While there might be more out there, this has been a pretty slow week for new hires in social gaming, at least according to the data from LinkedIn. Five of the major social developers out there made significant hires, adding up to a maximum of five new team members each. This wasn’t much of a week for leadership changes either, as compared to last week.

Here is the list:

CrowdStar

• Travis Gregory – Travis is the only new person to join the CrowdStar team this week,as a new UI Designer. Previously, he worked as an Art Director for Sony Online Entertainment’s Web Presence.

Mindjolt

• Michael Twardos – Formerly an Analytics Scientist for Slide, Michael Twardos joins Mindjolt as its newest Senior Analyst.

Playdom

• Betsy Holmes – A former Sr. Marketing Designer, she’s changing roles, becoming a new Design Manager for Playdom.
• Alex Dragovich – Previously a Web Development Manager at InstantAction, Alex joins Playdom as a new Web Developer.
• Tami Baribeau – Joining Playdom as an Associate Producer, Tami Baribeau was part of the Metaplace acquisition, where she was in the same role.
• Dorian Ouer – Also formerly of Metaplace, he changes his role from Senior Software Engineer to Senior Programmer for Playdom.
• Dan Simon – He joins the Playdom team as a new Development Lead. Dan’s prior experience was as a Senior Web Developer and Technical Lead for IronKey, Inc.

RockYou!

• James Warren – Looks like James gets a new role within RockYou!, changing from Senior Software Engineer to a Data Warehousing Architect.
• Sloan Sehr – As noted already, Sloan Sehr is now the Director of Sales for New York at RockYou! Previously, he was the Senior Account Exectutive of Major Accounts at Yahoo!

Zynga

• Berto Alvaro – Alvaro has moved up in Zynga to Art Director. Previously, he was Senior Lead UI Designer.
• Kapeesh Saraf – Formerly a student at Stanford University, Kapeesh now joins Zynga as a new Product Manager.
• Bhushan Suryavanshi – Another new Product Manager joins Zynga in the form of Bhushan Suryavanshi. Previously, Bhushan was a Research Associate at Carnegie Mellon University.
• Rajiv Bhatia – Another student, this time an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, joins Zynga as Product Manager.
• Philip Jen – Philip joins Zynga as its newest Data Analyst. Prior to this, he worked as an Analytical Engineer for Brighterion.

Bored in a waiting room? Looking to procrastinate? Let’s face it, sometimes we all just need some mindless game to kill a little time. While perusing the App Store, we found just that in the form of Paratroopers: Air Assault HD, from Software Factory, for the iPhone and iPad. As part of the OpenFeint network, it’s a quaint little jaunt through enflamed warzones where all the player has to defend themselves with is blood, sweat, tears, and a giant gun.

Air Assault is basically an arcade shooter, and if one were to go way back into gaming history, it’s probably most like 1980s title, Missile Command from Atari. Of course, it’s been a little polished up since then, and rather than shooting down incoming scuds, the user is shooting down enemy paratroopers that have about the same tactical intelligence as baddies in most tower defense games. With a good sense of style, it’s certainly an amusing game, but has a rather repetitive nature and very shallow difficulty curve that will likely make the game a bit dull for many users.

Players control a very, very large gun and have one objective: Survive. As best as we can tell, there is no real end to this game (either that or it takes a very long time), as wave after wave of paratroopers, in ever increasing numbers drop in on the player’s base. In order to take them out, the player must either tap the enemy itself to blow it up into gratifying tiny bits, or hit the parachute itself, sending them splattering into the earth. Either way the user chooses, score, money, and experience are racked up.

Experience is perhaps the most important aspect of Air Assault. This, as with most games, is what is used to gate the different upgrades in the armory. Obviously, the money is also needed, in tandem with this, to actually make a purchase. Regardless, as more and more waves of enemies appear, upgrades become a must.

The basic gun is one tap, one shot, but with infinite ammo. Once the player starts getting a couple dozen guys on the screen at any given time, however, this just doesn’t cut it. So to make things interesting, Software Factory incorporated a few nifty toys such as an AK47 turret, a shotgun, a gatling gun, a flame thrower, and even a missile launcher. Each weapon has its own purpose as each comes with special abilities such as rapid fire, killing units on the ground, or even blowing up the aircraft dropping the enemies to begin with.

The only downside is that the more powerful weapons have finite ammo, that must also be purchased, and the player must manually switch between them, on the fly, as necessity demands.

In addition to ammunition, the user must also purchase health for their turret and the occasional bomb. Should an enemy reach the ground, they will start draining the player’s hit points, and should the proper turret not be available, then only a precise air strike bombing can take them out. Granted, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and feels like using a shotgun to kill a fly, but hey, whatever works.

As for the score, the user accumulates it over the course of his or her play lifetime, along with stats such as money earned, military rank (based on level), and so on. However, it is only the current scores – per Campaign or Skirmish mode – that is applied to the OpenFeint leaderboards.

Obviously, this is the big social mechanic of the game, as it comes with five leaderboards that are based on the paratrooper kill count, and scores during Skirmish mode (a quick play mode where the player sets the difficulty themselves), or the Campaign mode’s City Assault, Sand Storm, or Blizzard levels. Moreover, as this is integrated with OpenFeint, achievements are also prevalent, with about three dozen to unlock.

On the negative side of things Air Assault is, first and foremost, repetitive. It does have a nice cartoon style to it, but unlike tower defense games, there is no real strategy involved. Touch the paratrooper, and it dies. That’s about all there is to it. Part of the issue is that it takes a very long time to unlock the different weapons (which are a lot more fun than the first one), but even then, there is just no real challenge.

Perhaps that is the biggest complaint of all. The pacing is surprisingly slow for an arcade style game. True, the screen can fill up with paratroopers, quickly, sometimes, but unless you play in Skirmish mode on a harder difficulty, you barely have to pay attention. Moreover, in tower defense titles, there are different types of enemies. Here, they are all the same. Yes, they look different, but they don’t do anything different. Also, once the game does get challenging, you usually end up unlocking a turret upgrade, and it becomes easy again.

All in all, Paratroopers: Air Assault is amusing for a $1.99 app whether you prefer it on the iPhone or iPad. Whichever way, you choose; it’s more or less the same experience. Unfortunately, despite the style and potential of the game, that experience is a bit drab. It’s fun for a little bit, but it takes entirely too long to get to any real challenge outside the Skirmish mode. Moreover, any fun brought on by the new and bigger guns is quickly squashed as they make the game even easier most of the time. In the end, it’s an interesting game, but it really needs a bit of work in the challenge and game-balancing department.

Though Sony as a whole has long been involved in social games with applications like The Agency: Covert Ops, a new segment of the media company is getting involved: the communication’s branch of Sony Corporation, Sony Ericsson. Its new Facebook app is called Emusicon Pinball, a title reminiscent of its classic predecessor and not unlike the type of app you might find on the Ericsson mobile device.

Though pinball itself is one of the oldest modern games, it has survived the test of time, evolving into new translations along with new technology and platforms. Moreover, as a game style that was always centered around high scores in the first place, it marries well to competitive social gaming. Ericsson hasn’t fiddled much with the basic formula; its creation is not unlike a digital pinball game one might play on any mobile device, using a mere three keys to control the flippers and launcher.

The start in a level, called “Spread Good Vibes,” is rather simple, with basic bumpers that do light up and make all the nostalgic sounds, but really come off as a bit uninspired. One of the draws of the analog game was flashing lights and the constant din of sounds and music, but while there is some of that here, coupled with a view vocals, it’s not all that exciting.

Socially, the game does have a more unique element in that it imports all of your friends’ profile pictures into the game board as obstacles. If the player hits them, the image spins wildly and displays an “Emusicon” of the player’s choosing, before turning back into another random friend.

For those unfamiliar with Emusicons, they are basically stylized emoticons that represent various music genres such as samba, pop, rock, country, and so on. They are cool to look at, but they’re also a source of disappointment as the player gets to choose which style represents them. One would expect this to influence the design of the level itself or at the very least, tailor a soundtrack to the player’s tastes. Sadly, neither possibility is met.

In the end, Emusicon Pinball feels like it’s just a catalyst to promote Sony Ericsson devices. Of course, this isn’t the first time Sony has used that trick; Covert Ops, in fact, is merely a precursor to the upcoming massively multiplayer online game. That said, Covert Ops has done decently well due to its high quality with 214,000 monthly active users.

Emusicon Pinball, on the other hand, while clean and technically sound, is rather dull by modern social gaming standards, failing to do anything that is going to interest the average Facebook user. With one level, no real point to the Emusicons themselves, and a very dated social mechanic of high scores, it’s a one time experience. Moreover, with a concept as old as pinball, the design is going to have to work twice as hard to be interesting. Emusicon Pinball — or, for that matter, any pinball game on Facebook — needs to discover a flair of its own.

For a good while now, we’ve been hearing about a rather interesting and in-depth endeavor coming to Facebook from console and core-game developer 3G Studios. The game is Brave Arms, and it is set to be one of only a few first-person shooters on the Facebook platform. Scheduled for an open beta release on July 15th, we decided to take a look at some of the buzz a day or so prior.

From what we know, it is a 3D, cartoonish shooter (think Team Fortress or Battlefield Heroes) in which users will be able to create an avatar of varying styles (there’s a guy in a banana suit, if that gives you any idea on the level of variety), and compete with Facebook friends in Death Match and Team Death Match modes. Furthermore, players will also be given the ability to change out accessories of both the aesthetic and functional variety. This includes hair, hats, and clothes, as well as gun clips, scopes, and gun barrels.

While the specifics of purchasing the virtual goods is not completely clear yet, 3G Studios has unsurprisingly said that these will be available for real currency. Perhaps, the final version of the game will take a page from Electronic Arts‘s Battlefield Heroes, and provide earnable currency for playing and virtual currency for direct purchase but making the more useful weapon items cost significantly more?

In addition to these features, the developer has also noted that the game will be supplemented with a mobile rendition as well. It won’t exactly be the full game, but users will be able to customize their weapons and avatar, make purchases, or view the game’s leaderboards from a supported mobile device. The company hasn’t said which devices will be supported, yet.

As for the game itself, it feels a lot like your standard first-person shooter’s multiplayer mode. Be it a Deathmatch or Team Deathmatch, it’s really just kill everything with a red name. All the basics appear to be covered too as far as weapons go: Sidearm, machine gun, shotgun, grenades, and sniper rifle. The real uniqueness will come in to play with the weapon customization and how unique a player can make them.

For what it is, Brave Arms looks solid, but it will be interesting how the game ends up differentiating itself from the rest of its ilk. As it stands, it feels a lot like Battlefield Heroes, only on Facebook, and with simpler objectives. That said, such games can still do quite well, as Facebook’s first FPS, Paradise Paintball from Cmune still earns north of 250,000 monthly active users. Moreover, its MySpace version even won an award for “Best New MySpace App,” signifying that there is certainly a social networking interest for the shooter genre.

Be sure to check out our full review on Brave Arms when we check out the fully fleshed-out version later this month.

White-collar boredom and ennui are a favorite pop-culture theme, with expressions running from Office Space to Dilbert. On Facebook, the theme’s latest incarnation is Office Wars, a new title from Broken Bulb Studios.

In Office Wars, the player takes on the role of an unseen manager of a small, but growing office. Starting with a single employee, the goal is to build up a small army, equip them with a variety of tongue-in-cheek weapons, and then sally forth to beat the tar out of the employees in other offices. With its fun, offbeat art style and attention to its make-believe world of corporate competition, Office Wars definitely feels like it has hit a winning formula.

However, it’s also a slightly unusual title for Facebook, in that it involves both direct competition with other players and concepts that will be most recognizable to traditional gamers, like levels and character training. When you first enter Office Wars, you’re presented with your empty office, where you can log onto your computer to find your first employee.

Although each potential employee shows a personality, there’s no indication of what the actual differences are between each hire. That comes soon after making a choice, though. In the management room of your office, you can delve into the specific traits of each employee: health, strength, agility, defense and critical hits, not to mention the clothes (effectively armor) they wear and the weapon they wield.

That’s quite a lot to juggle for a Facebook game, especially considering that you’ll eventually build a team in which each employee can have a different characteristics.

Luckily, Office Wars isn’t a particularly punishing game for the ignorant. Once you’ve got your employee outfitted, it’s time to head off to battle against another player. This is done through another “door” in the office, which presents you with a menu of potential opponents.

After picking one, it’s time to sit back and watch the fight. Like other games of its type on Facebook, Office Wars takes the actual fighting out of the players’ hands, and you can even skip watching — although there’s some amusement value to seeing your peons line up for the fight wielding an odd assortment of potted plants, staplers, giant shrimp and other paraphernalia.

As the fight rages, some of your employees will lose all their health and disappear. This is where Broken Bulb tied in a time management aspect to the game; your office has a combined health bar that must regenerate after each battle, unless you spend coins to instantly regenerate with the first aid kit. For now, though, health regenerates quite quickly.

If you lose the fight, no sweat; there’s no real negative, beyond losing a lot more health. If you win, you get two set rewards, experience and coins. There’s also a set of surprise rewards, including items dropped on the battlefield — a great way to get new weapons in the beginning — and achievements from accomplishing certain feats, like winning a fight against particularly high (or low) odds.

Achievements and levels are the source of the second in-game currency, brownie points. While coins are used to purchase equipment and new employees, brownie points are the only way to train your characters to higher ability levels. They’re also the game’s premium currency, and can be used for most things that coins can.

Although Office Wars isn’t terribly original, it does push a few new concepts for gamers whose sole experience is on Facebook. And in this case, originality isn’t the key; the real attraction to Office Wars will be the humorous artwork and references to cultural icons like Office Space, especially for players who already work within the gloomy confines of a corporate office.

And there’s probably no shortage of those. Since it began growing at the beginning of last week, Office Wars has picked up 415,338 monthly active users — an impressive gain for a small developer like Broken Bulb, which also did well with its previous titles, Ninja Warz and My Town.

This week’s list of fastest-growing Facebook games by daily active users is a mix of new, fast-growing games and older games that appear to be rallying their DAUs. But we’ll spare you any suspense — PetVille, Pet Society and Texas HoldEm Poker, all near the top of the list, haven’t made any real gains. The first two, especially, are simply making up for more intense drops earlier in the month.

Here’s the full AppData list:

	Name	DAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	FrontierVille	5,984,845	+594,505	+11.03
2.	開心 Lounge Bar	405,471	+400,164	+7,540.31
3.	PetVille	2,890,066	+284,888	+10.94
4.	Pet Society	2,769,562	+270,161	+10.81
5.	Texas HoldEm Poker	5,353,074	+190,502	+3.69
6.	Millionaire City	706,365	+175,815	+33.14
7.	Baking Life	821,542	+143,877	+21.23
8.	Office Wars	126,396	+126,294	+123,817.65
9.	Fashion World	521,040	+98,979	+23.45
10.	Nightclub City	868,738	+70,475	+8.83
11.	EA SPORTS FIFA Superstars	744,830	+69,225	+10.25
12.	Resort World	233,015	+67,076	+40.42
13.	MindJolt Games	2,447,123	+63,637	+2.67
14.	SuperFun Town!	177,185	+55,826	+46.00
15.	Games	651,461	+54,755	+9.18
16.	Monster World	231,260	+42,799	+22.71
17.	Wild Ones	526,715	+41,926	+8.65
18.	Birdland	138,037	+39,300	+39.80
19.	德州撲克	693,204	+38,626	+5.90
20.	Fanglies	35,933	+35,910	+156,130.43

FrontierVille is doing fine, if not gaining heaps of DAU anymore (at least by Zynga standards). The real story for the game, though, is that Zynga appears to have done a fantastic job with user retention — the game’s DAU as a percentage of MAU is steadying around the 30 percent mark, half again as high as many other games.

At number two,  開心 Lounge Bar is a restaurant-management game that, obviously, is in Chinese. Way down at number 19, 德州撲 克 is Chinese-language as well, but it’s a Texas Hold’em game.

Millionaire City, by Digital Chocolate, is still growing like mad, as is Baking Life, though the latter is a bit slower and older. The same applies to Fashion World and Nightclub City, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that all three of these titles have continued steady growth for longer than the average title.

Finally, Office Wars is an interesting new title from Broken Bulb Studios, which was previously successful with My Town and Ninja Warz. We’ll be reviewing the new game a bit later this morning.

Facebook has been busy meeting with large developers on its platform, trying to get them to sign deals to exclusively use its virtual currency, Credits, in their applications. So far, it has CrowdStar and LOLapps using Credits exclusively as the direct payment method, with rivals like Zynga participating but also using alternatives.

Now, there’s another big developer joining the exclusive list: RockYou. The company said say in a post about using virtual currency in its big social game, Zoo World. Here’s the key part: “RockYou is NOT doing away with Wildlife Point items to be replaced by Facebook Credits ($0.10 each). But all CASH purchases will require facebook credits within a year (Facebook requirement).”

In other words, while Zoo World will use a virtual currency system, the only way to buy anything is through Credits — not directly through PayPal, mobile payment services, etc.

After seeing this change, we followed up with RockYou to learn more about its plans; it has until now not said what its intentions are. Lisa Marino, the company’s chief revenue officer, tells us that it has been working with Facebook to figure out how to best implement Credits.

The bottom line is that Facebook is in the first inning of the ball game as it relates to Credits. We as an industry have a lot of use cases regarding payments that we are actively working through with them, since the major developers have optimized around different elements of payments flows. Some rely more on credit cards while others leverage PayPayl more aggressively, for example. RockYou is being very open with Facebook, as are other developers, to help get it right. Facebook will require Credits as the only top up method once we get it right.

Many developers have said that the problem with the virtual currency hasn’t just been the 30% fee that Facebook takes — it’s the “breakage,” the loss of control over pricing, and other issues that increase the costs even more. Some have said that the total cost of Credits comes out to something like 50% of a game’s revenue, although Marino says it’s less than that.

Marino says that Facebook is taking a few steps to make Credits work better, like testing new purchase interfaces in apps, and trying to seed free Credits to get more users interested. So far, while Credits hasn’t performed as well as pre-existing payment methods, it is improving — and Facebook has a lot of new tests to run which will make it substantially better during this quarter, Marino says. Conversion rates in some tests are proving to be much higher than the 3% to 5% that developers typically see, for example. She hopes that by working with Facebook early, RockYou will be better positioned to take advantage of the currency as it evolves; the company already took this with a test of offers for Credits, back in March and April.

There’s still the question of when Credits will become more profitable for developers than their existing payment services. Marino expects this to happen sometime around the end of this year or early next year, at which point she says she wouldn’t be surprised to see Credits used for more experiences on Facebook, like buying real goods.

It has been a while since we’ve seen a mobile strategy game of high merit on the iPhone platforms. The wait, however, is over as this past weekend hosted the release of Modern Conflict for both the iPhone and iPad platforms. Developed by clickgamer (a division of Chillingo) and Russian developer Gaijin Entertainment , it first caught our attention as a lite version that had made its way to Apple’s top free app charts. Since then, we’ve had an unsated craving as this simple, yet deep, real-time strategy game now eats up a truly absurd amount of our free time.

Fluidly controlled using the devices’ touch screens, it’s a strategy game centered around conquest, with the objective being to destroy all opponents on any given map. With just tanks, helicopters, and the only control being tapping, one would think it boring. Modern Conflict is far from it, however, and with the incorporation of an internal social network called Crystal, it is a title with basically zero flaws.

The game has three modes associated to it: Campaign, Survival, and Spec Ops. As Campaign mode is likely where most users will start out, it seems as good a place as any to begin. In this mode, users can play as the United States, Russia, or China and proceed through a basic storyline. To be honest, the story is a bit simple, and hardly immersive (especially with some of the borderline-corny dialogue), but the play is so fluid, no one is really the wiser.

For each mission, players are presented with a birds-eye view of a war zone that is speckled with shapes, numbers, and lines. Each shape represents a base, with a hexagon being a tank base, and a circle being a helicopter base. On each map, there are typically three factions representing the player, the computer opponent, and neutral bases (with only the first two actually attacking – neutrals just defend). Now, within each base, there is a number which displays how many tanks or helicopters are at that locale.

Here’s where the fun begins: In order to take a base, a user must tap a base they control – one tap will select half the units at that base; two will select all of them – and then tap the location they wish to attack. Should the number of units attacking be greater than the number of units defending, the base will be taken over. The only catch is, for tanks, the various bases must be connected by paths, meaning that if there are bases A, B, and C, with B being in the middle, tanks from A or C must first stop at B.

Helicopters, on the other hand, are not bound by roads and can travel anywhere at any time. They also tend to be faster. This makes them ideal for counterattacks, but it is worth noting that helicopters suffer double losses when attacking a tank base (e.g. over 16 choppers are needed to take a basic tank base with 8 tanks in it), and visa versa.

Now each base, depending on its visible size, can produce a maximum number of units (though an infinite amount can be sent to it from other bases), so the idea is to capture neutral bases as staging areas or choke points for both attack and defense. Moreover, there are usually a dozen or more bases on a map, so the entire game is in constant motion.

To add further depth to the strategy, some bases will also offer various defensive capabilities. Not only will tanks and helicopters that are traveling from location to location shoot at enemies (reducing their attacking numbers) who are also on the move, but anti-armor and anti-air turrets will also attempt to thin the ranks. In a more passive means, some bases are also fortified with a wall which causes x2 casualties to attackers, and others doubly fortified, causing x4 casualties to attackers.

As if the game wasn’t fun enough with all the chaos, Modern Conflict has any number of events that can happen to change up the game. Sometimes these are triggered by a quick counter attack or retreat, while others are random such as the arrival of reinforcements, artillery blowing up enemies, or one of your bases becoming heavily fortified. Typically, these occur when the player is in danger of losing, and with the exception of reinforcements, they only ever help the player.

The only time reinforcements even arrive for the computer is in the Survival mode. Choosing from the U.S., Russia, China, or some resistance guerrilla group, players are given an infinite form of replayability, through procedurally generaged maps. Each level the player plays in this mode gets increasingly difficult with multiple opponents (that fight each other as well), more enemy reinforcements, and seemingly more intelligent AI. The only saving grace for the user is that each level rewards them with passive “skills” that are the noted special events, extra units, extra guns, and so on – just don’t try it on the hardest difficulty. It won’t end well.

As for the last game mode, Spec Ops, it’s really just more of the Campaign mode; just different maps and colors.

Already, Modern Conflict is a fantastic game, but it’s made even better with the inclusion of social mechanics. Upon downloading, users can actually sign up for, and connect to, a gaming social network called Crystal. With it, players can find other friends that use it through Facebook, Twitter, or email and get any number of recommendations for other games based on what is popular, features, or, most importantly, free.

The social features directly integrated into Modern Conflict are a bit basic at the moment, but they do work well as the emphasis is not on them. They are merely an enhancement. The game comes with a metric ton of leaderboards for players to compete amongst as well as dozens of achievements to unlock. Moreover, the game also advertises direct multiplayer challenges. Unfortunately, they do not appear to be active in the game as of yet, so it’s impossible to say whether it will be synchronous or asynchronous. However, considering the very fast paced nature of the game, the former is highly likely.

Truth be told, if you own an iPhone or an iPad, and you like strategy games, even a little bit, then you need this game. No, it’s not recommended. You need it. Of course, make sure you have nothing important to do for a few hours. That said, the game is currently $0.99 for the iPhone and $1.99 for the iPad, but the price is only an initial launch sale. As far as which device to get it on, the larger screen size and longer battery life of the iPad makes the game moderately more enjoyable. Suffice to say, we look forward to any and all upcoming Modern Conflict updates.

Over the course of 2009, social network Hi5 transitioned from being a plain-vanilla social network with a very international audience to being a social gaming destination site, of sorts. This year, aside from some verbal fireworks courtesy of new chief technology officer Alex St. John, a small acquisition, and the launch of an upgraded developer program, the company has been quiet.

It’s not talking about results from its strategy shift, but it is announcing a second round of $14 million in funding led by Crosslink Capital, with previous investor Mohr Davidow participating. This follows a $20 million round in 2007 — which, for those interested in the company’s financing, had included a $3 million convertible note we mentioned in April. The fact that Hi5 is bringing past investors back suggests that some progress is being made.

Going forward, the San Francisco company’s strategy continues to be this: provide the best possible platform for social games and other social entertainment applications, even as market leader Facebook aims to be a more general platform for developers. We’ll be covering how well Hi5′s plans work for itself and for developers as we learn more.

Not long ago, we published a list of the best Facebook games of the year. Heading it up was a title called Nightclub City, which we attributed to Booyah, the company that owns the location-based game MyTown.

But there was something curious thing about Nightclub City: despite the title’s obvious success, Booyah wouldn’t admit to owning the game. Only this morning has the company finally opened up to talk about NightClub City.

Booyah, of course, is already famous for MyTown, which is the largest location-based app around. NightClub City, at first glance, is completely different. While MyTown is a mobile app, Nightclub City is a Facebook game; MyTown has players buy up virtual versions of real places, while Nightclub City is all about managing a virtual club.

Keith Lee, the CEO of Booyah, says that the differences are only on the surface. “Our premise is the intersection of the virtual and real worlds,” he says. “The platform doesn’t matter.”

In MyTown, that intersection is pretty obvious, but you have to play Nightclub City for a few minutes to get it. A large part of the game is about playing music, chosen from one of several categories. The “real world” part is that all of the artists you’ll hear in Nightclub City are indie musicians that you could just as easily hear in a real club.

“All of us are really passionate about music — personally I’m a DJ, so this is the heart and soul of our company,” says Lee. “We didn’t want to go to a large label, we wanted to connect indie artists to a lot of new users. People haven’t necessarily heard of them.”

The music component has helped Nightclub City to expand. When first releasing the game, Lee says that the indie artists whose music was used reached out to friends and fans, telling them to play.

In turn, as the game grew, the artists themselves found new fans. “Some of these people might have spent a week getting 5,000 fans, while we were able to do that overnight,” Lee says.

The feedback between artists and users has so far helped the game to grow to 4.4 million monthly active users over two months, despite a surprising omission: Nightclub City never encourages players to invite their friends, beyond the almost obligatory friend bar at the bottom of the screen. That means no random pop-ups, no incitements to give friends gifts, and relatively few requests to make wall posts about in-game developments.

Lee also says that Booyah didn’t do any advertising for Nightclub City in its early days, and has still kept its ad budget minimal. So by itself, Nightclub City can stand as evidence that a game from a new developer to Facebook can still succeed solely on its merits as a good game.

As for why Booyah didn’t announce Nightclub City sooner, Lee claims that the main motivation was simply making sure that it was a viable title worth associating with the brand — although he also points out that competition is still a concern on Facebook, with other companies able to quickly imitate a product.

The interesting speculation for the future is how Booyah will integrate its cross-platform products. Lee says that development was simple — MyTown and Nightclub City use the same backend, with only the interface being different. But there’s more to do in terms of tying the products together, or moving them across to each other’s respective platforms.

Lee isn’t saying much about Booyah’s plans yet, but he promises more soon. “I think strategically it doesn’t make sense to be on just one platform,” Lee says. “If you start to consider where everyone is going, the mobile companies want to be on Facebook, and Zynga wants to be on mobile.”

For now, Nightclub City players can at least use MyTown to earn Facebook Credits to use in-game — a tie-in that we expect to see more in the future from other companies, since Facebook is itself interested in spreading Credits more widely.