Playfish has earned its reputation as one of the leading developers of social games for Facebook, MySpace, and the iPhone by consistently producing high quality and refreshingly creative games that resonate with millions of players around the world. While a lot of developers are focused on monitoring the latest hits on the Facebook gaming charts, Playfish often takes months to develop each title. Most recently, Playfish has released Restaurant City, perhaps the best Playfish title to date, and Crazy Planets, which went live just last week.

We spoke with John Earner, VP of Product Management at Playfish, to learn more about how the company designs and builds its games.

[Inside Social Games] Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. Let’s start by taking a look at things at a high level. How do you manage the design and production processes at Playfish?

[John Earner] Our goal at Playfish is to change the way people play games. We are passionate about making fun, social experiences that everyone can enjoy. Social games are all about the emotions and interactions friends share together. The most important thing for us when designing a game is allowing friends to have a fun time together. To get that done with each new game, we are organized into small, talented studios. We have a collaborative approach. Whether it’s programmers, artists, designers, or product managers, everyone influences the game’s direction. There is an initial development phase and a live-operation phase. Once a game launches, we add player feedback and analysis into the process but we never cease to be creatively driven. We always focus on delivering a lot of value and fun to players at every point in the process and with every decision.

[ISG] How do you decide which games ideas to move forward into production?

[JE] We have a really long list of games we’d like to get around to making. Everyone in the company can contribute ideas. Having teams in three different continents really strengthens our creative process and the variety of games we are able to create.

[ISG] What does your production lifecycle look like?

[JE] With social games, the production lifecycle is continuous. It varies by game but generally takes us a few months to get to launch stage at which point the work is just beginning. We continuously enhance and update our games to keep players engaged and having fun for weeks, months, and years.

[ISG] Let’s talk about the latest Playfish game, Restaurant City. What gave you the initial idea of this social restaurant concept?

[JE] We knew we wanted to do a cooking themed game. It’s a universally appealing genre that has enjoyed a lot of success on other platforms. And the team was passionate about making the game, which is incredibly important. We started out with a game concept focused on preparation of dishes via various mini games, such as chopping up vegetables, stirring, that sort of thing (think Cooking Mama).

We added the restaurant management component to make the game more social. We decided to drop the mini games and focus on the management and expressive elements of the game based on feedback from a few early builds. That aspect really added a much more fun social experience that we enjoyed more. It also gave us more opportunity for expansion over time.

[ISG] We can see some influences from The Sims as well. What features are you planning on rolling out next?

[JE] One feature we’ll be launching very soon is the addition of drinks to the menu. Players will be able to select which drinks they serve. We are basing our list of drinks on a lot of player feedback. We have other cool features coming soon too.

[ISG] Quick aside: Why the heck can’t I put a door on my bathrooms?! Suffice to say, I’m hoping for that feature soon. It’s always bothered me.

[JE] Because social networks are all about sharing. Just kidding! It’s a technical issue that we are working on.

[ISG] {laughs} Has there been any thought as to having design elements such as the décor and uniforms play more than just the aesthetic role? And what about dishes, etc?

[JE] Upgrading your dishes will give you more points per dish served but décor is just that: for decoration. The idea is to allow players to decorate their restaurant as they see fit. It’s an expressive decision to go for a lobster shack or tiki lounge. Not a competitive one.

[ISG] So how do you usually determine what stays and what goes? What were some of the ideas that got left on the cutting room floor?

[JE] No good ideas need to be left out in a games-as-service model. We can keep updating and adding features for as long as we like. It’s just a matter of setting priorities and keeping a roadmap. We launch the game when enough of it is in place that everyone in the company is really enjoying it. When office productivity starts going down because of the game, it’s ready.

[ISG] You certainly do a tremendous amount of work post-launch based on user feedback. We have all seen the deluge of requests and suggestions that flood games like Pet Society. What’s your process for incorporating this feedback into your design cycles? Also, out of curiosity, what is the most outlandish piece of feedback/request you’ve seen?

[JE] Yeah, it’s a deluge but the outpouring of interest is gratifying. Finding the balance of what feedback to listen to is something we are continually working on. We broaden our sources of player input as much as we can to make sure we are listening to everyone. We closely follow our forums. We conduct surveys. We play our own games constantly. And we look at the data.

As for funny player feedback, there’s a lot! My favorite example is from a player on the Pet Society forums who kept making up stories about rare items you could get in the game that didn’t actually exist. But they were really good items so we would take each new idea of his and actually add it to the game.

[ISG] Many would consider the style of play from Restaurant City to be very similar to Pet Society. How similar are the audiences for each game?

[JE] We focus on the player. Each game attracts a large and distinct group of people. Both groups enjoy expressing themselves and interacting with friends, but in a different context. Both games have a promising future and both, in the grand scheme, are just getting started.

[ISG] Can you share the monthly user and ARPU/ARPPU data you’re seeing?

[JE] Pet Society has more than 12 million monthly active users (MAU’s) and celebrates its first birthday in August. Restaurant City has already attracted more than 5 million monthly active users since its launch in late March. We don’t share revenue numbers but I can tell you that Playfish is substantially profitable.

[ISG] If you had the chance to start all over with Restaurant City – or any other Playfish title for that matter – what would you do differently?

[JE] We are constantly learning and improving every facet of our business, from how to launch a game, what kinds of features are the most fun, to what business models are most effective. Our model lets us adapt and start over each week. If players love something, we do more of it. If something doesn’t work, we roll it back.

[ISG] Two more questions. Most important, what is your favorite Playfish game thus far, and why?

[JE] My favorite game is Pet Society. I like it because it looks so simple the first time you play it but becomes a huge open ended sand box once you get into it. Some people play it because you can use all the items like Lego bricks to make whatever you want. Others play it as a way to send meaningful gifts to their friends. Still others are there for the collector community. I play it as a great way to stay in touch with my Mom. For the two of us, Pets is like email, but better.

[ISG] Well, thanks again so much for talking with us. Before I let you go, are there any final thoughts you would like to share with ISG readers?

[JE] We’ve recently launched a new game: Crazy Planets. Check it out!

Do you recycle? How about biking or walking instead of driving? Maybe you plant trees, or even something more, but if you contribute any of these things to the environment then by Timberland standards, you are an Earthkeeper.

Timberland is looking to educate the masses with simple knowledge that can help them to make a difference in the world. Though many scoff at the thought of doing the small stuff or think “one person won’t make a difference,” the truth is – they do. To this end comes a clean and green branded Facebook game: Earthkeepers Hero: Mission Possible, developed by Changents.

Though it isn’t the first eco-friendly game – Green Patch, WonderHill, and even SGN have done it all as well – this text based game has players taking on a myriad of “missions” that equate to answering environmental trivia questions accompanied by beautifully designed earth-toned landscapes of our planet.

As the player answers questions correctly, they earn points towards a new level. With each new level they get a new mission that focuses on a different eco-friendly topic that will range from recycling to compost or from global warming to fossil fuels. Each mission is presented in a fairly witty (though often cheesy) fashion and never seems to ask the same question twice. Should you answer correctly you earn the maximum points towards your next level and reduced points for each incorrect answer. After each mission, you are also presented with extra fun facts about the environment that most people might be surprised to learn.

“Did you know that one of the benefits of preserving Arctic sea ice is that it is a natural sunlight reflector? It bounces light away from the Earth and protects it from overheating.”

Like other Facebook games, namely the RPGs, higher level missions require what is called “Backers” to be part of your environmental squad. This essentially equates to Facebook friends. Should they accept an invite, the inviter acquires extra points to their level. Points, which in turn, can be spent on new equipment that will allow them to accomplish more missions without as many backers as well as skills that make questions easier.

Earthkeepers Hero is certainly an interesting application for anyone curious about the environment. The trivia is definitely thought-provoking and really shows us some of the simple things we can do to help the world we live in as well as some of the devastating effects much of what we take for granted causes. Currently with 30 missions and 5 members-only missions, this app is a great time killer, and it is unlikely you won’t come away without learning something new.

Zynga’s counsel has been busy as of late. While Zynga has been filing and receiving multiple  IP-related lawsuits in recent months, the company has recently filed several new trademark infringement lawsuits against those copying marks found in its top games.

The first of the two suits was filed on July 1st against Philip Labrasca for both the stated infringement and violation of Terms of Service for the top Zynga game, Texas Hold’Em Poker. According the case (Zynga Game Network, Inc. v. Labrasca), the defendant owns and operates 13 different websites that make use of the “ZYNGA” trademark to sell virtual poker chips. The very next day, a second lawsuit was filed against Duc Doan for the same allegations (Zynga Game Network, Inc. v. Doan).

Zynga also filed a couple of other suits earlier in June.

The first, Zynga Game Network, Inc. v. John Does 1-5 was filed on June 2nd. Then, on June 19th,  Zynga Game Network, Inc. v. John Does 1-50 was filed (the term “John Does” means the domain names in question registered “using the Domain by Proxy privacy protection service, preventing Zynga from accessing the name and contact information Defendants used to register the domain names”).

Each of these cases have similar claims. The first five claims below can be found in all four lawsuits (the last two are not charged in John Does 1-5):

• Trademark Infringement – False Designation of Origin Regarding the Mark: The complaint alleges that consumers may be confused or misled into thinking a connection exists between Zynga and the defendants by the defendants’ use of the ZYNGA mark.
• Trademark Infringement – Federal Cybersquatting Regarding the Mark: The complaint alleges that the defendants registered domain names with the bad faith intent to profit from use of the ZYNGA mark.
• California Statutory Unfair Competition: The complaint alleges that by using the ZYNGA mark and selling the virtual chips required for the game the defendants are attempting to trade on Zynga’s goodwill and have gained an unfair advantage.
• Common Law Trademark Infringement of the Mark: The complaint alleges that the defendants’ use of the ZYNGA mark causes confusion or deception as to the source of, and authorization for, the defendants’ products in violation of California common law.
• California Common Law Passing Off and Unfair Competition: Zynga is seeking punitive damages for the defendants’ allegedly intentional and malicious actions which Zynga says resulted in an unfair advantage.
• Breach of Contract: Zynga claims the defendants agreed to be bound by the game’s Terms of Service by participating in the poker game. “By selling ‘chips’ for use in the Game through the Infringing Websites, and by using the Game itself to transfer the ‘chips’ they sell, Defendants have breached the Terms of Service, which specifically prohibit Game users from exchanging ‘chips’ “for ‘real-world’ money or otherwise exchange items for value outside of the Game.”
• Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations: Zynga alleges that the defendants intentionally acted to induce consumers to breach their contracts with Zynga by selling chips without authorization at a lower price than Zynga offered and by distributing the chips in a manner prohibited by the Terms of Service.

Suffice to say, Zynga is out with a vengeance when it comes to others infringing upon their intellectual property. It’s certainly an interesting time in the space, as a multitude IP-related issues remain far from settled. We’re sure to see many more in the industry in the weeks and months ahead.

[via Patent Arcade]

It is never too surprising to see another mafia-themed RPG. However, Moblyng, a California based games company, just released the latest in text-based social RPGs with its title, m: Vampire. As expected, the game is free to play, making its revenue off the sale of virtual currency and goods.

But that isn’t the real story here. The game is actually available across many platforms, including the Nokia 5800, Nokia N97, Android, iPhone, iPod Touch, Palm Pre, and Facebook. In addition to the wide range of releases, players will actually be able to interact and challenge each other regardless of what they play on.

“As the leader in cross-platform social games, we’re excited to release m:Vampire as the first blood-sucking title to span multiple devices,” said Stewart Putney, CEO and founder of Moblyng Games. “We recognized the popularity of the vampire genre and wanted to allow as many players as possible to connect and share their gaming experience on a variety of social gaming platforms.”

As it is a “mafia” game, m: Vampire has players create an avatar and complete dark missions to level up and grow more powerful. As expected, missions can be done until your stamina runs low and are limited by level, required items, and the number of friends in your “coven.” Despite the fact that we have seen this game before, it is unique in respect to its significant cross-platform interaction.

Though there are mobile games using elements such as Facebook Connect already, m: Vampire will be one of the first games to run on this many platforms and still have players interacting together. Currently, Vampire is only available on Facebook and Android, but according to the company, it is utilizing the software used in previous titles such as Dungeon Quest and m: Mafia. This means that porting this particular game only really takes a couple of days.

Though text-based RPGsare a bit overdone, m: Vampire’s cross platform playability could very likely add the hook Moblyng needs to succeed in the social space. Moreover, the fact that it is launching on the smaller but quickly growing Android grants the game developers the opportunity to be the first to not only have microtransactions but the first to have a “mafia” type game for the mobile platform.

Fraud has always been one of the biggest challenges of any payment system online. In fact, just last month, even the Washington Post commented that amongst the chief security risks today were payments around virtual goods.

Given that many free-to-play MMOs and online games are based on virtual currency monetization, Offerpal, one of the leading monetization platforms for social apps and online games, is releasing a new automated fraud monitoring system called “OfferpalSECURE” to step up the fight back.

The goal of the system, like any anti-fraud service, is to reduce developer and consumer losses due to fraudulent payment activity. Offerpal says the new system, combined with data from Offerpal’s 200 million transactions to date and in-house fraud analyst staff, have reduced fraud rates for publishers by over 60%. Offerpal says the new system improves on previous versions by adding secure hash signatures, detection of irregular patterns in user behavior, and machine fingerprinting.

Marcus Eikenberry, Founder and CEO of TrustWho, estimates that fraud rates for online games that don’t even allow player-to-player transfers are around 10%. Virtual currency monetization platforms like Offerpal, Super Rewards, Peanut Labs, TrialPay, and others are continuing to work night and day to ensure that rates stay as low as possible to enable to space to continue to flourish.

The Chinese government has banned the sale of virtual currency for real money, which has caused some repercussions in the Chinese gaming industry. According to a report from Seeking Alpha, in three days since the ban, the stock prices for Chinese online game operators dropped as much as 10 percent.

Considering the size of the Chinese market (which earns more than $2.8 billion per year from virtual goods alone), this is obviously a significant decrease. The companies that experienced a drop included Shanda Online, Changyou, The9, NetEase, Perfect World, and Giant Interactive, all of which trade within the United States.

Can most of the drop in these companies’ value can be attributed to investor panic? The ban on virtual currency sales was aimed at combating online gambling, which is illegal in China. This leads to a serious issue for most online MMOs within the country because they serve as a conduit for virtual gambling. For example, players can purchase virtual keys with game currency to open treasure chests. The chests contain either something good or bad (thus, it’s a gamble). Due to the court case that set precedent on the real value of virtual goods and currency, the contents of these chests can be tied to real money.

Currently, more than 90 percent of Chinese MMOs make use of this virtual chest concept, and many will now have to remove it. According to Beijing Business Today, the annual revenue loss is expected to be between 5 and 7 percent.

In addition, the official statement of the Chinese Ministries stated that virtual currency “will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer.” In the US, small companies often use larger companies to handle payment systems for their virtual items (Mochi Media’s new payment platform being a recent example). It is no different in China. An example from Virtual Goods News highlights Shanda Online, a major provider of such services to small Chinese companies. Based on the contracts between Shanda and its partners, users can use Shanda Points to purchase various goods and services from the smaller companies’ games. Now, under the new law, those contracts are illegal.

The same article post also points out a relatively unknown problem stemming from the new law: There are a number of games that utilize two forms of currency. NetEase is one such example. It makes use of the freemium model in a rather unorthodox way; using both “game points” and “game coins” that can be exchanged for one another.

Here’s how it works (and where the problem lies): Players could once buy time cards that would determine how long they could play. They could also buy game points (for real money) that could be used for the same result. This is where freemium comes into play: Users could earn game coins by doing quests and killing in-game creatures. These coins could then be traded for points, and the points traded with other players. Other players could then redeem these points for more game play time. This allowed for a tremendously large user base (1.76 million peak concurrent users), which is likely going to drop significantly in the near future.

The adverse affects of the new legislation in China are quite apparent. However, it is important to emphasize that the online market for Asia is roughly 25 times larger than it is in the US. A vast majority of that market ($2.8 billion out of $5 billion) stems from China alone. Though 70 percent of that market is virtual goods, its sheer size demonstrates how strong it has become. It will have to evolve to handle the changes it is now forced to deal with.

Farming games are the most popular games on Chinese social networks, and they’re starting to gain more steam on Facebook now too. The first was myFarm, but then SlashKey.com came along and had much more success with Farm Town (which actually debuted at #4 in the Top 25 two months ago and is still pretty popular today). Though it wasn’t an original concept, the virtual farming game was still pretty good. Now, another clone has emerged: FarmVille.

Farmville is from Zynga, a company that has made a name for itself by acquiring or emulating many of the most successful games on Facebook and MySpace.

Currently, FarmVille has about half as many features as its predecessor. In Farm Town, players are able to travel around to the market and local inn to interact with other players. FarmVille limits players to their own farm and their surrounding neighbors.

Like the other farming titles, players plow land, grow crops, and harvest them for money with the sole objective of creating an aesthetically pleasing virtual environment that allows expression of oneself. For each action done, players earn experience and work towards new levels that unlock better and more interesting items and crops.

One main thing that seems to be different is the items one can buy. One of the chief complaints for Farm Town was the high cost of items and the relatively low income, but that isn’t the case with FarmVille. More items tend to be available at lower levels and for more reasonable amounts of coin. A cow, for example in the Zynga app is 300 coins while a chicken in slashkey’s title is 500. Granted, there are far more animals available in the latter, but most are locked until much higher levels anyway.

Visually, the game does look good, but it looks rather familiar, using the same art style of Farm Town. However, Farm Town uses a style awfully close to Zynga’s YoVille, so the circle of imitation goes full circle it seems. In FarmVille, each item has a cartoonish feel to it and fits well with the visual style. A tree has the same art style as a crop, while in Farm Town it looks more like a photograph. Ultimately, the visual design in FarmVille is excellent, but the game play still leaves a lot to be desired.

You’d have to be living under a rock the past few years not to know the overall success of Microsoft’s Xbox Live. While it still strives to become more connected with the social/casual universe, it has been a tremendous hit with the core gaming audience when it comes to online play, achievements, and leaderboards. It is this success that ngmoco founder and CEO, Neil Young, hopes to bring to the iPhone.

ngmoco’s new platform is called Plus+. It is strikingly similar to its Microsoft counterpart. It allows for easy sign-in, leaderboards, friends list, and direct challenges (which make use of the new push notification feature that comes with Apples 3.0 OS).

Young believes ngmoco’s service is far more social than predecessor online platforms. “Xbox Live or PlayStation Network has sort of one dimension of functionality that is relevant to gamers,” he says in an interview with IGN. “The process of adding a friend to Xbox Live is painful compared to adding your friends to your social network.”

The platform launched a little under a month ago with Star Defense. Anyone who has used it will understand what Young means. In traditional consoles, one always has to incorporate new usernames, handles, or codes — which is part of the reason many casuals don’t bother with them. But with the Plus+ platform, once you’ve registered, the new gaming network uses the exact same information to identify users and their friends on the iPhone (by using their contact lists).

What is worrisome to many, however, is that mobile games (especially online mobile games) are very asynchronous in nature. To this end, similar services such as Microsoft’s Live Anywhere and Nokia’s N-Gage are both examples of failed attempts at the Plus+ concept.

Nevertheless, Young states that Ngmoco is committed to the idea. It will be building functionality into its future titles, including the recently released Rolando 2 and the upcoming first-person shooter dubbed “KillTest.” Past ngmoco titles will also be updated to include Plus+ functionality. With more than 9 million downloads to date, it could avoid the fate that befell Microsoft and Nokia’s efforts.

In the end, it will be the games that make or break this new endeavor. According to Young, ngmoco will have help. According to the same IGN post, the company has been “in active discussions with other game makers.”

With the power of 3.0, Plus+ certainly has a lot of potential. Young seems to have many plans for the future, too. Already, he has stated that he would like to incorporate in-app transactions. A Facebook and Twitter integration is in the works. There is the prospect of gamer feeds that would show the in-game activity of players. There is also the concept of redeemable points (essentially virtual currency), which would be used for purchasing things such as virtual goods or premium services.

With the incredible popularity and power behind the iPhone, Young’s vision for Plus+ could come to fruition. Young is undoubtedly well-aware of the challenges that lie ahead, and the failures that past companies have experienced.

[images via theAppleBlog]

With more than 60 million unique visitors a month, hi5 is continuing expansion of its gaming efforts. The San Francisco-based company is launching a brand new downloadable games section for its Games Channel today. Powered by RealNetworks, it will distribute more than 1,500 RealGames titles.

Since it transformed from a “social network”  into a social entertainment company earlier this year, hi5 has focused heavily on its gaming. It added the New Zealand-based virtual world SmallWorlds, Playdom’s Poker Palace and RockYou’s RockYou Pets to the platform. It also brought in Mochi Media’s collection of 7,000 Flash titles. Most of these games are monetized through the company’s universal virtual currency (hi5 Coins).

Since making the changes, hi5 has steadily grown, becoming a top 20 site worldwide.  hi5 Games alone reach nearly 5 million monthly unique visitors and receive more than 3 million daily game plays since launching back in February.

Not only does the library of downloadable games provide yet another revenue opportunity for hi5, it gives users an impressive range of downloadable games from roughly 20 game genres. This includes casual titles such as PlayFirst’s Diner Dash, core games such as Grand Theft Auto IV and Gears of War, and classic games from developers like Atari. These downloads will consist of trials and full games. They vary in price (from free to $50).

“Adding downloadable games expands our overall value proposition to gamers and presents a promising new revenue stream for our social entertainment business,” said Ramu Yalamanchi, founder and chief product officer of hi5. “This partnership allows us to address a broader range of entertainment interests for our millions of active users, from casual gamers to core gamers, with many of the top PC game titles.”

Freemium games revenues are becoming increasingly important to the future of the PC gaming industry. Based on reports from DFC Intelligence, PC online game revenue, not including retail sales, is expected to grow to approximately $19 billion by 2013.

Since 2008, San Francisco based Outspark has been carving out its success by porting Asian multiplayer games. Host to popular titles such as Fiesta and the Secret of the Solstice, Outspark now reaches 4.7 million registered global users – with 75% stemming from the United States, and 25% coming from Europe – and 5.4 million monthly visitors.

Now, it’s preparing to continue its growth with a new round of funding – the company has just raised $8.3 million in a C round from Syncom and SBI Investments. Previously, the company has raised money from Silicon Valley VCs DCM and Altos Ventures, as well as China’s largest and most popular Internet service portal, Tencent. The most recent round was led by Syncom, a VC firm focusing on “underserved segments of the media and communications industry” and another Asian investment firm, SBI Investments, one of the largest Japanese firms in the country.

Investors are banking on the continued growth of virtual goods transactions in the US. The Asian virtual goods market 25 times larger than that in the States.

Free-to-play games utilizing virtual goods have proven to be quite popular during the current recession. Since the games are free, a significantly wide net is cast to take in large volumes of users, those that pay spend an average of $45 per month with the company.

Will virtual goods become a $5 billion (as estimated by +8* | Plus Eight Star) per year industry in the US? It’s hard to say when, but hopefully recent legal changes in China regarding virtual currency won’t spook US entrepreneurs. We’re looking forward to seeing where Outspark goes from here.