Though broadly accepted by mainstream consumers, social games have only recently started targeting “hardcore” video game players. EA PopCap made a bold move to reach that audience this week at the Penny Arcade Expo video games festival in Boston, setting up Solitaire Blitz direct marketing campaign.

Inside Social Games spoke to PopCap Director of Editorial and Social Media Jeff Green on the decision to invest in the campaign — especially when no other social games developer had a serious presence at the show (with the exception of Tencent’s Boston studio, which set up a recruiting booth in the expo hall).

Inside Social Games: PAX is a hardcore gamer audience. Solitaire Blitz is a Facebook game — and a casual one, at that. Why bring the game front and center at this show?

Jeff Green: PopCap loves PAX. We were going to be at PAX no matter what because we like connecting to players one-on-one. Is a casual Facebook card game the best fit for PAX? We mulled it over… would people laugh at us or throw things at us? But it boiled down to the fact that we really like the game. Yes, it’s a card game on Facebook, but it’s a really good card game on Facebook that we’re proud of. It evolved out of one of our [internal] game jams and the idea was so cool, we wanted to make it a real Facebook game. Once it crosses over into “we’re taking this seriously,” we go all out. Which is why there’s a symphony orchestra playing the [in-game] music instead of a keyboard. Facebook games don’t have to be crappy; they can have a Triple-A presentation within the confines of that platform.

ISG: So how do you bring the game to the PAX audience? We see that you have a booth in the entrance hall of the convention center and you’re passing out goodies — otherwise known as “swag” — to passersby. At the same time, dancers dressed as zombies are promoting an older PopCap game, Plants vs. Zombies, right next to the Solitaire Blitz display.

Green: We know it’s a new IP and no one really knows it yet — not this crowd. Our earliest talks were having the zombies promoting the game. As it talks went on, the Solitaire Blitz team said they wanted the game to stand on its own. So we backed off that and let the zombies dance separately. Every year, we have something that people can wear. So for Solitaire Blitz, we have an arrow-through-the-head [headband] with [Otis the worm] on it. It’s not as easy to get them to wear as [last year's] Plants vs. Zombies traffic cone hat. We also worried it would be too phallic looking, so we added the hook — so it’s a worm on a hook. And then we needed to further incentivize with “we’ll give something cool away if you wear it to one random person.” The other thing we’re doing is handing out packs of playing cards that are branded with PAX East and a redemption for 25,000 coins in Solitaire Blitz.

ISG: But you didn’t set up stations for people to play the game?

Green: No. We thought about setting up a bunch of laptops, but the issue of a hardcore gaming show came up. A bank of laptops with people playing solitaire on them just wouldn’t look cool. It doesn’t translate to a booth presence.

ISG: So how will you measure the impact of this campaign on Solitaire Blitz itself?

Green: One superficial thing would be people wearing the hats. But a bigger one is “does our PAX presence drive daily active users,” for example. Do [players] evangelize it more? Do they get clued in and play it and tell their friends? I like being at these shows because I believe in these one-on-one communications.

ISG: Based on how it’s going so far, on how many people are wearing the Otis hats, would you do this campaign again? Maybe at the PAX Prime show in Seattle this summer?

Green: It depends on the game. I have to know I can represent this game in public and feel OK about it. If the next Facebook game comes along and I’m iffy about it, I wouldn’t bring it here.

ISG: What about other social game developers? Should they be here at PAX to speak to the hardcore gamer audience directly?

Green: It’s stupid not to be here. These are the most passionate gamers and this is who you want evangelizing your product. If you believe in your game, you should be at this show. At E3, you’re talking to the press and retailers. The Game Developers Conference is developers talking to other developers. PAX is gamers. Even if your game isn’t for “gamers,” I would say the best advertisement you could have is even gamers playing your game.

Solitaire Blitz currently has 2.5 million monthly active users and 600,000 daily active users, according to our AppData traffic tracking service. PAX East concludes today at 6pm EST.

Inside Social Games can confirm that RockYou has closed Australian developer 3 Blokes Studios.

“Yes, we wound down the 3 Blokes studio,” Josh Grant, RockYou’s SVP and GM of Studio Partners tells us in an emailed statement. “We have great respect for the team. The focus of our business has changed; our core capabilities are in monetization and distribution, and we reorganized last year to focus on our media business and third party publishing.”

RockYou acquired 3 Blokes last June to work on a real-time space-themed strategy combat game, Galactic Allies. The idea was to attract a hardcore male gamer audience that wasn’t being served by RockYou’s existing female-oriented games like Zoo World 2. Galactic Allies maxed out its traffic in September and October at 200,000 monthly active users and 80,000 daily active users according to our AppData traffic tracking service. RockYou’s only other acquired studio, Playdemic, was sold back to its founders and has since gone on to sign a publishing deal for Zynga’s new games platform.

In another high profile poach, Zynga brings on RockYou SVP/General Manager Julie Shumaker as head of North American sales, reporting to chief marketing and revenue officer Jeff Karp.

Shumaker’s presence bolsters Zynga’s ad network aspirations. According to her LinkedIn profile, Shumaker primarily focused on building up media sales at RockYou for the past year. To hear RockYou CEO Lisa Marino tell it, those efforts seem to be successful — during RockYou’s dramatic pivot early last November, she claimed that the publisher would enjoy a profitable Q4 FY2011 thanks to the strength of its ad platform, which is incorporated into all RockYou games. At our Inside Social Apps conference earlier this year, Marino said 40 percent of its largest game’s revenue came from ad units.

As far as ad platforms go, it doesn’t get much bigger in social games than Zynga. Besides its Facebook and mobile games, the developer also has its Zynga.com games platform to offer as a target for advertisers seeking immersed audiences. Shumaker said in a statement included with Zynga’s press release that joining Zynga “is my leap into utilizing the best game network as an ad platform, one that has both unmatched scale and reach.”

Live Holdem Poker Pro developer Dragonplay announced a $14 million first round of funding today led by Accel Partners. The money will go toward acquiring smaller developers to work on more card, board game and slot titles for Android, iOS and Facebook.

Dragonplay’s Live Holdem Poker Pro is currently the top grossing title on Android, but its Farm Slots title has also seen significant traction on the platform. The idea, it seems, is to touch on as many sub-categories of the casino genre as possible — like other companies entering the casino space on social and mobile platforms. Additionally, Dragonplay started early on cross-platform play with Facebook. Live Holdem Poker currently boasts over 12 million installs between Android and Facebook alone and only just recently arrived on iOS. The game currently see 2 to 2.5 percent conversion rates on Android; counting incentivized installs from Tapjoy, that goes up to 4 percent — which is slightly better than average for most games apps.

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

Adobe announced Flash Player 11.2 and AIR 3.2 versions today along with a set of premium APIs for PC and mobile games. The software giant is also collaborating with Unity to create a unified workflow that can deliver Unity games via Flash.

The premium APIs are a combination of the GPU accelerated Stage3D APIs Adobe first announced with Flash Player 11 last fall and fast memory op codes. On mobile via Adobe AIR, developers can use the APIs for free — but on Flash Player 11, the software company takes a 9 percent cut of revenues after the first $50,000. These terms go into effect August 1, 2012, giving developers between now and then to determine if the APIs are suitable for their games. Adobe acknowledges that the majority of gaming content currently created in Flash probably won’t need to use the premium features. Developers do not have to pay royalties on each of the APIs if used alone or on software rendering of Stage3D with or without the op codes.

The Unity collaboration is born of Unity’s own efforts to tap into the Flash audience without players needing to download a plugin. In September of last year, Unity announced that it would support Flash in future versions — which is what prompted Adobe to reach out and work with the company to create a unified workflow that better serves developers. The Unity 3.5 Flash export functionality is currently in preview mode, but beyond that release, Adobe says it’s also working on integrating future Adobe gaming services into Unity. At some point, we may see Adobe partner with other engine creators on similar projects — in October last year, we saw Epic Games’ Unreal Engine running Unreal Tournament on Flash.

Both moves seem like solid ones for Adobe. By introducing APIs as a service, rather than giving them away with a one-time purchases of its authoring software, the company can take a slice of the virtual goods revenues social and mobile game developers enjoy. At the same time, Adobe is also building bridges to console video game developers, providing a way for non-Flash developers to tap into Flash’s broad reach on PCs in the social and casual games space. The Unity collaboration reinforces the approach, and Adobe tells us it’s working with a number of 3rd party frameworks to help developers to reach 2D or 3D content markets.

Interestingly, Adobe is pushing a monetization angle in Flash Player 11.2 and AIR 3.2. By creating a unified platform for desktop and mobile, it hopes to reduce fragmentation in those markets. Adobe also plans to offer analytics and revenue optimization features as part of its game services in the near future — not unlike what we see from Kontagent or Flurry.

While Unity isn’t that common in social games, it definitely has traction in mobile games. CEO and co-founder David Helgason told Inside Mobile Apps earlier this month that mobile developers account for over half of the company’s total business. On Facebook, the healthiest Unity game we’ve seen so far is CMUNE’s UberStrike, which requires a plugin.

You can find out more about the premium APIs and the Unity collaboration on Adobe’s Digital Media blog.

With today’s OMGPOP acquisition, Zynga New York is split firmly into two studios: Zynga New York Social and Zynga New York Mobile. OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter now heads up the latter as vice president and general manager.

The Zynga New York Mobile studio is made up of both OMGPOP and Astro Ape, which Zynga acquired late last year to work on Dream PetHouse. The OMGPOP team will continue to work on Draw Something for mobile and other future projects — one of which Business Insider confirms as crime-themed game The Street. Draw Something will also officially arrive on Facebook as a playable game sometime “soon,” though it’s clear the developer is waiting for fan feedback before making the complete cross-platform jump.

“Aren’t you going to ask me if it’s going to be Draw SomethingWithFriendsVille?” Porter demanded during a 10-minute follow-up call scheduled after today’s media briefing. “I’m going to answer you anyway — if you don’t like the direction of the game as a player, then hit me up on Twitter and tell me what you think. I read every single thing people write about the game. We want to make games people want to play.”

OMGPOP has a history of trying various game types on different platforms to see what gets traction. On Facebook, its games have ranged from restaurant sim Cupcake Corner to the more arcade-y Pool World Champ. On mobile, it’s been pet sim Puppy World, puzzle game Boom Friends and now, most recently, Draw Something. The developer even has a true cross-platform HTML5 game, Gem Rush. Though each of these titles may have achieved traction in their respective markets at one time or another, only Draw Something stands out as a real hit.

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

Collectible card game developer 5th Planet Games has acquired New York-based game design consulting company To Be Continued. The buy nets 5th Planet all of To Be Continued’s current and future projects — which include CCGs based on Twilight, The Walking Dead and two unnamed Hollywood properties.

5th Planet Games first partnered with To Be Continued on its 2011 hardcore Facebook CCG Clash of the Dragons. Based on that experience and To Be Continued’s history with the broader CCG community, 5th Planet Games decided to make the acquisition to bolster its position as the top hardcore CCG developer in the social games space.

“They are experts in their domain and they bring a ton of intellectual horsepower to the team,” 5th Planet Games Chief Business Officer Braden Moulton tells Inside Social Games. “[Co-founder] Brian David-Marshall is the official Magic: The Gathering historian and announcer of the Magic Pro Tour. [Co-founder] Matthew Wang has a depth of financial and entertainment industry experience. With that background comes networking and reaching new partnerships — we’ll be announcing a major new IP very soon that is a direct result of working with the TBC team.”

Aside from Clash of the Dragons and said unannounced new project, the To Be Continued team will also focus on growing its existing design and development business for core IPs. The developer’s experience also lends itself toward pushing 5th Planet Games into new markets. 5th Planet Games already hosts games on its own site and on hardcore gamer-focused network Kongregate. Beyond those platforms, 5th Planet hopes to launch games on Chinese networks later this year and is prepping Clash of the Dragons and Dawn of the Dragons for mobile launches in July.

“I know Facebook is working to improve the experience for mid and small size developers, but right now we’re experiencing exponential success outside of their ecosystem,” Moulton says. “We’re aggressively pivoting to other platforms and markets that are more favorable to our business. Acquiring TBC strengthens our push to these markets by increasing our product velocity and improving game design for our demographic of core players.”

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

6waves Lolapps — the developer sometimes known as 6L — laid off all of its development staff today, Inside Social Games can confirm. The company is now focused entirely on games publishing.

“6waves Lolapps will now focus on working with independent developers to launch and grow their mobile and social games,” CEO Rex Ng said in a statement. “As a result we have restructured the company to focus on key functions which include developer outreach, product advisory, user growth initiatives and our publishing platform. The re-structuring means that we will have more resources to continue our leadership in the social and mobile game publishing space.”

6waves Lolapps came into being eight months ago with a merger between Ravenwood Fair developer Lolapps and Facebook game publisher 6waves. Shortly after, the company secured $35 million in funding from Nexon and Insight Venture Partners, expanded into mobile publishing and acquired Smartron5 and Escalation Studios to beef up development in China and on mobile platforms.

It is unclear what will happen to Smartron5, Escalation Studios and the Ravenwood franchise at this time. We’ll update this story as more information becomes available.

UPDATE: A 6waves Lolapps spokesperson tells us that the Ravenwood franchise will continue to operate under an external team. Smartron5 and Escalation Studios will also continue to operate on China-based games and mobile games, respectively.

An additional source with knowledge of the Ravenwood franchise says that two of Lolapps’ founders — Brian Rue and Kavin Stewart — and former Lolapps CEO Arjun Sethi will continue to fund the upcoming Ravenshire Castle “to the finish,” which is likely to be three or four months from now.

Idle Games’ god simulation game, Idle Worship, goes live today following an unheard of 29-month development cycle and extensive beta testing in Australia and the Philippines.

Idle Worship puts players in the role of a benevolent or evil deity tasked with creating and caring for a primitive race of island people called Mudlings. Players manage the Mudlings’ belief in a higher power using customizable statues called Moai, and a series of god powers that can either hurt or help the Mudlings go about their daily lives on the island — such as chopping down trees, fishing for food or procreating more Mudlings. A multiplayer mode allows players to interact with one another’s Mudlings by trading resources, casting god powers (both good and evil) and encountering synchronous events where online players are summoned to an island where they could potentially win more resources — if they can click on dropped resources faster than other players. Players can also compete or collaborate to gain more followers of their faith by using special powers that place shrines or missionaries on other player’s islands. Progress is tracked by an overall level, which determines what decorations and god powers the player can buy in the store.

The main appeal of Idle Worship is the level of quality. Idle Games invested heavily in both the technology driving the game and the graphics coating it to create a richly animated, detailed environment unlike any other Facebook game we’ve ever seen. The game supports both synchronous and asynchronous player activity, with little clouds representing the areas other online players currently occupy and darkened islands representing offline players. The closer a player zooms into an island — their own, or another player’s — the more detail they see.

As an example, CEO Jeff Hyman took us on a tour of his main island, where decorative items — used to increase Mudling quality of life and faith in their god — were fully animated when viewed close-up, like a little theater that performed a creation myth story using cut-outs and silhouettes.

“It’s almost like we have a hidden object game within the game,” Hyman says, “with all these little hidden gems of animation.”

The level of detail in the game almost makes Idle Worship overwhelming to average Facebook game players. Unless said players have a background in PC gaming, where Idle Worship does have some kindred spirits in The Sims and Black & White, the concept of the god sim might be difficult to grasp — and an overlong tutorial is a death sentence for many social games.

Hyman says Idle Games experimented with multiple iterations on the tutorial during the closed beta tests. Going whole-hog on the god powers early on did produce between 80 and 90 percent completion on the tutorial; however, a more controlled guided tutorial bumped that up the mid 90s range. In Australia, Hyman says that the average player logged 3.7 sessions a day at 19 minutes per session. Conversion clocked in at 5.7 percent among 25- to 35-year-olds. Surprisingly, the game skews slightly more male — when, traditionally, “dollhouse” style games have netted more of a female audience.

Aside from communicating itself to players, Idle Worship also has the challenge of evangelizing itself to potential players through viral channels. With a game that pushes boundaries, there are easy ways to do this like shocking or humorous descriptions of in-game activities — something The Sims Social has used to great effect. Idle Games has also opted for more difficult ways, like playable mini-games that players can send to their friends or post in their News Feed. The picture at right shows one of these virals, called Stroke or Squish, where people can choose to pet or kill the unicorn. The number above each option shows you how many people picked which options. Though lightweight compared to the actual product, the mini-games effectively telegraph Idle Worship’s central theme, lush art style and high level of quality.

Now that the game is live, it’s a leap of faith from here to top of our AppData traffic tracking rankings. Idle Games has the technology to scale to millions of players — but will it be enough to unseat Zynga at the top of the charts, as Idle Games investor and Playdom co-founder Rick Thompson hopes.

“I believe in justice,” Thompson says. “These games deserve more virality — it’s proportionate to use experience. What’s dead is forced [friend] invites and spam [gift requests]. If this game inspires a dozen other indie developers [on Facebook], I would count that as a success, too.”

Zynga confirmed a planned secondary offering today with a Securities and Exchange Commission filing for certain Zynga stockholders to offer shares of Class A common stock. The developer doesn’t receive any proceeds from the sale of the shares.

The CityVille creator uses a three tiered stock system, with Class A having the lowest voting power of the three. The other two stock types hold 98.2 percent of shareholder voting power. According to the filing, the purpose of the secondary offering is to increase the company’s public float. According to an anonymous source in Bloomberg’s initial report, the offering also allows investors to sell some stock while making larger shareholders agree to a longer lockup period that prevents them from unloading shares.

Given how dramatically Zynga’s stock price fluctuates whenever new revenue and traffic figures become public information, it makes sense that it would try to create some stability among its stockholders. The developer’s market cap shot up 12 percent to $8.66 billion from $7.4 billion immediately after Facebook’s S-1 filing. Share prices dropped nearly 18 percent just 13 days later after Zynga’s first earnings call as a publicly traded company. Zynga’s platform announcement earlier this month boosted share price by almost 10 percent. Today, trading opened at $13.44 per share — and looks to be on the rise as news of the secondary offering spreads.

Meanwhile on the traffic front as recorded by our AppData traffic tracking service, Zynga’s daily active users are dipping slightly — down almost 2 percent in the last week to 55.6 million.