Scoreloop, a social gaming platform on the iPhone, Android and other mobile operating systems, has been working to figure out the motivations of mobile gamers. Today they’re releasing the first of a three-part study, based on surveys and one-to-one interviews with their target audience.

The first interesting result: a large number of mobile gamers are actually play while they’re simultaneously on Facebook, interacting with friends. Out of Scoreloop’s total pool of respondents, some 66 percent said they multi-task while playing mobile games; most of those people report social networking activities while they game:

“We see here that people don’t fully focus on the game,” says Scoreloop CEO Marc Gumpinger. However, mobile developers shouldn’t get the idea that players want chat or other heavy social features in their game; the interviewees expressed a preference for keeping those features on their computers. “Chat doesn’t make sense at all in the games,” says Gumpinger.

What the study does suggest is that mobile gamers do want to enjoy games as an auxiliary to their social life. That could mean an implementation similar to Facebook, in which games serve as an add-on to the network rather than an extension of it; players typically enjoy asynchronous interactions that aren’t necessarily content-heavy.

“The pure motivations of being in touch, having more fun, teamwork and so forth are completely independent of platform,” says Gumpinger. “They’re present on Facebook, and on mobile.”

Scoreloop also asked its respondents to rate how much they would be interested in more social interaction within mobile games, on a scale of one to five:

“Fun”, of course, was by far the favorite answer. What’s stands out in the above numbers is that players were least interested in bragging — but leaderboards, the ultimate bragging tool, are still the only social element in a great many mobile games.

It’s in Scoreloop’s interest, of course, to convince mobile developers to work with it on more advanced social features. In June, it announced that its move onto platforms beyond the smartphones; and we also ran a much longer Q&A with Gumpinger last year.

FrontierVille once again leads our weekly list of fastest-gaining Facebook games by monthly active users with two million new users, pushing it across the 20 million MAU mark, as Zynga took pains to announce on Thursday. However, the game still has a ways to go before it reaches 27 million MAU, which marked Zynga’s high point earlier this year with Treasure Isle.

From here it’s difficult to tell whether FrontierVille will reach that point, especially since Facebook is a few days behind on updating its stats; for the same reason, note that growth falsely appears a bit low this week. Here’s the full AppData list:

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Element Analyst Creator	2,711,832	+2,150,378	+383.00
2.	FrontierVille	20,735,154	+2,046,053	+10.95
3.	Millionaire City	3,933,586	+697,906	+21.57
4.	SuperFun Town!	1,428,240	+503,303	+54.41
5.	EA SPORTS FIFA Superstars	4,892,926	+464,796	+10.50
6.	Verdonia	3,584,918	+395,363	+12.40
7.	建立你的測驗	707,867	+356,098	+101.23
8.	Kingdoms of Camelot	3,030,739	+315,516	+11.62
9.	Baking Life	3,486,467	+309,847	+9.75
10.	Hero World	1,529,422	+259,068	+20.39
11.	Fashion World	2,339,798	+256,728	+12.32
12.	Resort World	1,373,899	+250,385	+22.29
13.	Office Wars	517,611	+211,306	+68.99
14.	Fanglies	268,063	+204,378	+320.92
15.	Bejeweled Blitz	10,786,832	+201,446	+1.90
16.	Casino City	904,293	+194,022	+27.32
17.	Gift Creator	4,601,094	+190,675	+4.32
18.	開心 Lounge Bar	833,258	+185,247	+28.59
19.	Horse Saga (renamed)	719,454	+172,702	+31.59
20.	Zoo Kingdom	1,582,532	+164,549	+11.60

Millionaire City continues to grow, offering the promise of single-handedly making developer Digital Chocolate a major social gaming player. It’s now Facebook’s fourth-largest city building sim. Note that SuperFun Town!, the next app down with half a million new MAU, is in the same category.

EA SPORTS FIFA Superstars comes in at fourth, with decent growth and the answer to a question: yes, the soccer game can continue growing after the World Cup is over (the final match took place on July 11th).

It’s also interesting to see Verdonia and Kingdoms of Camelot coming in alongside each other — both are fairly intensive strategy games. We recently wrote more about the breakout of strategy on Facebook.

And at number eight, RockYou’s Hero World appears to be staging a comeback. It has a long climb ahead if it’s to reach previous heights, though; the app topped out in February with over seven million MAU.

Giant game publisher THQ is taking a first step into the free to play model with one of its most successful titles ever: Company of Heroes, a real-time strategy game first released in 2006 and later bolstered with expansions. The company is working with in-game monetization company Live Gamer to make the switch.

Choosing Company of Heroes as its first title to rely on virtual goods is not a hugely risky move for THQ. Boxed versions of the original game, although still popular, can already be easily found for under $10; the two expansions, though more expensive, also appear to sell fewer copies.

However, it’s clear that THQ’s move is an acknowledgment of the success social games have enjoyed over the past two years — not least because Live Gamer is primarily known for its work in that industry.

THQ’s own losses have mounted over the same time period that social games have skyrocketed through the mechanism of virtual goods. Company of Heroes should be a good test-bed for the company to decide whether to pursue the model with newer titles.

The evidence so far has been fairly positive; in a conversation with us, Live Gamer co-founder Andrew Schneider pointed out Chinese examples like Legend of Mir 2 and ZT Online that hugely increased revenue with free-to-play versions.

Schneider said that any slowness to act on the part of large traditional game publishers is less from skepticism about the model than the inertia of the old business model, in which the company’s only contact with customers is the initial sale of a game. “They’ve been disintermediated from direct consumer relationships by the box game market, so it’s hard for them to aggressively shift the business,” said Schneider. “There’s a major inflection point in who owns the end relationship.”

Now the focus is less on proving that virtual goods sales can be done at all, and more on the specifics. Live Gamer’s role is both to provide software and insight into what works. “What’s resonating most is merchandising — advanced selling and upsell techiques,” said Schneider, comparing virtual goods sales to traditional techniques of selling goods on a site like Amazon.

THQ isn’t alone; last week, we also mentioned that Lord of the Rings Online is going free-to-play, while another branded game, Star Trek Online, seems interested. Live Gamer may also be working on other partnerships.

Check out the top headlines and insights this week from Inside Facebook— tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, July 12th, 2010

• Create Your Quiz Challenges the Leader on This Week’s List of Fastest-Gaining Facebook Apps by MAU
• Microsoft’s Docs.com Improves Facebook Integration
• Facebook Implements ‘Panic Button’ Application in UK
• VChatter: A Growing, Chatroulette-Style Application for Video Chats
• Facebook Encourages Developers To Internationalize Their Apps

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

• Potter, Gaga, Facebook on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Pages
• Facebook Updates Sign-Up Language, States It Will Never Charge Users
• Facebook’s Known Issues Page Shares Network Problems
• Microsoft Integrates Facebook into Outlook
• Facebook’s Application Profile Box Deprecation Process Is Starting Now
• RockYou Planning to Use Facebook Credits Exclusively for Virtual Currency Purchases

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

• Element Analyst Rises on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by DAU
• Facebook Lends Page Admins a Hand
• Facebook Tests New Home Page Prompts For Its Friend Finder
• Ads API Profile: Nanigans’ Cost Per Action Service
• In Brazil, Facebook is a Small But Viable Contender Against Orkut
• Starbucks Is the First Brand to Reach 10 Million Facebook Likes

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

• Facebook’s Hires This Week: Prineville, Google, Nokia, Samung, and Yahoo
• Facebook Makes it Easier for Developers to Let Advertisers Target Their Users
• Facebook Allows Some Basic HTML Editing Back Into Application Info Pages
• As Facebook Reaches 150 Million Mobile Users, It Aims for More of Them in Russia
• Windows LIve Messenger Gets Traction with Facebook Users

Friday, July 16th, 2010

• Two Chinese-Language Offerings Lead This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Apps
• “The Social Network” Trailer Now Available
• RestEngine Social Application Messaging Platform Leaves Beta, Offers Tips
• Facebok Rearranges Events Page to Be More Like Other Pages
• Who’s Playing Social Games Outside the US? Canada’s App Demographics
• Facebook Roundup: Lawsuit, Publisher, ‘White Flight’, Involver and Vaseline

Playdom TV – According to a tweet from Playdom, there is a curious series of Playdom themed shorts on YouTube called Playdom TV. Thus far, there are shorts on Verdonia, Sorority Life, and Social City.

PopCap to Add Social Features — At the Develop Conference in Brighton, UK, Senior Designer for PopCap, David Bishop stated that the company is “looking to add social features to all our existing games going forward.” The details were not revealed, but cross-platform taunting and challenges for Peggle was one example given.

MyYearbook Expands Virtual Currency Partners – Social network myYearbook has a new service partner for its Currency Connect – a virtual currency exchange for social media sites. Teen property and social game, WeeWorld marks the second partner for myYearbook’s service, with the first being IMVU last year.

Joystick Labs Announces Mentors for Fall 2010 Accelerator Program – This week, Joystick Labs, a company focused on the development of digitally distributed games, announced the initial group of mentors that will advise teams in the Fall 2010 accelerator program for indie game developers. Of the names announced, mentors include individuals from Epic Games, Insomniac Games, Playdom, NVIDIA Corp., Republic of Fun, and The Escapist. Venture capital investors include Intersouth Partners, Intel Capital, and IDEA Fund Partners.

Owen Van Natta Working Closely with Zynga – Former MySpace CEO (and Facebook executive) Owen Van Natta has been advising Zynga, according to All Things Digital. Now, he and the company are considering bringing him in a bigger role, “like COO.”

FarmVille Adds First Branded Crop – Cascadian Farm will become the first branded, and organic, crop in the Zynga game, FarmVille. The integration, however, appears to be limited, lasting only from July 19th to July 26th. For the duration, players will be able to buy organic blueberries for their farms as well as attain coupon offers, green living tips, and the chance to build their farms up faster.

We R Interactive Seeks to Blend Films & Social Games – Financially backed by ITV’s commercial head, Fru Hazlitt, London-based social gaming company, We R Interactive is trying something new, as it attempts to marry film and social games. According to the information we have, the games themselves will be predominantly on Facebook, but also available on iPhone, Android, and other social networks. As for the film element, these are said to be live action films integrated into the games’ narrative(s).

Plants vs. Zombies 2? – When we reviewed PopCap‘s Plants vs. Zombies on the iPhone, we thought it fantastic. However, a post from Slide to Play suggests that there may be a sequel as the folks there received a cryptic message stating that they should “Save the Date” of August 2nd.

[image via Slide to Play]

Ignition to Move into Social Games – Ignition Entertainment is a company primarily focused on publishing Japanese games, but this week, the company has noted that it wishes to expand into the digital space, focusing on networks such as Xbox Live, Sony, Steam, and Facebook. The company will be rebranded as UTV Ignition Entertainment.

MATOMY Launches Engage Bar – After closing $1 million in funding, virtual payments provider MATOMY has announced the launch of its Engage Bar. In short, it is a customizable offers widget that appears within a game that utilizes it.

Mafia Wars Ad Banned – A Mafia Wars ad depicting a man with a knife and the tag line “From street thug to capo. Earn your street cred and be respected.” was banned as the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that carrying a weapon implied a literal means of earning respect and success.

[image via Guardian.co.uk]

Sony Head Starts Dire Wolf Digital Game Studio – Former head of Sony Online Entertainment Denver, as well as a handful of other SOE vets, have started up Dire Wolf Digital Game Studio. The new company will specialize in online trading card games, digital collectibles, and social games.

Startup Ze Frank Games – Video blogger Ze Frank is starting up a game-oriented company called Ze Frank Games with $500,000 in angel funding. As to what specifically the company will make is unclear, but Ze Frank does say it will involve social gaming.

There have only been a few games made for Twitter, and they haven’t gotten far. There was the iPhone app, Tweet Defense, and before that, the re-release of the World of Blood games back in summer of 2009. Now, a group called Big Kitty Labs is taking a rather… different… approach to utilizing the social network in its new iPhone and Android game, Chump Dump!

Let’s face it, a wide margin of social networking users – be they Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter – have more friends than they can handle. Thousands. It’s because most social games create an added benefit to having more friends that play with you (e.g. Mafia Wars). But this smartphone app rewards the player for actually dropping those superfluous “friends.”

The game can be best described as a lottery type of game with a bit of user-generated content mixed in. When users log in, the app presents them with a daily lottery – a “winner,” as it were, among the user’s “friends.” Once they’ve been pulled up, Chump Dump! digs through about a month’s worth of tweets and activities this person has been up to. This includes information such as whether or not they follow the user, how many times they’ve replied to them, number of tweets, followers, and followies, etc.

From here, the player has two choices to make: Save or Dump! Should the user Dump the individual, they will earn a set amount of points, dubbed “Karma.” If they save them, they’ll still earn Karma, but it will be a lesser amount. Additionally, once a dumping has occurred, the player gets an opportunity to earn additional Karma by giving a reason.

This is, obviously, the user-generated element of the game, and comes off as amusing (some of the time). Granted, as with all user-generated content, a good deal of it is likely pretty lame, but a few reasons are pretty good. As of July 12th, in fact, Big Kitty Labs actually posted the Top 5 reasons, which includes “Dude, it’s my BOSS!” Yeah…. In most cases, that may not be a good one to keep.

Obviously, this is the premise behind the Chump Dump’s other major social mechanic: leaderboards. Really, that’s where the user’s drive in playing comes from. That said, there is the concern of getting fewer points if you save a person. What if said person is an actual friend? Moreover, with purchasable vouchers that let users Save or Dump more than one person a day, it’s easy to earn more points more quickly.

Regardless, while the concept is quite creative, it doesn’t seem entertaining enough to warrant the noted virtual goods purchases (thus the previous concern is more or less moot); which is why the iPhone app has advertisements and the Android version, ChumpDump Unlimited is $1.99.

If users do wish to earn extra points, for free, however, they can pick up dumped individuals in the form of “adoption.” Granted, it is a bit counterintuitive to the app’s overall premise, but the concept is kind of funny. It’s almost like a hall of shame.

In addition to adoption, Chump Dump! further enhances itself with the addition of badges (achievements). Like most mobile games to make use of this traditional social mechanic, they’re nothing terribly extravagant, but they do add a little something extra in the form of longevity and “bragging rights” as players earn them through methods such as Dumping, Saving, or Adopting a set number of individuals.

As simple as the game may be, Chump Dump! is certainly a wonderful addition for the iPhone if you have a bit too many “friends” on your Twitter account. It makes for a great means to clean things out a bit, and as a free app, it’s certainly worth a download. That said, it’s difficult to judge if the Android price tag is worth it or not. True, $2 isn’t a lot, but if you’re not heavy into Twitter, it’s hardly worth it. In the end, it’s a game with a few kinks, here and there, but one with a truly unique idea behind it. We look forward to what new developments come out of Big Kitty Labs, as well as what curious machinations will utilize Twitter, as a whole, in the future.

Localization, or the process of adapting a game to another culture and language, is a hot topic this year among social game developers. While the US market quickly became saturated with players in 2009, Facebook’s international audience of more than 500 million people appears to offer a vast opportunity for further expansion.

However, the process of moving a product to a foreign userbase is more complex than just translating the text. Other cultures have different expectations for the user interface and interactions, while many markets have their own peculiarities of payment processing and monetization.

Inside Social Games will be running a series of interviews over the coming weeks with some of the smartest international developers. This first interview is with with 6waves co-founder Rex Ng, who publishes over three dozen games including Mall World, 開心水族箱 and Kingdoms of Camelot.

To start off, Rex defined three areas of localization for us: language, payment and marketing, with language being the easiest and payment hardest.

Inside Social Games: Since language is the easy part, let’s start there. What’s your process?

Rex Ng: It’s a two-pronged process for us. We have a professional translation company that we outsource to, and our core product has 10 languages already. That’s the first step. Then we also have in-house country managers who review the translations and make sure the stuff is up to par, and we’ve revised specifically for games like Mall World, which is more female-oriented.

ISG: What makes payment localization difficult?

Ng: PayPal and credit cards are very prominent in the US, but for each new country we have to go in and have a localized resource for the market. A lot of times the payment choices for micro-transactions, they may not start out as a dedicated company. Some of them are game companies with a payment channel, so we’ll reach out to them. Second to that is integrating the system — it’s not like they’ll just provide a payment API. When we integrated with Gamania we were the second or third partner, so there was a lot of work making sure it was accurate, and getting payment reports on a granular basis so we could use the data to analyze how the game is doing for the country. That’s a lot of work,. There are also a lot of new companies that are trying to break into these emerging markets and create payment channels, like Turkey, Brazil and India, but a lot of these companies are newer, so we have to be the guinea pig them to test out and see how their systems are scaling.

ISG: How are the different world regions developing, in terms of prepared payment channels?

Ng: I think the premium model has sparked a lot of companies to specialize in payments. They are coming relatively quickly. In Europe there weren’t a lot of these channels, but when we last went to Hamburg there were a bunch. They’re spawning quite quickly, but it will take a couple months to see which channels will come out on top. In the newer areas, like in South Asia and Latin America, they’re coming out as well. By the end of 2010 a lot of these companies will start to stabilize, but we always want to be one of the first to find out which companies are best.

ISG: Marketing is the last of the three pillars you mentioned. How does that work?

Ng: There are times where, let’s take Taiwan for example, the Facebook traffic there was not great until we’d pushed a lot of our games and done local marketing. A lot of the PR was from the game sites, the local media. So for a lot of Asian countries, the first time they’ve heard about Facebook is from the games. At the time our farming game was the most played, and there were a lot of articles, a TV announcement, etc — it became a pretty big phenomenon, and drove a lot of users back to the game.

ISG: Are you finding anything surprising about your revenue from specific markets?

Ng: There are certainly surprises. There are countries we expect higher but are lower, and vice versa. A good example is actually Taiwan and Hong Kong, where we expected ARPU to be lower than Western Europe and North America. But at the end of the day, it turns out that Taiwan has such a strong gaming culture, their ARPU is almost on par with the games we’re seeing in North America. A lot of times it’s difficult to say whether it’s on par because the payment stuff is still developing, but for a country that has strong support, where the payments are frictionless, they become comparable. Even with lower GDP per capita.

ISG: Given the choice today would you launch a game in the US or internationally?

Ng: Almost all of our games that we sign up have a good universal appeal, so we try to invest in as many markets as possible. For the US it’s very competitive, so we’re not trying to be #1 in that space. Some games like Mall World are monetizing and doing well, but for us we’re also trying to stagger these games. So we’re trying to launch games, one or two a month, and we try to stagger the launch for different countries.

ISG: You focus heavily on Asia. Is it OK to leave a game in English for the Asian market?

Ng: A lot of the most quality games are still in English, and the games aren’t so complicated that they require a lot of explanation. So for English games, 50 to 60 percent of our traffic could be coming from international countries. If you look at FarmVille and select the international countries, you’ll see a lot of users.

ISG: Any last comments?

Ng: Facebook’s growth will come mainly from the international market, and the English-language market is a little more saturated in terms of users, the pay rates, the ARPU — those are all going to saturation point. For international, the upside is a lot more, both from a pay rate and ARPU perspective. That’s why we’re spending a lot on our effort to optimize all of these.

Several fast-growing new games have rocketed to the top of this week’s list of emerging Facebook games, defined as those still under a million monthly active users. The selection is fairly diverse, as well, with a Chinese-language game leading off the mix.

Here’s the full AppData list:

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	開心 Lounge Bar	833,258	+479,018	+135.22
2.	Office Wars	517,611	+342,552	+195.68
3.	Casino City	904,293	+283,677	+45.71
4.	Fanglies	268,063	+267,804	+103,399.23
5.	Horse Saga (renamed)	719,454	+242,497	+50.84
6.	Birdland	858,038	+193,301	+29.08
7.	Maya Pyramid	532,893	+143,304	+36.78
8.	الصندوق السحرى	312,856	+127,137	+68.46
9.	My Vineyard	873,665	+110,811	+14.53
10.	Kungfu Online	200,472	+99,803	+99.14
11.	Bite Me	631,521	+92,251	+17.11
12.	Country Life (lite)	219,038	+86,400	+65.14
13.	EyeCandy	156,456	+84,776	+118.27
14.	Golden Nugget Vegas Casino	125,360	+80,162	+177.36
15.	InGenius	301,992	+79,422	+35.68
16.	時尚人 生	353,317	+72,373	+25.76
17.	Pet World	100,824	+70,626	+233.88
18.	帝國爭 霸-黎明戰爭	105,483	+64,553	+157.72
19.	Crazy Taxi	391,286	+63,300	+19.30
20.	Platinum Life: Web Edition BETA	503,957	+55,840	+12.46

開心 Lounge Bar is the leader, with almost half a million new MAU. Though there doesn’t appear to be anything too original about this Chinese-language restaurant (or, more properly, bar) management game, it’s not often that we see the English-language offerings get beaten so thoroughly.

Second up is Office Wars, the brand-new title from Broken Bulb Studios. In Office Wars, players send their corporate peons into battle against other white-collared teams; our review is here. The game has been adding about 60,000 players per day for the past few days.

Casino City, a somewhat older title, really started to catch on at the end of June, and is now poised to break a million MAU. Beneath it are a two more newer games: Fanglies, by Playdom, which throws players into a cartoon vampire world; and Ubisoft’s Horse Saga (previously Horse Gaga), which appeals to the little girl in all of us with its focus on raising and caring for horses.

There are several more interesting games, but we’ll reserve out last mention for My Vineyard, which was originally launched by Metaplace. It’s interesting to note that the game was recently in decline, but almost exactly coincident with Metaplace’s acquisition by Playdom, its traffic has spiked back upward.

Proclaimed as one of the largest casual gaming sites in India, Zapak Digital Entertainment is relaunching its portal, Zapak Games, on the Facebook platform.

Zapak is taking the MindJolt approach, by attempting to bridge the gap between casual and social games. In essence, the app is like any other portal, containing a number of short and simple Flash-based games. As one might expect, some are good, and others just inane, but the developers do attempt to make them social. As a result, some of the games come off as a bit trite, but thankfully they also don’t lose their casual elements.

There are about 40 games on Zapak at the moment. Very few reflect any sort of Indian flavor. For the most part, each game is a republished version of titles that long-time casual players will likely be familiar with. Nonetheless, that doesn’t make them any less fun.

For every ridiculous game that lasts about 20 seconds (e.g. there is a game called Streak Soccer, where you run, naked, from security guards for as long as you can), there is a high quality one. A particular favorite of ours is the puzzle game Bridgecraft, an overly cute title that tasks players with the construction of bridges and support systems to get colorful-looking crab people from Point A to Point B. Beyond this, there are a few other interesting games such as the rhythm game Breakdancer, the random destruction game 2012, and a very questionable action-shooter game dubbed Taliban Wipeout.

Regardless of what the player chooses, each game comes with very traditional social mechanics. The first, and most direct, is the concept of medals and challenges. As with virtually every casual portal gone social, users can challenge friends (whether they play or not) to beat their high score. Should they not accept after five days, they lose and the challenger earns a medal. Unfortunately, if one doesn’t have friends that will accept, the medals don’t exactly feel like much of an accomplishment.

Beyond this, there are various leaderboards under each specific game, and earnable trophies and items for playing them and scoring a noted score. Again, it’s basic, and common, but being able to earn trophies through beating a predetermined score for each game does bring with it a sense of accomplishment. As for the special items, it’s less clear how they are earned, but they appear to be received just by playing the different games over time. For example, we got a “Newbie” award just by playing two or three games. As these are earned, the accomplishment can be posted to one’s Facebook feed.

Currently, there are no monetization methods implemented into Zapak Games beyond advertisements. In the future, there are plans to monetize the previously stated special items that are stored in one’s trophy cabinet, according to the developer. Advergaming will be implemented as well — a market that is apparently very large in India at the moment.

Zapak is also planning for virtual goods in the near future. However, while there are plans to allow players to customize their trophy room, it’s unlikely there will be purchasable, decorative items. Evidently, such aesthetic-only purchases are rare in India, and those users are looking for goods with more immediate “value.” The best example given to us was an item that will double one’s score for the next 48 hours. Obviously this gives players a bit of an unfair advantage in challenges and leaderboards, but that is apparently both the point and driving factor behind this demographics’ desire to purchase in the first place.

Overall, there’s nothing particularly good or bad about Zapak Games. Its success, like all such portals, relies heavily on the games in its library, with the social implementations working as an enhancement — although for now they are a bit basic. So far, the new portal has steadily grown to 11,003 monthly active users.

Traditionally, players of online games have mingled freely with strangers. On Facebook, users’ real-world social connections have obviously changed this paradigm, mixing game players more with people in their existing social circles — but just how much more? Part of our most recent report, Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Habits of the Social Gaming Audience, addressed this question.

The findings were surprisingly strong in favor of real-world connections. A clear majority of people play with “friends”, while two further real-world categories claim most of the remaining interactions: co-workers and classmates. The exact breakdowns are below:

Both co-workers and classmates, of course, might also be considered friends; taken together, the three categories account for 80.5 percent of the average player’s interactions on Facebook games.

This powerful majority helps explain why the most popular games released this year, even those put out after Facebook’s infamous notification changes, contain numerous features that encourage players to interact with those from their existing Facebook network, but include very few features that encourage or allow interaction with strangers.

Players also seem to favor this state of affairs; as one told us, games serve as “a nice way to stay connected with people.”

There’s a bit more to the picture, though. As part of our research, which was conducted through surveys of Facebook game players, we also asked how players found their favorite games. Some 44.5 percent had arrived via friend invites, a number that correlates strongly with the 55.5 percent who play with friends.

Virality, clearly, is still a powerful mechanism in gaming, but it’s also one that to an extent predetermines a player’s interaction — if invited in by friends, it makes sense that players will report playing with those same friends later.

And the 19.5 percent minority that reports playing with strangers is by no means small or insignificant — especially given the setup of most Facebook games, which gives no direct way to connect with strangers.

Friends and other real-world acquaintances are still clearly the most important group for Facebook gamers, and our findings suggest that developers are justified in continuing to focus on real-world connections. However, given the diversity of Facebook’s players, our stats also suggest that interactions with strangers may be another promising avenue in the future.

In-depth breakdowns of all the data referenced above is available in our full report, Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience. The full report includes over 30 charts and graphs with detailed information on social gamers’ spending and playing habits, demographic differences, and brand recognition.

The full table of contents is below:

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

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
• Analyzing the Top Two Games: FarmVille and Pet Society

Index of Charts and Graphs

• 1.1 Survey Respondents by Region
• 1.2 Survey Respondents by Age
• 1.3 Survey Respondents by Gender
• 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 Age
• 8.2 Top Spenders By Gender
• 8.3 Top Spenders By Region
• 8.4 Number of Games on Which a Player Spends More Than $25
• 8.5 Frequency of Top Spending By Game and By Gender
• 8.6 Proportion of Top Spenders Who Report Spending on a Given Gam
• 8.7 FarmVille Top Spenders by Age
• 8.8 Pet Society Top Spenders by Age
• 8.9 FarmVille Top Spenders by Region
• 8.10 Pet Society Top Spenders by Region
• 8.11 FarmVille Top Spenders by Gender
• 8.12 Pet Society Top Spenders by Gender

Appendix

• Survey Questions and Response Rates
• Related Companies