Inside Social Games

We haven’t covered the Russian online gaming market in much detail, so we’re interested to hear that Nival Network, a Moscow-based gaming company, is closing $5 million in funding for a new massive multiplayer online game called Prime World, to run on an online gaming portal called ZZima.

The game is envisioned, apparently, to be a homegrown strategy game and with social networking features — it’s not clear if there’s any plan to tie the game in with Russian social networks. We assume Facebook Connect is not an interesting option, as Facebook has minimal penetration in the country; national and regional social networks, like vKontakte, continue to dominate. Last month, according to our Global Monitor report, Facebook grew by 123,000 people to reach 669,000 monthly active users in Russia, which is a fraction of the 142 million people in the country.

But there is a Facebook connection or two here. A Russian newspaper report says that Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian conglomerate that has invested in vkontakte, other area social networks — and Facebook — is also looking at the gaming company.

Nival Network is part of Nival Group, which owns a minority stake in established game-maker Astrum Nival. DST is the majority owner in Astrum.

Overall, the Russian online gaming market is projected to reach $238 million this year, up from $185 million last year, according to analysts, with $210 million now going to MMOGs and the rest going to casual games.

In other words, the $5 million that Nival Networks is going for is a big deal in this market.

Hat tips to Quintura and TechCrunch Europe