Inside Social Games

Since 1993, global games publisher and developer Merscom has created a myriad of casual games such as Blood Ties, Lost City of Z, and Righteous Kill, but announced Tuesday that they are looking for more. In light of the successes of social games in the past months, the company is looking to expand its development portfolio and break into the social gaming scene.

“With tens of millions of monthly users of social networking games like FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and Sorority Life, it is evident that social users are ready for and receptive to game content,” said Lloyd Melnick, the chief customer officer of Merscom.

In order to make their way into these uncharted waters, Merscom has named entrepreneur Greg Pool as its Executive Vice President (EVP) of Social Media. With his most recent experience involved with the Piedmont Angel Network, Pool is also said to have self published “one of the first commercial Facebook games and built, published, and sold an MMO with over four hundred thousand players.” Unfortunately, due to existing non-disclosure agreements, any further details could not be shared.

Beyond Pool, Merscom is well equipped to make this move. Not only does the company claim to have quality game analytics tools, but it also holds a number past experiences building games for CBS, Starz, Showtime, Lifetime, and other media companies. In addition to this vast repertoire of past partners and clients, Merscom also says that it was the first companies to incorporate existing intellectual properties from some of these networks into casual games. In fact, some of these IPs have all ready been approved for use within the company’s social endeavors, including a National Geographic RPG, a title based on The Tudors, and four other non-disclosed properties.

Currently, the casual creator has eight Facebook/social media games in development with release dates scheduled for the end of 2009 and early 2010. Furthermore, Merscom has stated that it has established relationships with five of the largest offer providers in North America and two in Europe. Apparently, they have also lined up two direct pay companies, U.S. and European mobile payment providers, and a “leading” analytics firm. However, this is all based on the company’s word, as the details and names have yet to be released.