We recently launched the Inside Network Job Board – dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities in the Facebook Platform and social gaming ecosystem.

Here are this week’s highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at Playdom, Meteor Games, Arkadium, Perfect World, Glu Mobile, Playfish, Focused Labs, and PlaySpan.

• Lead Software Engineer – Playdom (San Francisco, CA)
  
• Software Engineer – Flash (Playdom) (San Francisco, CA)

• Director, Product Management (Beverly Hills, CA)
  
• 2d Artist w/ Flash Experience (Beverly Hills, CA)

• Social Game Designer (New York, NY)

• QA/Release Engineer (Foster City, CA)

• VP of External Development (San Francisco, CA)

• Head of Integrated Marketing (San Francisco, CA)

• Backend Software Developer (Santa Monica, CA)

• Director of Global Support (Merchant & Customer Support) (Santa Clara, CA)
• Technical Integration Manager (Santa Clara, CA)
• Engagement Manager, Professional Services (Santa Clara, CA)
• Inside Sales Representative (Santa Clara, CA)

Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Facebook and Inside Social Games through regular posts and widgets on the sites. That way, you can be sure that your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers, and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.

It’s not uncommon to hear social game developers complain that Facebook is becoming too difficult to build on, and that mobile development looks attractive as an alternative. But will they actually move? A Minnesota company called W3i hopes to help push more social developers into mobile with a fund and publishing group Recharge Studios.

Recharge is planning to invest a minimum of $1 million for outside studios to make social games for the iOS. To sweeten the pot, Recharge only wants a share of iOS profits in return — in other words, it won’t ask for an ownership stake in the company or launches on other platforms, like Android.

“Because you can acquire consumers relatively cheaply, mobile is like the early days of Facebook gaming,” says W3i cofounder Robert Weber. “We think it’s a great opportunity for developers on Facebook, especially if they’re feeling squeezed out.”

While Recharge has the ability to do technical work, Weber sees its greatest value in funding, marketing and monetizing a game. The best opportunities lie in social games because there are currently so few that fit the bill. Ngmoco’s titles like We Rule likely made back their original development costs many times over, according to Weber.

The missing component is viral channels as strong as those on Facebook — those, Weber thinks are still developing. In the meantime, Facebook-style concepts can do quite well. “There weren’t even restaurant-themed games on the iOS until about 30 days ago,” he says. “My advice to Facebook developers or guys looking to go straight to iOS is, scan through the AppData rankings and find the places that games in a certain style haven’t been done — don’t pick Café World, because that will be on everyone’s hitlist, but find a top game and use that as inspiration to create an iOS game.”

Besides lower marketing costs and a potentially more opportunities, mobile developers may also have lower overall development costs than Facebook developers. W3i thinks it can help get 10 games published with its initial million dollars, and it open to eventually spending several times as much if the concept works.

“I think where this all plays out is, in six or 12 months, as many as 75 of the top hundred iOS games will be free to play,” Weber says. “If you look at the revenue coming out of the App Store, they’re making serious money. I look at my wife, she plays Facebook games, but now she spends more time on We Rule.”

Our weekly AppData list of fastest-growing Facebook apps by daily active users doesn’t offer a up many new facts: Digital Chocolate is still dominating the top of the list with four of the top ten gainers, while a few smaller developers have also done well. But as always, there are a few observations to offer on the list:

	Name	DAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	Hollywood City	375,059	+225,676	+151%
2.	恐龍王國	431,378	+209,998	+95%
3.	Ravenwood Fair	423,210	+207,078	+96%
4.	Pet Society	2,221,119	+157,005	+8%
5.	Vegas City	199,744	+153,269	+330%
6.	Island God	148,867	+119,806	+412%
7.	It Girl	737,510	+93,367	+14%
8.	Backyard Monsters	739,846	+89,619	+14%
9.	Millionaire City	2,718,297	+87,943	+3%
10.	Bubble Island	1,069,382	+86,319	+9%
11.	Game of Truth	103,722	+78,701	+315%
12.	Hunch	79,337	+75,538	+1,988%
13.	PetVille	1,577,066	+70,988	+5%
14.	Monster World	999,510	+68,686	+7%
15.	Wild Ones	578,304	+64,702	+13%
16.	Okey	678,240	+61,496	+10%
17.	JibJab	98,495	+60,487	+159%
18.	Crime City	716,881	+53,491	+8%
19.	La Ferme	108,084	+52,479	+94%
20.	Lucky Train	335,846	+51,713	+18%

恐龍王國, which means “Dino Age”, comes in as the second-place game. We’ve seen this title before, but haven’t made much note of it; the developer is unlisted, and of course, it’s in Chinese. But if you can get by clicking random buttons (or, even better, actually read Chinese) it’s an interesting-looking game. The thrust is that it’s a Stone Age builder, but there are a few more unusual-looking features too, like fighting off the dinosaurs.

LOLapps‘ newest game Ravenwood Fair comes in third, but its gain is actually a regain, with DAU streaming back this week following a one-week suspension of viral channels for the game by Facebook. It’s followed by Pet Society, a large title that is also just fluctuating.

After a plateau toward the end of October, It Girl appears to be back on her game, with 93,367 new DAU. It’s followed by an older title, Casual Collective’s Backyard Monsters, whose steady growth over a period of months suggests that it eventually will join Kingdoms of Camelot as one of Facebook’s few large strategy games.

We’ve been hearing from Enigma Games, for some time now, about a Facebook title called Theta Warriors Online. Developed across the three platforms of Facebook, MySpace, and the Enigma platform itself, it’s a science fiction app that tailors itself to a more core gamer demographic.

Theta Warriors presents some interesting ideas, complete with meaningful customization and “global” conflict between players. Nevertheless, as unique as some of the game’s mechanics are, the overall presentation feels cumbersome and clunky. Combined with a vast volume of features and zero instruction, Theta Warriors requires a rather steadfast determination to see the potential and even begin to understand what is going on.

The plot follows a futuristic war over a form of technology called “Theta.” Once in the game, players choose from a handful of mechs, with each sporting a different arsenal (e.g. lasers, ballistics, etc.). The game doesn’t explain any differences between them, so we just chose the one that looked coolest.

This is where the basic mafia-style RPG element comes into play, as users find themselves repeating basic quests in order to earn experience and level up. Each mission comes with a very brief blurb of story, and players are transported to a battlefield where they take turns attacking whatever enemy is involved.

So where do things start getting interesting? Well, upon leveling, players begin acquiring skill points and upgrade points. With these, they can upgrade basic attack and defense-based statistics as well as, by a percentage, overall damage, critical strike rating, and resistances to the various forms of weaponry in the game. Basic though these might seem, the real gem is a mechanic called the “Power Matrix.”

Players have a total of 100 percent power for their mech and with it, they can adjust their weapons, armor, and extra systems. The last is what is most interesting, as once users reach level five, they can begin purchasing items that will augment certain aspects of their vehicle, like weapon resistances, damage, healing bonuses and so on. The catch is that these different components require the mech to have enough power available, forcing the player to make decisions on what they equip and what they boost.

Once the player is ready to go, they can begin entering into Theta Warriors’ core social element, the wars themselves. Yes, there’s a typical battle system where users attack one another individually, but the really interesting concept, called the “Empire War”, pits Facebook, MySpace, and Enigma users all against one another in a World War style.

The world is based on a pyramid with each platform controlling a particular section. Within it are hexagonal grid spaces that contain both players and defensive structures. As with the rest of the game, the nuances of the Empire War are unclear, but it appears that players are able to move to adjacent grid spaces (which takes an obnoxious amount of time) and attack or defend them; working the same as the already noted, single-player battle mode.

It also appears possible to construct defensive structures (such as turrets) and even launch nuclear assaults. And the developers tell us that at midnight each day, players are given specific roles to fulfill within the Empire War to keep the play a bit more fresh.

All of these concepts sound great on paper. Unfortunately, it is a painstaking process to learn even this much, with the clunky feeling and bland user interface offering no help.

In the end, Theta Warriors is an example of how high concept can outrun usability and design. If Enigma can improve the game’s play, it may have a title that can go somewhere. In the meantime, most players are likely to end up moving on.

While mobile games increasingly have social features, most limit that to shareable achievements and leaderboards. Capcom Mobile has gone a step above the social norm with its new title, Lil’ Pirates. Using many mechanics found in Facebook games — such as virtual spaces and a form of farming — Lil’ Pirates adds its own flavor and ties them together with a collection of simple mini-games

Primarily a virtual space game, there is no real objective to Lil’ Pirates beyond trying to build up the best looking pirate ship on the seven seas. In order to do this, however, users are going to need a crew and some coin.

Thankfully, the game starts the player out with a non-player character as a shipmate and a small section of sea in which to start some jobs. Since the player avatar is the captain, they don’t do any of the work themselves. Thus, each job requires a crew member to accomplish. Different jobs, unlocking with new levels, will award different amounts of coin as well as the chance of random items. As one might expect, jobs range in completion time from 15 seconds to over a day, so multiple crew members are needed to be effective.

Though players only start with one, as they progress in level, their total number of crew also increases. This is where the social elements come into play, as these crew members can be hired from one’s own list of Facebook friends. Once on board, their avatars can be customized as the user sees fit (so long as they have the money to pay for it).

The friend doesn’t have to be an active player, but if they do play, they can become part of a group of friends called the “League of Captains.” This allows players to visit one another’s virtual pirate ships, as well as complete small tasks for extra income and experience. Additionally, more friends playing also allows users to purchase larger ship sizes for in-game currency, rather than using virtual currency, and allows for daily gifting.

Crew and friends in tow, users will begin to unlock more than just new jobs as they level up. Some of the more interesting aspects include the “Treasure Island” and “Battle!” systems.

Treasure Island is reminiscent of farming games, but comes with its own unique piratical spin. Players can visit an island of buried treasures and dig up random items left behind by a non-player pirate. What’s more, is users can take these items, as well as loot from jobs, and bury them. After at least four hours, the user can then return and dig the treasure back up and it will be worth more when sold. The longer it stays buried the higher quality, and value, it becomes.

This sort of treasure harvest, and extra revenue, becomes much more important in Battle! mode. Here, players will unlock different pirates to battle in a broadsiding cannon contest of firepower. Not only are most cannons expensive, but a bigger ship is needed to hold more, so some extra income is well worth it. More cannons equal more firepower. As for the fight itself, players have minimal control and can only affect the battle with special, single-use, power ups (found randomly while doing jobs) by temporarily boosting its health, evasion, or firepower.

Once a battle is won — and only one can be done every two hours – players will earn a significant amount of experience, treasure, and in-game currency. Moreover, each enemy ship has its own theme to it, which will unlock in the game’s store after it has been defeated.

Of course, these themes are always available for the premium virtual currency, Doubloons, along with a number of other decorative items. A lot of the in-game items do appear to cost this currency, including instantly finishing jobs and buying one’s crew members a “Root Beer” so they can start another one right away.

Thankfully, Root Beer is also attainable through a series of mini-games. These are nothing terribly extravagant, but they are quirky and somewhat amusing. Ranging from twitch-based fishing games, to balancing a sword on one’s hand, to rock, paper, scissors, each one provides a small change of pace to game play and can be played indefinitely. Furthermore, winning these games will award the user with Root Beer.

Lil’ Pirates is a little slow at first, but as the crew grows and features such as Battle! and the treasure island unlock, the app becomes much more amusing. The only thing that really feels like it’s missing is the ability to to interact with other players in the game world, as in MiniNation’s Pirate Nation.

That said, Lil’ Pirates is still a nice addition to the mobile, social gaming world, providing a nice change of pace from the typical leaderboard and achievement-only integration.

2010 will be remembered as the year that games on social networks became a billion dollar business and transformed the way millions more people socialized with friends online. With an up-to-$750 million acquisition of Playdom by Disney, Playfish’s integration across Electronic Arts, the continued growth of Zynga, the rise of CrowdStar and Kabam, and continued venture investments, social games are impacting businesses across the media landscape. Despite the challenges facing the market, it’s become clear that there are still substantial opportunities for social game developers with virtual goods revenue models, but the market is still evolving rapidly.

Inside Network is proud to announce the release today of a new original research report by Justin Smith and Charles Hudson that is exclusively focused on the future of the social gaming market, entitled Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2011. This is Inside Network’s second annual edition of the Future of Social Gaming report. The big picture? The social gaming market will reach $1.25 billion overall in 2011.

Where will social gaming go in 2011? How will existing players fare as Facebook shifts the social gaming landscape through the rollout of Facebook Credits and continued changes to the platform? Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2011 provides deeper insight into social game monetization, development, customer acquisition, and the key questions facing the space in 2011 than you’ll find anywhere else.

About the Report

Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2011 gives you an inside view of the future at this critical juncture in the intersection of social networking and online games.

We have compiled months of original research from dozens of top executives and entrepreneurs from all parts of the social gaming ecosystem to produce eye-opening source data and analysis that is not available anywhere else. Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2011 takes the closest look at the present state of social games and the future of this strong but still rapidly changing industry.

What We Cover

1. Social Game Development and Studio Models – There is an emerging consensus around how social game developers are choosing to organize themselves for game development. How do small, medium, and large developers organize their teams? What do development cycle times for original titles and “expansion packs” look like? What is the role of testing and metrics in the development process?
2. Social Game Design and Mechanics – The emergence of a few key game genres with proven mechanics and monetization have spawned dozens of fast followers. Understand how publishers are continuing to innovate as we head into 2011.
3. Monetization Data and Payment Trends – Now that developers have proven the virtual goods model, what are ARPUs, ARPPUs, and LTVs really like for different game genres? What is the lifetime value of users, and how long do players stick around? We take an in depth look at monetization methods and rates, and shed light on where payments are headed in the coming quarters. One more note on monetization – you may be wondering about everything you’ve heard about the rollout of Facebook Credits. We cover:
   • Both the goals and benefits, and challenges and costs, of Facebook Credits for developers
   • Changes that developers have – and haven’t – made
   • How the rollout of Facebook Credits will affect the payments ecosystem (looking at both direct and alternativee payment methods globally)
4. Customer Acquisition and Marketing Trends – As the social gaming landscape has evolved over the past three and a half years, so have the ways that developers acquire and retain new users. How have user acquisition costs changed, and what do Facebook’s changes spell for the future of the marketing funnel? We take an in depth look at data and trends.
5. Facebook’s Platform Changes, Credits, and What’s In Store for the Future – Facebook has continued to change Platform communication channels and functionality over the last year, significantly altering the way social games reach users through Facebook. Continued change is likely – what will it be, and how will it impact the industry? In addition, as Facebook rolls out its much-discussed Credits currency, how will monetization and the payments landscape be affected? Finally, will we see another dominant platform emerge? Our overview covers these developments, their impact on the industry, and what else is in store.

What you get

In addition to our deep dive into key aspects of the social gaming ecosystem, the report also offers extended coverage on:

• A brief history on the evolution and growth of this space in the US, including a description of all key players and how they rose to the top.
• Total social gaming market size estimates for 2011, including estimates on the “big four” developers.
• Our take on the key issues facing the growth of social gaming, including our outlook and projections for 2011.

See the full table of contents below:

Table of Contents

More Data, More Actionable Insights

In 2010, social games began to show what kind of value can be created on top of social networks. 2011 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

A long awaited partnership between Yahoo and Zynga is finally coming to fruition this morning, as Yahoo announces an expansion of its gaming portal and other sites. Zynga will place two games, Mafia Wars and FishVille, on a set of Yahoo properties including Games, Messenger, My Yahoo and the Toolbar.

Yahoo’s announcement comes just a day after Microsoft announced its own deal with CrowdStar, and signals that the big web portals are still highly interested in social games. Both big companies are integrating games across multiple properties, connected by both Facebook Connect and their own APIs.

Zynga has its own reasons to be interested in expanding beyond Facebook. Also yesterday, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus mentioned at the ongoing Web 2.0 Summit that Zynga has served some 320 million players. Almost all of those will be from Facebook.

Having touched most of the available population of gamers on Facebook, Zynga needs to find and foster new channels. The catch is that this process is painstakingly slow, when compared to the speed with which Zynga started on Facebook: the Zynga / Yahoo deal was first announced in May.

Even with the deal done, there’s no guarantee that it will satisfy Zynga. Before CrowdStar joined forces with Microsoft, Zynga had its own deal with that company. But in August, Zynga pulled FarmVille off MSN Games, seemingly dissatisfied with the results.

A common complaint from game developers on nearly any platform is that discovery is hard — players that should know about their game often don’t, unless the developer advertises heavily. TeePee Games, a British startup, is the latest to try to tackle the problem. The company is announcing its plans today, along with a $500,000 angel funding.

TeePee has a wider focus than most discovery sites. The company wants to show users the way to games on any open platform. At launch, that will mean Facebook games, web-based Flash games, and mobile games. “To date, there isn’t yet a portal that aggregates content across the three different platforms,” says founder Tony Pearce. “I look at the [existing] aggregation sites as Web 1.0.”

The company has invested into an algorithm that Pearce likens to Amazon’s suggestion function, which offers new products based on old ones that you’ve viewed or bought. A new member of TeePee will go through a short signup process that involves clicking through a picture-based quiz, giving TeePee an idea of their likes and dislikes. Afterward, the user’s ratings and plays will determine what they’re shown.

What happens next depends on the game the user chooses. If it’s a mobile game, TeePee will send a text to the user’s phone with a link to the download.

If, on the other hand, the user wants to play a Facebook game, they’re not simply bumped over to Facebook. Instead, TeePee plans to run the game within its own frame on Facebook, which will add some additional social features to play. This frame isn’t complete yet, but TeePee shared a very early mockup with us that shows a few potential functions:

The “My Tribes” button on the lower-right refers to TeePee’s built-in network, which will let players join and interact with groups that share their gaming interests.

As for monetizing itself, TeePee has a plan for each platform. The core of its efforts will go toward striking deals with individual publishers, in which the publisher pays TeePee a small amount per install. Pearce says TeePee has already been receiving signups, especially from Facebook developers.

We’ve seen algorithm-driven discovery before, like Chomp, which focuses on mobile discovery. It’s not clear yet what place these platforms will have in the ecosystem. But given the slowness with which Apple, Facebook, Google and other large companies have address improving discovery, there’s still a window open for these companies to draw in motivated gamers.

For some social games, the connection to real life is so obvious it just begs for a commercial tie-in. For example: FarmVille branding on real bananas at 7-Eleven, or virtual goods from McDonald’s in the game. What we haven’t seen so far, though, is the ability to directly order a real version of an in-game virtual item.

PlayFirst is stepping up as the first with Chocolatier: Sweet Society, a Facebook game about making artisanal chocolates in San Francisco. For the holiday season, PlayFirst is partnering with Charles Chocolates, an artisanal chocolate maker based in, where else, San Francisco.

In Chocolatier, players will have access to five special chocolates the work much like the other chocolates in the games: after making the chocolate in their factory, the player puts it out in their store for purchase, getting a bit of virtual currency and experience for each sale.

But each of the new chocolates will also have Charles Chocolates branding, with a prominent button urging them to “Get The Real Deal!”:

If they click the button, the player will be sent off to the Charles Chocolates website to buy a box of all five chocolates, which Charles created specifically for the game.

The founder of Charles Chocolates, Chuck Siegel, says that he has no idea what the result of the brand integration will be. But he’s in love with the idea, no matter what happens. “The attractiveness of it to me is just the idea itself. Conceptually, it’s just brilliant,” he says.

Chocolatier has about 800,000 monthly active users, so there is the potential that the small company could face an overwhelming flow of orders, especially with the holidays coming up. But Siegel says he’s able to staff up dynamically, so demand shouldn’t be a problem. “Although we’re artisanal, we have phenomenal capacity,” he tells us.

It’s likely that this deal is just the leading edge of something we’ll see more often in the future — smarter, tighter brand integrations into games. Chocolatier’s advantage is its laser focus on just one thing, chocolate. But others are working on similar ideas, and startups like Mertado are homing in on merchandising through games.

One of the more specialized payment companies we’ve covered is PayNearMe, an outfit that focuses on finding ways for the quarter of United States citizens who don’t have credit cards to pay for goods and services online. The company is announcing $16 million in funding today and a new step to streamlining its payments today by adding mobile to its offerings.

Without credit cards, most of that quarter of the population ends up paying for everything with cash, which presents some obvious problems online. PayNearMe’s first iteration had payers print out a slip, which they carried to a chain like 7-Eleven. Unfortunately, if you’re in the minority without credit cards, you probably also don’t have a printer.

PayNearMe’s new feature is the ability to use a phone to complete the transaction. After entering a transaction, the user will enter their mobile number, and receive a text in return. They can then go to their local 7-Eleven, buy a gift card, and text the number on it back. The only other step is to pay at the counter, in cash.

This payment flow is not a totally obvious or convenient way of paying, but that’s true of other methods available to those people in the cash economy. The question, then, becomes how those people will find out about PayNearMe.

“A subtle distinction between us and most payment companies is that they market to consumers. We market to merchants, who for all intents and purposes market us,” says CEO Danny Shader.

The $16 million funding was led by Khosla Ventures, and makes for a total of $22.3 million so far for PayNearMe. We last covered PayNearMe when it became a Facebook Credits partner.