Zynga CEO Mark Pincus announced a service called Zynga Direct today that seems to be the final form of the long-rumored ZLive platform.

ZLive was first reported more than a year ago and at the time was seen as a direct threat to Facebook’s games ecosystem, if indeed the platform allowed Facebook players to play Zynga games without Facebook. At that time, Zynga was also struggling with Facebook’s evolving platform requirements and Credits integration. Now, however, the market has changed and Credits are fully integrated in the Facebook platform across all games. In present conditions, Zynga Direct comes across more as a social club for Zynga gamers than a game-oriented Facebook alternative.

As Pincus explains: “We’re building a platform for play. For us it’s a platform. We’re not trying to be the company that’s trying to make the next hit game. We’re trying to have this experience make up a platform for play. Similar to what Facebook’s doing, but at a game level.”

Pincus put off the technical explanation for later on in the event. He did say that Zynga Direct is the deepest possible integration of Facebook Connect, and made a point of calling Facebook a launch partner of the platform, much as Zynga was Facebook’s launch partner for its mobile platform launched yesterday.

UPDATE: Zynga’s COO John Schappert announced what seems to be a separate product called Project Z, which is a web-based social network for Zynga players. It’s not live yet, but you can reserve a “Ztag” virtual identity here. It is also a Facebook Connect-enabled network.

UPDATE 2: Ah, it’s not a separate thing. Project Z is Zynga Direct. Both names are probably working titles only as the service isn’t live.

We’re here at Zynga headquarters in San Francisco for the Zynga Unleashed press event.

The highlights include the launch of major new or sequel titles on Facebook, HTML5 games that use Facebook’s new mobile platform, and the introduction of Project Z, aka Zynga Direct, formerly known as Zynga Live — a Facebook Connect-based gaming platform that has been in the works for two years.

The following is a lightly-paraphrased transcript of the presentations.

The Live Blog

After a promotional video about Zynga games, Mark Pincus has taken the stage.

10:38 We started a few blocks from here. Tells story about growing from there.

Tells story about the new office — it had been the Sega building back in the 80s. Now it’s getting remodeled.

Zynga launching ten new products, that have been in development for over a year.

Before we show you the products I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about what we’re trying to do. What’s in all these games that we have now. How do you string it all together, tie it back to our mission that we’ve been pursuing for the last five years.

We challenge ourselves every day with the question “how do we get you guys to play.” You don’t have time to sit and play games, yet we really think that play is this macro theme activity that we all need to fit back into our lives. Everything behind the products we’re creating is our mission to build what we think of as a platform for play.

We’re not trying to be the company that makes the next hit game — although we want to do that too. We want to do something broader. Make up a platform for play. We’re going to talk about the technology, infrastructure, behind all that we’re doing to create socialness. To help and inspire you to many more friend connections. In any given session, we’re measuring and tracking how well our teams do with the content. To inspire you to connect with more people in meaningful ways.

We’re trying to design the games — we have some design principles. The First Time User Experience. The FTUE. We believe in those first moments, those first three clicks, why you want it, why you want to check out more of it. It’s kind of a three-click deal — we sold you or we didn’t.

We can’t ask for more than 15 minutes of your time. We don’t want to ask you to change your day. Just like a good show (I’ve been addicted to Breaking Bad lately). Like a good show, if you do like our games, we hope to give you enough depth that you can keep playing for three months or a year.

We hope to enable a platform for direct relationships. Wether on the web or mobile. We hope to create socialness around the game.

Friends from Facebook (corp) are here. We’re excited to be a launch platform for their mobile platform. We’ll be showing you 3 HTML5 versions of our games I think launching today. We’ll start unveiling pieces of Zynga Direct. We hope you’ll see that it’s the deepest integration with FB Connect of any service on the web or mobile.

In terms of the games we’re showing today, including one that launched last night…. with every game we hope it moves the genre, answers the question “how is this more social.”

They took this component of the game — clan fighting — and brought it front and center.

We think that’s going to be a new spin on social crime-fighting. We’re going to show you CastleVille. That game is built by a team in Dallas that has a long track record building Triple-A PC titles like Age of Empires. We think the art and graphics are really beautiful. The design, the user-driven story line, character development, new ways to collaborate and get ahead through partnering with other players in the game.

We’re going to show you another casual game category called Hidden Chronicles. A first for us in the hidden objects and puzzle category, a long established category in the download market. We hope to show a more social spin on it, let people collaborate and compete to do puzzles.

David Ko is going to show you a bunch of mobile titles now and in the next few weeks. We’ve really ramped up our mobile game offering, worked to deliver mobile in social context. With our FB Connect integration, and a lot more firsts for mobile social gaming.

10:50 After going through the first few games in mobile, we’re going to introduce our Zynga Direct offering, which has been two years in development. The first of many many releases that you’ll see in the coming weeks and months.

I really hope you get the chance after this to touch and play the games.

I’m going to turn this over to Cadir Lee (CTO). We’ve worked together since he was 22, when he was in his first job. We both learned product development at the same time. Lucky to have him come back and build out the tech.

I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the tech. Over half the Zynga employees are engineers, and are hard at work making the games better.

I wanted to share some of the highlights. The gaming engine itself: can display thousands of objects in a world, make the world come alive, show animations. All of our game engines focus on making it easy to build game, and enhance game. We’re also hard at work on new capabilities with Flash 11.

We think there’s a lot more to come. We also talk a lot about infrastructure; we’re long-time public and private cloud users. We have our own, Z-Cloud. Worst thing is if you can’t play one of our games. We try to make sure they’re available all the time. We’ve been known to deploy 1,000 servers to meet a game launch. Elasticity of key, makes play always available.

One of the things I want to share with you today.

We’re working on HTML5, R&D to make games entirely from HTML, CSS and Javascript. Snapshot of one of our test games.

Analytics — long been known as an analytics company. Not what to build, but how the things we build are working. How to match up with the right somebody across the street, across the country, across the world. We’re trying to make sure it’s not the data that comes in but the personalization that comes out. How do you make sure the right player with the right skill-set can have a fun and challenging game.

I’d like to introduce you to Roy Sehgal, vice president and general manager.

Today, I’m pleased to unveil a new game genre for Zynga. Hidden object games. Our first game in this new genre: Hidden Chronicles. A new journey for our players, and one we’re excited to share today.

And now for the first time ever, let’s take a sneak peek at the game.

[Video starts.]

The game is about mystery, discovery, social competition. Use skills to find thousands of hidden objects within beautiful scenes. Begin at Ramsey Manor. Here, you’re going to explore, build, discover, customize, the self expression we know our players love.

Compare scores….

Hours of play within a single scene. I’m proud of our team. Unique sound, animatics — make you feel like you’re underwater. Deep, rich, engaging. A new and unique art style for Zynga.

Mafia Wars 2.

Easiest the edgiest game we’ve had: Franchise, feel, friends and fighting. Mafia Wars launched in 2008. Great honor to work with veterans of Mafia Wars team to create sequel. But even greater to give back to our players from the first game. All about rising up, getting revenge and kicking ass with your friends.

[Video starts]

11:00 Epic missions with your friends. Example: blowing up casino and getting stacks of cash. Happened asynchronously, but shared social experience. Moment that’ll continue through the game.

Also bosses: very important story points in the game. A don is sending thugs to take cash — won’t stop until I fight back. Use power-ups and defense, call friends. Also hit boss on my game board. First boss. Took him out. Future bosses are super tough, have lots of tactics to defeat.

Fighting: bone yard, any weapons. Any guns. Shotguns, rocket launchers, even chainsaws to cut people up. Lots of sophisticated matching. Lots of fun rewards.

[Our review here.]

Go to others houses. Take their cash, products. Then they call their friends and come fight you. Friend bars. But we built a rival bar — keep track of the friends you hate. Keep these cycles going. That’s a little taste of Mafia Wars 2.

Before I go. We also just went live on Google+ with Mafia Wars 2.

Here to talk about Zynga Poker, our first social game. Launched in July 2007. Still the world’s largest and most social social game. While the game is traditional Texas Hold’Em poker, we have social features — fantastic presence across Facebook, Google+, Android and special interface for iPhone and iPad. We realized we could broaden our scope and go beyond.

We’re launching a new franchise. Zynga Casino. We’re bringing fans the full Monte Carlo experience with the launch of Zynga Casino. You can’t always take your friends on a plane to Vegas. But you can on Zynga poker tables and other rooms.

Joining the franchise: Zynga Bingo. This is the first new game in the Zynga Casino Franchise. It was created by our talented New York team with our poker studio.

Zynga Bingo features a number of themed rooms. The Zynga ball shoots out of a Cadillac. Or  a sweet shop. Or FarmVille background. Fun social twist — friends with benefits. More friends playing, more advantages in the game.

Launching on Facebook soon.

11:10 We’re bringing players a new way to play. Also on Zynga devices.

Bill Jackson, creative director from Zynga Dallas. Before we were Bonfire Studios — Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, Halo Wars. Zynga was *the* company putting social in gaming. We’re very proud to be putting on the next “-Ville” game. CastleVille. FarmVille was about social expression, brought social games to mainstream like no other.

Frontierville was all about narrative. Then CityVille, fastest-growing of all time. Number one on Facebook.

CastleVille is latest, most beautiful to date. New level of social. Caste of characters: Giselle a singer, dragon-slayer Tom, Sonia the pirate, George the viking. Antonio the playboy woodsman.

[Video starts.]

We put a lot of love and attention to detail to our characters.

CastleVille: true manifestation of Zynga’s social magic. Improves upon each of the things of the games before. Build castle, craft art, armor, potions. Help friends with those, as we progress through the epic journey through the game.

Go through the free market to trade. Work with friends to defend against Beasties that lurk outside of the castle walls. New storytelling in a personal way. Players create their own story, own path through games. New locations, items, hidden characters. Your journey will be different from your friends. I might meet Antonio, you might meet Giselle. We learn the characters’ stories as we work our way through the games. Zynga is bringing massively multi-player role-playing games.

One more thing is music: orchestral arrangements.

Couldn’t show you without heart and soul that Dallas team puts into it.

I hope we’ve given you a taste, a flavor of where we’re taking the Ville franchise.

Mark is back on stage. Turns out there’s an open building space with five stories packed full of Zynga employees watching us cover the event. Sort of surprising.

11:20 Introducing John Schappert, new COO (until recently at EA).

[Video starts about players.]

People want to play everywhere. David Ko, chief mobile officer, now on stage.

Super excited to talk to you today about Mobile. Update you on many of the exciting initiatives that the team is working on. You’ve heard about Zynga equaling play. Delivering where our players are. Not just because I’m the mobile guy, although I may be biased.

Talks about Words With Friends going across platform.

Talking about HTML5 initiative. Launching three on the platform.

Words With Friends and Poker.

New game is FarmVille Express. Wanted to do some actions on the go. Harvest, plant, plough. That’s what we’re offering.

Fourth game, which I’m excited to talk to you about, is Mafia Shakedown. Here’s the gist of the game. The don of all dons has been killed. Bunch of things that you’ll do with requests, missions, gives you opportunity to become the next don. You can steal from your friends. This game will be coming shortly so stay tuned.

Lastly, this fifth game is called Dream Zoo. Zynga’s first game in zoo genre. You get to manage the dream zoo, no cages, the animals get to roam.

[Video starts.]

You can create all sorts of animals….

11:30 Schappert back on.

In addition to mobile and social. More than 60 million daily active players. We know that because we have great stats. We learn a lot more not just from stats but from talking to them. Yes they like our games, play them a lot. Playing our games with friends.

Sneak peek of something new: Project Z.

Centered on bringing players together, giving them what they want. Social environment just for games. Facebook Connect-enabled platform to play environment tailored just for games. Here’s a sneak peak.

[Video starts.]

Link is: Zynga.com/ztag

Can reserve own Zynga tag at Zynga.com. Having own alias. At work I’m “Jon” or probably other names. But online: SchappAttack.

Coming to you. Bringing back MarkPinc to close out the show.

We tried to share a lot with you guys. Hopefully in pretty quick order. More efficient way to share product launches. Even tried to share some things that are works in progress. Project Z, Z Tags, games that aren’t launching yet.

We really want to build a platform for Play. Committed to one vision, one mission, hasn’t changed since we founded the company. You should expect it won’t ever change in the future.

We want to be the biggest macro bet on social gaming. We believe in social gaming, we believe that how more than us in this building, how everyone in the world will embrace play in our lives. Everything we’re doing is an attempt to bring that to life. It’s early, it’s primitive. The game play and socialness is at an early point. We know that in the next couple years its going to come to life, be mobile. More of the WoW feeling, but packaged up in something you can understand and like in 3 clicks, and play in 10 to 15 minutes.

We hope we gave you some more of our flavor, our team, a bunch of our leaders.

[Zynga employee photo courtesy of Anthony Ha.]

Based on the CW network’s TV series, The Vampire Diaries: Get Sucked In is a puzzle heavy adventure game by developer Arkadium in partnership with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. This is the second title in Warner Bros’ first wave of social games based on TV shows, the first being a The Big Bang Theory tie-in title launched last week.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, The Vampire Diaries: Get Sucked In currently has 111,137 monthly active users and 22,799 daily active users.

In the game, players assume the role of a teenage newcomer to Mystic Falls, the fictional town that serves as the setting for the TV show. The player is also the newest student at the local high school, so it serves as a central location among several that can be traveled between. The majority of the game revolves around completing tasks by finding objects, which are uncovered by participating in mini-games. In one example, players spend energy (stamina) to see what’s behind one in a series of obscured areas on-screen. The item or items they need are hidden behind a particular space, so unless they make a good guess, they must uncover them all. Others include spotting the difference between several images, and hidden image challenges.

Occasionally, players will uncover a space that whisks them into a timed trivia challenge. Here, they must correctly answer questions about the show and its characters in order to win. Before entering the game, players have the opportunity to purchase power ups to give them more time to answer questions, and so on. Power-ups are purchase using Mystic Coins, which can be earned through playing or purchased. Players can also earn bonus items for play the game five days straight and completing collections of special objects.

Social features include inviting friends and sharing accomplishments through viral channels. Players can also send gifts to friends.

The Vampire Diaries: Get Sucked In is monetized through the use of Facebook Credits to purchase Mystic Coins. This premium currency is used to purchase power-ups, stamina, and items needs to complete tasks.The game is currently in beta, with its developer promising that a entirely new chapter is coming in order to satisfy players who have already experienced all of the content the game currently has to offer.

You can follow The Vampire Diaries: Get Sucked In’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

The Sims Social comes closer to CityVille going into the month of October on our list of top 25 Facebook games by size. Last month, the game debuted at No.3 in daily active users and No.5 by monthly active users.

There are some newcomers to our rankings this month, but only one of them is a newly-launched game. Zynga’s Adventure World went live in early September while Social Point’s Social Empires and DoubleDown Casino have been around for 10 months or more before finally hitting their all-time traffic highs in the last month. In the case of Social Point, it seems as though the game is benefiting from investor funding closed in July. As for not-quite-newcomers, EA PopCap’s Zuma Blitz returns to the rankings after a brief absence.

A notable absence from our list this month is Gaia Online’s Monster Galaxy. After a long period of sustained growth, the game has declined dramatically in the past two months or so, falling more than 83% across both MAU and DAU in that time period.

These figures are based on October 7, 2011 totals logged in AppData.

Facebook may be ready to roll with its newly-launched mobile version, but the HTML5 games are slower to get the ball rolling. Of the launch games planned for the platform, only three are live today with select titles from Zynga launching tomorrow and reportedly a forthcoming Sims Social game from EA.

To access the games from a mobile device, players must log in to Facebook’s new mobile site and enter the game titles into the search tool. Clicking on the game name opens a separate browser widow for the game that then invites the player to log in with Facebook, which opens a third window for the verification and permissions approval. Interestingly, some titles label the permissions screen as “Add to Timeline,” whereas accessing the same app from a web browser on a PC brings up the standard Facebook permissions pop-up window. Once the player has accepted, this window closes and the player is returned to the window in which the game is now running.

How each of the currently available games plays depends on the title. Games from mobile Storm8 like Vampires Live and iMobsters are very similar to the menus-driven gameplay of Facebook classics like Mob Wars or Mafia Wars. Wooga’s Magic Land spin-off, Magic Land: Island, meanwhile features click-and-drag gameplay comparable to the full Facebook version.

Note that these games post stories to players’ news feeds in exactly the same ways as traditional Facebook games. If a player clicks on a story generated by an HTML5 mobile game, that player will either be taken to the game in a new browser window or dumped into a canvas app like this one:

If the player clicks on a games story for one of these titles from their mobile device, they’re automatically taken to the initial game install screen.

Aside from the occasional screen hang-up and the inconsistencies around accessing games from a PC web browser instead of a mobile web browser, these early HTML5 games suffer from some technical hiccups. Our experience is currently limited to an iPhone 3G and an iPhone 4, but both these devices are showing difficulty with unresponsive touch controls for buttons and tapping motions. Additionally, some games are missing modes or features that would allow them to be displayed in a PC web browser (pictured below).

We expect many of these issues to be improved upon in the coming days. Some issues, however, are just growing pains of HTML5 that will persist. While many social game developers are excited by the cross-platform development potential of HTML5, most are hesitant to begin developing games with it because not many tools exist for the language, yet. Larger developers with deep pockets (like Zynga) can afford to buy HTML5 engines and invest in developing titles that work with or around the limitations of language at this stage of its development. Smaller developers, meanwhile, either stick to making simple games that shouldn’t be too taxing on their resources or avoid committing to HTML5 until more developer tools exist.

Facebook has just released its official iPad app. The tablet device was unveiled in January 2010, but development and negotiations with Apple stalled the release of Facebook’s app until now. It should become available in the App Store soon.

A slide-out navigation bar will allow users to briskly move between the app’s many features. Persistent access to notifications, messages, and requests means users can check for new alerts without having to losing their place as they do with Facebook for iPhone’s dedicated navigation grid screen. Other features include multi-conversation Chat and a full-screen photo browser.

With the iPad app available, Facebook today also announced the launch of its mobile application platform, which you can read more about here. Users will be able to access third-party apps and games from the official Facebook for iPad app, with bookmarks opening previously installed native apps or leading to the App Store where users can download them.

> Read the rest on Inside Facebook.

Facebook finally unveiled its long-awaited effort to help mobile developers market their native and HTML5-based apps through its platform today. iOS developers will get to take advantage of bookmarks, requests and the news feed in the same way that Facebook canvas developers do.

The interesting parts of today’s launch are:

Facebook is playing nice with Apple on viral distribution for native iOS apps, not just HTML5-based ones: If a developer wants to distribute a native application, Facebook’s notifications will send users to the iTunes app store.

So Facebook is not pressuring developers to build HTML5 apps in order to use its viral channels. This is a big deal because it means Facebook’s mobile platform will have greater adoption by iOS developers who don’t want to split their limited resources between developing natively and on HTML5. While promising, HTML5 apps still have a noticeable performance disparity compared to native iOS applications. It’s especially pronounced with games, which are the largest revenue driver on both platforms.

It’s unclear if Facebook will get affiliate revenue for the downloads it drives like other mobile-social gaming networks such as GREE’s OpenFeint do.

Parallel viral channels on Android will be coming soon. There’s no official date though.

Facebook Credits have arrived for mobile web apps (as was widely anticipated): HTML5 developers that want to use Credits as their payment mechanism must use it exclusively. Native iOS apps have to use Apple’s payment system, however. This split in payments between web-based and native apps is expected given that Apple is unlikely to give up revenue from in-app payments and paid downloads.

We were the first to report that Facebook might use an HTML5 platform as a way to extend Credits to mobile back in February, four months before any mainstream outlets wrote about it. And we also correctly reported the launch date as three weeks away from f8 while other blogs incorrectly said this would launch last week at Apple’s event.

Created by Showtime and Ecko|Code, the game development studio started by Marc Ecko, Dexter: Slice of Life is a strategy and stealth-based game that launched to coincide with the premiere of the popular TV series’ sixth season. As compared to other social games based on TV properties (including Ecko|Code’s own Weeds: Social Club game), Slice of Life stands out for its close content ties to the show.

The game is designed to follow the storyline set out by each episode of Dexter’s sixth season, with new content available to play each Monday morning, following the episodes’ Sunday night air time. Players control Dexter, a serial killer who only targets criminals, as he explores the everyday world in order to obtain the items he needs to reach the stealth portion of the game. In an early example, he’s stalking a pair of EMTs who are killing patients and selling their organs. In order to get to them, he must investigate the EMT dispatch center to find clues, along with items such as evidence bags and stolen organs. Investigating requires energy, which refills over time. Dexter encounters people who must be charmed into helping him, a task which also requires energy. His various tasks to complete are represented by mission icons on the left-hand side of the screen.

Once players have collected the necessary items, they enter the stealth-based potion of the game. Here they must spend stealth points in order to hide behind objects in the environment and sneak up on unsuspecting prey. If the player exhausts these points, they must wait to make another move or purchase more. If they’re spotted, they must start over and try again. If successful, they take their prey to the kill room. Here, they dispatch of their captives in inventive ways, the first being through the use of a defibrillator, which must be found before it can be used.

Players can also visit the kill room when they’re not stalking a story-based victim in order to attack other players. This is done through an asynchronous mechanic, so the player’s friends don’t actually have to be connected to Facebook at the time. Other social features include the usual selection of friend invite, Wall bragging, and gifting.

Dexter: Slice of Life is monetized via a soft cash currency and a premium one represented by blood slides, a nod to the show. Virtual cash can be used to buy items in the game’s shop, while blood slides, purchased using Facebook Credits, are used for premium items, plus energy and stealth refills. Cash and slides can also be used to purchase deco for Dexter’s apartment complex home.

The game will be updated on Monday mornings with new content reflecting the storyline of the previous night’s episode, so that players can recreate Dexter’s exploits. These situations are expanded for the game, letting players take part in events that happened immediately before those seen in the episode, for example.

You can follow Dexter: Slice of Life’s progress using AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

The Sims Social loses ground on this week’s list of fastest-growing Facebook games by monthly active users as Zynga’s Adventure World and CityVille claim the top two spot.

Last week, we analyzed traffic patterns to determine whether or not The Sims Social stood a chance at unseating CityVille as the largest application on Facebook. A big variable we pointed out is Zynga’s ability to rally CityVille for a traffic spike this month as The Sims Social struggles to keep growth steady if not as rapid as it was in its early days. Thanks to an Enrique Iglesias campaign launched in CityVille last week, it looks as though the game will rally for a bit of growth in October. But as we learned from Lady Gaga’s experience with FarmVille, these integrations are more likely to show temporary lifts instead of long term upticks. We’ll see how things stand going in November.

Top Gainers This Week – Games

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	Adventure World	37,578,440	+7,851,834	+30%
2.	CityVille	76,142,813	+4,781,940	+7%
3.	The Sims Social	66,216,462	+1,044,835	+2%
4.	Bubble Witch Saga	2,833,020	+785,995	+99%
5.	Airport City	2,107,091	+675,056	+68%
6.	Coco Girl	1,761,426	+467,099	+55%
7.	Tetris Battle	6,253,643	+307,363	+5%
8.	3D Slots	634,441	+275,521	+130%
9.	Mighty Pirates	1,198,274	+259,590	+28%
10.	Bubble Atlantis	1,482,389	+222,093	+18%
11.	Journey of Moses	1,256,472	+213,298	+23%
12.	War Commander	967,184	+197,740	+41%
13.	Dirty Dancing	938,914	+196,499	+26%
14.	ESPN Sports Bar & Grill	1,101,323	+195,704	+22%
15.	Heroes of Neverwinter	409,572	+190,198	+145%
16.	Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?	1,230,581	+186,839	+18%
17.	House of Fun – Slot Machines	681,667	+179,519	+57%
18.	JackpotJoy Slots	2,076,354	+157,702	+8%
19.	City Wars	874,034	+150,652	+21%
20.	Edgeworld	1,675,653	+146,249	+10%

Read our reviews of…

• Adventure World
• The Sims Social
• Bubble Witch Saga
• Airport City
• Tetris Battle
• Mighty Pirates
• Journey of Moses
• Dirty Dancing
• ESPN Sports Bar & Grill
• Heroes of Neverwinter
• Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
• City Wars
• Edgeworld

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.

Family Feud developer iWin has hired on Loot Drop’s Laralyn McWilliams, Dragons of Atlantis developer Nick Rush, and mobile developer Randy Angle as part of the company’s plan to get its casual games download catalog into social and mobile formats.

Speaking to Inside Social Games, McWilliams explains that while she did initially join Loot Drop in April 2011 after a six-year stint at Sony Online Entertainment, she interviewed with iWin during that same time period while looking for a place in the social games industry.

“I had a change of heart and wound up accepting at iWin,” she explains. “There’s a great gift with iWin’s brands in that they’ve been tested [and] there’s a wealth of content and learning. The greatest challenge is taking the brands an extending them into some of the new spaces — like [making] a Jewel Quest mobile game, for example. That’s what appeals to me about this role. I’m always interested in new frontiers.”

McWilliams’ primary experience in social games comes from working on free-to-play MMO Free Realms and some social games that were ultimately canceled as SOE exited the social games industry. She also benefits from the example of other casual games download companies that struggled to port their catalog of successful titles to social and mobile platforms with comparable success. Luckily, iWin already has traction in social with its lineup of social games based on TV game show licenses. Its newest title in this genre, The $100,000 Pyramid, launched last week.

Going forward, Rush will head up development on social games while Angle focuses on mobile. McWilliams confirms that iWin is still committed to its game show properties as far as Facebook is concerned, but her primary focus is on the developer’s original IP. “I can’t commit to social versions of Jewel Quest or Jojo’s Fashion Show, but I love our original IP and I can’t imagine that we wouldn’t pursue those brands in the social space because they’ve been so successful.”