Inside Social Games

Launched in July by white-label application developer LOLapps, Yakuza Lords at first glance looks like yet another text-based role playing game with a gangster theme. But it might be something more than just an Asian-themed version of Mafia Wars.

For those not familiar, LOLapps is the creator of prominent Facebook apps Quiz Creator and Gift Creator. These have proven popular enough to get LOLapps 44 million unique visitors each month.

But back in April, LOLapps told us that it was working on creating a white label platform for the most popular genres of Facebook games, starting with mafia-style RPGs where the company would operate all aspects of the games and monetize them through virtual currency. Yakuza Lords looks like it’s the first step in that direction.

Now, to clear up any confusion, Yakuza Lords is fully developed by LOLapps itself. Here’s a closer look at the game itself, keeping in mind that these features could be included in its white-label version.

Rather than the Mafia, you deal with the Japanese mob, the Yakuza, but the game is otherwise similar to the industry standard: Players choose a type of character, complete jobs, buy items and property, build up a mob, and try to become the next Yakuza lord.

Visually, the game looks fine for a text based title, and is as good as any of the Zynga creations. However, the game actually occasionally uses vectorized pictures, some from Asian films, for some of its graphics. Depending on how you look at it, this is either amusing or a cop-out. For example, during the tutorial there is a “Job” that uses a scene from the foreign comedy Kung Fu Hustle. Other images seem to be from very niche films that most probably would not know, so it’s possible these were intended to be surprises for true connoisseurs.

Nevertheless, the game is still good as far as Facebook RPGs go. Perhaps it is not very original game play wise, but if you like Asian culture and the mafia games, then Yakuza Lords is one worth checking out. If Yakuza Lords is indeed a prototype for LOLapps’ white-label social gaming service, we may very well see an explosion of similar mafia-style games in the near future.