February 8 – 9, 2012 | San Francisco

Inside Social Apps 2012, is coming back to San Francisco on February 8-9, 2012, and we hope you’ll be able to join us.

What do industry leaders view as today’s most formidable challenges affecting social and mobile apps and games? How are top developers of all sizes overcoming obstacles to growth, and what can the industry expect in 2012?

Inside Social Apps 2012 is our third conference on the future of monetization on social and mobile platforms. Leaders from social apps and games industry will share their insights on the key uncertainties, and new opportunities, facing social games and applications in 2012.

If you’re considering attending Inside Social Apps 2012, take advantage of limited early registration pricing and register now.

Space will be limited, and both previous Inside Social Apps conferences have sold out in advance.

A very limited number of passes are available at the Early Announcement price of $299. This price will be good through tomorrow, Tuesday November 15th only, so we encourage you to register now.

Who’s Speaking?

We’re excited to present the following 30 confirmed speakers at Inside Social Apps 2012:

	Carl Sjogreen Director of Product Management, Facebook		Cory Ondrejka Director of Engineering, Facebook
	Charles Hudson Co-founder and CEO, Bionic Panda Games		John Earner GM European Studios, EA / Playfish
	Clara Shih Founder and CEO, Hearsay Labs		Mike Ouye Founder and CEO, Red Robot Labs
	Suleman Ali Co-founder and CEO, TinyCo		Will Harbin Chairman and CEO, Kixeye
	David Katz VP of Digital Media, Starz		Suchit Dash Co-founder and VP of Product, Ifeelgoods
	Daniel Terry Co-founder & CEO, Pocket Gems		Atul Bagga Senior Analyst – Video Games & China Internet, Lazard Capital Markets
	Perry Tam CEO, Storm8		Peter Farago VP Marketing, Flurry
	Paul Bettner GM, Zynga With Friends		Kevin Chou Co-founder and CEO, Kabam
	Michael Lazerow CEO, Buddy Media		Simon Mansell CEO, TBG Digital
	Anil Dharni Co-founder, Funzio; Founder, Storm8		Mike Sego CEO, Gaia Interactive
	Tim Chang Managing Director, Mayfield Fund		Micah Adler Founder & CEO, Fiksu
	Arjun Sethi CEO, 6waves Lolapps		Brenda Garno COO & Game Designer, Loot Drop
	Bill Jackson Creative Director, CastleVille, Zynga		Hussein Fazal CEO & Co-founder, AdParlor
	Mihir Shah President & CEO, TapJoy		Lisa Marino CEO, RockYou
	Rick Thompson Co-Founder, Playdom, and Investor		Riz Virk Co-founder and CEO, Gameview Studios

We’ll continue to add new speakers to our 2012 lineup, so please check Inside Social Apps in the weeks to come.

Registration

There is very limited $299 Early Registration pricing for the full 2-day conference pass for Inside Social Apps 2012, available until November 16th only.

Previous Inside Social Apps conferences have sold out in advance of event day, so we strongly encourage you to register now.

About Inside Social Apps

Inside Social Apps 2012 will explore new opportunities, as well as emerging risks, in the development, distribution and monetization of social and mobile applications. Inside Social Apps 2012 will span February 8 – 9, and will bring together the world’s leading social and mobile developers and investors for critical discussion and analysis.

Social applications first made their splash in the US in 2007, and have now evolved into a global media ecosystem. Today’s social and mobile apps comprise a profitable multi-billion dollar industry, characterized by vibrant investment activity and newly emerging opportunities on mobile platforms.

Inside Social Apps is Inside Network’s content-focused conference series that investigates the latest trends and challenges for social and mobile applications and the companies that bring them to market.

Past Inside Social Apps events have seen sold out well before conference day, so we strongly encourage you to register early.

A full agenda will be announced shortly. Keep an eye on Inside Social Apps for more information.

Registration

We have made available a limited number of tickets at special $299 Early Registration pricing, and we strongly encourage you to register now.

From all of us at Inside Network, we look forward to seeing you on February 8 and 9 in San Francisco!

Zynga’s newest entry in the ‘Ville series of social game, CastleVille, is now live on Facebook. Here’s a quick look at the first 18 minutes of play, which is the amount of time we were able to play for free before we hit the first energy restriction limit.

The game starts off with players customizing their avatar’s hair, skin color, body type, face type, and clothing (broken into an upper body section and a lower body section). Next, players must help two non-playable characters fight off “beastie” characters called Gloom Rats. One of the NPCs, Yvette, remains in the player’s game while the other, The Duke, returns to his own kingdom to fill the role of default “friend” character that the player can visit.

The player receives quests first from Yvette, who asks to have a house built — which involves clearing stones and trees to gain the necessary building components — and animals bought from the market. Right around here, CastleVille begins to introduce gameplay mechanics new to the ‘Ville series, including the mechanic of fighting off beastie characters in friends’ kingdoms and the concept of increasing the player’s castle level in order to unlock new areas of the map. CastleVille continuously prompts new players to unlock more map by panning over to undiscovered sections of land where new NPCs await the player should they unlock that section of land.

All in all, the first play session of CastleVille is pretty standard for role-playing game tutorials on the Facebook platform, which incidentally were standardized by FarmVille and FrontierVille. The CastleVille-specific features that stood out most for us during this time, however, were the detailed animations in chopping down trees, the orchestral music, and the search and organization functions in the Market. There’s also a transparent “Zynga HD” logo that appears along the bottom of the screen when viewing the game in full screen mode (see screenshot below). Additional features — like crop irrigation and the use of Reputation as a currency rather than a static level — were also evident, but not as attention-grabbing in the first session of play.

At about 18 minutes, the player hits the first real wall in energy consumption where they must post a Request to friends or more or spend Crowns in the Market to buy an energy potion. The player’s level should be between 4 and 5 and their Castle level should above 10 at this point in gameplay. Around this time, there is also a quest to invite friends as crew members for a Maiden Tower structure placed in the player’s kingdom as part of a quest. The Invite Friends tool currently allows players to select all friends, but a separate Invite Friends prompt sorts the player’s Facebook friends into those already playing CastleVille or other Zynga games.

Play the game for yourself here and keep an eye out for it on our AppData traffic tracking service.

Brazilian social games developer Vostu is kicking its Facebook offering up a notch with Gol Mania, a realtime arcade-style soccer title for the platform. The game launched at the end of September and is so far making regular appearances on our weekly list of emerging Facebook games.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Gol Mania currently has 880,000 monthly active users and 100,000 daily active users.

Gol Mania lets players compete against friends and random Facebook users in soccer games around the world. When starting the game, players select their team name and a look for their players which includes three types of hairstyles and numerous color combinations for their uniforms. There is a training mode designed to get players accustomed to the game’s simplistic control scheme and the basics of soccer.

All gameplay is against live opponents in real time. Down on the field, one team is given possession of the ball and must work to get it into the opposing team’s goal. On offense, players can move using the arrow keys, as well as pass and shoot using the X and Z keys. If positioned at the proper distance and angle from the goal, they can also shoot and have a CPU teammate assist in kicking the ball into the goal. On defense, players move with the arrow keys and use the X and Z keys to switch defenders and steal the ball away from the other team.

The game length is significantly truncated from the traditional 90 minutes down to just a couple to encourage faster gameplay. For participating, players receive coins, experience points, and even trophies. Once players have leveled up sufficiently and acquired enough coins, they can unlock new stadiums to play in. Trophies can be displayed in the player’s trophy room.

Social elements of Gol Mania extend beyond playing against random opponents. Players can share their accomplishments via viral channels and track their friends’ position in relation to theirs using a leaderboard at the bottom of the screen. This can also be toggled to show how many coins their friends have earned. Players can play against their friends directly by creating game lobbies and inviting their friends, or searching for friends that are currently playing and joining them.

Gol Mania is currently monetized through the use of Facebook Credits to purchase additional coins, the soft currency, which can be spent on unlocking new stadiums. Credits can also be used to purchase additional energy, which is required to play games. Note that playing against friends does not currently cost the player any energy.

The game contains several placeholders for upcoming features, the most prominent of which is an in-game store. The world map, which displays the stadiums available to players, currently shows several countries as “coming soon.” Vostu appears to be actively adding content, as it launched a Mexico stadium for the game in mid-October.

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

Mafia Wars 2 takes the top spot on this week’s list of fastest-growing games by monthly active users while FarmVille and Ravenskye City come in right behind each with over 1 million new MAU.

Not much to show in the way of new games on our list this week, but we’re pleased to see 6waves Lolapps-published Zombie Island still going strong long after Halloween. The zombie-themed farming sim leverages a unique social feature where players can plant their friends’ brains to increase the maximum number of farmhands available per play session. Follow the link to our review from the reviews index below.

Top Gainers This Week – Games

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	Mafia Wars 2	16,800,000	+1,500,000	+10%
2.	FarmVille	30,300,000	+1,200,000	+4%
3.	Ravenskye City	7,200,000	+1,000,000	+16%
4.	Bubble Witch Saga	7,300,000	+600,000	+9%
5.	The Pokerist club — Texas Poker	1,100,000	+430,000	+64%
6.	Zombie Island	1,600,000	+400,000	+33%
7.	DoubleDown Casino – Free Slots, Blackjack & Poker	4,400,000	+300,000	+7%
8.	Tetris Battle	6,500,000	+300,000	+5%
9.	Words With Friends	11,500,000	+300,000	+3%
10.	المزرعة السعيدة	2,500,000	+300,000	+14%
11.	Bubble Island	9,700,000	+200,000	+2%
12.	Bubble Speed	1,700,000	+200,000	+13%
13.	Diamond Dash	10,700,000	+200,000	+2%
14.	PetVille	2,900,000	+200,000	+7%
15.	Social Empires	4,900,000	+200,000	+4%
16.	3D Slots	1,300,000	+100,000	+8%
17.	Airport City	2,800,000	+100,000	+4%
18.	BINGO Blitz	2,600,000	+100,000	+4%
19.	Bubble Saga	6,100,000	+100,000	+2%
20.	Café World by Zynga	6,500,000	+100,000	+2%

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned for our look at the top emerging apps on Friday.

Read our reviews of…

• Mafia Wars 2
• Ravenskye City
• Bubble Witch Saga
• Zombie Island
• DoubleDown Casino
• Tetris Battle
• Words With Friends
• Bubble Island
• Diamond Dash
• PetVille
• Social Empires
• Airport City
• Bingo Blitz
• Bubble Saga
• Cafe World

While The Sims Social has dominated the discussion of branded social games on Facebook, Tetris Battle has quietly — and for the most part, organically — become the second-largest brand-based social game on the platform according to our AppData traffic tracking service.

Tetris Battle arrived on Facebook in July 2010, but it was really only a year after that point that the game began to gain traction. At that time in summer of 2011, the title routinely turned up in our top 20 rankings lists for daily and monthly active users and it had just officially broken 1 million DAU with around 4 million MAU for a very high retention ratio of 25%. That trend continues even now with present-day figures of 2.1 million DAU, 6.5 million MAU and a retention ratio north of 30%.

What’s truly striking about Tetris Battle’s success is that it’s Tetris — a decades-old game that people are still paying for on just about every platform on which the game is available, despite the fact that free versions exist all over the Internet. Even on Facebook, where the game is free-to-play, players still monetize at a healthy rate, according to Tetris Online Inc. VP of Marketing Casey Pelkey. The primary revenue stream seems to be mostly in the energy system where players pay to keep playing more matches — or for passes that allow unlimited play for a day or a week — with secondary revenue streams coming from decoration features and from gameplay customization that allows players more control over the falling Tetriminos.

“Getting people to play the game is easy,” Pelkey tells us. “To the extent that they’re playing Tetris Battle is unprecedented. [Creative Director Eui-Joon "Ace" Youm] is a genius to get you to pay for a 27-year-old game.”

Youm came to Tetris Online Inc. in 2007 from Korean games portal Hangame, where he was actually making a knock-off of the original Tetris. His approach to Tetris Battle for Facebook is to push the gameplay into new directions that still feel like authentic Tetris while at the same time challenging players that have been playing the game for years. A large component of that is the multiplayer, where players compete by speed and score. The better a player is at Tetris, the more “line” obstacles they send to their opponents’ boards during the timed match. The friction between one match and the next is very low, resulting in longer play sessions where players are logging between 15 and 30 games a session for over 25 million games played daily.

Tetris Battle is so compelling that we catch many other social game developers playing it both in their spare time and as a point of study for future games. Even those developing titles that don’t fall under the arcade category feel there is something to learn from Tetris Battle’s monetization and matchmaking techniques. Facebook itself has publicly called attention to the title, circulating a blog article among third party developers that highlight’s Tetris Battle’s take on competitive multiplayer modes. And there’s still the mystery of getting people to pay for a game they’ve already bought before — something branded games struggle to do.

Take, for example, Namco Bandai’s two official Pac-Man games for Facebook. Though both title saw initial traction thanks largely to brand recognition and the faithful recreation of the classic arcade game, each has dropped dramatically in traffic and the developer appears to have backed off on the platform for now. Though we can never know exactly what happened or didn’t happen with Pac-Man, it’s possible that the games were too faithful to the original — causing players to lose interest.

“With brands, it’s easy to get [players], but it’s harder to hold onto them,” Pelkey says. “These legacy games come and go and the tried-and-true gameplay works [on Facebook] to some extent, but if it just feels like a copycat without anything new… It’s not a slam dunk.”

Pelkey tells us that to date, Tetris Online Inc. has only done minimal marketing for Tetris Battle. The developer plans to increase that amount for the coming year, with “sky’s the limit” attitude toward how big the game can get on Facebook. In a follow-up email sent to us for the article, Youm says, “We’re just scratching the surface on what we can do with Tetris Battle. Now the real fun begins.”

A roundup of all the news Inside Network brought you between November 7th and November 12th.

Inside Mobile Apps

Tracking the convergence of mobile apps, social platforms and virtual goods.

Monday, November 7th:

• Rivet Games Pieces Together Its Latest iOS Release, Puzzle Tales
• Emerging Top Paid iOS Apps: Djinnworks, Orangenose Studios and Ayopa’s W.E.L.D.E.R
• Chronicles of Merlin from China’s Koramgame Brings Freemium Fantasy Strategy to iOS
• Social Productivity App Orchestra Goes For $5.5M From Charles River, SV Angel, Mitch Kapor
• Interview: Moledina on His Move From EA to Funzio as VP of Business Development
• Urban Airship Raises $15.1 Million from Strategic Investors Salesforce and Verizon
• Another Mobile Talent Acquisition as Facebook Buys Photo App Maker Digital Staircase

Tuesday, November 8th:

• Facebook Picks Up Talent Behind SproutCore With HTML5-Focused Strobe Acquisition
• Gamevil’s Smartphone Revenue Rises Sixfold Year-Over-Year to $7.1M in Third Quarter
• Emerging Top Grossing Apps: Flick Home Run, Aquaria and Camera+
• New Speakers Confirmed for Inside Social Apps 2012 – February 8th and 9th in San Francisco
• Mika Mobile Brings Another App Store Hit to Life with Zombieville USA 2
• Direct Advertising Trades Emerge as a New Way of Getting Users as Chartboost, TinyCo Partner

Wednesday, November 9th:

• Emerging Free iOS Apps: Slotomania, Pick-Up Sticks and Kung Fu
• Namco Bandai Deals Aces in with iOS Flight Combat Game Sky Gamblers: Rise of Glory
• Adobe Axes Mobile Flash in Favor of Rival HTML5 Technology
• Lifting of Korean iOS Game Ban Means Opportunities for Developers, Distimo Reports

Thursday, November 10th:

• Pixbit’s Junk Jack for iOS Takes Minecraft into 2D
• New Hires in Mobile: Booyah, GREE and Millennial Media
• Kontagent Nets $12M Second Round of Funding, Targets Mobile and Open Web Applications
• New This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: EA, Natural Motion Games, King.com and More
• Social-Meets-Pokémon MinoMonsters Headed to iOS With $1M in Seed Funding
• DeNA’s Mobage Adds TinyCo to a Growing Stable of Games

Friday, November 11th:

• Capcom’s Monster Hunter Going Mobile on GREE
• Former 2K Games Developers Launch Console Caliber iOS Action Game EPOCH
• Top Emerging Android Apps: Defender, Wind-Up Knight and Cut the Rope
• A Review of Quarterly Earnings for Android, iOS Gaming Companies

Saturday, November 12th:

• New This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: Natural Motion, EA and Jelli

Inside Social Games

Covering all the latest developments at the intersection of games and social platforms.

Monday, November 7th:

• Bubble Witch Saga Slipping on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Games by MAU
• Facebook Hit Monster Galaxy Expanding to the Big Screen
• Disney Playdom Staffs Up at Dream Castle for Social Games Based On Disney IP
• GameDuell’s Puzzler Bubble Speed is a Pop Hit with Facebook Gamers

Tuesday, November 8th:

• Report: Nexon Looking to Raise $1.3 Billion with IPO
• The Sims Social: Revenue Forecast and Growth Potential
• 6Waves Lolapps on Smartron5 Buy, Future M&A Prospects in Asia
• New Speakers Confirmed for Inside Social Apps 2012 – February 8th and 9th in San Francisco

Wednesday, November 9th:

• Tencent Revenues Up in Q3 Despite Slowing Growth in Older Social Games
• Words With Friends, Bubble Witch Saga Top This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Games by DAU
• GCrest’s Owlbear Garden Cultivates a Social Fantasy World
• Adobe Axes Mobile Flash in Favor of Rival HTML5
• Fruit Ninja Frenzy Brings Hit Mobile Game to Facebook with Juicy New Gameplay

Thursday, November 10th:

• Kontagent Nets $12M Second Round of Funding, Targets Mobile and Open Web Applications
• Triviador is a Facebook Strategy Game That Asks Who Will Rule the World?
• New Hires in Social Gaming: Funzio, Peak and PopCap
• New This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: Lolapps, Games Cafe and EA
• Social-Meets-Pokémon MinoMonsters Headed to iOS With $1M in Seed Funding

Friday, November 11th:

• The Pokerist Club, Galaxia Online II Top This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Games
• Capcom’s Monster Hunter Going Mobile on GREE
• Adult Swim’s Flash Game Hemp Tycoon Crops Up on Facebook
• What We’re Playing This Week on Inside Social Games
• Social Gaming News Roundup: Zynga, Ubisoft and Kixeye

Saturday, November 12th:

• New This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: Games Cafe, Lolapps, EA and More

Inside Facebook

Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, November 7th:

• Horror, Android, Page Tabs, Yahoo, Scribd, Skype, Photos and WashPo Reader on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Apps by MAU
• Featured Facebook Campaigns: Pepsi and SavingStar, Banana Republic, Tabasco, Nokia, Honda and More
• Facebook Marketing Showcase: Clothing Retailers Take Facebook Pages by Storm
• Google Releases Google+ Pages for Marketers, Resembling Facebook’s Pages
• Another Mobile Talent Acquisition as Facebook Buys Photo App Maker Digital Staircase

Tuesday, November 8th:

• New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: AdParlor, SNAP Interactive, Syncapse and More
• Facebook Picks Up Talent Behind SproutCore With HTML5-Focused Strobe Acquisition
• Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sandberg Talk IPO, Engineers, Steve Jobs With Charlie Rose
• Samsung, Levi’s, Walmart, Zynga, Sports, Halloween and More on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages
• Music on Facebook: New Stats Show Spotify, Others Growing Fast
• New Speakers Confirmed for Inside Social Apps 2012 – February 8th and 9th in San Francisco

Wednesday, November 9th:

• Birthdays, Chat, Spotify, Bing, Pandora, Guardian and Nook on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Apps by DAU
• Zibaba Launches Advertising Synched to Storefront Using Facebook’s Ads API
• Facebook to Shut Off Automatic Feed Syndication in Notes App
• How the Facebook Comments Plugin Can Boost Traffic, Improve Discussion Quality on Your Site
• Facebook Updates News Feed With Most Recent Stories First Option
• New “Listen” and “Read” Buttons Appear on Facebook’s Ticker

Thursday, November 10th:

• Facebook Careers Postings: Data Center, Gaming, Engineering and More
• Facebook Hires and Departures: Engineering, Legal, Data Centers and More
• Crowd Science’s Facebook Study: People Most Often Click Like to Show Support and Enjoyment
• New This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: Acquinity Interactive, Warner Bros and Jelli
• Report: Facebook to Settle FTC Case by Making Privacy Changes Opt-In

Friday, November 11th:

• Horoscopes, Gifts, Page Tabs, Photos, LMFAO and “Twilight” on This Week’s Top 20 Emerging Facebook Apps by MAU
• Walmart Goes Local on Facebook, Seeking Shopper Adoption
• Facebook Opens Preferred Developer Consultant Fall 2011 Submissions
• Facebook Roundup: IPO, Taiwan Data Center, Yahoo, Zuckerberg, Sandberg, Mobile and Translate Button

Saturday, November 12th: 

• New This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: King.com, EA and Acquinity Interactive

The Inside Network Job Board is dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities across social and mobile application platforms.

Here are this week’s highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at Games Cafe, 6waves Lolapps, Liquid Entertainment, Acquinity Interactive, King.com, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Electronic Arts, Natural Motion Games and Jelli.

• Game Programmer
• Social Game Designer

• Senior Game Engineer for a Popular Social Gaming Company
• Product Manager for Popular Social Gaming Company
• Support Engineer – Browser and Social Games

• Social Games Programmer
• Social Games Designer

• Account Executive – Online Marketing
• Director of Operations – Online Marketing
• Marketing Coordinator – Online Marketing
• Senior Affiliate Manager – Online Marketing

• PR Executive – King.com
• Consumer Research Executive – King.com
• Marketing Communications Executive – King.com

• Digital Product Manager
• User Acquisition Analytics Manager

• Technical Director, Mobile

• Customer Acquisition Manager
• Lead Programmer
• Design Lead / Manager

• Principal Software Engineer – Platform Engineer
• Software Engineer – Frontend HTML

Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Social Games, Inside Facebook and Inside Mobile Apps through regular posts and widgets on the sites. 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.

Zynga Hit With Shares Scandal – The Wall Street Journal reports that Zynga is looking to re-distribute the amount of shares that have been given to employees by demanding some employees sign over shares they had previously been awarded. CNN later received a copy of an internal Zynga memo, which said “the story is based on hearsay” and affirmed that “being a meritocracy is one of [Zynga’s] core values.”

Ubisoft Earnings Call Overview - Earlier this week Ubisoft had its third quarter earnings call. CEO Yves Guillemot said the the developments in the social space had been “exciting” for the company, with its Facebook game The Smurfs & Co. outperforming expectations in terms of both sales and profitability. He also said while the company focuses on creative content, Ubisoft is using analytics to ensure the company has both famous brands and great content. For the next quarter Guillemot revealed the company is trying to capitalize on the Facebook fanbase of its Assassin’s Creed brand, potentially through a new companion game similar to Ghost Recon Commander. He also revealed that Germany is a star territory for the company, generating higher average revenue per user as compared to other regions.

Xbox Live Boosts Social Features – Online gaming service Xbox Live is revamping its web portal Xbox.com with a host of new features, designed to make playing games on the network more social. In a new Social section users will be able to set beacons on game they wish to play with their friends and view their friend’s activity streams to learn what their friends are currently playing.

Call of Duty Elite Social Network Struggles Under Load – While it may have been one of the most highly anticipated game launches of the year, Activision’s Call of Duty Elite social network wasn’t ready for how popular the game would be. In what has been a very bad week for the Activision, it was revealed that the service’s PC launch had been delayed due to to security concerns. Meanwhile many subscribers have not been able to connect with the service due to heavy demand. In response Activision is extending all subscriptions by one month.

U.S. Population of “Gamers” Doubles – Research firm Parks Associates has released a study indicating the number of people in the U.S. who play at least one hour of video games a month has doubled in three years, from 56 million in 2008 to 135 million in 2011. The firm credits the increase to “casual gamers” who play games on social networks and mobile devices.

U.S. Colleges Now in CityVille – The Collegiate Licensing Co. has signed a deal with Zynga to extend its suite of brands into CityVille digital goods. Players can now add college-themed clock towers, libraries, dorms and sport stadiums to their CityVille cities. So far the top selling schools are Alabama, Clemson, Boston College, East Carolina and Boise State.

Take-Two Raising Cash for Mobile or Social Acquisition - Industrygamers.com is reporting that publisher Take-Two Interactive issued $200 million in convertible senior notes this week, a move that industry analyst Michael Pachter thinks is a precursor to a major mobile or social gaming acquisition.

Winter is Coming… To Social Games -  USA Today is reporting that George R.R. Martin’s popular book and HBO TV series Game of Thrones series will soon be the subject of a console game, an MMO and a social game developed by German free-to-play giant BigPoint. Little is known about the social game so far.

Ubisoft: Slow Social Road is Better - In an interview with Gamasutra, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said his company’s social games strategy has been more cautious than those of competitors EA and Activision. According to Guillemot, while AAA titles can benefit immensely from what he calls a social “revolution,” Ubisoft doesn’t “buy a company or work with a company to create [sales], we actually work from within the company, so that all of the games can take advantage of this revolution within the industry.”

[Launch] World of Football Makes its Facebook Debut – Danish developer Big Bite Games’ Facebook game World of Football has gone into closed Alpha. The game is a 3D synchronous multiplayer game, that allows users to play real-time football (soccer) games with up to 19 other users at a time. The game will go into open beta in early 2012.

[Funding] Mention Mobile Gets $250,000 from Reality TV Mogul Mark Cuban - According to a TechCrunch exclusive, LA based Mention Mobile has netted $250,000 from Mark Cuban to develop its line of Facebook integrated mobile games.

[Launch] Backyard Monsters Comes to Yahoo! – Viximo is bringing Kixeye’s popular real time strategy game Backyard Monsters to Yahoo’s Games and Messenger portals. The game currently has 3 million MAU and 760,000 DAU on Facebook, according to AppData.

[Editor’s Note: We're trying something new on Inside Social Games with weekly social game review roundups. Quite apart from our standard reviews format and our weekly AppData rankings charts, this post is intended to share an opinion-based viewpoint of the games we play with scores out of a 10-point scale assigned for emphasis. Certain titles may be re-reviewed repeatedly on this list with different scores as the game matures, appears on new social game platforms, or changes in fundamental ways with the addition of new content or sequels.]

Bubble Witch Saga — King.com’s latest title to get a standalone app broken off from its games portal is a bubble shooter with a twist on score multipliers where players earn and lose multipliers based on how well they can navigate obstacles within a level. The difficulty increases sharply between each level, with new configurations of bubbles and obstacles challenging the player’s sense of physics. The music and audio effects sound a bit cheap and the animation is nothing special, but the gameplay is simple enough to pick and play at any time and challenging enough to keep you coming back.
Score: 8
Play it here.

Fruit Ninja Frenzy — Halfbrick’s popular fruit-slicing mobile game migrates to Facebook with a virtual goods model based around Smoothie powerups that boost scores. The slicing of fruit doesn’t feel quite the same with a mouse interface as it does with a touch interface, but the game is still compelling, especially with a prominently-displayed friends leaderboard tracking high scores.
Score: 7
Play it here.

Mafia Wars 2 — Zynga’s sequel to its text-based 2008 role-playing game introduces a fully animated setting in Las Vegas and player-versus-player combat. The core gameplay concept is almost the same as the original Mafia Wars where players recruit gang members and do battle with other gangs, but the visual environment and rap music soundtrack make Mafia Wars 2 feel like a complete departure. These features also make the game feel like a lot of other Facebook games with crime-themed citybuilding elements and PvP modes. So if you’re into Crime City, you’ll probably like it — but if you liked the original Mafia Wars, this might be too much of a change up.
Score: 7
Play it here.

PixelJunk Monsters Online — Q-Games’ hit PlayStation Network tower defense game makes the jump to Facebook with cosmetic improvements and microtransactions based around unlocking new areas on a world map. Like all tower defense games, the goal is to stop a horde of enemies advancing toward a base by placing defensive towers along their path. The gameplay is every bit as fun as it was the first time around, but the art style really pops on the Facebook platform. Here’s hoping future monetization features don’t upset the overall quality.
Score: 8
Play it here.

Ravenskye City — 6waves Lolapps’ second installment in the Raven franchise of social games brings the art and sound quality to the new level. The gameplay, however, is mostly frozen right where it was in Ravewood Fair — maybe even with a few downgrades. For example, Ravenwood Fair rewards you with mushrooms for chopping down trees and clearing debris, which you can then spend on energy powerups when you run out. In Ravenskye, the only way to buy energy powerups is with premium currency.
Score: 7
Play it here.

Triple Town — Spry Fox’s free-to-play puzzle game for Facebook and G+ started as a one-time download Kindle game that you can still buy for $3.99. Players try to match three or more of any item along a grid to form a larger item (e.g. three bushes make a tree, three trees make a house, etc.) and thereby fill up the grid to complete a town. It’s a cute and compelling game that’s easy to learn and difficult to master, but the monetization feels a little unnatural because the move counter doesn’t reset with each new level, forcing the player to shell out for additional moves usually in the middle of their second or third puzzle. Players can also just wait for moves to accumulate over time.
Score: 9
Play it here.

Zombiees! — Team Vienna Games’ turn-based strategy game has great art and a solid gameplay concept where players battle the undead in a college setting using various weapons they purchase or earn. As funny as the concept is and as much as we like the comic book art style, the balance could use a little work. As it stands, it’s easy to wind up in a situation where you run out of energy after just two minutes of play. This gets really frustrating when two encounters completely drain your stamina, but you need to complete 10 encounters just to unlock the next quests.
Score: 6
Play it here.

Zombie Misfits — Nexon’s newest game is a tower defense title where players place different types of combat units between a horde of zombies and a hideout filled with survivors. The gameplay is pretty demanding compared to most other Facebook games that could be played idly during a coffee break and matches can take up to 20 minutes, but the art and sound quality make it worth setting aside an entire lunch break to play. It’s not very needy on the monetization, so you can play as much as you’d like — but the viral sharing pop-ups are frequent enough to be distracting.
Score: 9
Play it here.

Adult Swim’s video games studio has launched what it is calling its most ambitious social title to date, Hemp Tycoon. Based on its popular Flash game of the same name, Hemp Tycoon is a farming simulation that has players planting, harvesting, and selling hemp. For the jump to Facebook, the title has received a number of additions and updates for its Facebook debut.

A look at the title in our AppData traffic tracking service indicates that Hemp Tycoon hasn’t completely made the switch to Facebook’s new active user accounting method. The game’s Facebook page reports 30,000 monthly active users.

In Hemp Tycoon, players assume the persona of Hempy, a hemp leaf who grows hemp. With the assistance of his grandfather, Hempy starts out his fledgling hemp empire growing plants inside of his tree house. Players start with an initial allotment of cash, using it to purchase seeds that can be planted in pots. They can then harvest the hemp after a period (various types require differing amounts of time before they’re fully grown) and sell it for more cash.

Boosts, including grow lights, and fertilizer can also be purchased. Seed types range from a run-of-the-mill hemp plant to zombie hemp, which looks like it sounds, and bacon. Once they have more money, players can purchase businesses that allow them to transform their harvested hemp into ice cream, textiles, and more. The game has several dozen quests to complete, which reward players with experience points. Levelling up enables players to purchase higher-level hemp plant seeds and items. There are 60 different plant types in all. From an overhead world map, players can move between their grow locations and businesses. 10 businesses are currently in the game.

This version of Hemp Tycoon differs from the original Flash release in a number of ways. For one, the Facebook release features monetization. The Flash version also lacked many of the seed types, boosts, and deco items. New to this version are quests and the businesses which convert hemp into other items for sale. The title has also received a significant visual upgrade for its debut on the social gaming platform.

Hemp Tycoon’s social features include sending friend requests, posting accomplishments to the player’s Wall, and sending gifts to friends. These include free fertilizer, which can be gifted every time the player completes a quest.

Adult Swim is monetizing Hemp Tycoon primarily through the purchase of additional cash, the game’s soft currency, as well as premium boosts. Players can also use the soft currency and Credits to purchase garden decorations.

Though not as explicit in theme, Hemp Tycoon falls under the marijuana-themed game sub-genre of farming sim pioneered by Pot Farm and most recently expanded in Weeds Social Club and Cheech & Chong’s Animated Game. Hemp Tycoon is a lot more like Pot Farm than the latter two because its primary objective is to be funny — compared to the brands driving Weeds and Cheech & Chong. It’s not immediately clear how big of an audience there really is for this sub-genre; however, Pot Farm is still going strong with 550,000 MAU, Weeds enjoys 80,000 MAU, and both Cheech & Chong and Hemp Tycoon currency have 30,000 MAU. At the risk of making a pun, this could be an area of growth on Facebook.

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