Help Endangered Species Through Facebook —

Fruit Ninja Coming to Facebook — Mobile developer Halfbrick is expanding its popular Fruit Ninja iOS game to the Facebook social network. The company tweeted that” Fruit Ninja Frenzy” would be coming to the platform “soon,” and that users can earn a chance at testing the Alpha stages by filling out a short survey. Halfbrick also previously announced the game’s coming to Kinect, Microsoft’s full-body motion controller for its Xbox 360 console.

Square Enix Sunsets Social Games on Mobage — According to a post from Siliconera, Square Enix isn’t doing too well on Japanese social network Mobage with its game, Samurai Eleven. Both it and another Square Enix title, Snowboard Life, will shut down on June 30th.

Infinity Blade X to Come to Mobage — Japanese company DeNA announced that the popular iOS title Infinity Blade will becoming to its Mobage platform. Infinity Blade X will be the first Mobage game run with the Unreal Engine. The game is a collaboration between Epic Games and ChAIR Entertainment. It’s expected to be released this fall.

GameSalad Launches HTML5 Game Publishing — GameSalad, a startup that allows game makers to more easily develop and share mobile and web-based games, has announced the launch of its new HTML5 publishing capability. Users will now be able to games across multiple web browsers, gaining access to an audience of over 1 billion.

Moshi Monsters Creator Valued at $200 Million — According to TechCrunch, Spark Ventures sold half of its stake in Mind Candy for $4.9 million, marking at 15x return. The valuation of the company is now noted at $200 million. Mind Candy is the creator of kids’ virtual world Moshi Monsters.

Google Moves Into Social Gaming — Engadget spotted a new job posting from Google that fuels speculation tech giant is getting into social gaming. Unfortunately, no further details beyond their search for a product manager, for a property dubbed “Games at Google,” is known.

[image via Engadget]

Social Point Raises €2.4 million — In funding news, Barcelona-based social games company Social Point has raised €2.4 million ($3.4 million) in an investment round with Nauta Capital. Its games have been getting a lift in monthly active and daily active users over the past week or so.

What Zynga Will Look Like as a Public Company — AllThingsD gets some accountants to muse on what we might learn about Zynga’s under-the-hood area when the social game developer goes public. Based on what Zynga shares, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other governing bodies could develop formalized methods for accounting the sale of virtual goods in social and mobile games.

[Announcement] Bigpoint Hits New Milestone — Germany-based online games company Bigpoint has announced new milestones this week. The company states that it now hosts 200 million registered users, integrates over 180 payment solutions, hosts over 1000 media partners, and processes over 1 billion transactions a day.

RockYou Restructures, Lays Off Employees

Deal United Introduces Offer Wall Converter — At the Virtual Goods Summit, Deal United announced the launch of its Offer Wall Converter, which will allow easy integration of Deal United’s pay.by.shopping platform alongside existing offer providers. Additionally, the company is offering a $50,000 sign up bonus for the first 10 online games to use the Offer Wall Converter.

i-Jet Media to Raise $20 Million — Russian social games publisher, i-Jet Media is seeking to raise $20 million in funding at a $100 million valuation, according to Vedomosti. I-Jet says that the funding will be used to further expand the company and enter new markets.

Virtual Greats Continues to Grow — Earlier this week, we noted the growth of virtual goods with Virtual Greats’ integration of branded goods within PageFad’s sports games. The company just announced another partnership, this time with Mentez, to bring branded Paris Hilton virtual goods to the Latin social network, Orkut.

App Genius to Reward Players for Losing Online — App Genius has announced the launch of their new title on Facebook, My Mad Millions, where users try to spend $300 million virtual dollars. As a reward, the top 20 percent of active players (chosen twice a month) will be rewarded with 50 percent of the game’s revenue.

Gossip & Ultima From EA — There’s been a huge among of gossip and ranting out of Electronic Arts recently about its problems producing successful MMOGs. Among the rants, the anonymous “EA Louse” alleged that the classic Ultima franchise is coming to Facebook as a pet project of an EA exec.

Bonfire Studios May Have Cost $6.3 Million — A form D SEC filing submitted by Zynga notes that the company paid at least $6.3 million for Bonfire Studios; the developer acquired by the company earlier this month.

Zynga Expands Further — In other Zynga news, VentureBeat noted a list of new job postings from the company, including positions at what appears to be a new Seattle office.

Save Energy With Social Games — After a round of angel funding, Formative Labs has said that they’re looking to teach people to save energy, says TechCrunch. While the company has not disclosed details on how, they will be using social gaming.

Microsoft Unveals Windows Phone 7 & App Hub — Microsoft announced this week the coming of a new series of Windows Phone 7 devices, as well as App Hub, where Windows Phone and Xbox Live game developers can find everything from development tools to support.

Scoreloop Partners with Samsung — Social, mobile gaming platform Scoreloop is partnering with Samsung this week, making the Scoreloop SDK available to developers of the smartphone platform.

Kiva’s Biggest Rival — Micro-lending startup Kiva attracted some attention this week by calling Zynga its biggest competitor. Why? Because Zynga games soak up attention and disposable income online, drawing those resources away from non-profits and other social causes. A video from TechCrunch explains Kiva’s plans to compete over the next five years.

Gravity Bear Rants About “Gamification” — Social developer Gravity Bear has written an amusing rant against gameification, the process of adding game elements to non-gaming media. While much of the digital media industry appears excited about the concept as a business model, Gravity Bear says the concept is just a fad.

Inside Network is proud to announce the release today of a new original research report by Justin Smith and Charles Hudson that presents a comprehensive examination of the size and future of the virtual goods market in the United States, entitled Inside Virtual Goods: The US Virtual Goods Market 2010 – 2011. This is Inside Network’s second annual edition of the US Virtual Good Market report. The big picture? The US virtual goods market will reach $2.1 billion overall in 2011.

Where will the virtual goods market go in 2011 and what are the biggest opportunities left unclaimed? How will existing players fare as Facebook continues to reshape the social gaming landscape, and larger and more sophisticated players enter the market? Inside Virtual Goods: The US Virtual Goods Market 2010 – 2011 provides deeper insight into monetization, development, and the key questions facing the space in 2011 than you’ll find anywhere else.

Get the Annual Membership Get Annual Membership (Includes Report + 3 Additional Quarterly Issues): $2,495 OR Buy Single Report: $995

About the Report

Inside Virtual Goods is a new report researched and created specifically for entrepreneurs, investors, and analysts interested in the growth of this exciting new category of online commerce that is fueling the growth of games-as-a-service businesses. During a research phase spanning the last few months, co-authors Justin Smith and Charles Hudson have spoken with dozens of executives and entrepreneurs from all parts of the ecosystem in order to form what we believe are the most detailed estimates, analyses, and predictions for 2010 and 2011.

We focused and organized the report around the following areas:

1. Social Networks, Applications, and Games - The explosion of the virtual goods market on social networks is one of the biggest stories of 2010. We delve deeply into the trends, stats, key players, opportunities, and challenges facing the space this year and next.
2. Casual MMOs and Virtual Worlds - Virtual worlds and casual MMOs continue to grow as a meaningful share of the virtual goods opportunity in the United States. Our study breaks down the key drivers for success in this segment, trends in monetization and engagement, and the prospects for the future.
3. MMOs and Free-to-Play Online Games – Developers in the MMO / MMORPG space have been among the earliest adopters of the free-to-play model. We explore why free-to-play MMOs are succeeding, revenue and user trends, and the key issues facing this space as we head into 2011.
4. Console Games – The console market is one of the most interesting new areas where microtransactions are beginning to establish a meaningful foothold in the market. Our study looks at the key opportunities and challenges facing this emerging space going into 2011.
5. Mobile Games – Mobile application developers that have been early adopters of the free-to-play model are now seeing significant growth in 2010. Our study breaks down the key opportunities and challenges facing this emerging space going into 2011.

Each section contains:

1. A brief history on the evolution and growth of this space in the US, including a description of key players.
2. Estimates on the size of the US virtual goods market in 2010 in that area.
3. A diagnosis of the key opportunities and issues facing the growth of that space, including our outlook and projections for 2011.

In addition, prior to delving more deeply into each market segment, we’ve provided an overview of the emerging payments ecosystem that is growing to serve these new businesses. Traditional e-commerce infrastructure providers only offer a partial solution, and the virtual goods payments layer is currently in a major state of flux. In the report, we describe the variety of solutions that have been brought to market to date, and the key challenges facing the industry from a payments perspective as a whole.

For more details, check out the full table of contents below.

The annual membership, which includes the report and three additional quarterly updates, is USD $2,495. Alternatively, you can obtain just this report for USD $995.

The annual subscription brings you a total of four comprehensive reports comprising months of original research. Recent reports have covered:

1. The Future of Social Gaming. Social games make up over half of the US virtual goods market. This report provided detailed coverage of exactly how this industry has managed to thrive, who its most valuable players are, and deeper insight into monetization, development, and customer acquisition than you’ll find anywhere else..
2. The Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience. Who are the millions of users whose time, money, and engagement have made social games into household names and their developers into technology industry celebrities? This report presented the only independent, original research into user profiles, behaviors, and attitudes toward social games and virtual goods.

We are looking forward to continuing to cover the evolution of the space over the coming year. We look forward to hearing from you!

Table of Contents

Get the Annual Membership

The annual membership, which includes the report and three additional quarterly updates, is USD $2,495. Alternatively, you can just download this report for USD $995.

Get Annual Membership (Includes Report + 3 Additional Quarterly Issues): $2,495

OR Buy Single Report: $995

List of Related Companies: 6waves, A Bit Lucky, Acclaim, Activision, AdParlor, Aeria Games, Amazon, Applifier, Appstrip, Artix Entertainment, Bebo, Bigpoint, Blackhawk, Boku, Boomerang Networks, Booyah, Challenge Games, CrowdStar, Digital Chocolate, Digital River, Disney, Electronic Arts, Facebook, Frogster, Gaia Online, Gala-Net, Gambit, Gameforge, GMG, Google, GratisPay, gWallet, HeyZap, Hi5, IMVU, InComm, iovation, Jagex, Kabam, Kontagent, Limasky, Lolapps, Meez, Metaplace, Microsoft, MindJolt, MySpace, News Corporation, Nexon, ngmoco, Nintendo, Offerpal Media, OMGPOP, Outspark, Papaya Mobile, PaymentPin, PayPal, PeanutLabs, Playdom, Playfirst, Playfish, PlaySpan, Rekoo, Riot Games, Rixty, RockYou, Rovio, Scoreloop, Second Life, SGN, Six Degrees Games, Slashkey, Slide, SocialGold, Sometrics, Sony, Sony (Free Realms), Sparkplay Media, SponsorPay, Sulake (Habbo Hotel), Super Rewards (Adknowledge), SupersonicAds, SurfPin, Tapulous, Tencent, TheBroth, ThreatMetrix, Three Rings (Puzzle Pirates), TokenAds, TrialPay, Turbine, Viacom (MTV), Viacom (Neopets), Viximo, WeeWorld, Wooga, ZipZapPlay, Zong, Zynga

If your company is bringing on new people or doing a notable promotion, be sure to let us know. Email editor (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com.

On the other hand, if you’re looking to make a move yourself, be sure to check out our Inside Network Job Board.

Here’s this week’s list:

Bebo

• Kevin Bachus - Bebo gains a new Chief Product Officer in the form of Kevin Bachus. Though he is a long-time executive and investor within the video game and digital media spaces, he is best known as one of the founders and creators of Microsoft’s Xbox console. Bebo is looking to make itself more of a social gaming platform, we and others have heard, as part of its new focus on entertainment.

Booyah

• Jeff Skaggs – Formerly the Director of West Coast Sales at appssavvy, Skaggs joins Booyah as their new West Coast Director of Sales.

Crowdstar

• Victoria Bourne - Bourne joins Crowdstar as their new VP of Finance & Administration. Prior to this, she was the VP of Finance at Cellfire.

Digital Chocolate

• Carole Riault- Riault changes positions at Digital Chocolate from a Localization Tester to one of their newest Account Managers.
• Joshua Dallman – Leaving Playdom after Disney acquired it, the former Studio Game Design Lead from Playdom joins Digital Chocolate as their new Game Design Lead.
• Miikka Luotio- Another job change at Digital Chocolate as Luotio switches from a Producer to an Associate Product Manager.

Kabam

• Tess Chu – Previously an Engineering Manager for Linden Lab, Chu joins Kabam as their newest Sr. Engineer Analyst.
• Brad Bonkoski- Now a Senior Software Engineer for Kabam, Bonkoski’s previous experience stems from Yahoo! where he was a Tech Lead & Engineering Manager.
• Christian Biermann - Formerly a Lead QA Analyst for Playdom, Biermann takes on the same role, as Lead QA Analyst, for Kabam.

Meteor Games

• Zac Brandenberg – Announced as the new CEO of Meteor Games, Brandenberg  is a digital media veteran, serving previously as the CEO of digital advertising platform Hydra.

Mindjolt

• Luong Tam – A former Flash Developer for MySpace, Tam joins Mindjolt as their newest Developer.

Playdom

• Noor Mohammed- One of many transitions beneath the Disney guise, Mohammed moves his Senior Artist role under Playdom to the same role under the Walt Disney Media Group.
• Ryan Ragona- Formerly a Senior Software Engineer under Playdom’s tag, Ragona is now a Development Lead under Disney Interactive Media Group.
• Thi Nguyen- Nguyen joins Playdom as its newest Associate Producer. Prior to this, she was a Legal Clerk for Sega of America, Inc.
• Christopher Chapman- Under Playdom, Chapman held the role of Senior Web Developer. Now moving under the name of The Walt Disney Company, he fills the role of Web Developer.
• Andy Sponring- Filling “Assorted Roles” at Playdom, Sponring moves into an Associate Producer position under Disney Interactive Media Group.
• Faiz Kamarul Baharin – Previously a Story Intern form Red Giant Studios, Baharin joins Playdom as a Junior Artist.
• Jason Dickson – Formerly a Quality Assurance Manager for SouthPeak Interactive, Dickson is now a QA Lead for Playdom.
• Kara Baskett- Baskett joins Playdom as their newest Recruiter. Prior to this, she was a Strategic Staffing Specialist for Mead Johnson Nutrition.
• Jimmie Tyrrell- Now a Development Lead under the Disney Interactive Media Group, Tyrrell was previously filling the same job role under Playdom.
• Edvard Toth- Toth remains under the Playdom tag as their new Art Director. Previously, he was one of their Senior Flash Developers.

Playfish

• Bob Weiler- Weiler joins Playfish as their newest Sever Engineer. Previously, he was a Staff Engineer for StubHub.
• Duncan Brown- Formerly an Art Lead at Playfish, Brown moves up within the company as their newest Art Director.

Slide

• Ryan Ye – Part of the continuing Google transitions, Ye switches from Technical Lead under Slide to a Member of Technical Staff at Google.
• Yongrong (Damien) Hou - Previously an Engineering Lead at Slide, Hou also becomes a Member of Technical Staff at Google.
• Aris Chen – Coming under the Google tag, Chen becomes a Designer. Previously, Chen was a Graphic Designer at Slide.

Zynga

• Sterling Reames – Zynga gains a new Animator in the form of Reames, who filled the same role at the recently acquired Conduit Labs.
• Julie Ray -- Ray joins Zynga as their new Stock Plan Administrator. Ray was formerly a Sr. Manager for Sybase.
• Mike Bailey – Previously a Senior Quality Assurance Tester at DCS, Baily is now QA Analyst 1 at Zynga.
• Farzam Farrokhi- Joining Zynga as their new Senior MySQL DBA, is Farrokhi who was previously a  DB Engineer, Business Analyst, and BI Analyst for Five9.
• Nathan McGee – Formerly a Senior Producer of Social Media for CafePress.com, McGee joins Zynga as a Contracted Community Manager.
• Melissa Sawicki- Sawicki joins the social realm as Zynga’s newest Designer. Prior to this, she was a Designer for console developer Rockstar Games.
• Binu Philip- Philip joins Zynga as their newest Architect. Before this, he was a Principle Engineer for Yahoo!
• Daniel Wiggins- Another person, Wiggins, from mainstream video games joins Zynga as part of their Corporate Development. Wiggins’ experience stems from Finance at Turbine.
• Andy Scott- Now a Development Manager of Warstorm, Scott remains under the Zynga tag, but was previously a Senior Software Engineer.
• Sudhanshu Sethi- Prior to joining Zynga as a Sr. Information Security Project Manager, Sethi filled the same role over at PayPal.
• Erik Island- Also from PayPal comes Island, a former Senior Analyst. Now, he joins Zynga as “Data Analyst.”

And the app is worth playing in its own right.

Other examples of Facebook apps that have served as promotions for console titles include the complex and ultimately epic Sony role-playing, The Agency: Covert Ops, EA’s Dante’s Inferno RPG and its more simple Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues. The apps were utilized to promote an upcoming massively multiplayer online shooter, and action-adventure and cinematic adventure console console games, respectively. Some have continued on in popularity long after the launch of the titles they were made to promote game — The Agency is still at over 300,000 monthly active users, for example.

As far as Puzzle Quest 2: Mage Trainer goes, it is dubbed a prequel to the upcoming puzzle-RPG title of roughly the same name. In this particular rendition, however, users are only granted a variant of the sorcerer class (there are four in the main game), and rather than moving about an over-world from puzzle to puzzle, players are presented with a familiar Bejeweled-like screen.

Oh, but no, this is not Bejeweled Blitz. This is what the popular PopCap game would be like if you were to go head to head in a battle mode against goblins, ghouls, and other nasty critters. That’s right. Using the same match-three mechanic, Puzzle Quest 2 has the player and their non-player monster opponent take turns matching colored gems. Here’s the catch. There are five colors, skulls, and armored gauntlets. For each gem destroyed, one “mana” of that color is given to the player (so if you match three red gems, you gain three red mana).

Above the player’s portrait is a number representing their health, and below it are your available attacks and spells. Each spell consumes one turn and requires a certain amount and color of mana to wield. For example, the first spell granted is called Mage Strike and it requires three red, and three blue mana. Furthermore, it does one extra damage for every three blue mana points the player has. With these added effects, players can actually formulate attack strategies on how best to defeat their enemy.

In regards to the skulls and gauntlets, the former does damage to the opponent based on how many skulls are destroyed (there are also exploding skulls that do more damage and blow up adjacent gems), while the latter grants you the ability to use a simple, low-damage melee attack once you have unlocked it.

As players play and win, they will gradually increase in level. This, so far, does not appear to do much for difficulty, – though luck can often be against you – but the big bonus is that players unlock new and more powerful spells to use in their battles.

To add to the strategy element of Mage Trainer, players can earn extra turns by matching four-of a-kind, and an extra turn plus a “wild card” that matches any colored gem with a five-of-a-kind. Marry this with the Bejeweled-made-standard of combos, plus the fact that you can study the board and remove the colored gems the enemy needs to attack, and you have a very deep and strategic strategy/puzzle game.

Unfortunately, the game isn’t perfect. Frankly, its social elements, like most console promotion titles, is rather lacking. All it consists of is inviting friends and tracking each others’ scores via a leaderboard. Considering that there is a bright green button entitled “Challenge Friends!” it felt like a brilliant opportunity to throw in some synchronous battles in there somewhere. You know, a literal challenge. Disappointingly, that is not the case, and if it is, it sure isn’t very obvious when the Challenge button still goes back to the invite a friend prompt; even after one has accepted.

Beyond this complaint, it would be nice to be able to pick and choose what spells and weapons can be used. As it stands, players appear to be granted default abilities as they level up. Perhaps, this is just something reserved for the DS and Xbox Live main games, but it would still be nice to have all the same.

Regardless of any issues we have with Puzzle Quest 2: Mage Trainer, it is still a fun, easy-to-learn and addictive game to play, if you’re into the casual gaming style. Moreover, it’s complex and deep enough to satisfy the more strategy-oriented mainstream gamers looking to mess with a free title. Having launched into open beta less than a month ago, Mage Trainer is currently earning just shy of 10,000 monthly active users. With these growing numbers, it ought to do its job well when Puzzle Quest 2 launches in June. And, like The Agency, it could stay a Facebook hit, especially considering the popularity of some other puzzle games on Facebook.

Booyah Lands $20 Million, Partners with Google -

Not two days later, Booyah also announced a new partnership with Google at the I/O Conference, making them the first partner of Google’s Places Web Service feature. To add to the company’s successes, the mobile developers popular location-based title MyTown is also noted to have, now, over 2.1 million users.

Hands-On Mobile Expands – Mobile games company, Hands-On Mobile, Inc. announced the hiring former Linden Lab Vice President of Strategy and Emerging Business, Judy Wade, as the company’s new president and CEO where she will be tasked with growing the developer’s presence on both mobile and social platforms. Additionally, Hands-On Mobile has also announced that it will be moving into the the latter platform with the help of social developer FunClick.

Pre-Paid Cards Top Sales – NPD Group released an interesting bit of information this past week, stating that of all video game accessories in the United States, pre-paid points cards for online games and services (i.e. virtual currency on Xbox Live) are the number one seller. Among these cards, the top tamale was the 1600 Microsoft Points card that costs $20. Considering the US spent over $1 billion in virtual goods last year, the high sale of virtual currency cards is hardly surprising.

OpenFeint Partners with Hudson Soft – News from across the sea as Japanese developer Hudson Soft announced the addition of OpenFeint to its collection of iPhone titles. With the new partnership, Hudson will not only integrate the standard achievement and leaderboard systems that come with the social platform, but will also add five games to OpenFeint’s FreeGameoftheDay.com including Aqua Forest 2, Catch the Egg, Haunted Pics, Shooting Watch, and World RPS.

iPad Store Goes Global – Though the international release of the iPad was delayed initially, it looks like the Apple iPad Store is now appearing across the globe. According to TechCrunch, it looks to be a worldwide release and there has been confirmation in the UK, Belgium, Spain, Israel, France, the Philippines, and New Zealand.

PayPal Announces Mobile Payments Library for Android – Online payment service, PayPal, announced the Mobile Payments Library for the Android mobile device. Through the platform, developers can integrate PayPal payments into their Android apps, effectively allowing for in-app transactions. As far as credit card transactions go, these will, of course, be handled through PayPal themselves.

Eliminate Offers Double Credit Weekend – According to TouchArcade, mainstream first-person shooters (i.e. Call of Duty) have often offered their players extra experience points for playing multiplayer bouts during certain weekends. Well, developer ngmoco is taking a page out of this book offering its players “double credit compensation,” until Monday at 12pm PST, for the popular, freemium iPhone title, Eliminate. Players that play over the next few days will earn double points per deathmatch. However, the same cannot be said for cooperative play.

Apple Selling Over 200,000 iPads a Week – Here’s a little tid bit of information from All Things Digital that has come to light regarding the impressive success of the new Apple iPad: Apparently, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky, the iPad is selling over 200,000 units per week. Already, this is greater than the Mac in the U.S. and is closing the gap on the iPhone 3GS. As for the data behind these numbers, it is noted that it will be revealed at the iPad Games Summit this June.

Booyah Upgrades MyTown –

On another note, the social/mobile app has seen a 100% gain in users in less than three months, sitting at roughly 2 million players. Almost double that of its chief competitor, Foursquare.

Kwedit Repayment Rate Growing – Launched back in February, the quasi-credit company, Kwedit was a curious idea, at best. Essentially, the firm provided a means to purchase virtual goods by making a “promise” and paying back the money later by going to a 7-11 or mailing cash. The only negative, was if you didn’t pay, you got kicked out of their system. The company announced some results, the past week. One out of three users are paying back promises with a little less than 20% of initial promises repaid and 72% of second promises. Furthermore, 22% are repaid within 24 hours and 66% in the first week. Most importantly, publishers using Kwedit are seeing a 5% increase in revenue; a number the company expects to soon reach 10%

Capcom Integrates Social Features with OpenFeint – Aurora Feint’s OpenFeint mobile social platform got one of mainstream gaming’s larger developers signed up: Capcom. Using the platform to support features such as achievements and leaderboards, the console developer has launched both Dark Void Zero and Hatchlings for the iPhone.

Apple VIP Program for iPhone Apps - Apple is planning a new advertising program called ViP (Verification of iTunes Purchase) to give its iAds a more competitive advantage, as TechCrunch spotted. Developers that use iPhone ads to drive their downloads and purchases will have direct access to iTunes purchasing data for their app, measuring conversion rate and ad impressions to downloads. The tracking is done via a “proprietary direct link from the ad to the App Store,” and once a user “downloads your app, they won’t ever see your ad again.”

IBM to Create City Builder Game for City Planning – This past week, IBM revealed a new type of virtual world/game by the name of CityOne. Unlike the social counterparts we have seen in the past few months, this game will be a free world meant to guide players through quests and teach them about city planning issues such as energy and water. However, the catch is the game’s various missions will be seated in actual real-world scenarios, and is noted to be a means to help train future city planners. The game is slated to debut this fall.

App Store Spam - As if getting discovered in the Apple App Store weren’t hard enough, a recent post by well-known developer Marco Arment shows a number of spam applications appearing for various searches. The example given was a search for a game called “Angry Birds” and six out of ten results were scams and ripoffs promoting “cheats” or “guides” for the searched title. Furthermore, most are also guilty of ripping off both names and icon trademarks.

The Origin of Farm Games – Though FarmVille may be the most popular, China Social Games has done a detailed study of how the birthplace emerged. The earliest versions of farming games go as far back as 17 years with the title SimFarm in 1993 from Maxis and then again with Victor Interactive Software’s title, Havest Moon, in 1996. However, in regards to social farming it was popularized initially in both China and the U.S. at approximately the same time in 2008 with Five Minutes’ Happy Farm and Take(5)Social’s (playSocial’s) myFarm.

Farm Town also started around the same time. While Take(5)Social claims that the developer, Slashkey, copied its app, our understanding is that this is not the case. Instead, Farm Town combined aspects from a number of other formative social games, like (Lil) Green Patch, on its own.

One Million iPads Sold – Many wonder how the iPad will do in the long run; especially when compared to the iPhone predecessor. Well, according to Apple, April 30th was the milestone for the 1 millionth iPad sold, just 28 days after its initial launch in the United States. To add some perspective to that, the iPhone took 74 days to reach that same number.

Hive Media Launches New Game & Social Platform – Earlier in the week, Hive Media launched a new social game called My Hollywood Studio, as a means to display its new social platform. The game itself is a quaint title where players move from being nothing to big time Hollywood names and is based on the PC title, The Movies. As for the platform, caters specifically to larger brands with intellectual property. Furthermore, through Hive’s “Collaborative Content Delivery Platform” — which is a fancy name for a templating system — developers can easily upload video, graphics, texts, and so on to create varying genres of games. Thus far, Hive Media’s first partnership will be Michael Bay’s “The Institute.”

Heyzap Launches Social Bar – Using only one line of code, web publishers will now be able to integrate online gaming platform Heyzap‘s latest creation, the Social Bar. Intended to create better user experiences by removing cumbersome widgets, the Social Bar will act as a minimalistic toolbar that sits at the bottom of the browser window. Of course, while it is smaller, it still includes all of the normal features, such as notifications or virtual goods, that both web publishers and players alike are familiar with.

Offerpal Launches Display Ad Network for Social Media – Monetization solutions provider for social networks and virtual worlds Offerpal Media, announced the launch of a new display advertising network this week. The new addition lets developers of social games, networks, and virtual worlds better target their specific audiences through new methods such as videos, branded goods, and offers. Furthermore, the new display advertising, in addition to Offerpal’s prior services, enables developers to monetize 100% of their traffic, all while making use of the company’s existing optimization engine and compliance processes (as they apply to relevant social platforms).

PETA Fights Mafia Wars Update- Earlier this week, the long-popular social RPG, Mafia Wars added an entire new category to character arsenals. In addition to weapons, armor, and vehicles, they will now get deadly animals. To name a few, pit bulls, lions, tigers, and other deadly creatures will be part of the new upgrade. Unfortunately… Zynga CEO, Mark Pincus received a letter from PETA attempting to get the developer to cancel the new update.

Apparently, using a picture of a pit bull in a text-based RPG about mafias can lead to real-world abuse: “Depicting ‘man’s best friend’ as a fighting machine can encourage the wrong type of people—those with no heart and no understanding of a dog’s needs—to treat these wonderful animals as inanimate objects,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “If Mark Pincus—who named his company after his own beloved dog, Zinga—can’t portray dogs as loyal and loving members of the family, we’d rather he left them out of the game altogether.”

Just a thought, but hasn’t the game been depicting violence, theft, extortion, and a laundry list of other crimes against other human beings for the past few years? So far, we haven’t seen any players start up an actual crime syndicate either, at least that they didn’t have running already.

FarmVille Going Mobile? – In another Zynga-related story, FarmVille will be spreading to the iPhone,  iPad and Android, soon. Superogatory spotted some rather interesting Zynga domain registrations including Farmvilleandroid.com, Farmvilleipad.com, Farmvilleiphone.com, and Farmvillesms.com. Obviously, these assumptions play off the existing stand-alone site of Farmville.com. These aren’t the most elegant domains, though, so maybe the company is just trying to preclude squatters?

PlayStation Home and Xbox Live Users Get New Virtual Goods - Looks like users for both the Sony and Microsoft consoles are getting some new goodies this week. For PlayStation Home users, Final Fantasy XIII avatar items, costumes, and virtual spaces have finally come to North America. All have been available in Japan since last year, according to Kotaku, but now Western fans can virtually cosplay as Lighting or Snow with the best of them.

As for Xbox Live users, they’re getting a taste of Street Fighter IV. Now, fans of the classic fighting game will be able to dress up as their favorite Capcom combatants, starting with Ryu, Chun-Li, Guile, and Ibuki.

News Corp. Acquires Irata Labs – In the past, Jon Miller, Chief Digital Officer for News Corp. has noted that online games have been a missing part of the company’s online presence. Well, to remedy the issue, the company has acquired Irata Labs, the developer behind the Twitter-based game, Spymaster. The three-person developer will not be directly used for either News Corp.’s MySpace network, nor game review site, IGN. According to the Los Angeles Times, Irata is “expected to work with those divisions whenever it makes sense, said a person familiar with the matter.”

History Channel Indirectly Improves Foursquare – Location-based game Foursquare — now with over one million users – has always been an interesting app, but one of its features is that whenever you are in an area where another user has left a “Tip,” you’ll get a notification to read it. Well, the History Channel has begun to make use of this mechanic by leaving tips around historic areas within the United States. Since it’s the History Channel, the tips consist of an interesting blurb about whatever historic happening occurred at your current location should a tip have been left by them.

Linden Lab Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over Virtual Goods – In the past year there have been a growing number of court cases across the globe reinforcing the tangible value of virtual goods. The most recent however, is a class action lawsuit being raised against Liden Lab regarding apparent misrepresentations of the value and ownership of virtual goods and currency. The plaintiffs include Carl Evans, Donald Spencer, Valerie Spencer, and Cindy Carter – all Second Life users. Their suit notes their complaint as, basically, a failure to “define the rights of the purchasers of virtual property in Second Life, monetary damages, and injunctive relief on behalf of Plaintiffs, and others similarly situated.”

Based on the full write up from Massively, Linden Lab had repeatedly noted how virtual items and land were owned by the users, not the company. And Linden Dollars, the game’s virtual currency, was no less or more valid than any other. But Linden Lab as been… “quietly” changing its tune on this matter as far as its Terms of Service go, and strategically inserting terms such as “limited licenses” into the documentation in an attempt to make itself the owner of all things in the virtual world, according to the report. This appears to alter users’ title “without consideration, the consumer’s knowledge or consent.”

The company downplayed these business moves — focusing much of the announcement on product upgrades like multi-tasking that many consumers will be thinking about first. But it is more than ever trying to be a software platform company that relies on the web, not just a hardware and operating system maker. Here’s a closer look.

Game-Related Features Announced Today

Gaming has not been especially social on the iPhone, so far. Today at the launch press event, the company said new “Game Center” features will include some of the standard functionality seen in game console systems, games on social networks and in third-party mobile social platforms including Aurora Feint’s Open Feint, Scoreloop and Ngmoco’s Plus+.

“We wanted to make this even better — we’ve added a social gaming network.” said Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone Software, at the launch event today in Cupertino, Calif. “We do automatic matchmaking, we’ll find others with a similar ability and match them against you. You can see how you’re progressing in a game with achievements.”

It’s not clear how these specific features will work, but the signs indicate that they will. Aurora Feint and Ngmoco have been reporting social game-style growth on their own iPhone apps, and in some third parties who use their mobile social platforms. They’re offering games for free and in many cases monetizing using virtual goods. These games monetize using their iTunes to; in Ngmoco’s hit new game, medieval city builder We Rule, you pay for virtual currency that you use to buy virtual goods.

Having nailed the virtual currency platform revenue model already with iTunes, Apple is also getting in to ads today — another way for developers to monetize. Apple founder Steve Jobs demoed the company’s new iAds system, which basically provides interactive ad formats that developers can build into their games and other apps, that advertisers can run ads in. An important point is that these ads can use all the regular app features, like the accelerometer or location — so ads can be targeted for local businesses, for example. Developers will get a 60% cut. Apple will host the ad content. Jobs’s explanation for this move: “What some [app developers] are starting to do is put mobile ads in their apps… and most of this advertising sucks. We want to help developers make money with ads so they can keep their free apps free.”

Monetizing Mobile Apps

When you add up what Apple announced today, you get the sense that the company wants a piece of the social gaming action that Facebook has been enjoying. The social features will help smaller developers grow more than they have been, potentially, because friends can tell each other and users can find competitive or cooperative players at their own skill level. That in turn means more people to sell virtual goods or show advertising to.

Facebook, and to some degree other social networks, has benefited from providing an ecosystem that allows developers to find users for free, then monetize them primarily through virtual goods. Facebook has made money from this platform because its advertising system allows developers to buy advertising from it that allows them to reach new game players. It is also working on its own virtual currency, Credits, to run inside third party games and get a cut of virtual goods revenue.

Note: To get an in-depth look at the size of the US virtual goods market, and the social gaming market specifically, check out our in-depth market research reports: Inside Virtual Goods: The US Virtual Goods Market 2009 – 2010 and Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2010.

The first comparison many are making here is to Xbox Live or other console-driven gaming systems. Those include the same sorts of basic features like leaderboards and achievements that Apple is planning to introduce. And so far, games and game distribution on the iPhone has looked quite similar to these systems. But Apple showed a graph of the number of gaming apps (50,000) versus dedicated competing devices like Nintendo’s DS (4,321) and Sony’s PSP (2,477), with a very clear point: Its platform is significant for lots of third parties, and the others aren’t. Console systems tend to be dominated by a few big players who can afford to build the most complex, highest quality games and market them to typically serious gamers who buy the devices.

So far, Apple’s system has had many of the characteristics of a console system, as distribution has been through Apple’s App Store — just a few leaderboards, and favorited items from iTunes employees. Apps have grown because they’re high-quality, cheap, easily accessible, and people do hear about them through word of mouth. But Game Center could make the iPhone operating system a better place for social games that grow by friends and like-minded people to share games. That in turn will help the free-to-play model work even better, and make its developer ecosystem even more attractive. As Jobs said today: “Well, we’ve got a lot of free apps — we like that, users like that, but these developers have to find a way to make some money, and we’d like to help them.”

Apple Has Bigger Plans

Parsing Jobs’ comments, you can find all sorts of clues about the company’s developer and web focus.

When talking about how mobile apps work, he seemed to be targeting Google: “On a mobile device, search is not where it’s at, not like on the desktop. [Users are] spending all their time on these apps — they’re using apps to get to data on the internet, not generalized search.”

When answering an audience question about make apps easier to discover on the App Store, he seemed to hint at significant upgrades, that could include features for games beyond the Game Center: “A few things: number one, the App Store is not part of OS 4 or any release, it’s a service and it’s programmed on the server side, and we can enhance it without waiting for a major release. … We’re constantly interested in improving that, and do so fairly frequently. In terms of discoverability, we’ve added things like Genius recommendations, but I also see an infrastructure evolve to help users find apps.

When asked if iAds shows Apple wants to be an ad agency, Jobs said both no and yes: “We do not have plans to be a worldwide ad agency. We don’t know a lot about advertising, but we’re learning. We tried to buy AdMob, but Google snatched them up because they didn’t want us to have them, so we bought another smaller company, Quattro. But we’re babes in the woods.”

Apple has a long way to go before it’s a full-blown web service like Google or Facebook, but its deeper and deeper moves into areas like developer platforms and advertising suggest it could be planning more offenses against web companies in the future. Developers can get early access to the new version of the OS, here.

Images and quotes from the presentation via Gdgt and MobileCrunch.

Xbox Live’s Virtual Game Room Launches –

App Store Allows App Gifting – Spotted a few days ago by Rana Sobhany, the popular concept of gifting music on iTunes has now, finally, been brought to the App Store. Users can now, in addition to adding apps to a wish list or telling friends about them, actually click an option called “Gift This App.” Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a way to do this from the iPhone or iPod Touch… yet.

Ukash Expands in South America - Thursday, the pay-by-voucher service known as Ukash expanded its global borders — into Bolivia. This brings the total number of countries, in which Ukash is available in, to 30. Now, customers within Bolivia will be able to purchase Ukash vouchers, valued at $20, $50, and $100, from Deligiro terminals in the cities of La Paz, Santa Cruz, Sucre, and Cochabamba.

[via Virtual Goods News]

Verizon Enters into Virtual Goods Payments – Earlier this week, mobile carrier Verizon Wireless partnered with the online payments firm, Danal, to become yet another cellular provider to offer a mobile payment service. Aimed specifically at virtual goods transactions, customers of Verizon will now be able to purchase digital goods from participating websites and have the cost added on to their monthly bill. However, the maximum purchase will be limited to $25.

Early Numbers iPad Apps – Though the iPad isn’t available to the public yet, mobile analytics company, Flurry is already releasing some interesting statistics on the current apps testing for Apple’s new device. Evidently, the type of application seeing the most testing is games, at a whopping 44%. Second to that comes books, at 14%, followed by social networking at 7%.

[image via Bloomberg Business Week]

Leaked iPad Apps – PadGadget.com made another interesting find about the device. Apparently, when using Apple’s web interface for iTunes, it is possible to find a boatload of Apple-approved iPad applications that are marked as “HD,” and in some cases, “XL.” Currently, such games include the following:

• Ammoin HD
• Azkend HD
• Flight Control HD
• Grind HD
• HD Recovery
• Labyrinth 2 HD
• NBA Hotshot HD
• Numba HD
• Plants vs. Zombie HD
• Sparkle HD
• Worms HD

Of course, it isn’t actually possible to download any of these applications, and their visibility will likely be removed very soon; if they haven’t been already.

Web Programs Saterize Social Games - Facebook Game Idea Generator and Progress Wars honor the popularity of social games through ridicule. While the former app randomly generates generic, yet amusing, social titles such as Vampire Plant or Pirate City, the latter is much more in-depth, poking fun at the basic social RPG concept of clicking the “Do Mission” button and watching your level number increase. In the epic journey that is Progress Wars, players have the ultimate task of clicking “Perform Mission” and complete daring tasks such as killing silk traders, growing people, or stealing Chinese merchant ships as their level progression bar grows.

PlaySpan Partners with Heatwave Interactive – Last week we touched on the hip-hop social game, Platinum Life from Heatwave Interactive. This week, the developer and payment service provider, PlaySpan have teamed up to integrate the latter company’s payment services into the growing social game. In the title, players will rise from a musical nobody to a platinum hip-hop star, and will encounter artists such as Ludacris, Omarion, DJ Holiday, and more. It is these celebrity appearances and likenesses that have garnered the most publicity for the title.

Valve Announces Virtual Goods Transactions – Popular mainstream game developer and publisher, Valve announced this week that Steam will be getting some new toys in the form of micropayment support. Now, users will be able to make in-game purchases via whatever billing method is used for Steam account (usually through credit cards). Unfortunately, none of the games on Steam contain virtual goods, yet, but the service will still be usable for the buying of downloadable content and full games.