Inside Social Games

Owned and operated by the Finnish Sulake Corporation, Habbo Hotel, a virtual world game, has been host to a social network of teenagers for years. Since its inception back in 2000, the virtual goods based business has expanded to include communities across 31 countries in five continents.

The game allows players to create their own Hotel rooms and create a social space for themselves and their friends using furniture they buy with real currency. They can then travel around this virtual world to socialize with others within various “chat rooms.” Each room is either dubbed public or guest, the latter of which consists of a highly customized space created by a player who then has complete control over whom they admit. Public rooms, on the other hand, are created by Sulake themselves and are not customizable, but rather depict scenes such as restaurants, bars, clubs, etc. In addition, the free guest rooms also play host a number of mini-games such as Falling Furni, Quiz, and Wobble Squabble. Each game is hosted by the administrator and can reward winners various prizes such as new furniture.

The company became profitable this year, 2008, with revenues of $50 million. Habbo has 100 million registered users and there are 10 million active players each month.

Sulake has also released a mobile version of the service called Mini Friday that is nearing the 1 million registered user mark. Here’s what makes that number even better: Not only is the game restricted to users 18 and up, but it only works on the Nokia S60 series of mobile phones.

Inside Mini Friday, players can create their own avatar, customizing aspects such as gender, height, and clothing then move about and between rooms. As most of the rooms look to be bars, the chat is more mature, and players can talk between one another individually or “shout” and be heard by all.

Currently, the game is still in beta, and has been since 2006. Since that time, it has steadily grown in popularity, especially in areas such as Indonesia, and is expected to leave the testing phase soon.

Perhaps what is most interesting, however, is a comment noted in a VentureBeat article from Habbo Hotel co-founder Aapo Kyrola. While there is little to go on at this time, Kyrola did state that the company is working on an iPhone version of this application. He goes on to say that compared to the Nokia platform, the iPhone has been a significantly better experience.

[via VentureBeat]

The console wars have been a raging battle for years now, with each major competitor keeping pace with their opponents. However, with the release of the latest generation consoles, Sony has begun to fall behind Microsoft and Nintendo with its coveted PlayStation 3, VentureBeat reports.

The console itself is more powerful than the others, and it can play Blu Ray, but the bottom line is that the price tag is far too high. Furthermore, the PS3 focuses more on the traditional, hardcore gamer rather than encompass a broader audience like Nintendo’s Wii, which is a mistake Sony seems to be looking to correct.

In a last ditch effort to meet the competition head on, Sony has spent the last 18 months developing its “Home” virtual world for the PlayStation Network (the Sony version of Xbox Live). Based on the staggering success of current social networks and virtual worlds, Sony want to give players their own virtual network on top of the games they play. However, unlike their Nintendo and Microsoft counterparts (Miis and the new Xbox Experience), Home will go beyond just avatars and encompass an entire online, virtual space with the beautiful and realistic look that PS3 is known for.

The space is made specifically for gamers, and it is Sony’s hope that Home will be engaging enough that they will take time away from playing their normal games for it. Considering that the chief demographic on the PS3 are core gamers, it will have to be, but since the Home is going to be free for all PS3 owners, there is a strong possibility it will (at least at first).

As the current numbers stand, there are approximately 13 million registered PS3 and PlayStation Portable users registered on the PlayStation Network; all of which will be integrated with Home. As one might expect, it is also a pretty heft piece of software in that it is not only a virtual space, but one that remembers everything pertaining to the geography, thus if Y building is placed in X location, it will always be in X location.

Of course, this gives the idea of a virtual “world” and it needs to be clarified that Home is not that. A world would allow you to walk to the bar from your apartment, but Sony has designed the network to be a series of virtual spaces, allowing users to basically teleport from place to place. By doing so, they have allowed a means to create multiple renditions of each space so that no single one is overcrowded.

Home is pretty extensive too. Not only do you have your own apartment that only those you permit can visit, but you can decorate it any way you want, which past games have taught us, is a rather successful feature. However, there is more to it than just this: Players can visit a bowling alley to bowl with friends, use the arcade to play classic games, or play a rather realistic round of pool. If that doesn’t suit your fancy, you can head to a virtual movie theater and watch whatever’s playing, or as expected, you can always just hang out and talk with anyone within your current space using either a Bluetooth headset or universal serial bus keyboard. If talking gets a little dull, you can always start up one of your multiplayer favorites right then and there.

The network is still in closed beta at the moment, but it is expected to move into open beta rather soon. This will go a long way in testing the product further as any social network requires multitudes of users to survive, and by allowing more people into the test, Sony will be able to get a better idea of how Home is going to do once it is live. Nonetheless, once it is live, don’t expect it to stay the way it is on release. A number of developers and publishers are working on creating and adding their own spaces to Home, such as Electronic Art’s “EA Sports Fan” space. In addition to that, Sony fully intends to adjust the network based on the user’s feedback: Jack Buser, director of Home for the US game division, describes home as a “living, breathing space.”

[Images via VentureBeat]

Oh alcohol, you are the bane and the savior of entertainment - you are the cause and solution to all of life’s problems. Okay, maybe not, but surely most of you have heard sayings like this before; and with the plethora of college humor, movies, and ads surrounding alcohol, it is no surprise that some form of drinking game would come about.

Pass a Drink is one such “game.” However, the term “game” is not entirely accurate, as there really isn’t any game play involved. This application is more intended to be a social drinking simulation. You start out with a couple of classic drinks that range from beers to shots to those colorful “girly” drinks most men are too “macho” to even touch, and you pass them around to your Facebook friends as gifts.

As you receive these so-called “gifts,” you begin to get “drunk” as your “drunk-o-meter” rises with each drink you… well, drink. That’s really all there is too it as far as functionality goes. All Pass a Drink really is, is a means to socially interact with your virtual friends using a form of virtual goods. Considering that drinking tends to be a social activity anyway, it makes for a rather synergistic marriage.

In light of the social goals of this application, you can add it to your profile directly in order to show the world just how much of a virtual alcoholic you really are as it displays the drinks your friends send to you and just how drunk you are getting.

The application is by no means some earth-shattering discovery that is going to change the course of human history, but for what it is meant to be, it’s a nice addition to Facebook. The graphical representations of each drink are pleasant to look at, and there is always a fun and entertaining blurb about the drink to check out as you buy and unlock new beverages using a finite amount of points and improve your alcohol mastery.

Sadly, there are still many favorite drinks missing from the 40 that are currently available (though it wouldn’t be surprising to see them added at some point). With around 2.6 million monthly users, one can see that people do enjoy using this app. It’s not some amazing game or thought invoking quiz, nor is it trying to be. Pass a Drink is merely a simple virtual gift sharing application among Facebook friends that has included a few extra features, and is certainly worth adding to your profile if you are into this sort of thing. Just remember, be it virtual or real, always drink responsibly, but if you are going to do it irresponsibly, please do it here.

Part The Sims, part Lego, pure awesomeness: This is the simplest description for the social application Citypixel Spaces. With 400,000 users already on Citypixel.com, this new Facebook app is slowly growing strength, and with good reason.

The primary premise of the game is to build your own virtual life inside a virtual world, quite literally, one pixel at a time. The game utilizes an isometric view, and allows you to create your own apartment, car, and avatar (with more coming soon) using a provided set of furniture, colors, and other neat little toys.

Like in The Sims, players can create an apartment to their specifications using walls, carpets, electronics, and most other common place items you would find in a home. There’s even a nice little extra that allows you to connect one of your televisions to your favorite YouTube video. Once you’re done here, you can go ahead and pimp your ride, making some of the strangest vehicles you can imagine, and bringing with it a nostalgic feeling of old-school Legos.

As cool as all this creativity is, the game doesn’t stop at just this. Once created, a player’s apartment is placed into the Citypixel virtual world in which they can interact with other player’s avatars, rate apartments, and put their own on showcase. The game also utilizes a currency system, which to no surprise, is pixels.

Pixels are used to buy new furniture, gifts for friends, cars, and any number of cool stuff. How do you buy new stuff? Why take a trip around town of course. Yes, there is, in fact, a city… of, well, pixels. Within the city are stores, other apartments, and dozens of other player avatars walking around with fun personal messages that appear when you mouse-over them.

It is also very cool to see some of the creative avatars people come up with. When you build your avatar, it’s sort of like a grid based Microsoft Paint. While it may seem rather limited, some people do find some creative ways to express themselves, thus most of the limitations are your own imagination.

Citypixel is definitely aimed at a casual audience, but anyone that liked games such as The Sims, or plain old Legos as a kid, will get a kick out of this title. The game is very easy to use with its simple drag and drop interface and allows even the most artistically challenged players to create some nice apartments. The game also falls in nicely between similar virtual life games, meaning it isn’t as simple as something like Gaia virtual lounge, but not as complex as something like MyMiniLife. Regardless, if ever there was a virtual world worth checking out, Citypixel is at the top of that list.

The economy, the economy, the economy…. Everywhere you look, someone is talking about how bad the economy is, and at the forefront of it all is the American stock market. People left and right are bailing out in fear of further loses, while others see the diminished values as opportunity to be had. However, that begs the question as to what type of investor are you?

It’s safe to say that now isn’t the best time to be experimenting with investments via the real stock market, but if you are curious about your capabilities, then check out Stock Wars by Black Swan Games. This Facebook app is a living breathing simulation of the actual stock market as it lets players build a virtual portfolio, with virtual money, based on actual market data.

Stock Wars is connected to real stock market feeds such as NASDAQ, NYSE, and AMEX so the updates that occur in the game are, suffice to say, accurate. However, there is a 20 minute delay between reality and the app, so that does leave opportunity to cheat, but doing so would sort of defeat the purpose of playing the application in the first place.

First and foremost, it needs to be clarified that this is more of a simulation than a game. It is a designed for a very niche audience and if stocks and investments don’t interest you then this is going to be a very boring “game” for you.

Unless you already have a pre-existing knowledge of investment, there are a few things right off the bat that is far from new user friendly. For example, there doesn’t seem to be any way to compare all the possible stocks, and in order to see anything, you have to search for it using a “symbol.” Sadly, there is no way of knowing what that is without randomly guessing something. This is disappointing, because if the developers were to gradually teach a new user about investment and incorporate some more user friendly devices (in a fun an innovative way, of course), then this game could teach quite a bit of useful knowledge to young, would-be entrepreneurs.

Nevertheless, if you are into stocks and investing, then this is a simulation worth checking out. It simulates the market data extremely well and lets you buy and sell constantly. It also has a nice extra feature that dynamically changes your virtual avatar based on how well you are doing. Furthermore, you have the option to “challenge” your friends to see who is the better investor.

Unfortunately, this challenge mode is the same as any other Facebook game and seems integrated more out of obligation rather than design necessity. All this option does is basically compare scores over a period of time and the players involved bet on who will win. While the exchange of money does affect game play, it feels a little stagnant. You create the challenge and wait - that’s about it.

Despite the lack of social game mechanics, Stock Wars is certainly not bad. It is just made for a specific audience…. a very specific audience. Assuming that the developers are targeting that user group, then they have done a pretty decent job. However, if they are attempting to target a more generalized population then they have a lot of work to do. The game does not make any effort into teaching a new user about investment nor how to really play the game well, and someone unfamiliar with the market is left to fend for themselves, thus leading to quick frustration and eventually quitting all together.

Stock Wars works great for a niche audience, but has a lot of room for improvement for a more general one.