Earlier this month, Electronic Arts’ free-to-play online shooter, Battlefield Heroes, found itself under consumer siege due to some less than popular changes to the game’s virtual goods system. However, despite the deluge of complaints and the upsurge of angry veteran players, the issue was apparently mitigated by influxes of new users. The freemium game is now boasting more than three million registered players.

In a nutshell, the virtual goods changes had dramatically increased the cost of critical game items (i.e. weapons) as it applied to the currency, Valor Points – the free currency earned through play. At the same time, the purchasable Battlefunds’ costs was decreased, which more or less forced players to either play for exorbitant amounts of time or purchase the virtual currency in order to remain competitive.

Apparently, these changes have had little effect on the overall attractiveness of the game from a new player perspective. According to Ben Cousins, the general manager of the Battlefield Heroes team, the shooter has been getting over 50,000 new players weekly, over “1,300 years” worth of game time logged amongst all users, and well over 150 million five minute game rounds played. Furthermore, he states that the majority of their users are still playing for free.

By the looks of things, they are trying to improve that ratio as Battlefield Heroes, through the mobile payments network, Paymo, has recently allowed users to make SMS payments for Battlefunds in parts of Europe. The virtual currency can now be purchased in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland, Finland, Greece, Portugal, and Spain. Players only need to visit the “Get Battlefunds” page and select Paymo as their payment option.

Suffice to say, it looks like Battlefield Heroes is going to do just fine. In fact, EA is celebrating its milestone, with the release of a new, single control point map for its players called Sunset Showdown. For those unfamiliar with these types of online shooters, a single control point means that there is one point of interest for all players which equates to a hefty amount of carnage at that locale. Cousins also reported the game’s players have tallied a total of 300 million kills over the previously stated 150 million games, so this new map should up that count even more.

While we can’t be sure without more specific numbers from EA, the outlook for Battlefield Heroes is much brighter than it was a few weeks ago. Perhaps they will get their revenue expectations for Christmas after all.

Christmas apps stick together on this weeks emerging games list while three high-quality games from big developers take the top spots, according to AppData.

This week’s emerging list shows the top 20 games that ended with between 100,000 to 1 million users on December 17, and gained the most users in the previous seven days. It is a way to see which small games are getting big.

New players keep Ponzi, Inc. growing, expanding its MAU last week by 49 percent and with 726,421 users. It is likely to move off this list soon. Same for Poker Rivals and Top Fish. These apps swim in popular waters (pardon) but build users at a slow though continuous rate. Poker Rivals by Playfish expanded by 37 percent but dropping in DAU’s by about 30,000 since Dec. 8. Meanwhile, Top Fish by Slide, Inc. expanded by 42 percent.

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Ponzi, Inc.	726,421	+354,187	+48.76
2.	Poker Rivals	900,181	+331,733	+36.85
3.	Top Fish	556,464	+231,588	+41.62
4.	Youtopia	509,619	+200,721	+39.39
5.	Bubble Popp	363,126	+189,960	+52.31
6.	COLLAPSE!	564,991	+151,462	+26.81
7.	Happy Habitat	279,742	+115,552	+41.31
8.	Say Merry Christmas	156,786	+112,644	+71.85
9.	Christmas Friends Tree	174,844	+107,819	+61.67
10.	Fairyland	759,500	+104,252	+13.73
11.	Bite Me	254,686	+97,327	+38.21
12.	Songs	838,229	+95,399	+11.38
13.	Ninja Warz	444,720	+94,105	+21.16
14.	Minigolf Party	998,048	+88,353	+8.85
15.	GooBox – Giochi gratuiti	354,559	+82,634	+23.31
16.	Christmas Countdown	176,906	+76,631	+43.32
17.	Christmas Video	121,049	+75,090	+62.03
18.	Chug It!	839,536	+72,067	+8.58
19.	Wild Ones	291,699	+67,850	+23.26
20.	Candy Cane	189,427	+58,878	+31.08

The highest ranking Christmas game was Say Merry Christmas at eighth and followed by Christmas Friends Tree at ninth which tied with Christmas Video, seventeenth, for highest gain percentage of any games this week, at 62 percent. For Tree, that translates to 108,000 new players, and for Video it counts for about 75,000. We should note that many of these Christmas “games” are games in name only; the apps are quite simple, and not very game-like, yet their developers have for whatever reason marked them as “games” within Facebook’s application directory.

Christmas Video shared its spot near the end of the list with other Christmas game Christmas Countdown, sixteenth to Video’s seventeenth. And, out at twentieth, Candy Cane makes its first appearance on the up and coming list, raising 31 percent for a monthly active user base of 189,427 players. Candy Cane is also the only holiday themed game on the list that was released this year, let alone this month, so while the others have word of mouth, Candy Cane is building slowly and may have an even stronger year, next holiday season.

Overall the up-and-coming games could be divided this week as five Christmas, five care/pet games,  two management simulations and two puzzle titles with the other six appearing in other genre’s like Minigolf Party, thirteenth, and Ninja Warz, fourteenth.

Warstorm is the latest creation from the folks over at Challenge Games, and it looks like the social developer is going back to its roots. When we first profiled the company more than a year ago, it had only two titles, Duels and Baseball Boss. The former was a fantasy card-based game, and this theme is what Warstorm is all about: elves, orcs, warriors, beasts, and magic, all conveniently organized into collectible, digital, cards.

Akin to collectible card games (CCG) like Magic: The Gathering, Warstorm has players creating decks (“squads”) of seven cards. Within each squad must be one “Hero” card and six normal cards of their choosing. The cards are then used to automatically battle other opponents with the deck being shuffled and whatever card is on top being played (if applicable). The winner is the person that still has cards on the table.

Okay, so that’s the gist of the game, but there is obviously a lot more detail to battles than that. Each card has a set amount of attack and health points. When an enemy card attacks, that number is subtracted from the opponent card’s health. However, there are a few other stipulations. As was stated earlier, the top card on the deck is not always applicable, meaning not always immediately playable. Each card has a set number of turns before it can be put on the field after being drawn. So, if the hero card, “Nalinai Poisonblade” has the number eight in the lower left, it cannot be played for eight turns after being drawn.

This is the first tier of complexity. Overall, it’s still pretty simple, but as you play and win, you are rewarded with random cards. Sometimes you will own them, and sometimes you won’t, but as you get more, many will begin to have special abilities such as blocking that reduces damage by one, or poison that will do extra damage over time, or chain zap that will hit multiple opponents. Eventually, better hero cards will also require the equipping of “spells” and “artifacts” to squads, but sadly we have yet to find one. Suffice to say, this all plays a pivotal role in how one builds their deck

Speaking of the deck, as you play and earn more hero cards, you will be allowed to use more than one squad. This, expectantly, adds another level of complexity to the game and really forces you to think of a strategy that works for you. It isn’t about what is the most powerful unit, but which ones best complement each other. For example, if you want longevity in your units, you might want to use infantry with the block ability, coupled with clerics that can heal them.

Socially, the outlets are pretty intuitive. The game has the standard leaderboard and achievement systems, but as it is a battling type of game, you are able to play against other users at any time in quick matches. Also, after you finish the tutorial stages (which are actually pretty fun), you unlock the ability to pit your decks against a unique, daily campaigns. As an example, today you can fight decks built around some of the most popular hero cards. And, of course, there is a nice single player campaign for users to learn new skills and cards.

The game also has a great use of in-game and virtual currency. As players win matches against other players, level up, or win daily campaigns, they earn silver. This can then be used to purchase card expansion packs, single cards, and even bundles tailored specifically for campaigns. Some cost just the silver, and others the buyable Challenge Coins. Intelligently, most are both with the silver cost being significantly higher. Moreover, there is nearly 600 different cards, and with the fantastic fantasy artwork, it’s likely many will simply relish in collecting them all.

Honestly, the only real complaint is that the leveling system seems like a moot point. You do get bonus silver when you level, but other than that, there seems to be no reason to have it. Perhaps there are some limitations based on level somewhere later on, but it hasn’t been run into yet. Also, why can the player not trade cards in a card game? And what about the option to manually control what drawn cards get played and when? It is pretty much a CCG after all, and these two features would the game even more involved and more fun than it already is.

The game looks great and has been growing steadily in the past three days. Currently it is sitting a bit above 34,000 monthly active users and around 10,000 daily active users.

Last week, Toronto based developer, Social Game Universe released a pair of Facebook games the social network: Avastar, which we reviewed earlier today, and Hollywood Tycoon. Here’s a look at the latter.

Having originally been a downloadable single player game, Hollywood Tycoon has boasted claims that it is “one of the best casual tycoon games available.” Tall order, but hold on to your hats, because with it now on Facebook, it more than deserves the praise it gets.

While single player was good, the social features make the game better as you dive into a world of glitz, glamour, heartbreak, and about half a dozen other Hollywood’esque nouns. The objective is to take a studio that was left to your by your deceased uncle and become the next big thing in Tinsel Town film making.

Unlike some other games we’ve looked at recently, this one actually teaches the user how to play. Using a non-intrusive tutorial (some janitor-looking guy that seems to know a lot about directing), the user is walked through each step of the movie-making process. You build a writer’s office to get scripts, trailers for actors, workshops to open up backlots, and sets to actually shoot movies in.

It’s your typical resource-management type of game, with users using wood for buildings, film for shooting, and money for everything else. However, the game revolves mostly around the money itself (each year, you can purchase more wood and film). Here’s how it works: If you make a writer office, you get scripts. If you make a trailer, you get actors. The better each building, the better quality of scripts and actors become available. All you have to do, at this point, is buy a script you like for one of your movie sets, match it up with a hired actor, and voilà, it’s time for some movie magic. After production, the film releases and you earn some cash.

What makes this more interesting though is that each actor, set, and script have set attributes that range from one to five stars. These stars can be under four categories: Drama, romance, comedy, or action. If you manage to match up all three elements with the same or greater number of stars, you earn a hefty amount bonus cash.

It sounds simple, and it is, but this simplicity allows a new user to catch on immediately, and still allows enough depth to keep them playing. However, that allure is further deepened by Hollywood Tycoon’s Facebook integration.

Not only do your achievements get published to feeds (if you so choose), but it looks like the game’s parent title, Avastar, plays a role in this game as well. In Avastar, players compete against one another in order to become A List celebrities, doing odd jobs, sabotaging reputations, and decorating houses. What does this mean? Well, while we’ll keep the details inthat review, you can actually utilize your Avastar playing Facebook friends in your movies (they are actors after all), with the money you pay for their acting skill going to them in that game.

Quite frankly, there is only one serious complaint with Hollywood Tycoon. The game has a virtual currency, aptly dubbed “Star Gold.” While most of the production buildings can be bought with normal in-game money, all but two sets cost Star Gold. Considering that this is the only way to earn cash in this game, that feels like a bit of a slap in the face. Remember how you want to match up scripts, sets, and actors? Most of the scripts to choose from are for those Star Gold sets, and while you can still use them, it kills your potential income.

Items that require the user to use real money need to be bonuses for the player; something that gives them an advantage. While these extra sets do this, it feels more like a hindrance. A penalty. A user can’t utilized roughly 80% of the main money-making features.

What should you do, you ask? Well, an example is right in this game. There are buildings you can build that improve your sales in North America, Europe, or globally. You don’t really need these, but they give you a significant added bonus. Granted, you don’t technically need the other seven sets, but since these the core of the game, and the average, free, user gets almost nothing, most of them are going to feel cheated. In the case of the sales buildings, however, this is a smaller part of the studio that only improves the core play. It isn’t part of it.

While the limited production options was obnoxious, it isn’t a deal breaker for Hollywood Tycoon. It is still a ton of fun with just two types of sets. For some, those may get old quick, but overall it will still provide a decent amount of play time. Furthermore, with the aforementioned conncetion to Avastar, it looks there is a lot more depth to an all ready great game.

Yesterday, games portal Kongregate announced the launch of the Konduit Application Platform. In the past, the site has primarily offered indie developers a means to upload their games to Kongregate, granting them some of the types of social features found on Facebook. Now, with the new platform, developers will be able to utilize such features while hosting their creations from their own servers.

Through Konduit, developers will be able to use JavaScript, ActionScript, or REST APIs in order to integrate community features such as include achievements, chat, leaderboards, profiles, and virtual goods without having to be directly on the Kongregate website.

The difference, however, is that Kongregate has attracted more core gamers – gamers that seek challenge and reward – rather than your more laid back, and more common social only gamer. The idea is that core gamers still enjoy social elements, but many game genres such as MMOs (massively multiplayer online) or strategy games, which are often less success on sites like Facebook.

The MMO Sacred Seasons, which we covered just over a year ago, is one such example. Based on information presented to VentureBeat, the game did not see much success. However, after uploading to Kongregate, it has is now generating around $100 per 1,000 users. Now, the developer is looking to take advantage of the Konduit platform.

As for Kongregate, the site gets somewhere around 8 million monthly unique visitors, and hosts over 21,000 Flash games. Most are monetized through ads, but some of the business also comes from the aforementioned virtual goods.

Kongregate, and by extension Konduit, offers a virtual currency called “Kreds” that can be used to pay for goods inside any of its empowered games. Any sales made will be split between the developer and Kongregate with the latter taking 30%. A good deal for any up and coming games developer.

We’ve recently taken a look at the latest Facebook titles from Social Game Universe, Hollywood Tycoon and Avastar. Frankly, the former turned out to be fantastic fun despite a few virtual currency discrepancies, but it was the connection to Avastar that led us to look at the parent title with a little more scrutiny.

Avastar is not about putting the stars into the movies, but being the star in the movies. Basically, the whole objective is to take your Hollywood avatar and move your way up from a nobody to an A-List celebrity.

In order to reach the top, Avastar has a myriad of options for you, but first, a little coin is needed. Players have to earn the currency “Stardo,” but in order to do so, they must complete odd jobs. Each character has a phone with five charges. At the top of the screen, scrolls a series of potential action cards, one of which is “odd jobs.” Clicking on these actions and selecting your phone will perform them and earn you rewards (until the charges are depleted).

However, not all rewards are Stardo. You see, in order to work your way up the ladder, you need fame and friends. There are actions up there that allow for opportunities, positive actions, and negative actions. While opportunities (such as public relations) affect only the player, the positive and negative actions are used on others. For example, utilizing a “high five” action card on a friend will earn them a few points and help them up the Hollywood ladder. However, if you were to use a “steal” card, you would take some of their points for yourself, moving them down, and you up. Best of all, all the aforementioned cards can be purchased and held onto for later use.

Okay, so what is there to do beyond all the drama and gossip? Well, Avastar is also a virtual space for players. Users are actually able to use their Stardo to purchase houses and decorate them to a limited degree (at least initially, this means buying items that are pre-placed). Furthermore, they are also able to make purchases for their avatar itself, including clothing and physical features. What is most interesting about both of these customizable elements, however, is that often you will find items for sale that are labeled “Hot.”

Just like in Tinsel Town, raising a hotness level, will actually earn greater income for players. Of course, this never lasts forever, so without proper attention, it will quickly drop off. Curiously, there are actions players can take too to raise or lower another’s hotness level using the same, previously mentioned action cards.

This leads to yet another fantastic addition to Avastar. Avastar is connected with the app Hollywood Tycoon, allowing users to act in other players’ movies. This actually earns you some extra Stardo, but if you’re not wanting to wait until you’re casted, then you can check out two other, smaller card-based games – that are directly linked to within Avastar – by Social Game Universe: Director and Script Doctor.

Director is sort of a card game where you purchase a film idea and are dealt a hand of cards that can be settings, plot points, or actors. The idea is to put them into a coherent order while attempting to match up their attributes of drama, romance, comedy, or action. The better these stats match up, the more money you will earn back; money that can then be used in Avastar. Think of it like movie making poker. The only problem, is whether or not this is the best way to play is unknown as the game does not have much in the way of instructions.

Nevertheless, Director can reward the player with cards utilized in the game itself. These are then available in the game Script Doctor, in which the user must fill in the blanks of a script using what cards they have available. If you fill in the blanks correctly, you earn a nice chunk of change or leaderboard points for your Avastar, but if you get it wrong, you lose the cards.

Another thing worth noting is that Avastar and the other connected titles are still in beta. That said, there are still a handful of graphical bugs and some usability issues across the board. A combination of these made Avastar a bit annoying to learn at first, but likely these are problems that will be fixed in the near future.

As a stand alone game, the title feels very average, but lucky for Social Game Universe, it isn’t. The interconnection between all four games truly adds a fantastic level of depth to the package as a whole. If you’re a socialite, then you’ll love Avastar; if your more the entrepreneur type, then Hollywood Tycoon (which we will look at in more depth later) is more for you; and if you like either, then you will probably also enjoy Director and Script Doctor. Overall, the entire set of games comes highly recommended.

Christmas games finally make a solid showing as holiday fever hits Facebook in this week’s top 20 gaining games list for daily active users.

Before Christmas, it’s PetVille which is still the strongest growing daily game on Facebook. The game has 3.5 million daily active users as of this morning, up 8 percent over last week. That percentage is one of the lowest of the week — however, it still amounts to 287,006 new players. Also, (Lil) Farm Life is continuing to add players. The game, released in August, has stood against the FarmVille juggernaut and added 246,000, approximately 17 percent to its player base of 1.4 million this week. Meanwhile, neither FarmVille or FishVille make an appearance for adding new daily active users.

	Name	DAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	PetVille	3,446,842	+287,006	+8.33
2.	Santa Yourself	425,028	+279,879	+65.85
3.	(Lil) Farm Life	1,427,667	+246,405	+17.26
4.	Texas HoldEm Poker	4,973,264	+245,876	+4.94
5.	Fish Isle	951,734	+117,440	+12.34
6.	Paf le Chien	187,911	+112,773	+60.01
7.	UNO™	299,006	+87,901	+29.40
8.	Forever Friends	203,784	+46,025	+22.59
9.	Jungle Jewels	251,549	+30,868	+12.27
10.	Tattoodle	348,603	+18,119	+5.20
11.	My Stuff	117,815	+16,497	+14.00
12.	Say Merry Christmas	23,631	+16,374	+69.29
13.	Christmas Friends Tree	22,131	+12,931	+58.43
14.	點歌零距離	12,315	+9,502	+77.16
15.	Christmas Video	15,867	+9,392	+59.19
16.	Christmas Countdown	21,592	+8,262	+38.26
17.	PetrolHead	14,841	+7,650	+51.55
18.	Yakuza Lords	82,357	+6,559	+7.96
19.	Pirates of the World	65,835	+6,283	+9.54
20.	Tarjetas Animadas – Navidad	5,625	+4,855	+86.31

Also note, Happy Pets, which has consistently shown up in our top 20 lists, both for DAU and MAU, is not showing up do to a timed refresh on our sister site AppData. Just keep in mind, it was a top five game when checked on yesterday and has every reason to rank high come next week. For that matter our DAU lists was compiled from last Dec. 9 – 16; the list, for those not familiar, is a better sign of addicted players than MAU.

We predicted more holiday games would join Santa Yourself on the top 20′s as the holiday got nearer and this week it has finally happened. Six holiday-themed games made an appearance this week — although many of them are not obviously games, but rather gifting or poking apps that have been marked as “games” on Facebook by their developers. Santa Yourself has been consistently on the top 20 and is highest on the list this week. 280,000 new users have found reason to use this app on a daily basis, 66 percent higher than last week. However the titles total DAU is still low for a top five title at 425,028 daily active users.

Farther down on the list was Say Merry Christmas, which does just what is says it does. At 12th the app now has 23,631 people sending messages daily. Behind it is the decorate-the-tree-with-your-friends game Christmas Friends Tree at 13th. People wanting to share Christmas cheer through video helped Christmas Video rise to 15th and the urgency of Christmas coming rose Christmas Countdown to 16th. Finally, 20th, Tarjetas Animadas – Navidad rose 85 percent this week due to our Spanish speaking Facebook friends. The app, as far as I can tell, animates your head onto Christmas characters like Rudolph and such.

Low numbers this week, but not uncommon for the DAU. Next week should be interesting to see how badly the holiday season floods the top lists, how many other holiday games might make an appearance and if the ‘Ville games can make a dent despite their incredibly high total DAU.

Will Facebook users feel more comfortable trusting their credit card information with the company instead of social game developers and other payment providers when they go to buy virtual goods? If the answer is yes, we may see a new surge in revenue for developers, and for Facebook.

The question is closer than ever to being answered, too. Facebook is planning to more fully release its virtual currency, Credits, on third-party apps in the coming weeks. In the meantime, here’s a look at which games are already running Credits, and how they’re going about doing it.

Here are the games integrating Credits that have been announced so far, sorted by developer and noting the Daily Active Users (DAU) for each game:

• Crowdstar — Happy Aquarium (7.3 million DAU), Happy Pets (2.9 million DAU), Happy Island (just launched)
• Playfish — Restaurant City (4.2 million DAU)
• HitGrab — MouseHunt (173,000 DAU)
• Zynga — Pirates: Rule the Caribbean! (159,200 DAU)
• Playdom – (Lil) Green Patch (79,228 DAU) and TikiFarm (just launched)
• GPI – Robin Hood (11,104 DAU)
• Alamofire – PackRat (8,442 DAU) – although I couldn’t identify the integration point

There are two basic implementations seen to date:

1. Buying in-game currency with “Pay with Facebook” as an alternative payment method along with credit card, pay pal, mobile and offers
2. Buying in-game items directly with Facebook credits

Most of the developers opted for a simple implementation, just adding Facebook credits as another in a laundry list of purchase options for users:

Once users select Facebook Credits, they are presented with the option of using their existing credits if they have enough. Otherwise they are presented with options to buy with the credit card on file (if there is one), their mobile phone, or to select a new card.

In general, Credits are 10 for USD $1, but if you buy with your mobile phone, there is a pretty standard (and somewhat sizable) 43% haircut taken to help cover the carrier fees. There are also some subtleties in implementation, such as Playfish only implementing Facebook Credits for the purchase of coins, but not Playfish cash.

Crowdstar has been the only one of the developers listed above to do the in-game items directly, with slightly different implementations. Happy Aquarium actually reserves specific items in its store to be purchased only with Facebook Credits – ostensibly now offering item exclusives under three different currencies:

And more interesting is Crowdstar’s implementation of credits to buy upgrade items directly in recently launched Happy Island, as we covered yesterday. For a user who already has Facebook Credits, this is an extremely simple purchase process as detailed in these three steps. The only issue so far is that the upgrades don’t appear in the game immediately – in this early stage you seem to need to refresh the game for it to display.

From a developer perspective, there is definitely some trepidation in relying on Facebook solely for purchases. Besides several operational and redundancy considerations, direct relationship with paying users is really valuable. The larger developers have created user accounts, letting you take currency across games (like Playfish) or at least save your credit card info to make it easy for you to pay across different games. The other major benefit from a direct relationship with end users is cash flow: with credit purchases going through the Facebook credit system, developers now have to wait for Facebook to remit the funds to them.

As Zynga has one of the broadest bases of players, and thus presumably some of the most control to lose, they have been aggressively pushing discounts on buying in-game currencies. Since Thanksgivng, both Mafia Wars and FarmVille have been offering discounts on the respective game currencies, often seen as pop-ups touting a special limited time offer to buy one of the usually $10 or more valued bundles. This kind of promotion is fairly typical in retail and in e-commerce, providing incentive to users to increase the size of their average order (from experience, a majority of users only buy the smallest currency bundles, typically around $5). Judging by the frequency of Mafia Wars and FarmVille promotions (indiscriminately hitting both previous buyers and non-buyers), it must be working.

In addition, Zynga may be pushing users to set more direct accounts with Zynga to buy in-game currency and help solidify itself against potential pressure from Facebook or users to add Facebook Credits options to all of its games.

For now, Crowdstar is taking the lead as far as exposure to users and integrating in deeper ways – as a newer entrant among the top developers they have the most to gain from innovating and integrating Credits into their games. Yet with every potential streamlining of the end-user experience, there are still several things that need to be proven over the next few months.

Summarizing the Pros and Cons of Implementing Facebook Credits

Pros:

• Easier customer experience, especially when users never have to associate dollar amount with the purchase decision (as in the Happy Island example where item are purchased with current balance of Facebook Credits) – any time you can make a purchase decision more frictionless, it’s easier for people to buy more.
• Removes barrier of user having to go get their credit card  – they already have it file with Facebook (an increasing base of users due to Facebook’s gift shop and third-party gifting applications)
• Customers may trust their credit card to Facebook more than to a game developer and that developer’s choice of payment provider(s)
• Implementation of Facebook Credits API eliminates need to get a credit card processor and/or a mobile payments provider

Cons:

• Still an untested platform, especially in regards to scale; Facebook’s issues with its core platform have been a source of concern for developers already so it’s hard to trust your payment system to to it, until there is more of a track record
• Developers may still want an alternative credit card processor so they have redundancy in case the Facebook Credits system goes down, or to have protection in case Facebook processing fees get exorbitant
• Developers may still want to offer alternative payment methods like PayPal, prepaid cards and offers (none of which can currently be used to buy credits) or to cover mobile territories Facebook does not cover
• If users don’t have Credits or a credit card on file, not really much more of a value-add than putting a user through credit card.
• Ceding a direct paying relationship with end-users to Facebook and having to wait for Facebook to remit funds to you versus receiving directly from end-user
• Integrating Facebook credits into direct-purchase items a la Happy Island may limit some of the ability to do promotions and manage your virtual economy

In a move that Adknowledge has long been planning — especially since it bought Super Rewards this summer — the advertising technology company announced yesterday that it is letting advertisers bid to run offers within its offer walls on applications on Facebook, MySpace, and other sites.

Super Rewards and other offer providers have built their businesses on taking lead-focused advertising from ad networks and running them inside of social networks; until recently, many offer companies also ran scammy ads from ad networks within their offer walls, although the industry has clamped down on the practice. Offers are typically some form of coupon or discount advertisement, that typically allow users to earn virtual currency for social games in exchange for making a purchase, participating in a survey, or taking another action.

Adknowledge’s move should help increase the quality of ad inventory within offers. One of the biggest problems with the offers industry has been that advertisers have not been able to clearly track their return on investment through all the layers of intermediaries.

Advertisers can now more easily bid on offers on a cost-per-action (CPA) basis along with the other ads they run on Adknowledge’s performance-driven network, and in its email marketing service. The latest version of its bidding system, called BidSystem 3.0, lets advertisers manage all of their Adknowledge buys in a single interface, seeing granular results for what sorts of ads are working, or not.

The company is also bragging that this deal makes it the fifth-largest online ad network behind Google, MSN, Yahoo and Facebook. It has been expanding its sales force in the US and around the world, and tells Virtual Goods News that it plans to try to bring in more “midrange” advertisers.

For those not familiar, Adknowledge’s business has historically been in e-mail marketing and its cost-per-click performance advertising network. It has aggressively moved in to social network advertising over the last couple of years. Besides the Super Rewards purchase, it has bought up the social ad networks of Cubix, Lookery and most recently Social Media.

According to the Casual Games Association there are more than 300 million estimated casual game players on the internet. There are also over 350 million social users on Facebook. So Finnish company Frosmo is launching a new service that combines elements of both worlds and brings them to the rest of the globe.

Frosmo’s gaming portal already offers not only a myriad of casual games, but actual tournaments, prizes, and ranking systems. Now, this service is being offered worldwide with Frosmo deploying its Flash-based platform to any web site. Furthermore, players will be able to now log into any of these updated locals through the use of Facebook Connect or a Frosmo Facebook application.

To break down the social benefit of this system, Frosmo points out the fact that many social games have “teams” (mobs, guilds, etc.), but those users rarely interact with one another. Most of the time, it is a simple message saying “Join my mafia,” thus these teams are nothing more than a gaggle of people (most of the time).

For Frosmo, users are actually able to progress together as a team — and now, they can do so on any portal utilizing the new service. As a team, their progress is measured based on what members are actually doing in game and their performance in tournaments, not just blind recruiting. Teams will also be able to see their progression in the form of what the company calls “Frosmo Rank.”

What is also interesting about the Frosmo service is that they are well aware of the value of virtual goods and currencies (which is expectant to be over $1 billion this year). To that end, the portal has its very own virtual currency. In and of itself, it may not merit mention, but the currency, Frollars, is actually integral in the whole tournament concept behind the service.

Frollars are your actual buy-in for tournaments, and without them, you cannot compete. Without competition, you cannot increase your Frosmo Rank. Of course, this also means that the prizes for tournaments are, often, more Frollars as well, but before you start thinking this is some simple cyclic methodology, Frosmo actually lets its users buy memberships with the virtual currency. Yes, you can exchange your Frollar winnings for membership without having to pay for it, granting users more games, more tournaments, and a “rank point multiplier tool.” Furthermore, you can also earn Frollars from your current active team. Suffice to say, this whole concept works wonders on actually playing together.

Currently, the company states that “ Frosmo makes it easy for publishers, social networking sites and leading Internet portals to quickly increase ARPPU (€20 per month in EU market), by plugging into existing payment gateways and sharing revenue streams.” Furthermore, Frosmo currently works with 30 different partners around the world including MTV 3 Finland, China.com, Yahoo! Middle-East (formerly Maktoob), Sanook.com (Thailand), and Ekolay.com (Turkey). As for Frosmo itself, since its launch in mid-2008 it has growing by 20% each month and currently hosts over 3 million global players with a projection of 15 million, through this new service, by the end of 2010.