Mobile advertising and publishing platform Tapjoy today announced a partnership with South Korea’s largest social mobile platform Kakao, which will allow developers on the Kakao Games platform to monetize with Tapjoy’s advertising and monetization tools.

The Kakao Games platform allows users to play with KakaoTalk users, share game scores, and compete on leaderboards in real-time. Games on the platform now gross more than $40 million per month, the company revealed in a statment.

In March, Tapjoy revealed that approximately 100 million unique viewers who come through its network per month are international, which equates to about 75 percent of its overall unique viewers per month coming from outside the U.S.

The partnership provides Tapjoy the opportunity to deliver premium content within titles on the Kakao Games platform.

KakaoTalk currently has more than 90 million users around the globe, more than 30 million users visiting the platform every day and is South Korea’s practically ubiquitous mobile messaging app. SundayToz was the first developer to get its match-3 puzzler Anipang on KakaoTalk’s game platform. At GDC 2013, SundayToz founder and CEO Kevin Lee told us he spoke with the founder of Kakao, and proposed the idea to turn the messenger app into a game platform, which led to the launch of Anipang for Kakao. Today, Anipang is generating around $500,000 in revenue a day.

Recently, KakaoTalk also demonstrated growth outside of its native South Korea by surpassing the 10 million download mark in Japan on March 24.

Gameloft yesterday released its earnings for Q1 2013. The French mobile game developer achieved sales of €54.2 million ($70.1 million), up 21 percent over the same quarter a year ago.

Smartphone and tablet revenues increased by 71 percent year-over-year, representing 60 percent of total group sales compared with 43 percent in Q1 2012.

Gameloft attributes its fast growth to the success of the free-to-play model. The company adds that more than 67 percent of its smartphone sales came from in-app purchases and ad revenues in Q1. In terms of which games performed well in the quarter, Gameloft says older titles from as far back as 2011 and 2012 like Dungeon Hunter 4: Zero Hour, World at Arms, My Little Pony, Ice Age Village, Order & Chaos Online, Gangstar Rio: City of Saints and Asphalt 7: Heat, have largely contributed to the company’s strong performance in the first quarter.

Gameloft hopes three recently released titles in the past few weeks including Dungeon Hunter 4, Iron Man 3 and Order & Chaos Duels, help grow sales in future quarters. Gameloft claims Iron Man 3 was the most downloaded game worldwide on the iOS after it was launched. Future releases include Gangstar Vegas, Despicable Me and Uno & Friends.

Gameloft didn’t provide an earnings forecast for Q2 2013. Gameloft’s share price closed today at €5.29 ($6.84), up 0.95 percent.

Full-service Chinese mobile games publisher Yodo1 announced it has secured $5 million in Series A Funding. The round was led by SingTel Group with additional funding from original investor Chang You Fund.

Yodo1 CEO Henry Fong said in a statement that the main challenge for the company now is keeping up with Western developers eager to join its roster of partners. For this reason, the new funding will be used to expand Yodo1′s production capacity to work with more Western game companies and build the company’s platform and production team.

Yodo1, which came out of stealth in June 2012 with $2 million in seed funding, helps its publishing partners crack the Chinese market by focusing on app store distribution, social distribution, payments and advertising. Yodo1 also does a deep dive into the localization process with a fully-staffed studio of artists and developers who work with Western partners to adapt their games to Chinese tastes.

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Zynga today announced the departure of Zynga’s New York office general manager Dan Porter, the former CEO and founder of OMGPOP.

Just over a year ago, Zynga acquired New York-based gaming studio OMGPOP for $180 million (with another $30 million earnout), the studio behind hit Pictionary-like mobile title Draw Something.

“Developing and launching games is a team effort, and we’re proud of the great work the Zynga New York team has done with Draw Something 2,,” said Zynga COO David Ko, in a statement. “Our follow up to the original hit is even more social and engaging, and we’re excited to get it into the hands of our players globally. We thank Dan Porter for his efforts in making the Draw Something franchise a success and wish him well in his future endeavors. We’re proud to see talent like Sean Kelly take a bigger leadership role as the Head of our New York studio and lead the team to the global launch of Draw Something 2.”

Sean Kelly, who’s been with the company since 2009, is stepping in for Porter as the head of Zynga’s New York studio. Kelly’s official title is the vice president of mobile and general manager of Zynga New York, reporting to Zynga’s senior vice president of mobile Travis Boatman. Kelly led the launch of CityVille in 2009, which grabbed 100 million players worldwide in less than 30 days, as well as the launch of Running with Friends FarmVille, Dream Zoo, Dream PetHouse, CityVille Hometown and Zynga Poker.

Zynga recently revealed Draw Something 2, the sequel to Draw Something, in a tweet from TV and radio personality Ryan Seacrest. The game has soft-launched in Sweden, but no official worldwide release date has been announced yet.

Bee Cave Games today revealed that it has closed an initial seed investment round of over $1.4 million from from employees, select private investors and a strategic investment from Glu Mobile.

The Company’s first title, Blackjack Casino, is now in private beta on Facebook, with mobile and tablet versions in development as well.

Bee Cave Games is a social and mobile games developer founded in late 2012 by former Zynga employees Erik Bethke, Nimai Malle, and Jeremy Strauser, all former employees at Zynga’s Austin office, which was significantly downsized last year. Members of the development team have worked on both social and AAA console and PC titles including Zynga’s Texas Hold’em Poker, EA’s NFL games, and Blizzard’s Diablo series.

Approximately 27 million users bought virtual goods using Facebook Payments in 2012, up from 15 million in 2011, according to a document the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission today.

Facebook generated $810 million in payments revenue in 2012. CFO David Ebersman said only $5 million of that came from sources outside of games, such as Gifts and user promoted posts. Overall, payments and other fees revenue in 2012 increased $253 million, or 45 percent, compared to 2011, despite close to doubling the number of users buying virtual goods.

That could be because of Facebook’s promotions to get more users spending money in games. Although the volume of paying users increased, it the amount new payers spend could be much less than other players. Another factor could be growth in international markets. Facebook says 51 percent of its revenue from marketers and developers based in the United States, compared to 56 percent in 2011. This figure includes advertising revenue as well, but international developers are increasingly finding success on the social network and the overall number of international users is growing much faster than in the U.S.
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2012 was another profitable year for core game developer Kabam. The company today announced the year’s gross revenue exceeded $180 million, up 70 percent year-over-year from 2011.

Although the developer didn’t reveal the exact details of its earnings, it did say that it was profitable for the year. In a statement, Co-Founder and CEO Kevin Chou said the company had initially expected 2012 revenue to grow only by 30 to 40 percent; meanwhile, the company is entering 2013 with an annualized run rate of more than $200 million. The company also revealed that seven of its games were grossing more than $1 million a month in 2012.

Unsurprisingly, mobile proved to be the platform with the most growth for the company, based on the success of titles like Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North and the recent high-profile launch of a tie-in game for Warner Bros. blockbuster Holiday film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North, took the No. 1 spot on Apple’s Highest Grossing Apps list for the year of 2012. In 2011, the company’s revenue was coming solely from Facebook, but with the company moving onto open web and mobile platforms, Facebook only accounts for about 30 percent of its present income.

One interesting point to note in this morning’s earnings release was that “Kabam’s average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU) is eight- to nine-times higher than the industry’s largest company.” Based on what we’ve heard from Zynga much earlier in 2012, that means Kabam is presumably bringing in at least $0.50 in ARPDAU.

As we recently noted, Kabam isn’t slowing down. The company started the year off by acquiring Vancouver-based Exploding Barrel Games, bringing its worldwide headcount to over 500 people.

Monetization and insights provider W3i is stepping up its game with Pocket Gems and other mobile game developers on Android going into 2013. This could be the year that Google’s platform finally catches up in revenues to Apple’s iOS.

Through its expanded partnership with Pocket Gems, W3i now provides monetization solutions to Tap Paradise Cove and Campus Life. Far from being mere banner ads, the monetization service focuses instead on providing a native experience in these Android apps — tailoring ads, offers and video campaigns to the user experience.

Erik Lundberg, General Manager at W3i’s San Francisco office (pictured), explains that the shift toward native experiences comes from mobile advertising finally moving away from online advertising models. With 15 years in online ads before joining W3i just eight months ago, he’s had time to study the changing trends.

“In the early days of ads and mobile apps, people took online models and slapped them on a smartphone like small banner ads that are only 100 pixels wide,” says Lundberg. “Users have tuned those out. More native ads like a full screen interstitial or offer-based ads, we see a much higher CPM, like 10 times higher. We think that trend will continue toward native ads that are a part of the application instead of just throwing up a banner.”

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Editor’s Note: This guest post comes from game design consultant Adrian Crook, a producer and designer with credits on over two dozen games spread across a variety of platforms, including classic consoles like the Sega Genesis and modern mobile games for iOS. In 2006, he was named Producer of the Year by the Canadian New Media Awards. You can find out more about Crook’s consulting agency here and the original text of his article, “Top 5 Reasons ‘Stealth Mode’ Will Kill Your Startup,” here.

By now I thought it was abundantly evident why your startup should never be in “stealth mode.” But just this afternoon, while on a call with a potential investor/advisor, I heard of yet another person who was still in stealth mode. So this must still be “a thing” for entrepreneurs.

It shouldn’t be. Yes, stealth mode sounds cool, but it hurts you more than it helps you. Here’s why:

1) Nobody wants to steal your idea.
There’s nothing more hilarious to me than when a startup CEO asks me to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before they reveal their grand idea. In reality, the most powerful force keeping me from stealing your idea is not an NDA, but my belief that my idea is better than your own. Most people are violently assured they have the right ideas – in fact, this reality distortion field is common among CEOs. So stop believing someone will drop everything to rip off your idea – they’re probably only thinking “I hope she’s not doing MY idea!”

2) Most people will never even hear of your startup.
Starting tomorrow, “unstealth” your startup and start spamming your social networks with App Store and landing page links as much as humanly possible. The fact is most of your intended audience (investors, customers, etc) will still never be even faintly aware of your existence. We’re all simply too self-absorbed or well-insulated to receive everything you’re broadcasting. To this day I still get Facebook friends surprised to learn I’ve moved to another country… over two years ago.

3) You leave stones unturned.
Mention your idea to someone even in passing, at the end of an email, on chat – anywhere. Don’t pass up the chance. You never know what they know or who they know or what you’ll learn as a result. Every day I am shocked at how effective this is: new leads are surfaced, competitors I didn’t know about are mentioned, or someone expresses a whole new way to view our product that hadn’t even occurred to me yet. If I had kept my mouth shut about our startup, I’d truly be “eating my own dog food.” In the same way one drinks the Kool-Aid.

4) Opportunity often takes a long time to knock.
So when you put off spreading the word about your startup, you also put off initiating the gestation period for opportunity. Practically speaking, VC investment alone can take 6-9 months to find and close, but if you wait until you need it, those nine months will seem like forever. But other types of opportunity take time to materialize too. One day your friend’s mind wanders and he comes up with the perfect person for you to talk to at ESPN. Or a former co-worker could have put you into their Q3 roadmap if he had known in Q1. Start seeding opportunity too late and you’ll run out of time before its first flowers bloom.

5) Get honest feedback when you can use it.
By telling your friends and colleagues what you’re up to, you get to hear some (very) honest feedback when you need it most – in the early stages, when course-correction costs you much less. Your friends will be candid, which helps you refine your pitch or product offering so it makes sense. And your colleagues, often strongly motivated to find the “gotchas” in your idea, will give you a good sense of the obstacles you might face getting investor or customer buy-in.

Obviously there are some people you might not want to tell, pre-launch. If someone is strongly in the competitor or potential competitor camp and the risk of telling them likely outweighs the benefit, perhaps skip that person for now. But try to avoid censoring yourself in any other way. As I said before, some of the most serendipitous connections or ideas have come from conversations that I thought would never lead to anything, startup-wise.

Be willing to have those conversations, to listen fully and to disclose as much (or a bit more) as you feel comfortable. Being unguarded about your concerns and your thought process is an excellent way to tacitly invite your conversation partner to help solve your problem. But when you attempt to appear like you’ve already got everything buttoned down, you leave little room for contribution.

And now back to working on PlayRank, our second screen sports product that launches this January. Have I told you about that yet…?

Thanks for reading,

Adrian Crook
CEO, PlayRank
Founder, AC+A

Applifier, the Robin Hood of Facebook games cross promotion, has closed a $4 million second round of funding led by Lifeline Ventures.

The influx of funds will be put toward accelerating Applifier’s growth on iOS, where the company currently hosts a video-based discoverability service called Everyplay. Its Facebook video ad service, Impact, will migrate to mobile next year. To that end, Applifier is staffing up both its engineering-focused Finnish headquarters and a much smaller developer relations-oriented San Francisco office. Applifier currently has about 25 employees total.

Everyplay continues Applifier’s mission of leveraging games’ appeal to generate organic growth and retention. The SDK, when implemented into a developer’s game, allows players to capture video of their in-game play experience and post said video to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Everyplay’s site (picture, right — click to enlarge). Since we first saw the service, the site part of the experience has evolved into more of a gamers social network, with avatar creation, status updates and a Follower system similar to Twitter’s. Players can link their Facebook accounts to Everyplay, but that is used more as a means of finding friends instead of a substitution for a virtual identity.

Speaking to Inside Social Games this week, Applifier CEO Jussi Laakkonen explains that gamers naturally prefer anonymity to the use of real identities in games. But at the same time, he admits that the social nature of sharing games — showing them off, beating set high scores, competitive multiplayer, etc. — requires some form of connection.

“We want to make a safe and fun environment,” he says. “So we’re not launching the face-cam part of Everyplay until Q1 next year when we have moderation in place. We don’t want this to be Chatroulette.”

Everyplay is currently live in two iOS games, Fatcat Rush and Stair Dismount, and the SDK is now widely available to developers. A few additional features are planned for Q1 in addition to the face cam capture function — such as a picture-in-picture video display where game developers can choose to show community videos or trailers from a game title screen as an engagement tool. Like Applifier’s previous service on Facebook, Everyplay monetizes through native ads (e.g. sponsored or promoted videos that function on a traditional CPI model) and could potentially branch into other forms of display ads.

Laakkonen — along with many others in the social/mobile space — believes that the next big frontier for mobile games will be tablets, so the sooner Applifier can establish itself on mobile, the better off it will be. This is not unlike the situation the company faced in 2008 when it first contemplated the rapid growth on the Facebook platform.

“We’re hoping for explosive growth on mobile, because [there are] similar market conditions to what we faced on Facebook,” Laakkonen tells ISG. “We don’t know where things will go, but for now, it’s about discoverability.”

Applifier’s second round saw participation from existing investors MHS Capital and PROFounders and from new investor Webb Investment Network. Angel investors include Steven Lurie, Anthony Soohoo, Philip Reisberger and David Wright and Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation. The $4 million brings Applifier up to $6 million in total funding following a $2 million round closed in February 2011.