Inside Social Games

Not too long ago, FooMojo, creators of the popular Facebook app Pokey, announced the closing of a $9.9 million Series A round led by SoftBank Capital. The company is focused on the virtual pet space, but not just on Facebook. Rather, the company develops such applications all over the web and for the iPhone as well.

Combined with the seed round it raised last year, the company has now raised $10.7 million in total. After the Series A round closed back in September, CEO Ron Hornbaker noted that the company was especially fortunate to be ahead of the market crash, and was no longer looking for further investment.

Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank Corp. added, “Japan was the birthplace of the virtual pets phenomenon and I witnessed first hand, the amazing success of the Tamagotchi driven from the basic fulfillment of virtual companionship.” Son went on to say, “FooMojo has taken the model to new heights of realism and technology by creating virtual pets that evoke a strong emotional bond with owners and are portable across social networks and devices. FooMojo is creating the next-generation of virtual pets and I expect the company to lead the category.”

[via Virtual World News]

Earlier this month, there was discussion regarding the taxation of virtual assets in China. Unexpectedly, however, similar discussions have recently been happening in the US.

Apparently, there is a “gap” in the New York state budget, and in response to this, Governor David Patterson proposed a number of solutions. Most interesting of them all was the one dubbed the “iPod tax” that would impose both state and local taxes on “digitally delivered entertainment services.”

Essentially, this means that any and all downloadable content could be affected. This includes all major video game platforms, and could also possibly encompass virtual goods and currencies. It’s not clear what exactly will happen, but GamePolitics.com says:

“If you live in the state of New York, you could find yourself paying sales tax on downloadable content (DLC) for video games, beginning in 2009.

That’s because, much like the private sector, state and local governments have been hit hard by the current recession. In New York, Gov. David Paterson (D) has responded by proposing a budget that calls for layoffs, service cutbacks and new taxes, including one that will likely add to the cost of your DLC on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii or PC.”

Of course, this is all just speculation at the moment. The budget will still have to be approved by the legislature, but regardless of whether it passes or not, it is interesting to see this sort of suggestion appear at all.

[via Virtual Goods News]

Earlier this month, PlaySpan announced the launch of its virtual goods marketplace. The site will be comprised of items from dozens of different online games, and bring them together all in one place instead of creating separate virtual marketplaces for each specific game.

This new “PlaySpan Virtual Goods Marketplace” will sell the items from games such as EVE Online, Saga, War Rock, Knight Online, and others. Players will be able to visit the new marketplace regardless of the game they play and purchase each game’s virtual currency or the items they desire directly.

PlaySpan also announced recently that it had raised a $16.8 million round of funding. According to PlaySpan chief executive, Karl Mehta, this new site will be simple, secure, and offer plenty of payment methods with a potential customer base of over 100 million users. Furthermore, since the site sells items and currency directly with the permission of the game developers it supports, they can avoid the much of fraud, scams, and theft that can come in ad-hoc secondary markets.

As it stands now, supporting publishers include Aeria, CCP, GamersFirst, InixSoft, NHN, Ntreev, and Saga. A number of these are based in Asia where the virtual goods movement is strongest and most mature, thus making up a large portion of an industry now worth approximately $1.5 billion (based on Strategy Analytics).

[via VentureBeat]

Christmas is almost here: A time for cheer, a time for giving, a time for sharing, and a time for thanks.

In light of this holiday spirit, a new service called TouchLeagueSharp, is now available to both iPhone and web game developers. Sharp is a C# wrapper and a demo web site that can be utilized in order to build games on the TouchLeague.com Competition API. An example of this can be found here with some play-for-money poker.

This is where the real story comes into play, as the API provides a set of web-based services that are capable of supporting turn-based, asynchronous game play. This means it can support games such as chess, checkers, and other board games, but can also support core elements from other game genres such as the Final Fantasy battle system, Risk, or Civilization. It is simply up to the developer to determine a creative means of utilizing the concept of “turns.”

Time for creativity should not be an issue either, for as with other third party APIs, TouchLeague allows developers to focus more on game play and handles some of the more tedious, back end aspects of multiplayer game development.

Currently, the API provides developers with a number of supported functions listed in their development blog, that can be used based on their preferences. The site handles simple features such as user registration, and advertising revenue, but can also be used to set up ladder systems, rank-based matchmaking, as well as a web service that can retrieve and update game states without requiring the use of a database for your game.

According to the creators of TouchLeague, the features are far from done as well. The API is looking to encompass more features as well in the future such as a “play ad free revenue generation” as well as the hosting for tournaments and leagues.

The best part, however, is that a would-be developer does not require much in order to make their game. All that the API requires is a public web server that can execute your game code. The TouchLeagueSharp package easily implements the API through the use of an ASP.net web project.

In a market where social, casual, online games are becoming very widespread, it is certainly nice to have as many choices as possible when it comes to easing the development process. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see something that applies more specifically to the turn-based aspect of games when more and more live-multiplayer support has been showing up lately.

It wasn’t too long ago that Yahoo decided to rethink its strategy. In an attempt to save the platform, they planned to allow third-party applications to plug into and link Yahoo services and user data. As of today, that vision is now starting to become reality.

Now, the Yahoo platform is becoming more open and social. Yahoo has certainly taken a shift in the social network direction, especially with Mail - which allows you to see updates, emails from various social connections, and built in services such as Flickr and WordPress - and My Yahoo.

Largely due to these new social features, many of the major social game developers made their debut on the Yahoo application platform today. These include companies such as Playfish, Zynga, and RockYou.

This application gallery is still small, but it is definitely going to grow quickly. As it stands, Zynga seems to be the biggest contributor with some of it’s major titles such as Mafia Wars and Bumper Stickers. However, Playfish has also connected its classically popular Bowling Buddies, and RockYou has launched My Emote.

It’s doubtful that any developer will ignore the new Yahoo. Not only is there a large existing user base, but the platform also has extensive developer support. Yahoo offers multiple sources of documentation and various APIs to assist in both editing your applications as well as making them social. Some of the features that Yahoo has made available are the Yahoo Social Directory API, the Updates API, OpenSocial, and access to a support and community forum.

Will Yahoo evolve into a new social network? We’ll see, but as more parts of the Yahoo platform roll out over the coming months, it definitely has the potential to become a big social gaming platform.

Although it’s a huge and mature space in China, the virtual goods movement has solidified a foothold in the American gaming industry as a highly viable business means for online games. However, there is no easy task involved in the creation of a virtual goods infrastructure, and this difficulty creates a void that must be bridged before it becomes more prominent.

Knowing that a need exists, companies like Twofish seek to fulfill that need. The company has secured $4.5 million in funding which was recently announced at The Virtual Goods Summit in San Francisco.

Twofish has dubbed itself a “digital resource planning solution.” Usage of the Twofish infrastructure will allow developers to easily run virtual banks, track inventory, set up an e-commerce system as they see fit, and allow player transactions in real time.

For game developers, the purpose of outsourcing is to focus more on the virtual worlds and games which they are creating, as opposed to spending time on the more tedious back end development. Furthermore, the inclusion of Twofish features can not only allow for virtual goods’ based profits, but also provide users with greater customer security, and fraud prevention.

Lee Crawford, chief executive at Twofish, also points out that the technology gives real-time data back to the developers, allowing them to track what virtual goods are being sold as well as how much revenue is being generated through the various microtransactions being made ($.25 here, $.50 there). However, it is also worth noting that a virtual goods system is not right for everyone.

Based on a blog post on VentureBeat, chief executive of Outspark (an online games company), states that you would need to make at least $200,000 in revenue before you could consider adding any market system (be it primary or secondary markets of virtual goods). Nonetheless, the idea behind Twofish still seems to hold significant merit to the folks at as Triplepoint Capital, Rustic Canyon Ventures, and Venrock.

For over a year now, Sharendipity has spent its time building a tools platform for user-created games. However, recently, the company announced that they will be abandoning Java for Flash. Why?

According to Sharendipity’s blog, the reasoning lands simply on market penetration: “The reason we are moving to Flash is because of Java’s adoption rates… We suspect that we lose somewhere between thirty and fifty percent of users due simply to the fact that we are in Java.” Flash has approximately 95% penetration amongst internet users.

Java used to be one of the best platforms for developing web-based games, but over time, Flash and ActionScript have caught up and become much more prevalent. Nevertheless, there are those that hope that Java’s Update 10 will be the salvation they desire. They say Java is significantly better at rendering the 2D graphics that make up the majority of web games and is, in fact, far more advanced and more powerful than ActionScript. The debate is certainly interesting to read, and you find a lot of insight on different points of view. If interested, you can find another good one, here.

All in all, there are a number of people that love Java that are upset to see more and more companies shift to using Flash. It really is a better built language with a great deal of power, but Sharendipity is making the right choice in going with the wider audience Flash will bring it.

Santa Clara, California - based PlaySpan, founded in 2006, has just raised $16.8 million via Easton Capital Group, Menlo Mentures, Novel TMT Ventures, STIC and others, VentureBeat reports. The company plans to use the money to build out its virtual goods payment platform and transaction system for online games.

Many new free-to-play games that have little or no advertisers or subscription are making their income by selling various items and in-game upgrades to players as they need them. The cost is generally very cheap, but since the cost is so low, the volume of those transactions adds up very quickly. The trick is, online games need to have the infrastructure in order to do this, and that is where PlaySpan comes into the picture.

When it comes to virtual goods in games, there are two types of markets: Primary market and Secondary market. The more “common” market seen online today is the secondary markets where players sell goods to other players for real currency. However, a number of these sellers operate without the game developer’s permission. These are generally prevalent in places like China and Korea and consist of services such as the sale of virtual gold in World of Warcraft.

The problem, as you can surmise, is that it leaves the developer out of the picture, and creates a lot of opportunity for fraud, theft, and a general breakdown of in game economy. Of course, that isn’t to say that all secondary markets are bad. There are in fact companies that do acquire permission and work with game developers to mediate player to player transactions (i.e. LiveGamer) without any of the negative drawbacks.

Similarly, PlaySpan operates with permissions from developers, but instead of moderating a secondary market, they choose to focus on a primary market in which items are sold directly to the players themselves. In order to best do so, PlaySpan focuses on the needs of a player and tailors items to them based on what they need most in game. This can be based on any number prospects such as level, in-game wealth, current quests, etc. Whenever the situation arises, a player receives a prompt with the offer and can purchase it immediately by whatever means they desire. For every purchase made, PlaySpan receives about 10%.

Their payment method is fairly simple too. By acquiring the online payment company, PayByCash, PlaySpan offers users use up to 70 different ways to make purchases in 180 different countries. This includes money orders, game cards, and even cash. They even have their own pre-paid game card now that is accepted by over 200 online games.

With such a robust infrastructure, PlaySpan has gotten the attention of a number of different companies now (Aeria Games, Eve Online, Gala-Net, etc) and serves as a platform for over 60 unique online games. This equates to over 70 million gamers world wide.

[via VentureBeat]

One of the largest pitfalls of most social games is that the game play does not normally contain a true multiplayer aspect. Sure, you can compete with others in asynchronous turns, collect badges, and unlock achievements as bragging rights, but the games in which you can play with others synchronously are limited to games like Chess or Poker.

Part of the reason multiplayer games are not seen very often in the social space is the overall difficulty involved in hosting and building multiplayer infrastructure. This is where Come2Play comes to the rescue.

Come2Play originally made it easier for anyone to create a white label gaming network. The company has now just released an open-source multiplayer API that will allow Flash developers to more easily create and integrate true multiplayer game play by removing the major development barriers such as infrastructure hosting, emulation provisions, delivering distribution, and reporting. In addition to this, developers will be able to create their games using ActionScript 2 or 3 as opposed to the previously used server side scripts.

Currently, the API only supports two-player games. However, capabilities will be slowly increased to support, theoretically, an unlimited number of players. Moreover, the API can also support any number of other social features as well: Game rooms (up to 60 players), chat, player rankings, player rewards/tokens, and of course, ad space sharing.

The big question that arises, however, is what does Come2Play get out of all of this? All games built using the API must be hosted on the Come2Play infrastructure. Also, said games will be published to the Come2Play game galleries and channels, and Come2Play reserves the right to display advertisements within the games (which is split 50/50 with the developers).

Nonetheless, by using the API, game developers are able to focus more on the game itself and improving the game play rather than worrying as much about infrastructure. Come2Play makes an excellent distribution tool for new games for all developers, especially new ones just starting out, and all distributed games can also be ported to Facebook too.

The wait for multiplayer social games may finally be coming to an end with Come2Play’s new service. Will this begin a big movement to build more multiplayer social games? Probably not, but it is certainly a huge leap in the right direction.