While Facebook product launches tend to get the most speculation before the f8 developer conference — there are 750 million users who care, after all — the company has often used the conference to push grand presentations that instead target developers.

That trend may be the case again next Thursday, we’re hearing from a trusted source with some knowledge of what the company has planned.

Developers might be getting new access to Facebook’s news feed, building off of the graph API that Facebook presented at last year’s f8. They’d be able to provide new structure to the information they share into the news feed, allowing Facebook’s news feed algorithm to present it to the audience most likely to find it relevant and engage with it.

> Read the rest on Inside Facebook.

TribePlay has made its debut on Facebook with BrainJewel, a puzzle game with an Egyptian theme. The title is currently in beta, having gone live in August.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, BrainJewel currently has 3,538 monthly active users and 257 daily active users.

BrainJewel sets itself apart from many other Facebook puzzle games in that it isn’t based around one main game mechanic. Instead, it’s a collection of different puzzle games connected by the fact that they’re all brain-teasers. Many of the puzzles are memory or math-based, requiring players to quickly match objects and solve equations in order to win. All of the puzzles are presented in keeping with the game’s ancient Egyptian theme, meaning they incorporate famous sights, artifacts and elements, such as pyramids, mummies and scarabs.

Players receive jewels as the primary reward for playing each of the included games. As a secondary reward, players level up by earning treasure points each time a puzzle is played and unlock new puzzles by earning accumulating star rankings on each puzzle. Monetization comes in with three types of power-ups that players can purchase and use to better their score in the puzzles: one grants an instant two-times score multiplier, one protects the score multiplier against wrong answers and one adds additional time to the games’ clocks. These power-ups can be bought with jewels, which the player earns through gameplay, buy with Facebook Credits, or win as part of a once-per-day slot machine mini-game.

The game’s main social feature allows players to challenge their friends in any of its puzzles. This feature basically sends an alert to friends challenging them to beat a player’s best score. There’s also a friend invite feature, gifting and the ability to brag about accomplishments via players’ Walls. BrainJewel also makes use of TapJoy’s AppStrip cross-promotion bar.

TribePlay plans to launch French, Portuguese and Spanish versions of the game in the coming weeks, according to a Wall post from the developer. The company has also enhanced the game with new artifacts, an improved tutorial and bug fixes. An upcoming update announced by the company is meant to improve the game’s speed.

You can follow BrainJewel’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

An ngmoco spokesperson tells us today that Facebook sports game developer Lionside was indeed recently acquired by the mobile publisher.

“We can confirm that ngmoco has acquired the Lionside team,” the spokesperson says. “The terms of the agreement are undisclosed. We are very excited to have Lionside join the ngmoco and DeNA family. They are working on new products for the Mobage social gaming platform, bringing their passion and experience to our continuously expanding first party development capabilities.”

Ngmoco was itself acquired late last year by Japanese developer and platform provider DeNA for up to $403 million. We first started seeing the results of the relationship this summer with the launch of DeNA’s Mobage platform for English-language markets via the Android Marketplace. DeNA is expecting overseeas sales to hit 1 billion yen ($13.1 million) with a net loss of 1.1 billion yen ($14.4 million) for the quarter ending this month. The company ended its last quarter with 50.9 billion yen ($665 million) in cash on its balance sheet.

If you’re headed to San Francisco for f8 next week, then stop by and join us at the Inside Network Happy Hour at Mercury Lounge.

Inside Network Happy Hours bring together app developers to connect and re-connect over drinks and casual conversation.

All are welcome, and drinks are on us with your RSVP.

Note: we’re expecting the event to be full, so please do RSVP to make sure that you can join, and come early if you can!

Pre-f8 Inside Network Happy Hour – San Francisco
Wednesday September 21, 2011
5:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Mercury Lounge SF
1582 Folsom Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
Click to View Map
Let us know you’re coming, here.

See you there!

2011 will be remembered as the year that Zynga filed for its IPO, Google launched Google+, and Facebook executed the Credits transition. With the first potential social gaming IPO, Zynga plans to raise up to $2 billion to fund its continued global expansion. Meanwhile, Google is putting its weight behind what appears to have the potential to be the most serious competitor to Facebook as a social gaming platform in North America since the demise of MySpace. And at the same time, developers are still navigating through the Facebook Credits migration, while many are also expanding substantially onto mobile platforms to increase growth and expand reach.

Inside Network is proud to announce 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 2012. This is Inside Network’s third annual edition of the Future of Social Gaming report. It will be released on September 20, but is available for discount pre-order now.

How big is the market, and where will social gaming go in 2012? How will existing players fare as Facebook Credits shifts the social gaming landscape and continued changes to the platform? Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2012 provides deeper insight into social game monetization, development, customer acquisition, and the key questions facing the space in 2012 than you’ll find anywhere else.

About the Report

Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2012 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 2010 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. Facebook Credits and the New Monetization Landscape: Early Results - Now that the transition to Facebook Credits was completed on July 1, what are the early results that developers are reporting? We take an in depth look at metrics and trends.
2. Will 2012 (Finally) be the Year of Mobile Social Games? – Now that mobile games monetizing through the virtual goods model are becoming a bigger market in the US and around the world, many social game developers have expanded their efforts to tap these new platforms as well.  Will 2012 finally be the year that social games take significant root on mobile?
   
3. Social Game Development and Design – 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? 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 2012.
4. 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.
5. Customer Acquisition and Marketing Trends – As the social gaming landscape has evolved over the past four 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.
6. Facebook’s Platform Changes, 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? Finally, will we see another platform (like Google+) 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 2012.
• Our take on the key issues facing the growth of social gaming, including our outlook and projections for 2012.

More Data, More Actionable Insights

In 2011, social games continued to show what kind of value can be created on top of social networks. 2012 will be an even more important year.

Social gaming, powered by virtual goods, continues to expand. 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

NBA Legend developer Lionside may have been acquired recently, according to recent LinkedIn updates on several employee profiles.

Over the weekend, an ISG tipster pointed us toward profiles for Lionside VP of Business Operations Michael McBride and European Account Manager Kane Curran that both list the company as “acquired by ngmoco.” Company co-founder Brandon Barber’s Google+ profile now says “Lionside & ngmoco marketing and product guy.” Lionside’s website is currently down and its Twitter account hasn’t been touched in over a year. Its largest Facebook game, NBA Legend, has been in steady decline for the past three months according to our AppData traffic tracking service. As of press time, the game is apparently down while being “enhanced,” while Lionside’s soccer sim is completely unreachable.

[Update: Well-placed readers in the industry have also confirmed the acquisition.]

Lionside did not respond to request for comment as of press time. Its last big activity was a $1.6 million round of funding raised in November of last year to put toward developing sports games for Facebook.

Thanks Blair!

Japanese mobile-social gaming giant DeNA made another small acquisition to fuel development of its global platform Mobage. It agreed buy the Hanoi-based arm of Punch Entertainment to create gaming titles for the platform.

Like we’ve noted before, the Japanese mobile gaming platforms are distinct from U.S.-based ones in that they both create games and support the infrastructure for third-party developers. This is different from what other social networking platforms like Facebook have elected to do in not creating their own gaming IP.

Punch Entertainment has built games like Ego, Music Tycoon and Reign of Swords, which did decently when they were initially released two or three years ago. But it doesn’t appear that the studio has stayed as competitive since.

> Read the rest on our sister site, Inside Mobile Apps.

One of two slot machine titles by Product Madness, Inc., GameShow Slot Machines so far seems to be the more successful of the pair. It turned up at No.5 last week on our list of emerging Facebook games.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, GameShow Slot Machines currently has 524,477 monthly active users and 78,226 daily active users.

GameShow Slot Machines is a collection of casino style slots. The machines are themed after a variety of popular imagery, including medieval times and carnival games. Each slot machine has its own payout rules and they all give players several betting options to control how they spend their virtual coins. These include the number of lines to bet on, the amount of bet per line and the base coin value.

There are also options to have the game auto-spin, stopping only after a specified number of spins, when the player wins or when a bonus is earned. Players earn experience points for winning — these points accumulate towards players gaining experience levels, which in turn unlock more slot machines.

Social features in GameShow Slot Machines are limited to inviting friends to play the game. Product Madness is monetizing the title through the purchase of Facebook Credits, which are converted into coins for the player. The developer recently added 10 more slot machines to the title. This was in addition to the 10 original machines, effectively doubling its content.

Slot machine and casino titles are seeing a lot of love on Facebook lately. In general, the slightly more complex or robust titles — like Slotomania or DoubleDown Casino — enjoy larger audiences, but with a premise as simple as slot machines, many of the newer games are seeing growth over the last 30 days.

You can follow GameShow Slot Machines’ progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

The Sims Social is sill on top in our list of fastest-growing Facebook games by monthly active users. EA PopCap’s Zuma Blitz and Social Point’s Social Empires round out the top three.

As an interesting aside, EA PopCap’s games have a banner ads for The Sims Social displayed at the bottom of the Canvas app, but The Sims Social only displays adds for itself. As of press time, there’s not even a cross-promotion bar for other EA brand or EA Playfish games displayed on The Sims Social Canvas page. At 36 million MAU and 9.4 million daily active users, the game commands a lot of eyeballs that could be directed at future EA-brand social games. It’ll be interesting to see if the company makes it a point to leverage The Sims Social cross-promotion only for core franchise-branded products, or if they aim it games that appeal to the casual gamer audience (e.g. PopCap titles).

Top Gainers This Week – Games

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	The Sims Social	36,019,969	+7,266,307	+25%
2.	Zuma Blitz	4,233,787	+852,175	+25%
3.	Social Empires	5,072,153	+741,147	+17%
4.	The Smurfs & Co	10,148,711	+605,119	+6%
5.	Magic Land	3,086,640	+600,330	+24%
6.	Mystery Manor	2,992,421	+597,801	+25%
7.	Diamond Dash	11,504,587	+456,589	+4%
8.	FarmVille	35,762,289	+441,805	+1%
9.	水果忍者	1,555,874	+404,500	+35%
10.	GnomeTown	3,543,057	+349,141	+11%
11.	DoubleDown Casino	3,849,570	+344,493	+10%
12.	Slotomania – Slot Machines	6,524,063	+297,276	+5%
13.	Total Domination: Nuclear Strategy	1,911,046	+271,269	+17%
14.	Baby & Me	1,627,127	+263,914	+19%
15.	Mahjong Saga	3,934,570	+239,290	+6%
16.	BINGO Blitz	2,309,802	+221,286	+11%
17.	MapleStory Adventures	2,975,295	+197,925	+7%
18.	The Pokerist club — Texas Poker	4,819,938	+197,804	+4%
19.	Monster World	8,691,047	+192,170	+2%
20.	Top Eleven – Be a Football Manager	4,282,272	+166,650	+4%

If just now you’re wondering where Zynga’s just-launched Adventure World is on this list, sit tight for a week or so. At day four of its life cycle — just after the September 11 weekend — it hasn’t had much time to build momentum in traffic. As we’ve seen with previous Zynga launches, however, this probably won’t hold Adventure World back from breaking into the millions within 10 days of launch.

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned for our look at the top weekly gainers by daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday.

Social game enhancement service BringIt updates its platform this week to include a head-to-head competition mode that creates a new viral channel for client social games.

The existing BringIt platform adds a skill-based mini-game (e.g. a timed match-3 game) to an existing social game where players can enter tournaments to wager Facebook Credits on their mini-game score compared to other players’. The mini-games pay out winnings in the premium virtual currency of the client social game, making the integration a retention tool for players that hit a wall in gameplay where they don’t want to spend more Credits to purchase premium currency — essentially letting them gamble on themselves.

The new head-to-head feautre, says BringIt CEO Woodrow Levin, increases retention not just through virality but also by tapping into the Facebook players’ natural desire to compete with their friends. The mode allows players to challenge friends directly for one-on-one competition, as opposed to matching players up against random opponents that they may not even know. Instead of sending an Invite, the challenge creates a post on that friend’s Wall, which creates a new viral channel for the game. Additionally, BringIt activities also show up in Facebook’s recently-launched live app ticker.

“Kabam and all these other companies are [focusing] on competition to keep engagement high and monetize users at a higher rate,” Levin tells us. “So we’re taking this competitive nature of challenging your friends to a mini-game for virtual currency. We’re not only helping the games monetize better through competition, but we’re also adding a new viral hook that will bring [players] back to the game.”

Levin and Mike Burlando, BringIt’s VP of Engineering, walked us through a demo in a test environment using the Pot Farm BringIt mini-game as an example. Burlando created a challenge aimed at Levin, which then appeared on Levin’s wall. By clicking on it, Levin went straight to the mini-game to compete for a high score. As soon as the round ended, the winnings were deposited into the in-game wallet of the player with the higher score.

Levin explains that though we could see the challenge from Burlando to Levin on the latter’s Wall, clicking on the post would’ve just taken us or any other third-party observer to the home screen on the BringIt integration, or to a tutorial if we’d never played the Pot Farm BringIt game before. Head-to-head mode allows players to challenge up to 10 friends at once.

Cheating was a major concern BringIt had in developing this feature. Levin says the company developed 15 different safeguards around head-to-head mode alone to prevent users from dumping money from one account into another, which would be “money laundering, essentially.” The main way in which BringIt monitors cheating is in syncing currency with client games while taking its service fee — any anomalies in player activity or currency fluctuation would be easily detected.

Levin points out, however, that even if a player wanted to move currency around between accounts, a player still has to generate Facebook Credits or in-game premium currency before buying into a round of BringIt’s head-to-head. The only real danger we could see with BringIt’s system is in cases where a client social game gives all new users some premium currency to start off with, which could lead to cheaters creating numerous phony accounts. Levin says BringIt’s safeguards would be able to track this kind of user behavior.

As the platform expands to include more client social games on Facebook, Levin says we can expect to see more features added to BringIt. Among those, he mentions skill-matching with random opponents in head-to-head, better player records with a worldwide leaderboard for tournaments, and the potential to pay out virtual items as tournament winnings instead of virtual currency.

“So let’s say you wager 10 Credits and I wager 10 credits for this one item that would normally cost 15 Credits [in-game],” Levin says. “The client has no cost of goods sold because they’re getting 20 Credits for that item and players can get [that item] for less than they would’ve had to pay. So the client gets additional currency at a faster rate.” Levin adds that they have talked with some developers about creating virtual items exclusively available as BringIt prizes.

Head-to-head mode rolls out across all BringIt integrations as of this week. Previous and existing integrations include Pot Farm, Mall World, the original Zoo World and Barn Buddy. Levin tells us that with a Happy Aquarium integration launched in August, the platform saw an influx of 300,000 new players in three-and-a-half days, which pushes BringIt’s total number of unique users to just over 8 million.