AquaLife 3D swims to the top of this week’s emerging Facebook games

Gladiator Software’s AquaLife 3D took the No. 1 spot on our list of emerging Facebook games this week, gaining 20,000 MAU for a 50 percent increase.

Product Madness had three titles among the top five games on this week’s list. Blackjack Madness took the No. 2 spot with its 20,000 MAU gain for a boost of 67 percent, while Old MacDonald Slot Machine is the latest game to benefit from the slot game craze on Facebook, racking up 20,000 MAU for a 200 percent gain. Roulette Madness took the No. 5 spot with its 20,000 MAU increase, which while good for a 29 percent gain, the rise is still a far cry from the game’s March 2010 peak of 1 million MAU.

Three other games on the list showed gains greater than 50 percent. EA PopCap’s Bejeweled 2 brought in 10,000 MAU for a 100 percent gain. Little Worlds Studio’s new puzzle game Color Cross Online grabbed 10,000 MAU for a 50 percent increase. Finally, Games.com’s Games.com Poker had a winning hand this week, taking in 10,000 MAU for a 100 percent jump.

Name MAU Gain Gain,%
1.   AquaLife 3D 60,000 +20,000 + 50%
2.   Blackjack Madness 50,000 +20,000 + 67%
3.   Old MacDonald Slot Machine 30,000 +20,000 + 200%
4.   Pioneers 70,000 +20,000 + 40%
5.   Roulette Madness 90,000 +20,000 + 29%
6.   Airline Manager 90,000 +10,000 + 13%
7.   Bejeweled 2 20,000 +10,000 + 100%
8.   Big City Bingo 80,000 +10,000 + 14%
9.   Bricks Breaking 50,000 +10,000 + 25%
10.   CarChaos 70,000 +10,000 + 17%
11.   Color Cross Online 30,000 +10,000 + 50%
12.   D&D: Heroes of Neverwinter 50,000 +10,000 + 25%
13.   Diner Life 50,000 +10,000 + 25%
14.   Dots II 90,000 +10,000 + 13%
15.   eRepublik 70,000 +10,000 + 17%
16.   Family Barn 40,000 +10,000 + 33%
17.   Fantasy Kingdoms 60,000 +10,000 + 20%
18.   Fashionista FaceOff 60,000 +10,000 + 20%
19.   Galaxy Legion 60,000 +10,000 + 20%
20.   Games.com Poker 20,000 +10,000 + 100%

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Come back next week for our top weekly gainers by monthly active users on Monday, our daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday.

Zynga’s stock halted after morning plummet

Update: Zynga’s stock began trading again at 1:30 p.m. EST. At the time of writing, shares are trading for $7.21.

Update No. 2: Zynga finished the day trading at $7.16, though shares dipped as low as $6.93 late in the afternoon. This is Zynga’s lowest closing price yet.

Social game developer Zynga’s shares tumbled to an all-time low this morning before trading was temporarily halted twice.

Zynga’s share prices had seen a multi-week decline after the company’s April 26 earnings report revealed record bookings but an $85.4 million net loss. Zynga shares hit an all-time low on Friday, May 11 when they fell to $7.45 each. The company’s stock had been making up ground, but uncertainty surrounding Facebook’s IPO appears to have caused shares to fall again.

Zynga’s stock opened today at $8.50, quickly dropping under this price but was staying above the $8 mark for two hours. However, without much warning the company’s shares fell to from $8.10 to $7.17 in a span of seven minutes. Shortly afterwards trading was halted for nearly an hour. When trading resumed, Zynga shares were up to $7.80, but they were almost immediately halted again.

It was expected that Zynga’s stock would receive a huge boost from Facebook’s much-hyped IPO today, but it clearly hasn’t been the case this morning. At the time of writing, Facebook’s stock price was trading at $41.32 a share, which might not have been as much of a pop as some anticipated. Zynga’s slumping stock could reflect investor disappointment. Investors clearly still believe Zynga’s fate is tied to Facebook, despite the developer’s attempts to expand outside of the social network with its Zynga.com platform and an aggressive move into mobile games.

Developing.

Peak Games joins the bubble-popping brigade with Lost Bubble

Lost Bubble is a new English-language release from Middle Eastern developer Peak Games. As the title suggests, the game takes the form of a fairly conventional bubble shooter but has seen some strong growth recently, showing up at No. 2 on our fastest growing Facebook games by MAU list this week.

Lost Bubble’s gameplay is fairly standard for the genre. Using a bubble-firing magic wand at the base of the screen, players fire bubbles towards a predefined arrangement at the top in an attempt to cause a “Pandora’s Box” special item to fall. Connecting three or more bubbles of the same color causes them to pop and disappear, and if this causes an arrangement of bubbles to no longer be connected to the top of the screen, they fall to the bottom and turn into collectible coins and point-scoring stars. Players have a limited number of bubbles with which to complete each level, and they also fail if they hit Pandora’s Box with a bubble — something which the game doesn’t make clear until after it has happened for the first time.

Players may purchase “Magic Orbs” using coins collected during play. These unlock as the player progresses through the game’s levels, beginning with an option that is included as a standard feature in most other bubble shooters: the facility to swap the current bubble with the upcoming one. This is an almost-essential purchase, though it is possible to buy it mid-level rather than always having to purchase it in advance. Since it is a standard feature of most other bubble shooters, however, it does have the effect of having an almost-continuous drain on players’ soft currency supplies as they progress. It would have been more player-friendly to have the option to purchase a permanent unlock of the ability — many of the other Magic Orbs provide permanent bonuses that do not have to be re-purchased, though these mostly require Facebook Credits rather than soft currency.

The game is well-presented, with attractive graphics and unobtrusive, inoffensive sound. The design of the main character, who is always depicted proffering her backside to the player, is a little unnecessary, however — particularly since she is quite literally just there to look pretty rather than to provide any narrative function.

This aside, Lost Bubble is a solid, if rather unremarkable, example of a bubble shooter. It plays well, runs smoothly and has the potential to monetize well, particularly given the number of users it has been picking up recently. The current (and enduring) popularity of the genre, as evidenced by the sheer number of rival titles around at the moment, will help ensure it enjoys a good degree of success in the social gaming community, at least in the short term. Whether or not it has the potential to outpace (or even catch up with) the unstoppable bubble-firing juggernaut that is King.com’s Bubble Witch Saga remains to be seen, however — though it’s certainly off to a good start.

Lost Bubble currently has 1,100,000 monthly active users and 510,000 daily active users. Follow its progress with AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

Play

Questionable character design aside, this is a perfectly competent (if relatively unremarkable) bubble shooter.

The Sims Social and Bubble Island this week’s gainer and loser among May’s Top 25 Facebook games

Now that we’re well into May, it’s time to look at the middle titles of the May Top 25 Facebook list.

Although not as volatile as the games we looked at last week, games in the middle of the list are still relatively close together in terms of daily active users, so these spots see a fair amount of flux each month.

Here’s what we’ve looked at so far:

  • May 10, 2012: No. 25 (Candy Crush Saga) through No. 19 (Empires & Allies)

This week, we look at No. 18 through No. 13

18. Bubble Island

Wooga’s Bubble Island has bounced up and down since May 1, but it’s returned to its starting position of 2 million DAU. The game’s been noticeably losing traffic since it peaked on March 9 with 2.8 million DAU and has yet to recover. Before the traffic loss began, the 2010 game was steadily gaining users, so the rapid drop-off is a surprising turn for the game. It looks like Bubble Island may be stabilizing, though, so it’s tough to tell how its traffic will continue to perform as the month continues. If the numbers stay at 2 million DAU, Bubble Island’s position may not change at all for June’s Top 25 list.

17. Pool Live Tour

Geewa’s Pool Live Tour is down from 2.1 million DAU to 2 million, though it has temporarily spiked back up to its former peak a few times. This is another title that has shown steady gains since it launched in 2009, and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down, so traffic levels will presumably continue to climb as the month continues. Pool Live Tour has gained 1 million DAU in the past three months, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see the game increase by another 100,000 or so in time for the Top 25 list in June. If that happens, Pool Live Tour could move up a spot or two.

16. Slotomania – Slot Machines

Playtika’s Slotomania – Slot Machines continues to hold its position at 2.1 million DAU. AppData shows Slotomania may be one of the older slots games on Facebook, but it’s still the most popular one on the social network. In spite of a couple of temporary drops, the traffic numbers have returned to their previous levels and don’t show any signs of a serious or long-term fall off, so Slotomania probably won’t move much on next month’s list. If the game does move up or down at all, it will be because of others games’ performances on June’s Top 25 list.

15. Monster World

Monster World is another Wooga title that’s bounced around a bit since the start of the month, returning to its 2.3 million DAU peak and dropping to 2.1 million. The game is now back to its May 1 point of 2.2 million DAU. Monster World launched in April 2010 and steadily gained traffic since then. It originally hit 2.3 million DAU in February and hasn’t managed to crack the number since then, so the game may not climb any higher than that point in time for June’s Top 25 list. Even if the game manages to return to and hold 2.3 million DAU, it probably won’t move any further up the June Top 25 list simply because traffic differences between titles at this point of the chart are starting to get pretty significant.

 

14. المزرعة السعيدة (“Happy Farm”)

Halfquest’s Arabic-language Happy Farm is recovering from its traffic dip in April. Though it still hasn’t returned to its March peak of 3 million DAU, the game is now at 2.6 million after hitting a low point last week of 2.4 million. Happy Farm is another title that has demonstrated consistent DAU gain since it launched in July 2011, but March saw traffic rocket up with a gain of 400,000 DAU. Happy Farm’s traffic seems have returned to a slower, steadier gain rate, and may not reach March’s high point in time for next month’s list. That said, it could very possibly gain another 200,000 DAU before the end of May, which could move it up a couple of spots on June’s list.

13. The Sims Social

EA’s The Sims Social is up from 2.8 million DAU to 3 million since May 1. EA’s been heavily promoting the game on Facebook in recent weeks, which has helped offset its steady traffic loss since its 11.2 million DAU peak in September. Although EA launched an expansion in late March that allowed players to provide Sims with careers, the game’s traffic didn’t really seem to change. With the closure of Restaurant City, though, EA has begun offering bonuses for players who switch over to The Sims Social. Between this and the recent limited-time special items in The Sims Social players could only obtain with the help of their friends, traffic has begun to climb again. Whether or not this traffic increase will continue remains to be seen, but The Sims Social probably could move up to the No. 12 spot if it does.

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppDataStay tuned for next week’s continuation of our Top 25 gainers and losers, when we look at No. 12 through No. 7 on the list.

Candy Crush Saga also on top of this week’s fastest-growing Facebook games by DAU

King.com’s Candy Crush Saga continues its chart-topping performance this week, taking the No. 1 spot on our list of fastest-growing Facebook games by daily active users with a 22 percent gain of 400,000 DAU.

Peak Game’s English-language bubble shooter Lost Bubble takes the No. 2 spot with 400,000 DAU for a 500 percent increase. Zynga Slingo also gained 400,000 DAU for an 11 percent gain, allowing it to take the No. 3 position. EA’s The Sims Social appears in the No. 4 spot with its first serious gain since late April, up 11 percent with 300,000 DAU. Cookapps’s Buggle swelled by 50 percent with 260,000 DAU, securing it the No. 5 spot.

Five more games on the list show gains greater than 25 percent. King.com’s Pyramid Solitaire Saga is already picking up speed, increasing by 210,000 DAU for a 55 percent gain. Disney Playdom’s Armies of Magic shows a 100 percent gain with 80,000 DAU, while Corazon Games’s Spanish-language La Vecindad de “El Chavo” (“The neighborhood of “El Chavo”") grew by 40,000 DAU for a 36 percent gain. Plumbee’s Mirrorball Slots is up by 40,000 DAU for a 27 percent increase. Finally, Sulake’s Habbo Hotel España shows a 30,000 DAU gain, up by 25 percent.

Name DAU Gain Gain,%
1.   Candy Crush Saga 2,200,000 +400,000 + 22%
2.   Lost Bubble 480,000 +400,000 + 500%
3.   Zynga Slingo 4,200,000 +400,000 + 11%
4.   The Sims Social 3,000,000 +300,000 + 11%
5.   Buggle 780,000 +260,000 + 50%
6.   Pyramid Solitaire Saga 590,000 +210,000 + 55%
7.   Marvel: Avengers Alliance 1,600,000 +100,000 + 7%
8.   Top Eleven 1,400,000 +100,000 + 8%
9.   المزرعة السعيدة 2,600,000 +100,000 + 4%
10.   Armies of Magic 160,000 +80,000 + 100%
11.   Flower Shop 120,000 +40,000 + 50%
12.   La Vecindad de “El Chavo” 150,000 +40,000 + 36%
13.   Mirrorball Slots 190,000 +40,000 + 27%
14.   德州撲克(中文版) 280,000 +40,000 + 17%
15.   Habbo Hotel España 100,000 +30,000 + 25%
16.   Happy Pets 190,000 +30,000 + 16%
17.   HotShot 280,000 +30,000 + 12%
18.   Mall World 480,000 +30,000 + 7%
19.   PetVille 150,000 +30,000 + 20%
20.   مدينة الأهرامات 500,000 +30,000 + 6%

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppDataStay tuned for our look at the top emerging apps on Friday.

Read our reviews of…

KartRider Dash leads the pack in synchronous multiplayer racing on Facebook

KartRider Dash is a new Facebook release from Nexon: a kart-racing title heavily inspired by the Mario Kart series. The game allows up to eight players to race against one another simultaneously online in a variety of cartoony environments.

KartRider Dash initially puts players through a series of tutorials introducing the game’s basic controls and explaining how to set up and join games. Players may either race with random opponents via the “Quick Start” mode, or with friends via “Buddy” mode. Participating in races costs fuel, which regenerates over time or may be purchased from the in-game store with soft currency. Players may also purchase unlimited fuel for either a single day or a full week if they are intending on dedicating themselves to their racing. When playing in Buddy mode, only the player who created the game session expends fuel on each race; in Quick Start mode, all racers expend fuel with each new race.

Gameplay once the race begins is very similar to the well-established conventions of the kart-racing genre set by titles like Mario Kart. At the start line, carefully timing the first press of the accelerator allows for a big speed boost. As racers proceed around the track, items may be collected to hinder other players, and a “drift” button allows players to deliberately skid around corners. The use of items and drifting can be challenging, so the game allows players to practice both of these techniques without having to expend fuel at any time.

Besides the standard racing mode where items may be used, KartRider Dash also includes a play style called “Speed Mode.” Here, there are no items on the track, but players may earn boosts by drifting around corners without colliding with the sides. Doing so fills a meter in the corner of the screen, and when this is full a boost item is awarded. This mode is ideal for players who enjoy racing but find themselves frustrated with the “full-contact” nature of the “Items” mode.

Between races, players may spend soft and hard currency in the in-game shop. Here, players may purchase visual upgrades such as new kart bodies, new characters and the ability to dye their character and kart; performance upgrades to their kart’s engine; and items which allow them to “auto-block” specific items. Certain items are level-locked, requiring players to have played the game a certain amount before being able to purchase them. This means that beginning players must learn to avoid and deal with offensive items rather than immediately purchasing the “auto-block” options, giving the game a good sense of pace and challenge.

KartRider Dash’s online play is simple and smooth. Clicking the Quick Start option matches players with opponents in a matter of seconds, and Buddy mode makes it simple to play alongside friends — assuming they are all online and in the game in the first place. Coordination must be done outside the game, however — there is no means to send a Facebook request to friends and invite them to join a Buddy mode room. It would be a good idea for Nexon to implement a feature along these lines, as it would likely make playing with friends a lot easier rather than having to coordinate via Facebook chat, email or other communication methods.

The game’s Unity-powered visuals perform well and seem to work fine on most browsers at this time — there were some issues with Google Chrome upon launch, but these seem to have been resolved. A little more worthy of concern are the lighting glitches evident on the cel-shaded characters — backgrounds are fine — that appeared when tested on an AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512MB-equipped Mac running OS X Lion. These glitches don’t spoil the gameplay at all, but the flickering is a little distracting.

KartRider Dash will hopefully encourage more developers to work on synchronous multiplayer titles for Facebook, as the social network is a good fit for titles like this with its built-in friends list and communication features. Nexon’s title proves that it’s possible to make simultaneous online multiplayer simple and user-friendly for players to engage in, and it would be encouraging to see growth in this relatively under-explored aspect of social gaming.

As a new title, KartRider Dash is not yet listed on our traffic tracking service AppData. Check back shortly for a full breakdown of usage statistics including MAU, DAU and retention trends.

Play

A fun kart racer, and an excellent, trouble-free implementation of synchronous online multiplayer gameplay.

Candy Crush Saga holds the lead on the fastest growing Facebook games by MAU

King.com’s Candy Crush Saga is continuing its impressive winning streak, topping this week’s list of fastest growing Facebook games by monthly active users with a 23 percent gain of 1.4 million MAU.
Two bubble shooters appear in the top five positions on this week’s chart. Peak Games’s new English-language title Lost Bubble debuts on our list in the No. 2 spot, thanks to its gain of 810,000 MAU  for an impressive 675 percent increase. Cookapps’s Buggle is in the No. 3 spot with 800,000 MAU for a 57 percent increase.
Disney Playdom’s Marvel: Avengers Alliance is still riding the record-breaking wave of the film The Avengers. The game is in the No. 4 spot with a 700,000 MAU increase, up by 12 percent. GameHouse’s Mystic Ice Blast rounds out the top five games this week with a 500,000 MAU bump, giving it a 36 percent gain.
Only two games on this week’s chart had a gain greater than 25 percent. Disney Playdom’s Armies of Magic took in 400,000 MAU this week for a 22 percent gain, while A&E Television Network’s Top Shot: The Game increased by 180,000 MAU for a 26 percent gain.
Editor’s Note: Due to a delay in Facebook’s updates, this week’s monthly active user list is running today instead of on Monday.
Name MAU Gain Gain,%
1.   Candy Crush Saga 7,400,000 +1,400,000 + 23%
2.   Lost Bubble 930,000 +810,000 + 675%
3.   Buggle 2,200,000 +800,000 + 57%
4.   Marvel: Avengers Alliance 8,300,000 +700,000 + 12%
5.   Mystic Ice Blast 1,900,000 +500,000 + 36%
6.   Armies of Magic 1,300,000 +410,000 + 46%
7.   Disney Animal Kingdom 2,200,000 +400,000 + 22%
8.   Astro Garden 2,100,000 +200,000 + 11%
9.   Superball 2,300,000 +200,000 + 10%
10.   Township 1,600,000 +200,000 + 14%
11.   Top Shot: The Game 860,000 +180,000 + 26%
12.   Mirrorball Slots 1,100,000 +160,000 + 17%
13.   Zombie Island 630,000 +130,000 + 26%
14.   Angry Words (Apalabrados) 1,100,000 +100,000 + 10%
15.   Bubble Speed 2,200,000 +100,000 + 5%
16.   Lucky Slots – Free Slot Machines 2,800,000 +100,000 + 4%
17.   Pool Live Tour 9,900,000 +100,000 + 1%
18.   SlotSpot Casino – Slots, Blackjack & Video Poker 1,300,000 +100,000 + 8%
19.   Social Empires 6,100,000 +100,000 + 2%
20.   Stick Run 4,800,000 +100,000 + 2%

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppDataStay tuned for our look at the fastest-growing games by daily active users later today and top emerging apps on Friday.

Read our reviews of…

KartRider Dash gives Nexon a new shot at Facebook

Nexon’s popular online racing franchise KartRider has finally crossed the Facebook starting line with KartRider Dash, which launches in open beta today.

KartRider Dash puts players in the driver’s seat of a go-kart racing against computer-controlled components and live players on a 3D map. Gameplay is based on the original KartRider game, which allows players to acquire power-ups on the track which are then used to sabotage others. As of press time the Unity-engine KartRider Dash seems to be having problems running on Google Chrome, but we had no issues running it in Firefox.

The game’s main strength is that its races are synchronous, something other racing games on Facebook don’t currently offer. Cie Games’ Car Town is currently the leading title in the genre and it only features asynchronous racing.  There are two race modes in KartRider Dash: Quick, which randomly matches players with other opponents, and Buddy, which allows players to join or create private rooms and race exclusively with their friends. Each time a race is entered, a piece of fuel is used up. The game monetizes through virtual goods like extra fuel, costumes and Kart equipment but the option to buy hard currency isn’t turned on yet.

KartRider is the second time Nexon has tried to bring one of its most popular franchises to Facebook. The company’s first attempt was MapleStory Adventures, which peaked last Fall with 473,000 daily active users and 3.2 million monthly active users, but is now down to 40,000 DAU and 320,000 MAU.

Nexon’s other Facebook efforts, developed by other studios, have fared even worse. Zombie Misfits launched in October 2011, and quickly climbing up to 20,000 DAU and 150,000 MAU before traffic quickly bled away to the game’s current 2,000 DAU and 30,000 MAU. Wonder Cruise launched in December 2011 and still hasn’t taken caught on with Facebook players — the game’s traffic currently floats at 1,000 DAU and 20,000 MAU.

Overall Nexon has 340,000 MAU and 140,000 DAU on Facebook according to AppData. Outside of Facebook, Nexon currently has 82.8 million MAU. As Nexon’s EVP of Social Games Aron Koh told us in February, Facebook has a steep learning curve, but he believes the company “can do better than what we’re doing now.”

Nexon’s mobile game KartRider Rush proved an enormous hit for the company; in its most recent earnings call Nexon revealed the game has been downloaded over 8.2 million times since it’s launch on iOS and Android last year.

 

Bubble Safari takes players on a bubble-popping jungle adventure

The bubble-popping genre is an immensely popular offshoot of puzzle and match-3 games, and now Zynga has entered the fray with its own offering Bubble Safari. As is often the case with Zynga, the company has taken already well-established game mechanics and put its own brand of polish atop them to create a title likely to enjoy considerable success on Facebook.

Bubble Safari’s basic mechanics are identical to similar titles such as King.com’s Bubble Witch Saga, CookApps’ Buggle and numerous other titles. Taking control of a mouse-controlled cannon at the bottom of the screen, players fire colored bubbles at a predefined arrangement above them. Should the player’s fired bubble cause three or more bubbles of the same color to be touching, they will all pop. Any bubbles which are no longer attached to the top of the level once this happens will fall — in Bubble Safari’s case, they turn into fruit and fall into one of three pots at the base of the screen, scoring points in the process. The various bubble-popping games use different victory mechanics to determine when a level is complete — in the case of Bubble Safari, players must clear ten bubbles from the top row of the level.

Bubble Safari adds a number of mechanics on top of these basics. Firstly, continually popping groups of bubbles causes hummingbirds to appear, who offer score multipliers if they are present in sufficient quantities. Firing a bubble and not causing a “pop” causes one of the hummingbirds to depart, however, so the player is encouraged to find the best “routes” through the various bubble arrangements.

Secondly, if the player causes bubbles to fall after three successive shots, they enter “On Fire” mode, which allows them to fire three special exploding shots that clear the bubble they hit and those around them.

Thirdly, popping bubbles causes a meter in the corner of the screen to rise, offering a free “bonus bubble” determined by random chance when it fills. These vary from “paint bubbles,” which change the color of a large swathe of bubbles, to “lightning bubbles,” which clear out a line directly to the top of the level.

Playing with friends is encouraged. Certain level boundaries are friend-gated, and players also have the ability to bring up to four “friend bubbles” into a level with them. These allow the player to get out of a difficult situation by picking a specific color to fire next, but each of the friend bubbles may only be used once. Alongside these mechanics, the usual level leaderboards help encourage friendly competition. The game is a little pushy about adding friends — after every few levels, the usual “continue” button on the score summary screen is replaced by an “Invite Friends” button which may not be bypassed. Once the invite dialog appears, it may be simply cancelled, but this behavior may be a little too pushy for players who simply wish to play solo — that said, these players will eventually run afoul of the friend gates without other players, anyhow.

Bubble Safari is a well-presented game that is fun to play and is paced well enough that free players feel like they can have a satisfying experience, while paying players will be able to make faster progress. While the title is not particularly original in execution, it follows Zynga’s frequently-used pattern of adding a good degree of audio-visual polish and user-friendliness to the mix. Coupled with Zynga’s considerable talent for user acquisition and the popularity of the bubble shooter genre generally, this makes Bubble Safari likely to enjoy strong success on Facebook in the long term.

Bubble Safari currently has 2,000 monthly active users and 600 daily active users. Follow its progress with AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

Play

A solid take on the bubble-popping genre with that recognizable layer of Zynga polish.

Crowdstar moves further from Facebook, partners with Tencent and Gamevil for expansion into China and Korea

It Girl developer CrowdStar is bringing its games to China and Korea’s mobile markets, courtesy of new partnerships with Tencent and Gamevil.

Chinese games portal Tencent will release localized versions of Top Girl and Happy Peeps: Tower Town for iOS devices, while Gamevil will localize and distribute Top Girl Android to South Korea. Penetrating these markets can be difficult feat for social developers, particularly because Facebook isn’t  legal in China and doesn’t have much penetration in South Korea. CrowdStar tells us the games will launch in China and South Korea sometime this summer.

Last month, CrowdStar revealed that it was shifting its focus to away from developing Facebook titles and instead working on mobile titles for smartphones, including an exclusive game for GREE’s upcoming mobile platform. CEO Peter Relan made a point of telling us the company wasn’t abandoning Facebook and would continue to support its existing games on the social network. That said, the studio isn’t developing any new titles for Facebook and recently raised $11.5 million to exclusively pursue mobile game development.

The popularity of both iOS and Android devices in these territories makes mobile games a much more reliable way to tap into the lucrative Asian gaming market.  Top Girl seems like a logical choice for a first offering, since the iOS version reached as high as No. 8 on our top free iOS apps list in January and secured the No. 1 spot as the top grossing app in June 2011. Happy Peeps: Tower Town is a less-certain bet, since it launched in November 2011 and hasn’t appeared on any of our top app lists.

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