Inside Social Games

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Zong is a leading provider of mobile payments serving the digital content, social media, and gaming industries.

Super Rewards is a leading monetization solution for applications and games running on social networks like Facebook.

Offerpal Media is a leading managed offer network for social applications and online merchants.

Zembly is a powerful new application development environment for Facebook applications.

AdParlor is a leading advertising network designed specifically for social networking sites.

Kramaley Games is a leading developer of social games on Facebook.

A little while ago Mochi Media announced a virtual currency by the name of Mochi Coins in order to diversify the revenue streams beyond Mochi’s ad network. While Mochi serves ads  across 14,000 games on over 30,000 sites, prices are hovering around $0.50 per 1,000 game plays. Now, the new virtual currency monetization service is fully ready.

“Microtransactions are well suited to the emerging class of premium Flash games that are immersive, high quality and keep you playing over and over,” Mochi’s Jameson Hsu said

The virtual currency can be used for the purchase of virtual goods and premium services through any Mochi supported titles and can be purchased using credit cards, PayPal and Super Rewards. Furthermore, the company has stated that mobile payments and prepaid cards are coming soon as well.

The first game to integrate Mochi Coins was SAS: Zombie Assault 2. According to the company, revenues are up 10X since the integration. Other games to incorporate Mochi Coins since the launch are Castle Wars Multiplayer, ClickSim, Crazy Go Nuts 2, Hitstick 4, Cahoots, Little Farm, Minions on Ice, Plant Pong Deluxe, Pupzzle, Shadez 2, Space Pips, Twin Shot 2, and Windosill.

Despite the viral nature of the Facebook Platform, distribution can still be challenging. The most aggressive social game developers are finding additional ways to spur the growth of new titles – including spending millions on advertising. However, now we’re seeing incentivized grassroots promotion for Facebook games spill over to another social platform: Twitter.

A spate of Twitter games have launched recently, including SNODS, 140 Mafia, and Spymaster. In a nutshell, these games take the familiar Mafia Wars style of social RPG game play and tie it into the use of tweets for both play and viral distribution. Unfortunately, some of these games over-tweet what you are doing in game to Twitter followers, ranging from item purchases, to leveling up, to starting fights with other players. In many cases each automatic tweet yielded a bonus. Suffice to say, this caused some significant backlash.

Since then, some developers have added more robust auto-broadcast settings, though Twitter desperately needs to build its own robust filtering systems. Nevertheless, these were small, new games, so the problem is not as bad as it could have been.

However, now it seems that Zynga is jumping on board Twitter as well. Zynga appears to currently be using Twitter in the same fashion as games like Spymaster for its Facebook and MySpace app, Pirates: Rule the Carribean! While it is no Mafia Wars, one can see the potential issues.

Pirates encourages automatic tweets through player rewards. Considering how much money Zynga players spends on in-game items and services, how many surveys they are willing to take, and how much time they invest into actually playing, the same dynamic could be starting on a much larger scale.

The idea behind using twitter as a viral distribution method for social games is, in theory, a fantastic idea, but the problem is that without the proper filtering systems this good idea could partially backfire. In many cases, Twitter users have had to find other solutions to deal with the issue by either reporting it as spam or unfollowing users completely. There doesn’t appear to be a significant backlash yet.

Though Zynga’s Pirates is on the lower end of the company’s popularity chain, we could see future Zynga RPGs utilize this same idea. How would things work if the 13 – 14 million monthly actives for Facebook’s Mafia Wars tweeted their purchases, fights, and level ups?

Just how effective are virtual goods in mobile games? Earlier this month, itsmy.com, a mobile social network, reported new metrics from a survey it had taken to promote the new games of its parent company, Gofresh GmbH.

The company surveyed 1,500 European and North American mobile social gamers. The results?

• 48 percent of respondents had purchased virtual goods in the past.
• A smaller number of them (12 percent) spent money regularly.
• The majority of these users were female, many of whom admitted to playing several times a day.
• Only 11% of users were looking for a well known brand or title

It’s common knowledge now that there are no franchises from traditional publishers in the leaderboards on Facebook or MySpace – we’ll see if that’s the case in a year. More than 60 percent of survey participants currently play the games they choose simply because the story or visual style is attractive.

Some casual games are timeless. Players play because the game is fun, free, and only requires a few minutes of attention. One such game that’s been around for a number of years is PopCap’s Zuma, a sort of twitch-puzzle hybrid – but it’s now getting a new twist.

For those unfamiliar with the game, Zuma has players controlling a frog-like creature and shooting multicolored balls in a long chain. Every time a set of three identical colors is formed by the player, they disappear. The whole point is to make enough disappear to fill up a gauge and make the stream of balls stop before they reach the end of the track.

It is a simple concept, but has garnered impressive popularity on major web platforms like MSN and Yahoo! Games with roughly a thousand players on at any given time. With that popularity lasting over five years, it’s interesting to see PopCap integrating new social features for a new platform: Facebook.

Utilizing Facebook Connect, players can now play Zuma directly from the PopCap website and, in turn, compete with Facebook friends (who can also play on Facebook itself) for high scores. Like most score based games, players can merely see their standing amongst friends that are also playing, so it doesn’t add a tremendous amount of depth. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see PopCap step more and more into the social realm.

Developers like PopCap are finding that they can extend the life of older games by integrating them with new social functionality through Facebook Connect. However, Facebook Connect is not implemented within Zuma’s MSN and Yahoo versions of the game. Considering the large number of active users using these platforms, it would be even more powerful to integrate Connect there. However, that may be a more complicated political matter. Regardless, PopCap has a pretty strong reptutation when it comes to creating quality casual games – it will be interesting to see what comes next.

Munich, Germany-based Scoreloop recently announced a new platform for building social features into iPhone games. The service lets you challenge other players to asynchronous or multi-player matches, compare high scores, and share information on social networks like Facebook. Since then, the company has also launched Scoreloop Community, a social discovery service for mobile apps.

We recently spoke with Scoreloop CEO Marc Gumpinger to learn a bit more about the company and their vision for social gaming going forward.

[Inside Social Games] Thanks for speaking with us. Starting at a high level, why Scoreloop? Why now?

[Marc Gumpinger] First of all thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk to you.

Scoreloop is the technology leader in mobile social gaming. Pioneering player challenges has been a tremendous success. All the feedback continues to show us that this is the core of social interaction. By allowing players to challenge each other we add that extra thrill to any game. So our challenges open the door for Scoreloop enabled games to help discover other players. Now we’re opening it even further to also allow for discovering other games and find out even more about your buddies’ activities.

Since we’re offering Scoreloop Community both as a dedicated iPhone App that seamlessly communicates with Scoreloop enabled games as well as on the web we make mobile social gaming with Scoreloop a cross platform experience.

[ISG] The biggest issue with development on the iPhone is distribution, and with Scoreloop Community all Scoreloop enabled games are organized together through the app. How much could this increase distribution?

[MG] Scoreloop Community on the iPhone (aka the Scoreloop app) is the central launch pad for Scoreloop enabled games. So whenever you want to challenge someone just launch the Scoreloopapp and it’ll show you all the games that offer challenges. If you already have a game installed, you can launch it right from within the Scoreloop app. If not, the Scoreloop app shows a description of that game and takes you to the Apple App Store from which you can download it. This tremendously increases distribution and visibility.

By pioneering player challenges Scoreloop has established a new category of games that provide an extra level of engagement. As we’ve learned from players’ feedback they explicitly look for Scoreloop enabled games to play challenges in other games. The Scoreloop App is the central place to do that.

[ISG] Of course, if I had to guess, this form of distribution pales in comparison to features like “Scoreloop Promote” that lets users see what their friend’s are doing and playing. How well do you think it will pan out in a more asynchronous, mobile realm?

[MG] You’re totally right: Scoreloop Promote and friends’ activities are huge. With Scoreloop, players see what scores their buddies reach and which games they play. What is more, they also see how others perform in challenges. This again increases the excitement and raises the stakes when playing challenges.

And with Push Notifications we bring that even closer to you. Using the Scoreloop app every Scoreloop enabled game automatically supports Push Notifications. This is significant because it does not require developers to add a single line of code and no server installations at all. With Scoreloop it’s just there. We’ve done all the work for them.

Push Notifications will notify players when another player has challenged them or when they’ve won or lost a challenge. This makes the whole gaming experience even more personal because your buddies communicate and connect through games. This is live activity at its best with an immediate call to action. And this can only be done on a mobile device because it us close at hand at all times.

[ISG] We have seen somewhat similar concepts – Microsoft’s Live Anywhere and Nokia’s N-Gage for example – that haven’t worked out. What is it that Scoreloop  has that these projects didn’t?

[MG] First of all, we’re on the right platform. The iPhone has changed the game entirely. Apple has done a tremendous job of providing the best user experience from device to App Store to content. The number of Apps and downloads speak for themselves. Scoreloop takes that experience even further by offering features that are social and that raise the level of play.

But we do, of course, see the other platforms following the iPhone model. We’ve taken great care to basically be technology agnostic. So as soon as other platforms start to take off, Scoreloop will be there, too.

[ISG] Out of your competitors, Aurora Feint’s OpenFeint and ngmoco’s Plus+ are probably two of the closest. What sets you apart from them (or any others for that matter)?

[MG] First of all, as I have noted, Scoreloop is the pioneer of player challenges. While the interaction in social networks may be chats, in gaming its player challenges – the ability for people to play against and challenge each other. Scoreloop offers player challenges in a very sophisticated implementation and this only opens the door to many other opportunities.

Then there is the business model. We not only offer our technology entirely for free but also share our revenues with the developers without showing ads. This is unique.

But probably the most important differentiator is Scoreloop is neutral and does not develop its own games. Other companies like Aurora Feint or ngmoco publish their own games and thus compete with the developers they try to attract. We see great hesitance among developers to sign up with these services since they are afraid that they would only pull players into their games. With Scoreloop, developers don’t have these problems. We just provide the infrastructure but don’t compete with the developers. This generates an exceptionally good proposition for both indie developers as well as bigger publishers that we’re talking to.

[ISG] How many games do you have in your network?

[MG] We’re totally thrilled by the response to Scoreloop. The number of registered developers grows exponentially week by week. We’ve now already reached far more than 300 registered developers and more than 80 game commitments. Among them are a number of top 10 games.

[ISG] What makes integrating Scoreloop easier than other services?

[MG] It’s quite straight forward actually. To implement Scoreloop developers simply throw a few lines of code into their existing games. There’s nothing else and no need to compile complex projects.

But it’s not only easy to start with the Scoreloop SDK; it’s also easy to use because the Scoreloop SDK has an extremely efficient memory management that makes sure not to interfere with games.

And then we offer a number of ways to highly customize the Scoreloop SDK look and feel so that it seamlessly integrates with games.

[ISG] Let’s shift gears and focus on the players for a bit. The first of the major features is the whole Avatar Editor. Why add this?

[MG] The avatars are a fun way to show who you are. There are thousands of combinations to choose from.

[ISG] When Microsoft added Avatars to its “New Xbox Experience,”a lot of the Xbox Live community saw it as a pointless endeavor. What are you seeing?

[MG] We measure it by players’ response – and they love it. It’s another engaging element. It’s fun to choose and it’s fun to see others. This makes player challenges even more personal. That’s what increases the thrill again.

[ISG] Speaking of the web presence, what was the reasoning behind its addition?

[MG] Aside from using mobile devices we all use the web. And so Scoreloop has to be present in both worlds, too, to really offer a ubiquitous experience for the end user and increased visibility for the games.

And we provide developers/publishers ways to extend that visibility even further by using our highly customizable web widgets that developers can integrate into their web sites to show their games’ high scores on their own sites.

[ISG] Do you think it will see more or less use than its mobile counterpart?

[MG] We see it rather equally valuable. And be prepared for some major new features that will expose their value even more.

[ISG] Scoreloop is integrating Facebook Connect. Are you planning to integrate it into other platforms? Twitter for example.

[MG] While Facebook is basically very easy to integrate through Facebook Connect, we’ve invested significant efforts into a generic social network integration infrastructure in the background. So yes — integrating other social networks is very plausible for us.

[ISG] Working on OS 2.0 and 3.0, Community is all ready making use of Push Notification for any Scoreloop enabled game. Are there any new 3.0 based features in the works?

[MG] While the Scoreloop Community App on the iPhone is 3.0 for Push Notifications, the Scoreloop SDK works with iPhone OS 2.x to 3.0. Thus developers get the Push Notifications for games even on OS 2.x. We do have a number of other very exciting 3.0 specific features in the pipeline.

[ISG] What are some of the plans on the drawing board for Scoreloop Community 2.0?

[MG] There is one extremely huge thing in that space that we already have up and running internally. I can’t wait to show that but at this time we’ll refrain from commenting on unreleased products. Unfortunately

[ISG] Thanks a lot for your time, Marc. Is there anything else you would like to share about Scoreloop Community?

[MG] I can only invite players to start browsing the web community (http://www.scoreloop.com/) and find out what level of involvement our core feature of player challenges brings to iPhone games.

Guest post by Soyon Im.

It can’t be overstated that sites like Facebook and MySpace are crucial to the casual games industry. During last week’s Casual Connect Seattle, everyone from COOs to marketing analysts to mommy gamers were talking about their favorite social networking sites, and in particular, the power of news feeds.

Eric Goldberg, managing director of Crossover Technologies, who led the panel titled, “The Social Game Revenue Machines,” advised game designers who jump over from traditional to casual games to “try using Facebook more often.”

In another panel, “A Perilous Journey: Negotiating the Chasm Between Casual and Social Games,” Jon David, director of PC/online products at PopCap, shared the company’s experience of releasing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook.  After the application was released last Christmas, it saw a steady rise in users. However, in March, the growth suddenly leveled.  PopCap wondered what was going on.

It turned out that Facebook had at that time allowed people more control over what gets published in their news feeds. Great for users, not so great for game makers.  Suddenly, posts such as “Colleen won a game of Wordscraper by 116 points” or “Keith just earned the Big Slick achievement in Texas Hold ‘Em Poker” had disappeared from millions of profiles, thus decreasing the number of people clicking on the applications in attempts to beat their friends’ scores.

The lesson learned there, David said, was the importance of monitoring changes in Facebook, MySpace and other online sites on which games depend.  Sounds like a no brainer, but he reminded everyone that “if you are going to be a player in the social space, you need to keep up with the changes in the platform.  You need to devote staff time to this.”

Popcap was able to ramp up its growth curve again by releasing a new medal system in Bejeweled Blitz. Since many game players like to show off their virtual trophies, the feeds started up again. The company saw an immediate positive impact on viral growth after release of their new medal feature.

Similarly, this past Friday, July 24, Playfish launched a fishing feature in their popular game Pet Society. Every time players catch a fish, they have the option to send an announcement to all their friends, along with a picture of the fish caught.  It’s a digital version of the classic show and tell, and it may turn out to be a great move for the company, as players who are normally protective of their privacy (so many of them are playing at the office or are embarrassed to be perceived as “gamers”), are now allowing leaks of information.

Vivian, a web producer from New York, who rarely publishes posts from games she plays, made an exception for this announcement on her profile: “Vivian caught a magnificent Puppyfish with Bone in Pet Society!”

Why?  “It’s hard to catch a Puppyfish or even describe what that is to a friend,” she said.  “I wanted people to see what it looked like.”

Soyon Im is a writer based in Seattle, Washington, and is also the author of Pet Society Anonymous.

While Facebook’s in-house platform ad network is still in early stages of alpha testing, it may in fact be driving significant revenues from social game developers purchasing Facebook Ads to help boost the launch of their games. This slightly more indirect method of monetizing its platform may actually be a pretty substantial line of revenue for the company.

For example, in an interview with Silicon Alley Insider, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said the company regularly spends large sums when launching new titles.

“We do spend a lot of money on advertising when we want to, like when we launched Farmville,” Pincus said. “We spent a couple million dollars advertising it and we’re not shy about that.”

While Pincus didn’t say that that its advertising spend is exclusively focused on Facebook Ads, it’s likely that a hefty chunk of its was spent through Facebook’s performance advertising system. Therefore, we believe that large app and game developers like Zynga are likely some of Facebook’s largest advertising customers. Facebook sells ads on a CPC or CPM basis, but doesn’t offer a pure CPA/CPI (cost per install) product.

At the same time, Zynga probably directs a portion of its spend to Facebook Platform ad networks like RockYou, SocialCash, and AdParlor, many of which still operate CPI programs for other app developers to drive traffic to their apps.

At the end of the day, as competition between social game developers grows, it’s likely to mean good things for Facebook Ads revenues and others helping drive game adoption. Developers like Zynga who have figured out how much new users are worth are likely to be happy to pay whenever new titles launch or new competitors are encroaching on their territory.

Not too long ago, Everquest lead designer Ryan Barker said it would require the social integration of something like Facebook into an MMO to uproot the current top dog, World of Warcraft. Shortly after, social developer Gogogic released a preview of its first major title: A Facebook MMOG called Vikings of Thule that’s one of the best Facebook RPG’s we’ve seen.

In the past, Gogogic has been responsible for simple, yet highly polished, Flash based Facebook games such as Stack’em Sheep, The Attack on Glowbuleville, and Who’s Your Friend. Unfortunately, due the relatively short and often repetitive nature of these titles, the company never really found itself reaching the upper echelons of the Facebook gaming charts. However, Vikings of Thule could be a game capable of changing that.

On first impression, it looks to be a significantly more advanced rendition of Mafia Wars style RPGs. The overall objective of the game is to become one of 39 “authorities” that rule the land. In order to do this you seem to travel about earning the respect of your followers (like a “mob” of sorts) and garner strength through items, land, and – of course – battle.

The game includes strategic elements of group management as you convert followers into peasants, huskarls, jarls, and beserkers. What these do specifically, we do not know, but we can tell you that the beserkers along with your horde of mythological Iceland creatures (i.e. wights) are used in a very interesting, tactical, battle system.

Battling looks a lot like a card-based dueling system as you chose where to move on a virtual battlefield grid and attack using a selection of abilities that can only strike in specific directions. Just as chess pieces may only attack certain ways, these card abilities seem to work in the same fashion.

As always with Gogogic games, the presentation is high quality, as over 50 of these moves and abilities are animated and not just text based. As a matter of fact, the game looks quite nice for a Facebook title and it is likely to be improved before its final release. Furthermore, the eye candy presented by the games company is further embellished with the boasts of highly customizable avatars that currently have over 100 different weapons, armors, and clothing to choose from. In fact, Gogogic has just recently launched a public test for its avatar customization that allows users to make a male Viking using a handful of items in a paper-doll type style.

Vikings of Thule is definitely a title to keep an eye on, and is likely to be quite a fun game once it is released. Though it is not probable to be the future Facebook MMO that Barker predicts, it is a step in the right direction. Currently the the company is setting up for open beta testing and will be looking for people to give the title a spin and share their opinions, so keep an eye out (likely, September). Vikings of Thule is slated to be released sometime this fall.

Granted the iPhone is a smart phone, but the apps have turned this expensive piece of hardware into everything from flight sticks to golf clubs. However, we’ve come across an interesting game from a company called Toy Kite that takes the phone and turns it into something you might not expect: A sword. Bet you didn’t see that one coming, did you?

Released just over a month ago, iSamurai has players literally swinging their phones about like swords. Presented in an anime style, the game makes use of the iPhone’s accelerometer to recognize certain motions. Players can swing left, right, overhead, and thrust the phone into various attacks, and conversely block them in similar fashions (the video below demonstrates it best). When playing alone, the game calls out its attacks and you are required to respond quickly in order to block the incoming strike while trying to find an opening for your own offensive.

It sounds all well and good, but the real fun comes with the multiplayer interaction. Players can actually connect with other phones and fight together in a relatively intuitive manner. Of course, the key difference is that rather than listening for called out strikes, you actually have to watch what your opponent does and respond accordingly. If they do a “left strike,” for example, you will need to perform a “left block” within a relatively short amount of time to defend yourself. If successful, the iPhone will play the sound of a sword clang and if unsuccessful a sort of hit grunt. The game, or duel, rather, will go back and forth like this until there is a winner.

The only real complaint that can be had with the game is that it can easily devolve into a contest of who can swing the iPhone faster without dropping it, but it is an interesting idea for sure. For a current price of $0.99, it is certainly a fun little app to mess around with. Other than that, it the only concern is actually holding on to the phone itself. Suffice to say, it might be wise for Apple to start including wrist straps for their iPhones in the near future (if they are not all ready doing so), because games like this will certainly lead to some serious replacement costs for those that really get into it.