Inside Social Games

If you were to go up to a gamer — an older one, at least — and ask them what the best fighting game ever made was, they would probably tell you Street Fighter II. The title has been one of the most popular and well balanced fighting games for decades and certainly one of the most famous arcade games to date. If you don’t believe that, just look at how many versions exist. Nevertheless, last week gave birth to the anticipated release of Street Fighter IV on the iPhone.

Developed by Capcom, it is certainly one the top five biggest ports to the device, joining a list containing such titles like PopCap’s Plants vs. Zombies or Electronic Arts’ Rock Band. However, currently priced at $9.99 in the App Store, one has to wonder if the price matches the hype.

Currently, the game offers eight playable characters from the classic franchise, including Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Blanka, Dhalsim, Guile, M. Bison, and Abel. It is a bit disappointing to only see a fraction of the characters from the series – though the most important ones are there – but considering that the game is a fraction of the price of the console version of Street Fighter IV, it’s understandable.

When players start up the game, they are presented with three modes, Tournament, Dojo, and, of course, multiplayer. Likely, however, users will start with the tournament mode as the majority of these players are probably Street Fighter fans already, and don‘t need training — and probably don’t have another person with an iPhone readily available.

This mode is essentially the “Story Mode,” from previous Street Fighters, sans the actually story. It still follows the same progression curve as far as game play goes, though. Users battle computer controlled characters one by one with ever increasing difficulty. The abilities are more or less the same as any other Street Fighter title, so it isn’t terribly hard for a veteran of the game, once you get used to the controls (more on that a bit later).

What really makes the game different is the new Dojo mode, which has been described on numerous occasions as “Street Fighter boot camp.” Consider this a challenge/tutorial mode. Players will be given increasingly advanced win conditions and a time limit in which to complete them. For example, one challenge will focus on combos, asking the player to do X attack followed by Y attack, with increasing complexity for each successive challenge. Another might teach the elements of using special attacks, you know, Haiduken, by blocking all damage done by normal attacks.

Regardless of the lesson, each completed challenge will be ranked either S, A, B, or C. In order to proceed to the next level, at least a C is required. Nonetheless, for those that enjoy things like achievements, a lot of longevity will be garnered out of the Dojo, for S ranks are actually extremely difficult to get, and there are a ton of different challenges. But then again, we were never Street Fighter arcade champions either.

As interesting as Dojo mode is, the real glory comes from the multiplayer. Obviously this isn’t your Facebook-style asynchronous multiplayer, and it is certainly not for the weak. Using Bluetooth, players can sync up and fight each other in some classic arcade mayhem. Surprisingly, with the right people, it’s about as much fun as any console or arcade version.

There is one annoyance to get used to though. The controls. Capcom does the best it can, but it really just comes down to placing the classic arcade joystick and its four buttons on the touch screen. As has been stated in past reviews, this just doesn’t work as well on the iPhone because there is no tactile feedback, and any serious game player can tell you that they feel where their fingers are, not see. Unfortunately, for a fighting game of this caliber, there isn’t really a viable alternative to the control scheme. Once you do get used to it, however, it’s not so bad; though it is frustrating to lose because you had to look to see where your thumb was for a split second.

Luckily , there is one saving grace to the controls. Capcom is certainly aware of the lack of tactile feedback, and does its best to mitigate the issue, allowing players to customize their controls. You can actually drag them anywhere you want until you’re comfortable (a great thing for lefties), change their transparency, and actually change the overall size! That last one, is certainly a godsend for those people with big fingers.

If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, and you’re a fan of Street Fighter, this is a game for you. Though it doesn’t have everything that the console rendition of Street Fighter IV has, it is still an excellent port, and has plenty of the nostalgic elements – from fighter specific levels to familiar taunts – for long time players. Granted, the controls take some series getting used to, and for most, it’s going to probably hit or miss. Nevertheless, once you get the hang of it and get into some multiplayer action, this application will become $10 well spent.

If there is one type of game that seems to circulate more often than any other around the web and mobile devices, it’s tower defense. For the most part, these games are a dime a dozen, but every once and a while, a developer does something interesting with this tired genre. This time, it is a quirky, $0.99, iPhone app called Tweet Defense from the Promethium Marketing Group and GrinLock Limited.

As far as tower defense games go, Tweet Defense is still fairly standard. Players choose from 10 different maps and construct various towers to try to take down enemies before they get from Point A to Point B. As expected, towers vary in strength, abilities, and cost: Some are cheap with high rates of fire, some do area of effect, some are short range, but powerful, and others boost whatever defenses you have currently up. However, each tower has a unique, garage-built look that adds a bit of flare to this basic gameplay.

Conversely, the enemies, in this case, zombies, come in their own odd shapes and forms. This includes the basic Sneakie zombie that attacks in hordes, the hard to kill, and overweight Blubberbie zombie, and borderline uncouth Mombie that spits out two baby zombies (called Zuppies) when she dies. Unfortunately, there are only five types of zombies, but with a zany, cartoon style, they are all amusing to watch.

Beyond visual style, Tweet Defense also increases the difficulty of the game through the maps themselves. Most of the time, these types of games have a set path that the player can easily see, with towers placed around it. In this app, harder maps have no such luxury, and towers can be placed anywhere. Normally, this might not mean anything, but in Tweet Defense, should a tower be in a zombies way, they’ll just plow right through, destroying it in the process.

Quickly, the app becomes a game of strategic placement and money management. In regards to the latter, it works like virtually any other tower defense title. Towers can be upgraded or scrapped, and money is earned for each enemy slain. And don’t think upgrades are optional, as even though the game starts off easy, things can quickly get out of hand and the player even more quickly overrun.

With all this talk of the game design itself, it is easy to forget the main gimmick of Tweet Defense. Per its title, the game is actually connected directly to Twitter. No, this isn’t about tweeting achievements, but rather, a user’s social activity on the network itself, influencing gameplay. Once a user logs into their Twitter account, Tweet Defense actually picks up on your friends, followers, and the number of tweets you have made in order to grant users significant bonuses in the game.

To break it down, the more friends you have, the faster rate of fire your towers get. More followers will give you greater range. And the total number of tweets increases damage. In addition to this, there is a daily Booster that will grant random bonuses such as cheaper towers.

As unique as this use of Twitter is, Tweet Defense also incorporates the social platform OpenFeint to improve longevity with standard leaderboard rankings, and a fairly sizable list of achievements for players to earn and boast about.

Without a doubt, this iPhone app has one of the most curious and unique social integrations we have seen to date. Moreover, the game is actually fun and more than just a gimmick. Could Tweet Defense do more as a tower defense title as a whole? Absolutely. Even a little more variety in the zombies would by prudent in improving overall quality; especially considering the game’s visual style. Nonetheless, this is an app that show that, in game design, just looking at something in a different way can lead to more creativity.

Zen Bound 2 Revealed for the iPad – Despite the buzz circling Apple’s new iPad, little has been actually seen regarding games on the coming platform. However, via a post from Kotaku, we’ve been able to catch a glimpse of Secret Exit’s Zen Bound 2, a “sequel and a revision” of the original iPhone application. In a nutshell, the original rendition is about attempting to wrap a rope around an oddly shaped object, with the sequel’s concept being more of the same. However, as you can see, the bigger and more powerful iPad sure does make it look better. A full gallery can be found here.

Frosmo Expands to Asia – Frosmo has seen a good deal of success with its tournament and team-based platform of the same name, in terms for social gaming. Already the company has expanded its collection of titles across Europe and into Facebook, but now the Finnish company is expanding into the Asian game market as well. Currently, the company is slated to let 10 different Asian game companies use its tournament system, and be available through 51.com, China.com, Ren Ren, and Mixi.

Platogo Gets Casual Games Facebook Ready – Though third party firms helping developers socialize their titles is nothing new, a social games platform from Austria, Platogo is looking to socially enable casual games directly for Facebook. Dubbed “Platogo Wrapper” this tool allows developers to integrate their games into Facebook withonly a few lines of code. With this new tool,  apps will be able to take advantage of Facebook friend invitations, leaderboards, achievements, and player challenges.

Game Investments Dropped 29% in 2009 – It would seem like the video game industry has seen some hefty decline due to the recession as VentureBeat reports that of 115 game startups, only $663.1 million in funding was raised during 2009 (discounting those with undisclosed amounts). That is 29% lower than the $936.8 million raised in 2008. In fact, had it not been for Zynga’s acquisition of $180 million deal from Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies, the year would have been down a depressing 48%.

Tapulous Taps Into Kings of Leon – The popular rhythm-game company for the iPhone, Tapulous, has added another new title to its collection of Tap Tap games. The new app is dubbed Kings Of Leon Revenge, and if you hadn’t guessed already, features, well, the Kings Of Leon. In addition to hosting 10 of the band’s top songs, the new game will also include a curious ”Battle Mode” that will allow users to directly compete with each other using the iPhone’s bluetooth capabilities.

Unity Games Gain a Social Platform Through dimeRocker – More and more frequently, social games empowered with Unity3D are appearing around both Facebook and the web. To that end, Overinteractive Media Inc. has announced the launch of a new social platform, specifically tailored to support Unity enabled games, dubbed dimeRocker. Through the platform, games will be able to support microtransactions, achievements, leaderboards, friend invites, challenges, and be deployable on both the Facebook and MySpace networks. Already, around 150 developers have signed up for the service’s beta stages.

Facebook App Penny Drop Teams Up with Kiva – A simple Facebook application called Penny Drop – powered by CircusPop - is out to help the working poor. The quasi, game-like app consists of players using tokens (earnable through logins every few hours and inviting friends) to drop the price of featured items by one cent until someone purchases it. However, working with Kiva, from March 11th to March 22nd, for every token used in Penny Drop, a penny will be donated to Kiva in order to help poor entrepreneurial individuals and businesses grow.

Gowalla Adds New Platforms & Branded Goods – Location-based iPhone app Gowalla has launched its social game on two new platforms this past week: The Android and Palm’s webOS. In addition to this new support, the game is also bringing branded virtual goods to the table from the Travel Channel’s show, Food Wars. With the new deal, players will be able to earn special badges and virtual items by visiting locals featured during the show.

IMVU adds Voices as a Virtual Good – Popular teen-oriented virtual world IMVU announced a curious partnership with Vivox this Thursday. Now, the virtual world will be capable of integrating voice services, but beyond being just another feature, it will also add a new source of revenue. Currently, 25 different voice styles are being offered for the cost of 990 IMVU Credits.

Sometrics Launches GameCoins.com – Social analytics firm, Sometrics announced the launch of GameCoins.com this week - the company’s first direct-to-consumer play. Game Coins will serve as a community site for gamers, allowing them meet new people as well as participate in forums and blogs that revolve around various social games and virtual worlds. More than this, however, the site, per its name, will also be an online marketplace for virtual goods and currencies. From the portal, players can make use of the Sometrics Offer Solution to complete ad offers and earn goods and currency for their MMO, virtual world, or social game of choice. The company tells us it plans to help grow the community through users discovering relevant content in searches. The idea is that by helping people play these games better, its monetization services will get even more usage.

50% of Gamers Will Earn Virtual Currency – According to a survey performed by comScore for Offerpal Media, and released at the Game Developers Conference this week, alternative payment methods enable greater monetization capabilities that one would think. Derived from comScore and Offerpal’s own monetization analytics, 53.3% of players are “very likely” to complete a marketing actions (i.e. completing a survey, watching a video, or shopping online) in order to earn virtual currency for their favorite games. Conversely, only 22.8% of those surveyed stated they’d be willing and able to buy it.

In fact, 29.7% of social gamers actually don’t have the means to buy virtual currency in the first place; at least not with cash options. Curiously, even among those that could, 34.9% stated that they were “very unlikely” to do so.

MySpace is giving social gaming a big upgrade today, adding a new set of features, and partners, that intend to make third-party gaming apps a prominent part of the service.

The integration of games into MySpace’s core interface could specifically give game engagement a big boost. “Games” has replaced “Apps” as a tab in the site’s top navigation bar. Click on it and you’ll see a revamped page called “Games & Apps,” that contains a number of new features for games. Users’ home pages also now include a “Featured Games” window on the right-hand side that shows you games that MySpace staff has recommended. And, more updates from apps will now appear within users activity “Stream” of updates, including when friends score an app from 1 to 5 stars.

Meanwhile, the “Games & Apps” tab has gotten more features intended to help users find and engage with games. On the top right-hand module of the page, you can see your friends latest activities in apps. Another part of the page, “Featured,” shows games that are handpicked for quality by MySpace staff. “Suggestions” uses an algorithm to figure out which apps might appeal to each user the most, and includes a way to sort by only game apps. These suggestions are based on factors like which kinds of games users have already played, which ones their friends have been playing, and how well the apps are ranked by users.

Developers who have built apps for MySpace already will appreciate these changes, as the company previously gave games minimal attention. Some game actions showed up in users’ streams, and games appeared within a simpler apps page. That was it.

MySpace has still been the de facto place for social game developers to go besides Facebook. While many applications have gained millions of users — see our most recent list of top 25 MySpace games for more on that — a main way to gain an audience was through advertising within MySpace’s apps page. The company’s goal with the launch today is to have social games help increase the number of users and their engagement.

It already has around 100 million monthly active users worldwide, although this number has been falling in the past year. Of its users, 28 million use apps every month, and more than half of those play games; 56% female, and 44% male. With the updates today, co-President Mike Jones says the company is aiming to get half the site’s users gaming every month.

Social games launching on MySpace today include:

• Fish Isle (IGG)
• Hoop Fever Live (TheBroth)
• Kingdoms of Camelot (Watercooler)
• Paradise Paintball (CMUNE)
• SPP Ranch (Slide)
• Warlords (BitRhymes)
• Wild Ones (Playdom)
• Zombie Revenge (DeezGames)

The company is also announcing a couple other new, related projects today. One is an iPhone app called Neon, designed for games. You can log in with your MySpace account, see notifications and app invites from friends, and respond. While you can’t play games within the app, your responses will be recorded within MySpace. For example, MySpace’s Mobsters role-playing game might tell you that you’ve gained a free gun in the game, and you can click to approve this. When you accept friends’ invites to apps, MySpace will install the app on your profile on the site. This is not the only MySpace iPhone app planned, by the way — it also has more coming for the main site, as well as for other areas it focuses on, like music and entertainment.

It also has a few service partners it’s announcing: game development tool Unity, cross-platform social feature provider ScoreLoop and cloud gaming service Groovy Cortext.

MySpace’s gaming efforts have also included more fundamental changes to its developer platform, recently coming out with an analytics API, for example, that helps developers better track user metrics. The company has, as many readers know, been going through bigger changes. The News Corp.-owned company’s chief executive, Owen Van Natta, was let go last month; with Jones and another executive, Jason Hirschhorn, becoming co-presidents. All of these executives came on less than a year ago, replacing the company’s founding executive team. The company has spent much of the last year talking about how it’s going to become more of an entertainment service, but up to this point it has been focused on other areas, like music. Games are now front and center.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak on “The State of the Social Gaming Industry” at GDC in San Francisco. It was awesome to see the level of excitement in social gaming from developers and entrepreneurs across the gaming industry – much more than last year. Lots of people are now working on “social” projects, and larger players are preparing to throw a lot more weight in this direction over the coming year.

For those interested in checking out the slides, they are embedded below.

Topics covered: Social games, Virtual goods, Facebook, Zynga, Playfish, Playdom, PayPal, MySpace, Twitter, Social networks, Gaming portals, Payments, Monetization, Mobile, Offers

All sorts of gaming veterans have been moving to social and mobile gaming recently, and now, a new group of them is forming a startup called SiXiTS. The goal? Through an exclusive partnership with Sibblingz, a cross-platform game technology company centered around social games, the startup is seeking to create “persistent social game[s]” that can be played on Facebook, the iPhone, and even the iPad.

Located out of the San Francisco Bay area, the company consists of individuals with well over 16 years in visual effects experience. According to the company’s new website, team members include CEO and Creative Director Euan Macdonald, COO and Creative Director Nathaniel Hunter, VP of Business Development Mary Butler, VP of Technology Chris Wilson, and CFO Sherry Wangenheim.

The team’s experience stems from such places such as Electronic Arts, Nokia, Disney’s ImageMovers Digital, Lucasfilm Animation, Industrial Light and Magic, Pixar, Mondo Media, Motorola, and 3DO. Some examples of past work include The Mask, The Matrix Reloaded, Jurassic Park: The Lost World, Monsters Inc., Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace – there are many more.

Unfortunately, SiXiTS has yet to announce what their first social game will be. However, the company says it will be launching into public beta sometime this spring. Hopefully, we will catch a glimpse of what this creation will turn into before then, but considering the visual merits of the mentioned movies, you can bet it will at least look good.

Aurora Feint Generates 5 Million iPhone Game Downloads – Distribution has always been a problem for iPhone developers, but in an effort to improve the odds on this problem, Aurora Feint created a special promotion on its OpenFeint social platform. The experiment was called the “Free Game of the Day Promotion,” and over the past four weeks has generated 5 million free game downloads.

The success has led to the launch of FreeGameoftheDay.com and will put free game offers at the forefront for a stated 15 million users. To draw a parallel on the success, an Aurora Feint partner in this endeavor, Origin8 creator of Space Station: Frontier, saw 160,000 downloads in a single day, and 1 million overall.

iPad Coming in April – We’ve talked a lot about the iPad in recent weeks, but now it looks like the masses will get to check things out for themselves soon enough. Apple announced today that the official launch of it’s new device is scheduled for April 3rd in the United States.

The Wi-Fi only model will be available first, with the 3G added later in the month. However, both will be eligible for pre-order come March 12th, with a cost ranging from $499 to $629, respectively for the 16GB version and $699 to $829 for the 64GB version.

Kwedit Raises $3.3 Million – Kwedit, the virtual goods payment site that allows users, 13 and up, to borrow money for virtual items and pay it back later, has, according to TechCrunch, gained another $3.3 million in a second round of funding led by Maveron. The company says it has signed six new merchants including VoIP provider, PokeTalk, an unnamed MMO, a test prep service, and a credit record protection service.

Peanut Labs Gets New Partners – Earlier this week, ad offer network Peanut Labs announced not one, but three new partnerships including the virtual world Meez, massively multiplayer online game publisher IGG, and virtual currency payment service Zeevex.  Each of the three are slated to integrate the networks collection of products in the near future.

Meez Promotes the Red Cross – One of Peanut Labs new partners, Meez, had news of its own, as the browser-based virtual world announced its promotion of the Red Cross throughout the month of March. The teen-oriented realm incorporates a virtual blood bank where avatars can visit and donate virtual blood in order to receive a limited edition Red Cross t-shirt in-game. Within the digital donation destination, however, will be links to the Red Cross website where they can learn more and even find out how to make real donations.

Assassin’s Creed II Multiplayer Comes to iPhone – Previewed, briefly, in early February, Ubisoft has finally released, according to appadvice, Assassin’s Creed II Multiplayer for the iPhone. Essentially a game of deadly hide-and-go-seek, players sneak about trying to kill each other over a Wi-Fi connection. Sadly, this means the game is not 3G compatible (yet), but as a launch promotion, the game is currently free, so that is quickly forgiven. The promotion was only slated at 48 hours and the game was released early in the week and is still free as of Friday. So… yeah, download it for free now while you can, as it will cost $2.99 soon enough.

Lord of the Rings Online Links Up to Facebook – Looks like the MMO Lord of the Rings Online is following World of Warcraft’s footsteps out of Middle Earth and into Facebook. Through a basic Facebook application, LOTRO Player Feed, users will be able to sign in using their My LOTRO account information and track/publish accomplishments to their feeds. This includes level ups, rank ups, quest counts, deed counts, and so on. It even tracks when you log on and off (don’t worry, it waits a while after each as to avoid spam). Also, all of the automatic publishing for each in-game achievement can be toggled on or off.

Exponential Entertainment Raises Funding for Hollywood Games – Earlier this week, Exponential Entertainment raised a round of funding from angel investors totaling $700,000, VentureBeat reports. This amount is in addition to another $1 million in convertible debt, but according to to Chief Executive Dave Long, the company is already in talks to raise a total of $3.25 million. Already, the company has Hollywood trivia games on HollywoodPlayer.com, Facebook, and the iPhone.

Heatwave Experiments with Platinum Life - Heatwave Interactive launched and interesting beta test on Facebook Wednesday. The game is called Platinum Life Web Edition and incorporates the music life into a role-playing title where players move from a nobody to a platinum hip-hop star. However, according to Anthony Castoro, the end goal is to create a massively multiplayer online version of the game with the ideas and lessons earned through the social network – and later MySpace and Twitter as well – being applied to the final rendition.

Booyah Introduces Location-Based Virtual Goods – Location-based iPhone app MyTown, from Booyah, has seen a tremendous amount of check-ins and claims more registered users than its competitors. Now it’s partnering with the Swedish clothing chain H&M, and it will be offering users location-sensitive virtual goods. When a users is near an H&M store, they will not only be able to buy unique virtual goods in the MyTown Store, but if they check-in, they’ll even get discounts and promotions for the actual items on sale in the store.

[via VentureBeat]

With the unveiling of the iPad, the cottage iPad speculation industry that had grown up around it has… kept going. Having seen and, in some cases, actually used the iPad, blogs and magazines are continuing a non-stop torrent of ideas and predictions for the upcoming Apple slate.

A particularly popular subject so far has been games. So we’ve taken some of the better lists out there and combined them — not to pick out specific games (for the most part), but to point out the concepts and game mechanics that are getting the most attention ahead of the iPad’s launch.

For this list, we looked at CNET’s top 30 picks, TechRadar’s top 20, Touch Arcade’s iPhone games to port, and Techland’s 5 games to make ASAP. Here’s what we came up with after melding them all together:

Civilization — This game is a top pick for pretty much everyone. Sid Meier’s classic has always been at least partially about seeing the sprawling extent of your empire, and smaller screens like the iPhone haven’t quite done it justice. Along the same lines, SimCity; and, for the real-time fans, Command & Conquer is a popular choice.

Board games — Another no-brainer, perhaps due to the close resemblance of the iPad to a real-life board. You you can take your pick: Scrabble, Settlers of Catan, Chutes & Ladders or pretty much anything else would work. Several of the lists pick Monopoly, but we’d have to disagree, unless there’s a major breakthrough in battery life.

FarmVille — Maybe it’s just this game’s unending popularity on Facebook, but FarmVille seems to be a consistent pick for any iPad wish-list. There’s certainly a synergy between the intended audiences, although the gameplay might have to be modified for longer play-times.

Line-drawing – CNET wants DrawRace, in which you draw out your car’s intended course, while Touch Arcade wants Boom Brigade, which is a bit like real-time, directed tower defense. The idea is the same in either case: lots of contact between your finger and the screen.

Nintendo games — Techland’s top two picks are both Nintendo games: Scribblenauts and Boom Blox. The latter seems like a good pick; a potential mechanic could involve first touching your target on the screen, then twitching the iPad for an accelerometer “throw”.

Point n’ click adventure — TechRadar suggests Beneath a Steel Sky; our own vote goes to King’s Quest. It’s the ability to tap the screen to achieve any action (this style of game interprets your click to perform the action on its own) that would make these games work.

Physics games — Draw objects with your finger, tilt the iPad to move them around. Crayon Physics, for example, was excellent on the computer, and would probably do even better on an iPad. There’s also World of Goo to consider.

Tower defense — The only question is which tower defense games will do best on the iPad. Fieldrunners would probably do well, as would Plants vs Zombies, which we reviewed earlier tonight. Our own vote is for a graphically amped-up version of Gemcraft, which blends in RPG concepts.

Bright lights, flashing colors — This isn’t a genre, exactly, but extremely visual games seem to be a thematic undercurrent in many of the lists. Pinball, Missile Defense, Geometry Wars — the idea is that the iPad will be bright, beautiful and perfect for some hand-twitching, seizure-inducing action.

Wooden labyrinth — Props to CNET for coming up with this one. This isn’t a computer game, of course. It’s an actual wooden labyrinth in which you guide a stainless-steel ball bearing with physical knobs. The iPad’s accelerometer and flat shape could pull it off perfectly.

Looking through these lists, it might seem that pretty much everything is being fingered as an iPad potential. But we can think of at least a few games that wouldn’t work at all. For example: Whac-a-Mole, played with real hammers. Or, more seriously, any full-on FPS like Quake or Medal of Honor. Without an external controller of any kind, some games will simply be awkward.

Finally, our own pick: Bubble Ghost. Sure, it’s an old game, and one that was never really revived during the console era. But the idea of navigating a bubble through a spiky maze is perfect for some intense iPad gaming, and the internet connection could even make use of some cooperative ghost-play. Just think it over.

As far as casual developers go, PopCap is one that stands out in people’s minds. Having poked their nose into social gaming more than once with games such as Bejeweled Blitz, and adding Facebook Connect to old titles such as Zuma, the port of another popular PopCap web game, Plants vs. Zombies, to the iPhone gave us some high expectations.

For those unfamiliar with the web version, the title is best described as the personification of “depth over breadth.” Ambiguities aside, it is a tower defense-style game in which zombies are marching toward your house and its up to you to defend it with some rather feisty flora.

Zombies approach on a grid, five spaces tall, and gradually work their way to your front door. The idea is to place – via tapping – different types of plants in their way to fend them off. Frankly, this is quite possibly the most amusing concept we’ve seen in a while, and truly shows what a designer can do with a little style.

Each plant is sort of a pun on existing plants and include defenses such as a basic peashooter, to a cherry “bomb,” to a potato “mine.” Of course, not all the style comes in the form of plant life either as zombies have a bit of that je ne sais quoi as well, with epic traffic cone helmet defenses, pole vaulting track stars, and newspaper shielded businessmen (with no pants).

The undead assault starts gradually early on, as players build up their defenses using the sole resource of sunlight. Periodically, little suns appear on-screen that must be picked up via a simple tap. However, in order to garner more sun, players must build a resource-producing plant – Sunflowers. Obviously, this will cost sunlight as well, so the game quickly becomes a challenge in determining what to build, where, and when. Moreover, there are only so many places plants can be put, thus deepening choices further (eventually you can dig them up and replace them). This is further topped off with the fact that decisions need to be both quick and thoughtful, because the zombie waves ramp up very quickly and it is very easy for your plants to be eaten and overrun.

Visually, the style of this app is just as fantastic as its creative character designs with each plant holding a vicious, yet cute, Mario-like art style, while zombies have this perfect, dimwitted, yet try-hard attitude about them. Heck, even the help menu is an amusing letter written in zombie’ish handwriting stating the player wins by letting the zombies reach their house. Even the sound effects compliment themselves perfectly to this zany, cartoon style.

Unfortunately, there is one significant letdown. Despite the fact that Plants vs. Zombies exemplify what an iPhone game should be, it easily falls on our list of games that should have Facebook Connect. Granted, the game does have extremely amusing achievements built into it, such as “Don’t Pea in the Pool,” but it’s just not the same without being able to post it to a feed. With the massive amount of potential strategies, layouts, and mini-games (i.e. bowling for zombies with Crazy Dave), this is an app that screams for social features.

Nonetheless, the franchise is not without some social hope as fans of the game can at least go onto the Plants vs. Zombies website and create a nifty Zombatar (a zombie avatar) for use on their various social networking accounts. Facebook, Twitter, and scaring your mother are what comes recommended.

Of course, the lack of Facebook Connect is hardly enough to keep us from playing Plants vs. Zombies. In fact, it’s hardly been enough to keep over 300,000 from playing. Just today, PopCap actually announced, that within the first nine days of availability, Plants vs. Zombies has sold over 300,000 units (at $2.99). The game reached #1 in the App Store within 24 hours and has since grossed over $1 million. This has made the launch the top-grossing iPhone launch ever in its history. To top it off, it is now #1 in over 20 countries, including Canada, China, Russia, Australia, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, and Norway.

In the end, Plants vs. Zombies is a very wise $3 investment for any iPhone or iPod Touch owner. That said, we look forward to seeing more from the folks over at PopCap Games, and hopefully, a Facebook Connect announcement in the future of this already excellent game.

April 20 | San Francisco

As we recently announced, Inside Social Apps 2010, our first conference on the future of monetization on social platforms, is happening April 20th in San Francisco, one day before Facebook’s official “f8″ event. We’re excited to see all of the developers and entrepreneurs from around the world that are planning to attend!

In addition to the 24 confirmed speakers at Inside Social Apps 2010, including executives from all the largest developers on the Facebook Platform, we’re very excited to announce three more speakers today: Season Xu, Co-founder and COO at Five Minutes (makers of Happy Farm), Dave Etling, VP Product Development at InComm, and Jeremy Liew, Managing Director at Lightspeed Venture Partners. They will be joining our full list of speakers listed below.

• Atul Bagga, VP Equity Research, Games, ThinkEquity
• Adam Caplan, VP Virtual Currency, Super Rewards / Adknowledge
  
• Renata Dionello, Chief of Staff to the CEO, eBay, and former Director of Consumer Business Development, PayPal
• Eric Eldon, Editor, Inside Facebook & Inside Social Games
• Dave Etling, VP Product Development, InComm
  
• George Garrick, CEO, Offerpal Media
• Vikas Gupta, CEO, Jambool
• Sebastien de Halleux, Founder and COO, Playfish, and VP Business Development & Strategic Partnerships, EA Interactive
• Ron Hirson, Co-founder and SVP Product, Boku
• Nick Lawler, Managing Director, Maverick Capital
• Keith Lee, Co-founder and CEO, Booyah
• Jeremy Liew, Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partners
  
• Vish Makhijani, COO, Zynga
• David Marcus, CEO, Zong
• Lisa Marino, CRO, RockYou
  
• Dave McClure, Investor, Founders Fund Angel and fbFund Incubator
• Rex Ng, Co-founder and CEO, 6waves
• Jason Oberfest, VP Social Applications, ngmoco
• Mark Pincus, Founder and CEO, Zynga
• Shervin Pishevar, Founder and Executive Chairman, SGN
• John Pleasants, CEO, Playdom
• Keith Rabois, VP Strategy and Business Development, Slide
• Peter Relan, Executive Chairman, CrowdStar
• Justin Smith, Founder, Inside Network
• Kavin Stewart, CEO, Lolapps
• Jay Weintraub, Founder, LeadsCon
• Season Xu, Co-founder and COO, Five Minutes

More speakers and a full agenda will be announced shortly.

Finally, a limited set of “early admission” tickets is now available through Friday at a special price of $299. This price will change after Friday, and space will be limited, so we encourage you to register now.

Inside Social Apps 2010 – April 20th in San Francisco

Three years after the Facebook Platform launched in 2007, what started out as sheep throwing and vampire biting has quickly become a profitable billion-dollar industry. Today, social games monetizing through virtual goods have quickly become one of the hottest sectors of technology and entertainment, both in the US and around the world. Where are social apps going, and who is leading the way?

Inside Network is proud to announce our first conference on the future of monetization on social platforms: Inside Social Apps 2010, happening April 20th in San Francisco, is bringing together the world’s leading entrepreneurs all in one place to discuss the future of social applications and games monetizing through virtual goods.

This will be an in-depth one day event geared toward developers on Facebook, MySpace, and the iPhone, senior executives, and investors. At Inside Social Apps 2010, founders and CEOs of the top social gaming, mobile social gaming, payments, and virtual goods infrastructure companies will be tackling the key issues facing the industry. We’re hosting it one day before Facebook’s “f8″ event in San Francisco, so this will be an excellent opportunity to learn about the key issues facing the future of the Facebook Platform and beyond before Facebook’s official event.

Register Now

A limited set of “early admission” tickets is available through Friday at a special price of $299. This price will change after Friday, and space will be very limited, so we encourage you to register early.

From all of us at Inside Network, we hope to see you on April 20th in San Francisco!