With the social game market in the United States flattening out this year, following its huge growth in 2009, developers are looking for new sources of growth. The largest potential, for many, appears to be in Asia.

The problem is that the Asian markets, especially technically-advanced Japan and South Korea, have an intimidating reputation. But DeNa, a Japanese company with a soaring social game business, is going out of its way to welcome Western developers.

DeNa’s big announcement today is a new venture fund, charmingly called Incubate Fund No. 1 Limited Partnership, to which it has provided $27.5 million (other investors contributed another $5.5 million). The fund is for developers who might wish to try the Japanese market, including DeNa’s own mobile gaming platform, called Mobage Town.

There’s a bit more to DeNa’s plans than just the fund, though. The company is also working with Yahoo Japan on a new web gaming platform that could provide an easy entry point for developers new to the Japanese market. And in a dose of its own medicine, DeNa is also localizing its own games for the American market, having already released several, like Bandit Nation.

We spoke with DeNa CEO Tomoko Namba last week about the company’s progress. Based on its last quarter, DeNa’s profits near the largest American social gaming  company, Zynga: Namba says she company recorded a $205 million revenue with profits over $100 million, benefiting from the huge average revenue per user in Japan.

But DeNa’s platform, which is still fairly new, doesn’t rely on the traditional game players that made Sony’s gaming systems a huge hit. As in the United States, Namba says that a new generation of Japanese gamers are driving social game growth — and that the tastes of these gamers aren’t much different from their overseas counterparts.

“People like me who have never played social games are still spending a lot of dollars,” says Namba, a slim, well-dressed woman who indeed does not look like much of a gamer. “There’s just a higher propensity to spend in Japan.”

Namba is encouraging newer developers to start on the upcoming Yahoo platform. The big difference between this Yahoo platform and familiar sites like Facebook is that instead of connecting with real-life friends as they would in the West, gamers in Japan will tend to make online friends and develop networks of similar gamers.

For most games, this change shouldn’t matter. Farming games are already taking off in Japan, and they’re one of the biggest genres in China, which is seen as the next big market, if not one that is quite ready for a full-scale assault yet. Other genres, like role-playing mafia games, haven’t yet taken hold in Japan, but there’s no evidence that they can’t also succeed.

The new Yahoo platform will open in September, while DeNa’s own mobile network will welcome existing mobile developers now — although Namba recommends having a small Tokyo office to help with localization. (The DeNa we’re talking about here, by the way, is a subsidiary of the larger Japanese mobile operator of the same name.)

All of this is timely for smaller developers. Some of the largest already have firm plans for overseas growth. Playdom and CrowdStar have both positioned themselves to grow in Asia, while Zynga and RockYou have taken direct investments from Softbank, the Japanese conglomerate that is majority owner of Yahoo Japan — suggesting that the their games will be some of the first on the new Yahoo platform.

The iPhone is a breeding ground for simple games and applications. However, simple does not mean low quality. To prove this point, stuffed animal creator Shawnimals and Venan Entertainment have teamed up to create a simple, vertical platforming game on the Apple device called Ninjatown: Trees Of Doom!

At first glance, some might dismiss this game as another Doodle Jump clone, but Ninjatown takes a more strategic approach than the twitch reactions of that older title. To be fair, the term “strategic” is most relevant in the way that Mario games are strategic. Most of the time, the platforming in such games is done at the player’s pace with only occasional moments of fast-paced twitchiness. The only difference between the classic plumber and our new ninja friend is that is that while one runs across plains of bricks and warps down pipes, the other is climbing a pair of (evidently) evil trees in an easy to learn, yet often unforgiving environment.

The aim behind Ninjatown is simple enough: Defeat “Mr. Demon.” Players start at the base of two impossibly tall trees and begin their ascent to do so. The controls are simple and intuitive, as a player merely taps on the tree to jump to it, alternating sides for quicker ascents. Should you press and hold, you jump slightly higher, and if you touch the tree your ninja is clinging to, you simply climb up that side normally.

Of course, that wouldn’t be too much fun, so shortly after beginning, users get introduced to a handful of elements to use and/or avoid, forcing them to jump back and forth between the two trunks. As far as hazards go, these tend to range from bat-like flying demons to some sort of purple goo. Obviously, they’re not things you want to touch, so to help you get around them, players can use tree branches to sling themselves extra high on a manually-aimed trajectory or use rubbery mushrooms to bounce themselves extra, extra high.

Between just this handful of features, Ninjatown is already pretty interesting, but the developers don’t stop there. To incorporate even greater levels of difficulty, there are many reaction-based elements tossed in. The best example of this is bark stripped areas of the trees. These cannot be climbed normally, and, in fact, you can slowly slide off the screen if you linger. The only way to proceed is to hop back and forth between the two massive trees. It’s not all that hard, really…. Well, at least not at first.

As users proceed higher, the difficulty begins to ramp up quite a bit. The higher one goes, the more enemies appear, and the more they move about. All enemies move in repetitive, predictable patterns, but more often than not, precision becomes a necessity. This is further enhanced by the fact that the many barkless areas grant little time to think. Couple this with increasing levels of purple goo, and you have yourself a pretty hard game.

Thankfully, Ninjatown doesn’t get too difficult until very deep into it, so it won’t go scaring away your typical casual player. That said, the penalty for failure does feel a bit high. One hit, most of the time, and you’re dead, forcing you to restart all the way back at the bottom. Because this is a bit of a slower paced game, it does feel very costly, especially without checkpoints.

To mitigate the problem to some degree, there are various power ups that can be picked up to help the user out. These include things like defensive shields, smoke bombs, and a sort of Superman cape that rockets you upward as “Super Ninja.” As a matter of fact, all of these power ups are pretty cool, and certainly warrant the mention of this title’s fantastic visual style.

It’s a style saturated into every aspect of Ninjatown. With its warm colors, highly cartoony and simplistic characters, and pleasant sounding music, it’s a title that’s hard to get frustrated with.

And the more challenging aspects are also sort of the point. The social integration for this game is done primarily through the Plus+ network, and while there are any number of achievements to unlock and share through said platform, the biggest accomplishments are rising through the leaderboards. As a challenging platformer, these accomplishments are all the more rewarding. That said, even if you don’t find competing with strangers all that interesting, you can always post your scores and new heights to both Facebook and Twitter as well.

All in all, and despite later difficulty, Ninjatown: Trees Of Doom! is a fantastic app to have for the iPhone. It costs $1, but feels more than worth it. It’s a game that is easily picked up and played for a few minutes here and there, yet is challenging enough to be played significantly longer. Ninjatown is well worth the time and cost. Unless you hate ninjas; but let’s face it, “Piratetown” just wouldn’t sound right, now would it?

Apple Game Center, a set of social networking features intended to help solidify the gaming market on the iPhone and iPad, has finally opened up to developers, according to AppleInsider.

Following this month’s World Wide Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, there was some doubt about whether Game Center would come at all. Apple first announced Game Center in April, suggesting a summer release, but didn’t mention it again at WWDC.

Now developer signups are open, with Apple saying a finalized release will come in fall, along with a significant iPad update. Below are a couple example screens:

The basic concept doesn’t appear to have changed since Apple’s initial release. Game Center is intended to provide a basic set of social features, like leaderboards and friends, providing a baseline experience for all games just as console gaming systems like the Xbox and PS3 do.

But there’s no indication that Apple has moved up the priority of Game Center, or has anything more planned than the fairly bare-bones social network that it initially announced — meaning it’s still not a major threat to other social platforms like Scoreloop or Aurora Feint, both of which are working to help developers with virtual goods, enhanced asynchronous interactions and other features that Apple has yet to mention. We covered the reactions of these companies to Game Center when it was first announced.

[Image also via AppleInsider.]

If 2009 is remembered as the year that casual gaming stormed social platforms, 2010 is quickly becoming the year that the industry started to mature. Facebook is getting more involved in the monetization ecosystem, last year’s hit games are fighting for their lives, and new developers and games are climbing the leaderboards. At the same time, the M&A ecosystem is alive and well, as larger players are consolidating smaller studios and teams, and large media companies and traditional game developers continue to plot their social gaming strategies.

Get the Annual Membership Get Annual Membership (Includes Report + 3 Additional Quarterly Issues): $2,495 $1,995 USD* OR Buy Single Report: $995 $695 USD* * Pre-order discount ends June 21, 2010. All pre-ordered reports will be delivered on June 21, 2010.

That’s why we’re excited to announce a new original study in our Inside Virtual Goods series that is exclusively focused on spending and usage patterns in the social gaming market, entitled Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience. It will be released in one week on Tuesday, June 22, but is available for discount pre-order now.

Most of the studies on player spending and usage patterns in social games over the last year have actually been conducted by industry vendors. Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience is our exclusive independent look at the virtual goods spending and behavior patterns of social game players on Facebook — data you won’t find anywhere else.

About the Report

Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience gives you an inside view of the market at this critical juncture in the intersection of social networking and online games.

We have surveyed nearly 2,000 players of social games on Facebook from around the world and across the demographic spectrum. Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience is the most in-depth independent survey of player behavior and spending patterns in the social gaming market.

What We Cover

1. Spending Habits and Payment Methods in Top Games – It’s easy to compare games based on audience numbers, but which games monetize better? What payment methods do players use most often in top games? We investigate how spending patterns compare across top social games.
2. Frequency of Play and Methods of Game Discovery - As Facebook cuts down on developer access to viral channels, designing an engaging and viral game is becoming both increasingly important and challenging. We investigate which games people play most frequently, and which methods of social game discovery are most effective for top games.
3. Demographic Differences by Region, Age, and Gender – While the social gaming market is becoming increasingly global, the audience is also becoming increasingly diverse by age and gender. How do different segments of the audience differ in terms of spending and usage patterns inside social games? We take an in depth look.
4. Brand Recall for Social Games – How important are brands, and how well can users identify developers of top games? We investigate brand recall amongst social game players.

See the full table of contents below:

Table of Contents

I. Methodology and Respondents

1. Introduction

• About Inside Virtual Goods
• About the Authors
• Survey Objectives

2. Research Methodology

• Target Population
• Respondent Acquisition Method
• Survey Structure
• Potential for Bias

3. Survey Respondents

• Description of Total Respondent Population
• Total Number of Respondents
• Overall Breakdown

II. Overall Results

4. Favorite Game

• Distribution of Favorite Game
• Frequency of Play
• Favorite Game Discovery
• With Whom Do You Play?
• Spending on Favorite Game

5. Payments

• Frequency of Payment Methods

6. Play Patterns, Spending, and Brand Recall for Top Games

• Frequency of Play in Top Games
• Spending in Top Games
• Aided Brand Recall for Top Games

III. Demographic Differences in Usage Patterns and Monetization

7. Regional Differences

• Game Discovery and Spending
• Favorite Game
• Payment Types

8. Age and Gender Differences

• Who are the Social Gaming “Whales”?
• Spend Across Games

Index of Charts and Graphs

• 4.1 Distribution of Favorite Game
• 4.2 Frequency of Play of Favorite Game
• 4.3 Method of Discovery of Favorite Game
• 4.4 Who Players Play With
• 4.5 Monthly Spending on Favorite Game
• 5.1 Frequency of Payment Methods
• 6.1 Frequency of Play in Top Games
• 6.2 Spending in Top Games
• 6.3 Aided Brand Recall Rates for Top Games
• 7.1 Method of Discovery of Favorite Game By Region
• 7.2 Who Players Play With By Region
• 7.3 Monthly Spending on Favorite Game By Region
• 7.4 Favorite Game By Region
• 7.5 Most Popular Payment Types By Region
• 7.6 Frequency of Offer Use By Region
• 7.7 Frequency of PayPal Use By Region
• 7.8 Frequency of Credit Card Use By Region
• 7.9 Frequency of Mobile Phone Use By Region
• 8.1 Top Spenders By Gender
• 8.2 Top Spenders By Region
• 8.3 Number of Games on Which a Player Spends More Than $25
• 8.4 Frequency of Top Spending By Game and By Gender
• 8.5 Proportion of Top Spenders Who Report Spending on a Given Game

Appendix

• Survey Questions

More Data, More Actionable Insights

In 2009, social games began to show what kind of value can be created on top of social networks. 2010 will be an even more important year.

Social gaming, powered by virtual goods, is this year’s industry to watch. If you’re involved, or are considering jumping in, Inside Virtual Goods will be one of your most important tools.

One year of original data and exclusive in-depth reports delivered on a quarterly basis is $2,495 and contains:

• A detailed overview of the current state of the industry
• Specific estimates on market size by segment
• Diagnosis of key opportunities and issues by segment

Get The Annual Membership

Get Annual Membership (Includes Report + 3 Additional Quarterly Issues): $2,495 $1,995 USD*

OR Buy Single Report: $995 $695 USD*

* Pre-order discount ends June 21, 2010. All pre-ordered reports will be delivered on June 22, 2010.

Although the report will not be released until next Tuesday, June 22, we are offering a special pre-order discount for those who purchase now. A one year subscription is $1,995 until June 22, at which point the price will go to US $2,495. The one year subscription includes three quarterly updates on key developments in the space, including future editions of our annual reports, Inside Virtual Goods: The US Virtual Goods Market 2009-2010 and Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2010.

Or, you can download just this report. The pre-order price is $695 until June 22, at which point the price will go to US $995.

Social city-building games have seen quite the boom in recent time, with Playdom’s Social City leading the way. They tend to have a consistent theme: Build a bustling city where everyone is happy!

But why does everything have to be rainbows and sunshine? What about other big themes on Facebook, like the undead and organized crime?

Well, the folks over at DJArts Games decided that the night was more conducive to their tastes and came up with the amazing concept of Vampire Mob City for Facebook.

So for whatever reason or another, your particular city has received a bit of an evil crime infestation… and the goal of the user is to not create a thriving metropolis, but a city run by a mob of blood-sucking vampires.

The mechanics of the game are three-fold — and you will have seen them before, in Social City or most other city builders in the genre. Users must manage a vampire population, money, and… blood. The first is accomplished by creating any number of buildings, structures, or businesses that players have probably seen in some vampire or mobster movie at some point or another. These consist of mausoleums, graveyards, gun shops, corrupt police stations and so on. The higher level the building, the more vampires it will produce over longer periods of time (i.e. a level one graveyard produces 10 vampires every eight minutes, while a level 17 Gothic Church produces 2000 every 24 hours).

In order to gate the number of vampires ones has – beyond level limiting what you can build – is the resource of blood, in which a certain amount is needed in order to produce more vampires. This is, of course, the primary food for vampires, and in a somewhat morbid, yet classic vampire way, players must construct buildings in which food, err, people live. Want a midnight snack? Plant down a simple bus stop. Feeling a little more gluttonous? Build a skyscraper full of oblivious victims.

As far as income goes, this comes in three ways. The most significant means is through Crime Headquarters. These are pretty much identical to factories in Social City, where players purchase various contracts, of a fairly satirical nature, where they perform various illicit activities. Coupled with amusing visuals, contracts range from a few minutes to a few days to complete and consist of taking candy from a baby or robbing “Honest Ed.” Here’s the catch though. If you don’t come back to check in on your work soon enough after completion, the cops will bust you and you’ll lose the reward.

Beyond this revenue stream comes the more minor means of income through achievements and social play. For the former, players will earn monetary rewards for completing various tasks (i.e. create ten buildings). Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any visible way to see what achievements are out there, and they are otherwise invisible until you earn one.

The other method of earning money is through the more social mechanic of raiding friends. Obviously, as a virtual space, when you play with friends, you can see and visit their city as you desire, but occasionally, you will be prompted to “raid” their city. Sadly, this turned out to be quite the disappointment for us as all you do is click an “ok” button to perform some random task, such as shaving their cat. It’s amusing, yes, but ultimately, not that immersive.

Regarding major complaints with Vampire Mob City, the biggest one would have to be that this title plays almost identically to Social City. People are replaced with vampires; happiness is replaced with blood; and contracts are replaced with… contracts (but they’re evil contracts). Moreover the general art style feels the same, from the flat, saturated colors, to the scale, to the non-rotatable structures. The game even keeps some of the more obnoxious elements such as requiring X amount of friends to actually expand your city, unless you feel like buying virtual currency, or the boring social mechanic of raiding/helping each others’ cities with nothing more than a simple click.

Thankfully, DJArts’ new game doesn’t “feel” like Social City. While it does, in many ways, look like the Playdom app, and plays almost identically, Vampire Mob City has a very dark, yet comical mood to it. From creepy, atmospheric music to every structure and piece of flora feeling like it’s from the wrong side of Transylvania. Even the animations are a great addition. Non-player characters dressed as gangsters walk about the city, some shoot at each other, and every time cars pass, they start loosing bullets at each other. Actually, any NPC that gets caught in the crossfire gets shot up, and explodes into a marred blood stain, as well.

In the end, Vampire Mob City has a phenomenally cool premise behind it, and a very distinctive mood and feel. However, as different as these are, the game’s style still looks like Social City (only evil). Moreover, the game play is virtually identical, and this lack of originality truly hurts the game more than any of the positives can make up for. Whether or not one considers it a blatant rip-off or not is for the player to decide (as at the core, there really only are so many ways one can conceive a city-builder like this – then again, who says they needed to go this route), but at the very least, it will satisfy Social City fans that are looking for something a little bit darker.

Currently, Vampire Mob City is earning upwards of 12,000 monthly active users.

A rumored investment in Zynga by Japan’s SoftBank, first suggested by VentureBeat in April, has finally come to light. The Japanese conglomerate has put $147 million into Zynga, as reported by Nikkei.com and confirmed by Bloomberg. [Update: However, a source tells MediaMemo that the deal hasn't quite closed yet -- but is expected to.]

The investment adds to an already-bulging war chest for Zynga. Its last round was $180 million from a consortium led by Digital Sky Technologies, late last year.

As usual with Zynga’s investments, money is not the sole object. A number of American game developers are looking to break into the Asian market, especially larger companies like CrowdStar and Playdom.

Zynga has been quiet about its plans in the region until recently, although it is rumored to have made small, unannounced talent purchases. For example, it may have bought GoPets, a casual gaming company with close ties to South Korea, last fall.

It has been getting more public with its efforts, though, announcing the purchase of Beijing social game developer XPD Media last month. It also made an unplanned gain of a Chinese investor when top internet portal Tencent bought a stake in DST in April.

For SoftBank, the dominant story in the press now is that the company is trying to break into the Chinese market. An investment with Zynga could help there, but non-Chinese gaming companies are limited from running games in the country. In fact, the Japanese market, in which there are fewer customers but a much higher average revenue per user, looks promising for both companies.

SoftBank has obvious strategic advantages at home. One is that it’s the sole distributor in Japan of the iPhone — and Zynga just ported FarmVille onto the popular device. Both companies stand to benefit from bringing the game to mobile users. And, although it has not yet been widely reported by Western press, Yahoo Japan (a partially-owned subsidiary of SoftBank) is working on a social network for gamers. Yahoo and Zynga separately just signed a broader syndication deal; it’s not clear how tightly Yahoo Japan and Zynga are working together, but Zynga’s games could attract new users to the fledgling network.

The conglomerate has been on a tear with new investments, with CEO Masayoshi Son telling the New York Times, “Before anyone knows it, SoftBank will be a step ahead.”

It is likely willing to pay more than most rivals. Zynga is worth up to $4.5 billion, according to recent regulatory filings; while filings may not reflect this investment, they suggest the new money only got SoftBank a small piece of the company.

SoftBank’s appetite is not limited to Zynga, either. The company has also invested heavily in RockYou over the past six months, putting a total of $60 million into the company. Although RockYou’s total monthly active user base on Facebook has fallen below 50 million in recent months, the company reports over 200 million users worldwide across all social networks.

[Image via Flickr / Altus]

Online gambling house 888 Holdings seemingly wants to break into Facebook and smartphones. The company has acquired Mytopia, a game studio launched by Real Dice in March 2008 with titles like Bingo Island 2 and Pacific Poker.

The acquisition comes at a tough time for 888, as Globes notes, which has gone through layoffs and lost over half its share price since last November. Although 888 itself is valued at just over $250 million, its total offer for Mytopia approaches a fifth of that total, with an initial $18 million payment in stock and cash and subsequent $6 million payouts based on performance.

Oddly, 888 also notes in its press release that Mytopia lost $100,000 in 2009, and has “no significant book value”. Why 888 would want to reveal financials is uncertain, but the numbers do suggest that Mytopia’s value to its acquirer doesn’t lie in its ability to make money on advertising or virtual goods.

Instead, 888 is probably planning to use Mytopia to steer users into its paid gaming portals. That’s not a bad plan, overall; Zynga’s Texas HoldEm Poker, for instance, is well known as a training ground for potential real-money gamblers, as well as a place for professionals to relax.

However, Mytopia has a long way to go, with fewer than 400,000 monthly active users on Facebook according to AppData.

As for Real Dice, Mytopia’s former owner, it appears to be going into the software licensing business. The Real Dice website now redirects to an empty holding page for Particle Code which, according to a LinkedIn profile, is a cross-platform development tool for mobile devices.

When we had last heard from European developer MegaZebra, back in September of last year, it had raised money in the “six digits” for developing social games. Now, we have the chance to see the fruit of the investment. Working with Germany’s skill-gaming firm Tipp24games, MegaZebra recently launched a new Facebook app by the name of Jewels Rock.

Simple and stylized, Jewels Rock emulates the Bejeweled core mechanic that we have all seen and played a hundred times before: match three gems of the same color to remove them, and earn the highest score possible. Extra points are awarded for combos (removing two sets of colors at the same time, or removing a set so that the gems that fall down complete another set of three or more), and special power ups that appear when matching four or five of the same gem respectively. These consist of a “Powergem” that blows up all adjacent gems when matched and a “Hypergem” that blows up all gems of the color it was swapped with (it also does not need to be used in a set of three).

What makes this MegaZebra app stand out a little, however, is that it is more than just scoring points within a time limit. There is actually a sense of progression to be had in Jewels Rock. As soon as players begin a game, they are presented with an overworld with an odd little explorer avatar that is trying to reach a giant jewel at the end of the map. Unfortunately, there are any number of traps in his way, and to disarm them, players must play a new level.

For each level, users must remove a set number of jewels from the play field within the time allotted. As levels increase, so do the required number of jewels, making the game progressively harder. Any jewels removed after the requirement is reached act as bonus points — a nice addition, as it gives players an extra goal beyond beating a high score, and a small element of “beating the game.”

Unfortunately, this feature can also cause frustration. For the upper levels, the number of jewels needed is very high, and the time allotted very low. Essentially, this ratio becomes so tight that the margin for error falls to almost zero. If you get unlucky, or fail to find new matches and combinations for even a moment, you will run out of time. The real problem here is that if you fail, the next time you start, it’s all the way back at level one of six. Players don’t want to have to go back through the easy levels over and over. If they’ve finished a level, it should be unlocked for them to return to at will.

Another thing that makes the game a little more difficult than other match-three titles is the lack of hints. Normally, games like Bejeweled will draw attention to possible matches if the player hasn’t made a move in a while. In Jewels Rock, hints must be bought with virtual currency. Along with buying extra time on levels, MegaZebra has certainly found an interesting monetization method, but most users will have become accustomed to having hints as a default, so it may not have been the most prudent choice.

Purchased bonuses can also influence Jewels Rock’s social features. By nature,the game is leaderboard and challenge based; players are scored and compared to their friends on a weekly and all-time basis, but they can also directly challenge one another to scoring bouts. Pairing these social features with the direct advantage of buying time or hints ends up feeling a bit unfair.

All in all, Jewels Rock is fun, even if it has some frustrations. That said, the game still feels like Bejeweled or any other Bejeweled clone, and since the PopCap title is fun, typically, the clones are at least a little fun too. MegaZebra has tried to differentiate its app from the match-three granddaddy, but as it stands, it’s far from different enough. Jewels Rock looks good, but the game will need some significant alterations in its core design pillars to really make itself stand out in the sea of similar titles.

Sneaky Games, a developer in Austin, Texas that recently released a game called Fantasy Kingdoms for Facebook, has raised a “six-figure” investment from angel investors and Liahona Ventures, as reported by local paper the Statesman.

This funding comes on the heels of another Austin shop, Challenge Games, being acquired by Zynga. Entrepreneurs in the city have been getting in on the latest gaming trends, produced several notable companies, including Alamofire. That company developed the location-based game Gowalla and was one of the early entrants to Facebook gaming with PackRat.

Fantasy Kingdoms, the first release from Sneaky Games, may give a view into Sneaky Games’ future plans. Although in some ways a standard farming game, it has a lush, high-fantasy art style that sets it apart from the pack. When we reviewed the game on May 25th, it had just over 150,000 monthly active users, a number that has almost doubled since. So far, the company hasn’t promoted its games except through viral channels; an earlier attempt, Strife of Sevens, has only 619 MAU.

According to the Statesman’s article, Sneaky Games plans to have its next title out by the end of July, and is looking to hire for several positions.

As we expected they might, the two newest city building games on the block, Hello City and My Empire, led growth in new monthly active users on Facebook over the past week. Combined, the two scooped up almost four million MAU.

We’ve reviewed both games, here and here. Both are pretty good, although on the basis of creativity we’d tend to throw our vote with the runner-up, My Empire. Of course, the heavy hitters behind these games (CrowdStar and Electronic Arts) certainly couldn’t be hurting when it comes to promoting the games.

Here’s the full AppData list:

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Hello City	2,778,038	+2,343,605	+539.46
2.	My Empire	4,080,966	+1,521,177	+59.43
3.	MindJolt Games	18,728,071	+1,255,048	+7.18
4.	FrontierVille	1,238,193	+1,238,193	+100
5.	EA SPORTS FIFA Superstars	1,166,373	+949,117	+436.87
6.	Nightclub City	3,754,076	+578,726	+18.23
7.	Texas HoldEm Poker	28,735,501	+474,279	+1.68
8.	Fashion World	431,758	+377,110	+690.07
9.	Baking Life	1,025,002	+347,812	+51.36
10.	The Hardest Game of the World	362,342	+333,500	+1,156.30
11.	Games	3,234,368	+302,852	+10.33
12.	Family Feud	6,729,815	+283,422	+4.40
13.	Crazy Cow Music Quiz	732,185	+271,634	+58.98
14.	Bola	3,732,933	+253,244	+7.28
15.	Wild Ones	3,877,909	+205,865	+5.61
16.	Pool Master	1,578,798	+203,652	+14.81
17.	Millionaire City	399,901	+203,290	+103.40
18.	Mahjong	573,699	+191,119	+49.96
19.	COLLAPSE!	918,232	+163,728	+21.70
20.	Clicks Racer Challenge	341,844	+135,114	+65.36

MindJolt Games, following the city builders, seems to be on its way to 20 million MAU, which would be a new high for the long-lived game portal. It seems that portals may be better than individual games at retaining users; then again, since MindJolt is the only large and old example of its kind, it could just be that the company is savvy about pulling in new users.

The way FrontierVille, at number four, is growing suggests that it may be the leader on next week’s list. The game, Zynga’s newest, has only been around since last Wednesday. As we noted in our review, the game is heavy on both farming and city building elements, although there are a few twists, too.

EA SPORTS FIFA Superstars is benefiting both from EA’s heavy promotion and from the World Cup, which started last Friday. Actually, given the huge surge of press and excitement around the Cup, it’s somewhat surprising that FIFA didn’t pick up even more new MAUs. Bola, at number 14, is also riding the soccer wave.

Finally, keep an eye on Fashion World and Baking Life, two rather narrowly focused titles that nevertheless seem to be doing very well. Two mid-sized developers are behind the titles, Metrogames and ZipZapPlay.