Inside Social Games

Offerpal, one of the largest offer providers and virtual currency payment aggregators for social gaming companies, is announcing a new chief executive. George Garrick, a direct-response advertising veteran, is taking over from founder Anu Shukla, the Fremont-Calif. company announced today in a press release.

Offerpal lets social games, as well as other applications and sites, provide users with payment walls that let them either buy or earn virtual goods. It runs offers from a wide range of advertisers and advertising networks.

Like many of its competitors, Offerpal has been heavily criticized in recent days for running deceptive mobile quiz advertisements, and other types of offers that trick users into signing up for services they didn’t know they were signing up for. Offerpal and its competitors have recently been booting at least some perpetrator offers from its service. The severity of the ad-scam problem is not yet clear, and it is something we’re looking into.

“I have known George for a long time,” says Shukla in the press release, and “[a]fter many months of searching, I believe that George is the best CEO to scale the company to new heights. I am looking forward to working with him closely.” Shukla will retain the title of “Founder,” the company says.

The company has seen rapid growth in its two years of existence. Last week, it announced that it has reached more than 160 million users, including payments to users in 190 countries and offers in more than 80 countries. The company is likely bringing in many tens of millions of dollars in revenue, although we do not have an official public number from the company.

More on Garrick, from the press release. Most recently, he served a brief stint at the chief executive of Flash gaming service Mochi Media:

Garrick was part of the management team that took Information Resources, Inc. from $2 million to $300 million in revenue.   Garrick served in London as President-IRI Europe, launching IRI services in France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey, and later became CEO-North America.

As CEO of Flycast Communications, Garrick repositioned the startup into the Internet’s first major direct-response advertising network leading it to a $500 million IPO and a subsequent sale for $2.3 billion. As Chairman and CEO of PlaceWare Inc., Garrick guided the company to an acquisition by Microsoft for $200 million.   More recently, Garrick has served as CEO of Wine.com, Jingle Networks and Mochi Media.