Inside Social Games

7-11 Sees Pre-Paid Card Sale Growth — The convenience store chain has doubled the number of pre-paid cards sold for virtual currency in games, according to Worlds in Motion. Now, it has also doubled its selection of cards to 30 brands across console, online and social games. Zynga is the latest to join, and its card let users buy its universal virtual currency. “Electronics and videogames are still the number one request on teens’ holiday wish- lists,” 7-Eleven’s Prepaid Cards category manager Brian Haynes told the publication. “With tighter budgets many are choosing more affordable online games. Virtual currency or points can go a long way to enhance these online games without much cost.”

Mystery company has “ZooVille” trademarked — A company we’ve never heard of called “SocialApps, LLC” has surfaced. It’s the owner of the term “ZooVille,” specifically, trademarked by a one Tom Hansen of California. We’re not sure if it’s the same person, but we also  noticed that there’s a Tom Hansen, President of take(5)social, the developer of early Facebook farming game myFarm.

RockYou Security Breach Fallout, Class Action Lawsuit App maker RockYou was hit with a lawsuit on December 28 after a security breach earlier that month that resulted in one hacker gaining access to 32 million emails and passwords. The suit accuses RockYou of poor data security and a failure to notify users promptly of the breach.

Gaming Blogs Had Stronger November – We may be focused on the business and development of social games, but there’s a wide world of gaming blogs out there. And overall, the traffic to the top 50 gaming sites of one form or another grew to 20.2 million unique visitors in November, up 23 percent over the same month the previous year. Traffic had previously slowed. More people are into gaming now, it seems.

Answer Our Inside Social Games Weekly Trivia Question, Win a Free USB Drive from Surfpin – Tell us the correct answer to the following question before anyone else, and mobile payment company Surfpin will award you an 8GB Surfpin-branded USB drive in the shape of a credit card. The question, drawn from an article we published this week, is as follows: What was your favorite ninja game that we reviewed this week, and why? Send the answer to eric (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com.