. Anyone using the application can automatically tweet when they are performing on the stage, or writing music (via the online composer mentioned above).

[ISG] Last we checked there were over 100,000 performances on the World Stage. Suffice to say, it’s a popular feature. Are there any plans to add to it?

[JS] Yes. MMO world stage capability is another tool in our arsenal, and you should expect to see this asset manifest in future titles from Smule. It’s extremely fun to use.

Candidly we were terrified as to whether our servers could handle the load of the application, and moreover whether the actual game play dynamic would work across a distributed massive player environment. We actually ran into a few scalability issues the first week and were up all night a few times dynamically tuning and optimizing our servers. We were also curious if we would have the right equilibrium between those performing on the world stage versus those judging. We fortunately had introduced a ‘token’ system and so you had to earn the privilege to perform on the stage by judging. We found that performing was more popular than we initially anticipated, and so cranked the token count so performers would have to judge twice before being able to perform.

At two tokens, the system has been working flawlessly for the past three weeks.

[ISG] Being “musically challenged” myself, I didn’t much care for the Composer. Any plans on something like a version of Composer that would be easier for people like me? In fact, are there any updates at all coming down the pipe?

[JS] Well, the composer is not for everyone. But, as mentioned above, only a few talented composers can benefit hundreds of thousands of online users. I think the intent of the composer tool was to enable the more musically inclined to share their talents with the masses. If you go into the leaf trombone and search for a song, you’ll be surprised at how many songs are now available. It’s absolutely amazing.

[ISG] Shifting directions for a moment, another company in this space is Tapulous. Do you see them as competitors?

[JS] I suppose you could think of Bart’s company as competitive, but we actually think very highly of Tapulous and credit them for helping to develop the market for musical gaming on the iPhone. Smule is perhaps more focused on social music at this stage, and would not be surprised to see network integration play a more fundamental role in future Tapulous apps.

[ISG] One of the key draws of a lot of rhythm games is the use of mainstream or Top 40 music. In fact, we’ve even seen a game, BeatRider, that uses the player’s own MP3s. Any plans to incorporate something like this?

[JS] Stay tuned!

[ISG] OK, but here is an even more important question that we’re all wondering about: Why a trombone?

[JS] Two reasons. One, it’s pretty whacky. Have you ever pondered whether you were a gifted trombonist?

And Two, we look to the iPhone platform as being extremely unique.

Ocarina exploited the duplex audio pipeline, allowing your wind to shape your notes. A trombone truly exploited the touch interface of the platform, allowing everyone to have some nuance of how they would play music. As a result, you could have twenty people play twinkle twinkle and each would sound unique, some sliding into notes, others less exaggerated, and clearly an indication of skill versus lack thereof…

[ISG] Last, but not least, what is next for Smule? Are there any little snippets or previews you could share for us?

[JS] We have two gigantic internal projects underway, one of which will coincide with Apple’s launch of iPhone 3.0. It should be a festive summer!

With a number of new social start-ups appearing in the past six months, a handful of lucky ones will get a cut of the 2009 fbFund. For those unfamiliar with the fund, it is a joint effort of Accel Partners, Founders Fund, and Facebook. It rewards companies that create quality applications on Facebook or who utilize Facebook Connect in innovative ways.

The winners this year include 18 start-ups and two non-profits (out of 400 applicants) who will receive more than $500,000 between them (except the non-profits, who are currently ineligible due to current rules). Final funding amounts have not yet been announced, but they’re seed level investments of around $25,000 to $50,000 each. Of the winners, there are three of particular interest which have created social games and gaming services.

• First on the list is social gaming startup Funji, which recently released its avatar-based social networking game for the iPhone and iPod Touch: Funji Home. Taking advantage of players’ desire to express themselves through avatars, this mobile app allows users to create their own comic-like virtual rooms in new, creative ways. With additional features coming soon, and more than five years experience in the South Korean and US mobile markets, Funji is certainly off to a good start.

• The next winner on the list, with its Flash-based API, is Gameyola. This company hopes to provide a simpler means to turn standalone Flash games into social, multiplayer titles. It also helps other companies by connecting them to their “viral distribution engine.” This allows them to distribute through the Gameyola portal and other major social networks. The company has spoken of possible microtransaction APIs coming in the future as well.

• The last game to win is a curious one, since it is both a game and an engine. Paradise Paintball 3D (developed by Cmune) is a first-person shooter for Facebook rendered completely in quality 3D. It not only puts players together in a basic multiplayer frag-fest, but also provides a proof of concept for the engine in which it is built from. As a game, it is weak, but as an engine, it could open a number of doors for future Facebook developments.

In addition to the funding, these winners, as well as the 17 others, will be invited to the fbFund’s 2009 REV incubator program in Palo Alto, where they will work under the advisement of the fbFund Developer Advisory Council and Facebook.

For a list of the other winners, you can check out the full slate here at Inside Facebook.

OMGPOP (formerly known as iminlikewithyou) is a social gaming portal that offers a number of real-time multiplayer Flash games. With over 20 million game plays a month since the launch of their first game, the service has had its share of successes with games such as the Bomberman-style Balloono or its “MMOPG” Jigsawce. Now, the site is adding its 11th game, a 3D racer called Hover Kart.

Coming out to the public today, Hover Kart features over 20 different tracks, a multitude of hover karts, and a pretty wide selection of drivers. Players race around a flat race track in what looks to be a chibi-style racer in a tiny kart, and as with most racing games, this one takes up to eight players with the first one to make three laps winning. As players race around, they are presented with bizarre obstacles such as toxic waste, blocks of ice, or pools of water as well as other drivers. This isn’t to say that other drivers are unique to this game, but most other racing games don’t have them shooting back at you.

In Hover Kart there are many scattered “yellow happy faces” that allow you to gain a special item that can hinder your opponents. These will range from mines to homing missiles that can be used to take out your opponents temporarily as you race for the gold.

If this all sounds familiar, that’s because it is. OMGPOP titles are meant to bring back nostalgia for games past, and the game here, almost verbatim, is Mario Kart. Both games utilize picked up weapons/items (whose effects are strikingly similar), both have up to eight players, both allow you to drift for a speed boost, and both even have the same scale ratio of character vs. kart (even the camera pan when you win is the same).

The visuals portrayed in the character and kart are great – their flat, almost cell-shaded look works perfectly. However, the levels leave something to be desired. Some look all right, as they use props and environmental objects of the same flat and vibrant style, but more often than not, these are overshadowed by pixelated terrain. Its almost like drawing out a race track on a piece of paper for your Matchbox Cars as a kid. The cars look great, but the rest just doesn’t fit.

Despite the issues with the game, it does have a unique feature to it that is new for OMGPOP. Players that have “star” access to the site will be able to purchase special items for their Kart. What is curious, however, is that these are not merely cosmetic items (paint, avatars, etc), but many of them actually give them a distinct advantage over other players with abilities to hold more power ups, faster engines, and even extra lives.

This makes Hover Kart as one of the few games in which its virtual goods grant a very direct advantage over the free players. We’ll be interested to see how it plays out. Competitive games can soon become not a contest of ability, but a contest of who will spend the most. Will that happen here?

In Q1 of 2009, $69 million in funding was invested amongst 10 virtual goods companies during Q1, according to Virtual Goods News.

Quarter-over-quarter, the total amount invested in the space has held steady according to the report. The number of companies funded was also in the same range: there were 12 in Q3 and 7 in Q4 2008.

Year-over-year, the numbers weren’t as impressive, at least on the surface. The amount of investment in Q1 of 2008 was approximately $147.7 million. That would make the Q1 2009 number of $69 million look like nearly a 50 percent decrease.

While that seems like a sharp drop, VGN reminds us of the big investment that 9You received last year. The company garnered a whopping $100 million investment round, led by Temasek Holdings, to build a virtual entertainment community.

If you were to discard that investment, the amount of “normal” investments have actually increased, the report estimates. Nonetheless, the precise amount of this increase is unknown, due to unspecified investments.

In addition to the 10 companies who received investments in Q1 2009, there are actually two more that have received undisclosed investments: Ironstar Helsinki and Meez, which Michael “Monty” Widener and Anthem Venture Partners invested in, respectively. Furthermore, there have also been two acquisitions by Linden Labs for an unknown sum: OnRez and Xstreet SL.

The investment figures can be found below (chart):

• IMVU – $10,000,000
• Ironstar Helsink – Undisclosed
• Meez - Undisclosed
• ngmoco – $10,000,000
• Nurien – $10,000,000
• Offerpal Media – $15,000,000
• Ohai – $6,000,000
• OMGPOP – $5,000,000
• OneSeason.com – $3,500,000
• Scrapblog – $4,000,000
• Three Melons – $600,000
• Viximo – $5,000,000

As hi5 continues down the path to “social entertainment,” the company has been working hard to increase the quality and quantity of games on the hi5 Platform. The latest partner to announce support is SmallWorlds, the New Zealand-based developer of a leading web-based, 3D virtual world.

With the partnership, SmallWorlds is now integrated with the hi5′s Games channel, which claims 60 million users. Other OpenSocial partners such as RockYou and Playdom are also on the portal.

“We are dedicated to fostering social engagement for our global audience,” says Anil Dharni, Vice President of Products at hi5.

Within the SmallWorlds virtual world, players create their own custom avatar, decorate their rooms, own pets, and socialize with others online by playing games, watching videos, or listening to music.

Players can also utilize SmallWorld’s universal virtual currency. With it, they can purchase various items such as monthly collectibles, new clothing, and furniture to personalize their rooms.

“Through this partnership, we are able to provide the hi5 community with valuable, entertaining content and a seamless experience when purchasing premium items in SmallWorlds using their hi5 Coins,” says Ted Tagami, Vice President of Business Development for SmallWorlds.

According to the official announcement, the two companies are working together on a rev-share basis.