There is something to be said about games that allow players to design important elements of the game. Facebook games like myFarm, Restraunt City, or Citypixel do a great job letting users create avatars, rooms, houses, cities, and so on.

Now, Mob Science, creators of Willy’s Sweet Shop and Sea Garden, has released a new, more polished game by the name of Gardenhood. As the name might suggest, you create and care for your own virtual garden.

Players start of with a large plot of land and enough coin to plant a handful of flowers. Each day, the flowers must be watered (and as a social game your friends can help you out with this), which earns you a some extra income. Other actions such as planting or harvesting also win you more cash, as well as experience towards new levels. The higher level you acquire, the more items you have access too.

As it stands, however, there are currently less than 20 purchasable items for your garden – the majority of which are limited by level. There just isn’t enough to create anything significantly aesthetic.

In addition the game has a virtual gifting element, but some users are complaining that their flower gifts are being being removed and replaced with bulky trees and tacky garden gnomes. But why use any default gifts at all in a gardening game? Would growing flowers not be a prime opportunity to allow players to grow and send their own flower bouquets as gifts (a la Flower Garden on the iPhone)? That alone would not only add a personal touch to the social depth, but also make “harvesting” your flowers more fun.

Gardening is something meant to be soothing and rewarding, and Gardenhood could improve on both. However, that doesn’t mean there is no hope. There will always be new iterations coming out. Socially, there is less work to be done as it is merely the gifting that has everyone in a tizzy. Visually, however, the game really needs a complete overhaul. If one is to spend time creating a garden (especially in such a slow paced game), then the aesthetic reward needs to be astounding. An isometric view, better looking flowers, and soothing music and sounds would go miles towards that end.

Since many people don’t own a credit card (particularly the teenage demographic), it can be difficult to monetize a large portion of potential customers through traditional payment methods. To help remedy this problem, Bigpoint.com, one of the world’s largest portal sites for web games, has partnered with PlaySpan, a monetization solutions company.

PlaySpan offers a variety of payment solutions, including its Ultimate Game Card from the company’s PayByCash subsidiary. The game card, which is sold in stores, is part of the ever-growing currency card business.

With more than 63 million global users — and around 200,000 new ones daily — Bigpoint.com is one of the largest online game portals. The site wants to expand its paying audience by using the PayByCash UGC.

“Implementing PlaySpan’s solution to our offerings gives our customers greater access to a premium selection of browser-based games and the most flexible means of purchasing them online,” says Bigpoint’s chief financial officer, Michael Gutsmann.

Currently, 14 games will be covered via the partnership, including Managergames Hockey, DarkOrbit, and K.O. Champs.

As the number of developers building apps for the iPhone continues to grow, the iPhone app monetization and analytics ecosystem to grow.

Many companies who build apps for the iPhone have started using Mobclix for app metrics. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based business states that of the applications make use of their services, 75% have been on the “Top 100 Free App” list in the iPhone app store. MobClix was named a finalist in the TechCrunch50 and was a SeedCamp winner back in 2008.

Mobclix provides analytics data that extends beyond simple traffic and download data. App creators can anonymously set up measurements for last-completed levels, session length, and favorite settings.

Mobclix also helps with monetization by coupling analytics with yield optimization. The company’s advertising network can help app developers achieve 100 percent fill rates (and thus higher eCPMs). It can serve interactive ads that make use of the iPhone or iPod Touch’s accelerometer and touch capabilities.

Finally, the Mobclix package provides social distribution hooks. Developers can virally distribute through Facebook Connect, Twitter, and Open Social.

The services offered by companies like Mobclix are becoming more and more necessary as developers look to “[cut] down the overhead of my integration,” says Mike Sanford, CEO of FlipSide5  (a company currently making use of Mobclix). “By leveraging [Mobclix] yield optimization, we’ve been able to consistently outperform the market on eCPMs and revenue generation.”

Access to these types of analytics are becoming almost a requirement for anyone looking to break into the iPhone market in a meaningful way.

In recent time there have been a rather large rush of Twitter based games and applications to flood the social network. We have seen dating apps, games, and now even coming virtual worlds. Nonetheless, OuTwit.me has just launched a suite of five mind coaxing games for our tweeting amusement.

1. Tweet Quiz

Self-explanatory, right? To a degree, yes. But Tweet Quiz isn’t so much your traditional quiz. The way this little game works is Twitter followers are presented with a phrase such as “A way of honoring a hero.” Below the statement are blocks of question marks that show all the possible answers there are and the total possible points available (this particular example has 58 answers and a maximum point value of 90k+).

Every couple of minutes, the game will provide its players with a clue, and the game will last a total of 16 hours in order for the start times to go around the world fairly. Suffice to say, an extremely challenging mental game, requiring tremendous thought, that is quite a bit of fun if you are in to such things.

2. TWord Chains

This game is really cool and actually has a vague semblance of social, multiplayer play. Anyone following this game (@tWord Chains) will be presented with two words that look like this: “EXIT to ENTRANCE.” This is where creativity and strong vocabulary comes into play as the followers work together to manipulate the word “exit” so that it becomes “entrance.” Here’s the trick though: You can only change, drop, or add ONE letter to create a new word. The example OuTwit gives is MILK to MILL to MILLS to SILL (change K to L, add S, delete M).

Interestingly enough, they developer is looking to create this game in 12 other languages as well. Certainly ambitious for a word play game.

3. Story Teller Me

A personal favorite due to the creativity involved, this game is a bit like the improvisation game often played on the TV show Who’s Line is it Anyway? Each player gets one line in a story, and the object is to Tweet one that makes since to those prior as you attempt to make a coherent and interesting tale from multiple sources.

Unfortunately, the fun factor of this game is a little hit or miss. Sometimes you will end up with a funny, and fairly decent story or poem, but a lot of the time you get such random nonsense that the effort turns into a rather disappointing endeavor (not to mention the occasional jerk that just throws something ridiculous in to mess things up – though that isn’t uncommon on the internet in the first place).

4. Tweet Words

Next on the site is something anyone who has played Hangman would be familiar with. Sans the man, this game has you guessing phrases of varying difficulty as clues every few minutes. After every successive tweet another letter of the word/phrase is revealed, and points are awarded upon guessing. The more guesses it takes, the less you get.

Of all the games from OuTwit, this one is the least interesting. When the game begins, there isn’t much to go off of, so it comes down to completely random guessing until you get some clues, but even then there is nothing terribly helpful until more letters are revealed, creating a trial and error form of game play with little thinking or strategy involved. However, the developers are looking to implement days of specific themes to this game, so perhaps that context will help out the current issues.

5. Guess Word

Last is the verbal…well, written, version of the board game Mastermind. In the game, players had to figure out random color patterns by random guessing and forming a strategy around those guesses. Guess Word works in a similar fashion, except the color pattern is a secret word. Players must reply to @GuessWord to receive a clue which everyone can see. Using the clues, players must solve the mystery, and first one to do so wins.

Unfortunately, this game is about the same as Tweet Words in amusement as it just feels random, with nothing to make any educated guesses off of. Eventually, there are enough clues to piece something together, but until then it is very unintuitive. Like the previous game, it really needs some sort of context to go off of beyond the length of the word. Of course, if you like games like 20 Questions or aforementioned Mastermind, then you may enjoy this app.

Because MySpace doesn’t report active users (only total users) – something we think is hurting innovation on the MySpace Developer Platform - it’s hard to know exactly which games are doing best on a month to month basis in terms of active users. Regardless,there are always changes to report, despite how small they may or may not be.

This month, we saw a steady Top 10, but a handful of position swaps amongst the latter ranks. However, unlike the Facebook charts, the Top 25 games on MySpace did not see any new faces appear this time around.

Here are the highlights:

• The top three titles of Mobsters, Mafia Wars, and Bumper Stickers saw over a 100,000 new installs this past month, with nearly 300,000 for Bumper Stickers.
• RockYou‘s SuperPets made impressive gains of over 600,000 total players.
• Playdom‘s Poker Palace held strong at #12 and is proving to be much more popular here than on Facebook (where it fell from the Top 25 this month).
• Another title from Playdom, Overdrive, rose from #17 to #14 with a gain of 202,311 users, bringing its total up to just over 2 million.
• #16 Gang Wars, #20 Friend Factory, and #23 Rockstars lost a handful of total users, but nothing beyond 20k.
• And finally, Zynga players decided they liked the modern world more than pirate ships as Special Forces snuck its way into the #24 spot over Pirates – Rule the Caribbean!

As it stands, the competition for leadership on MySpace comes down to Zynga and Playdom with 20 out of the 25 top spots held by one or the other companies. Currently, Playdom holds 9 titles to Zynga’s 11, but the two companies’ dominance will not last forever. While some things may never change (i.e. Mobsters at #1, it would seem), there have been many new titles to break into the Top 25 MySpace games before, and if Farm Town can hit #4 in its debut on Facebook, then who’s to say someone cannot do the same on MySpace?

Last year, Microsoft attempted to garner a foothold in the social networking industry with the “New Xbox Experience.”

Microsoft’s main idea was to provide the 14 million Xbox Live subscribers with a means to socially interact with each other. Microsoft also hoped to attract a broader, more casual audience — reminiscent to Nintendo’s Wii.

Despite Microsoft’s efforts, the Xbox Live Community has been a stale place. Although Microsoft incorporated rare-designed avatars, and discussed the inclusion of user-generated avatars, these capabilities provide users with nothing more than eye-candy. Unlike Playstation Home (which seems to be doing better as a social device), there is nowhere for users to just hang out and explore.

Perhaps yesterday’s announcement that Facebook Connect integration is coming to Xbox Live this fall will help. Now, users can link their Xbox Live GamerTag to their Facebook profile and play Xbox games with Facebook friends through Facebook Connect, as well as easily post screenshots from the game directly to Facebook.

Avatars, on their own, almost feel cliché at the moment, which makes the fact you can create one on the Xbox community not a huge value proposition for most users.  But Microsoft might try to frame the value of its avatars in a new way, by listing their achievements. It might make users more interested in getting involved with the community.

Last month, Microsoft began running a series of surveys that might help the company clarify the point of its avatar system. Of particular interest is the very first question (the rest of the survey can be found below): ”I would like…(a) to earn special avatar gear within a game (e.g., a special hat) just like I can earn achievements.”

Considering that the achievement system built into Xbox Live has been one of the most duplicated elements for social games (and beyond), something like this could crystallize the purpose of their Live avatars. Game players like to succeed and feel as if they have accomplished something significant. By providing them with a means to physically display their achievements, Microsoft can give them virtual “bragging rights.”

Will this encompass the casual crowd? Probably not. But Microsoft will keep trying to create value with their avatars. Some examples include avatars that are auto-generated to look like their owners (using the Xbox Live Vision Camera, most likely). It is also considering “family” avatars, kids, and even pets.

[Survey Image via Kotaku]

It has certainly been an interesting month for the Facebook platform. Very few of last month’s games stayed in the positions they were ranked the month before, and the same is true this time around.

For starters, there was significant change in MAUs for some of the top positions. In addition to this, we saw some predicted (and significant) growth for some of the newer titles, and some surprising drops with a few of the popular, older ones. However, perhaps most surprising of all was the appearance of not one, two, or even three, but four new titles on the charts – one of which premiered within the Top 5.

Here are the highlights:

• While Zynga‘s Texas HoldEm Poker still holds top honors, the former #2, Pet Society from Playfish, was ousted by Mafia Wars, who gained 2 million+ in monthly active users.
• Slashkey makes a surprising entrance with YoVille/myFarm hybrid Farm Town at #4, with nearly 8 million monthly actives.
• As expected, new Playfish game Restaurant City has become the second most popular of their Facebook titles at #10, followed by another newcomer, Chain RXN by Zwigglers at #11 with users just shy of 4 million this last month.
• New titles on last month’s charts, PopCap’s Bejeweled Blitz rose from #21 to #13, followed closely by Know-it-all-Trivia (previously #15).
• At spots #21 and #22, we have two new titles from Metrogames called Biotronic and Waka-Waka.
• And very surprising, Mob Wars drops to #24 losing around 250,000 users, while (Lil) Blue Cove clings to #25.

This month has proven that neither Zynga nor Playfish will control the charts foreve – the simple fact that a new game appeared at #4 in its first appearance on these charts is uncanny. It just goes to show that social networks are still very fertile ground for new and old game developers alike.

Facebook has just announced integration with Xbox Live at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles this morning. Now, users can can update their status, post photos, and play games with friends directly within Xbox Live.

In addition, Electronic Arts announced that Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010 would integrate Facebook Connect on Xbox when it is released this fall, marking the first Facebook Connect integration on a gaming console ever. Now, users can link their Xbox Live GamerTag to their Facebook profile and play Xbox games with Facebook friends through Facebook Connect, as well as easily post screenshots from the game directly to Facebook.

Here’s how early screenshots look:

Although Facebook itself has become an increasingly important platform for online game developers, today’s announcement shows Facebook’s potential as a content distribution channel that could actually lead to more viral growth for games on other platforms.

Facebook’s Gareth Davis, hired to head up the company’s relationships with the gaming industry, is presumably talking with other platforms about similar integrations that could come soon.

[Photos courtesy Gizmodo]

Compared to many mainstream gaming companies starting to create more social games, Electronic Arts in particular has been delving in headfirst. The company has already created social apps, virtual worlds, and iPhone games: It built Scrabble for Facebook. It has been developing  virtual worlds, such as the upcoming Littlest Pet Shop Online. And it even brought SimCity to the iPhone.

Tomorrow, The Sims 3 will be launching across a number of game platforms, including the iPhone. The game, which EA began working on in November 2007, has had the longest production time (and largest team working on it) for any iPhone title on record. Justin Taber, producer on the project, dubs it a “huge initiative with our best team inside EA Mobile.”

The game works nearly the same as the PC version. Players create their Sim, keep them happy (or sad, if that’s your thing) and explore their Sim neighborhoods. As you play, your character comes up with a few wishes. You earn various rewards that enhance your character if you fulfill those wishes. Curiously enough, you also earn points for being cruel, giving Sims 3 the depth the franchise is known for in its past versions.

There are a few differences between the mobile and PC versions, mainly pertaining to controls. Rather than using a mouse, players interact through a touch screen. Buttons are touched and cameras are controlled by finger swiping. If you leave your phone for a bit, the game will continue. While you’re away, your Sim will do whatever suits his or her fancy.

The iPhone version also makes use of the built-in accelerometer for mini-games, such as fishing and cooking. It’s quite intuitive. Players yank the phone to catch biting fish or shake the phone to stir a pot.

The Sims 3 has a pretty big production value for an iPhone game. However, according to EA, they are classifying the release of their big time franchise as a test. The company still wants to know if big budget games will be worth its while on the iPhone platform. That said, EA is already planning updates for the game when the 3.0 software is available.

Facebook has just launched the first live integration of its payment service for applications this weekend, a first step toward what could become a major new source of revenue for the company.

The payment system, called “Pay with Facebook” to consumers, is now live in 3 applications: GroupCard, Birthday Calendar, and MouseHunt,  Inside the apps, users are able to purchase premium items which can be paid for with any major credit card or Facebook credits. Facebook credits are the first payment option listed in the user interface.

When users click the “Pay with Facebook” button, a new popup appears showing the total price in Facebook credits and offering Facebook credit purchase options. Facebook bills the credits to a credit card you have on file, or you can enter a new credit card in the popup window. Full screenshots are below.

Now that Facebook is starting to roll out its virtual currency payment service to platform applications, demand for Facebook credits should increase dramatically – which would mean substantial revenue increases for Facebook. With the Facebook Platform economy estimated to be potentially as high as $500 million in total transaction values this year, Facebook could potentially add several million dollars to the bottom line simply by capturing a small piece of the overall market.

Social game developers and monetization firms should certainly be paying close attention to Facebook’s move into payments. Right now, the alpha test is only live with 3 applications, though those interested in participating in the test can let Facebook know through this form.  The speed with which Facebook rolls out the test to more developers likely depends on how well this initial batch of tests go. Based on how long it’s taken for the initial test to get rolled out, we’re guessing the tests will be pretty limited for at least a couple months while Facebook works out all of the operational kinks.