Zynga’s new senior vice president of mobile Travis Boatman has seen the mobile gaming industry go through one seismic shift after another. He saw JAMDAT through its landmark $680 million acquisition to Electronic Arts back in 2005, then built up EA’s mobile business and oversaw its studios worldwide. Raised in Silicon Valley where he grew up on games like Bard’s Tale, he switched to gaming from earlier career ambitions in sports medicine.

Right now under Zynga, there are three main lines of mobile games. The “With Friends” brand grew out of Newtoy’s smash hit Words With Friends and then expanded to include Scramble With Friends and Hanging With Friends. “These are usually asynchronous and directly social,” Boatman said. Then there is a cohort of games that are more or less extensions of Zynga’s core Facebook franchises like Cityville Hometown.

Lastly, there’s the “Dream” line-up, which is new given the recent debuts of Dream Zoo and Dream PetHouse. Boatman says the “Dream” brand is more aspirational. “We like to say they’re about ‘vest’ and ‘express.’ They’re about growing and customizing, which is in line with our core tenants. All of these games have a similar look and feel.”

Like Pincus, Boatman brushed off recent criticism that Zynga’s titles are too similar to ones existing in the market. NimbleBit recently blasted Zynga for an unreleased title called Dream Heights because it was too similar to its app Tiny Tower, which won Apple’s game of the year. Dream Zoo and Dream PetHouse also seem reminiscent of Pocket Gems’ Tap Zoo and Tap Pet Hotel.

“These games are free and our players have the choice to play what they want to play,” he said. “If games were too similar to consumers and there was no clear value add, why would a consumer play it?”

Read the rest on our sister site, Inside Mobile Apps.

Zynga announced a Hasbro partnership today that grants the merchandise giant the rights to develop toys and games based on Zynga’s games.

Merchandising is one of the key ways social and mobile game developers monetize their brands outside of games. Angry Birds is the most popular example with a wide range of plush toys and t-shirts available at most major retailers. Zynga has experimented with merchandise before via FarmVille plush toys sold at Best Buy stores. At our third annual Inside Social Apps conference, Disney Interactive’s John Spinale hinted that the company may explore similar merchandising around Swampy the Alligator from its popular mobile game, Where’s My Water?

The deal with Hasbro also includes the right to develop co-branded toys or games that combine Zynga and Hasbro IP. This means a branded Monopoly game is likely in the works as that’s the board game Hasbro most often marries to brand partners. The first products from the Zynga-Hasbro deal are expected to hit shelves in fall of 2012.

Zynga’s Reynolds, Nexon’s Kim appointed to ISAS board – Zynga’s chief game designer Bryan Reynolds and Nexon America’s co-founder Min Kim have been appointed to the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ board of directors.

Harmonix working on Facebook Game – Boston-based Harmonix, best known for its Rock Band and Dance Central franchises is working on a Facebook. Shacknews reported the news based on an updated resume for the company’s lead designer Brian Chan. There is currently a Dance Central Facebook app called Dance Central 2 Challenge. It has 2000 MAU.

Square Enix adds Facebook to FFXIII-2 – Andriasang is reporting that the Japanese version of Final Fantasy XIII-2 has been patched to add Facebook support to the game, allowing a player to post information about their game to their wall.

Crytek unveils GFace, a PC-mobile social game network — PC game maker Crytek has created a PC to mobile social gaming network. The GFace network is currently in beta and focuses on cross-platform, multiplayer gameplay.

Final Fantasy Brigade now has 1 million players – Square Enix’s first mobile social game Final Fantasy Brigade is proving to be extremely popular. The game, which is available on DeNA’s Mobage network, now has over 1 million users according to Andriasang.

Monster Hunter coming to Mobage – Capcom’s ultra-popular Monster Hunter series is coming to DeNA’s Mobage Platform. The game will be a collectible card-battle game and will be called Minna to Monhan Card Master, according to Andriasang. It will launch on both smartphones and feature phones on Feb. 21.

Japan’s social game market to double value by 2016 – The Nomura Research Institute has predicted that the Japanese social gaming market will be worth $5.1 billion dollars by 2016 according to industry watcher Serkan Toto, who translated the report.

Nintendo will allow devs to offer microtransactions - Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said his company will now allow third part developers on its Nintendo Network to offer microtransactions. Iwata revealed the information at Nintendo’s third quarter financial results briefing on Jan. 27.

DeNA, GREE continue legal slugging match — DeNA and GREE are continuing to play out their rivalry in the Japanese courts. In November, GREE sued DeNA, claiming the company was pressuring developers to sign exclusive contracts. According to Serkan Toto, DeNA is now suing for damages related to GREE’s actions.

[Launch] NASA releases new Facebook Game – NASA has released a multiplayer Facebook game called Space Race Blastoff that tests users knowledge of the space program.

[Launch] ESPN Return Man comes to Facebook - ESPN.com’s popular casual arcade game ESPN Return Man is now available on Facebook. The game was a collaboration between ESPN and Disney Social Games, and is the third collaborative release between the two studios. Our full review of the game can be found here.

[Launch] Microsoft Research launches new Facebook game - Microsoft Research has released its second Facebook, Doubloon Dash, in order to study the reactions of real people engaging in game theory like interactions.

Zynga shares jumped almost 17 percent today after Facebook’s IPO filing yesterday revealed that the social network’s payments revenue climbed 20 percent quarter-over-quarter by year-end — suggesting Zynga might see a comparable boost in its own bottom line. Facebook added that the social game developer contributes 12 percent of its 2011 revenues.

At market close yesterday, Zynga was trading at $10.96 per share — slightly higher than the $10 price they debuted at in December‘s IPO. They opened today at $11.05 and peaked at $12.81 in just a little over an hour. By close, Zynga’s market capitalization was up 12 percent to $8.66 billion from $7.4 billion yesterday. Zynga’s Facebook traffic is also on the rise — up 1.9 million daily active users and 6.4 million monthly active users in the last seven days as recorded by our AppData traffic tracking service.

Zynga won’t share its fourth quarter earnings until Feb. 14, but that hasn’t stopped analysts from speculating that the company may report higher bookings for the quarter. If Facebook’s payments revenues went up 20 percent, Zynga might see a comparable rise. Facebook said its payments revenue rose to $188 million in the fourth quarter from $156 million in the previous one, suggesting that its platform may be doing a better job at converting gamers into paying for virtual goods.

In a research note republished on AllThingsD, Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian estimates that Zynga’s net bookings may have been $315 million in the fourth quarter.

Sebastian’s estimate is rough. Since Facebook reported $1.13 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter and Zynga contributes a 12 percent of that, Zynga may have contributed $135 million to the social network’s earnings. Baird believes 75 to 80 percent, or $101 to $108 million of that, is from virtual goods sales. If that $101 to 108 million is the 30 percent revenue share Zynga must give to Facebook, then the social gaming company keeps $235 to $250 million. Sebastian adds that an additional $65 million may have come from other platforms like iOS, Android and Google+.

Other gaming companies like Gameloft and Capcom have said this week that their mobile revenues ranged from $25.4 million to $52.6 million for the holiday quarter. That suggests that Zynga might easily have a $100 to $200 million-a-year mobile gaming business because it has similarly ranked games.

With Facebook delivering 93 percent of Zynga’s revenues, the two company’s futures are intertwined until at least 2015, when a five-year deal between the two expires. Zynga has taken steps to mitigate the risk of relying completely on Facebook by expanding into mobile and international markets.

Facebook, meanwhile, is trying to forge a stronger, more compelling games platform with improved discovery to offset rising costs to developers on its platform. Through Credits, Facebook takes a 30 percent cut of all in-game transactions. On top of that, social game developers are also a large source of advertising revenue for the company.

Revenues from Zynga games accounted for 12 percent of Facebook’s 2011 revenues, the social network’s S-1 filing reveals. No other customer represented more than 10 percent of total revenue in 2009 or 2010. Facebook reports that social game devs — most of all Zynga — are currently responsible for almost all revenue derived from Payments.

Aside from in-game transactions conducted with Facebook Credits — of which Facebook gets up to a 30 percent cut as part of a special agreement with the social game giant — and ads bought by Zynga, the CityVille developer also generates a large chunk of pages where Facebook displays ads. While Zynga is locked into Facebook Credits until May 2015, Facebook points out that any trouble in paradise with its biggest game developer could harm its bottom line.

Be sure to follow our sister site, Inside Facebook, for full coverage of Facebook’s initial public offering.

Twice in the last month, we’ve seen studios come forward to criticize Zynga for being too inspired by their work.

Nimblebit, which recently won Game of the Year from Apple, said a forthcoming Zynga title called Dream Heights unfairly cribs from their hit Tiny Tower. Then this week Buffalo Studios said Zynga copied some user interface and design details from their bingo game.

Frustrating as it may be to indie studios, this has always been part of Zynga’s strategy. It’s almost silly to address it. As long as games from proven genres earn outsized returns compared to ones from unproven categories and the cost of losing or settling lawsuits remains low, developers will keep doing copycat games.

Zynga’s chief executive Mark Pincus even euphemistically referred to the practice in December’s IPO roadshow by saying: “We have a rule of thumb inside Zynga. For any category we launch a game in, we expect it to be three to five times the size of the then category leader.”

He reiterated again in an internal memo this week that:

Google didn’t create the first search engine. Apple didn’t create the first mp3 player or tablet. And, Facebook didn’t create the first social network. But these companies have evolved products and categories in revolutionary ways. They are all internet treasures because they all have specific and broad missions to change the world.

We don’t need to be first to market. We need to be the best in market. There are genres that we’re going to enter because we know our players are interested in them and because we want and need to be where players are. We evolve genres by making games free, social, accessible and highest quality.

Zynga does market research by looking at leading titles, designs similar games that don’t require a learning curve, optimizes them for monetization with its data prowess and then spends and cross-promotes relentlessly.

If Zynga’s titles appear too close to other games, it’s hard to take the company to task because of its deep pockets and fearsomely litigious history. Few small studios have the resources to pay for lawyers, especially against a company that has been so historically eager to sue others for theft of trade secrets and copyright infringement.

It also helps that the intellectual property system is quite fragmented for protecting games. Copyright covers the art and potentially the underlying source code while trademarks covers the brand and logo. Patents, the weakest form of protection for game developers, can cover code and mechanics.

Another factor is that as the gaming industry has moved away from a packaged goods model toward a highly iterative and serviced-based one, it makes less sense to pursue protection like patents. Like in the broader consumer Internet industry, waiting at least two to four years for a patent is absurd considering that a hit game can flame out in months.

The more interesting question to ask here is whether Zynga’s approach can do as well on mobile platforms as it has on Facebook. Zynga does not have an outsized lead on either Android or iOS. It has 13 million daily active users, which is very respectable. But it’s not enough to produce network effects that would shut out rival games from the top 10. Unlike Facebook, which signed a five-year agreement with Zynga, Apple does not have a vested interest in seeing Zynga achieve user growth targets. Smartphones also support more diversity than Facebook. The past month has proved that indie developers like Imangi Studios can nail freemium in more than casual sim or mafia games too.

Here we take a look back at various Zynga social and mobile titles, and whether they worked or not according to AppData statistics and ranking history from App Annie:

Mafia Wars and Mob Wars: Launched in August of 2008, Mafia Wars triggered one of the several lawsuits Zynga went on to become ensnared with. Creator David Maestri and his company Psycho Monkey LLC went onto sue Zynga for infringing on his creation Mob Wars and settled for a reported $7 to 9 million. (But it’s also worth noting that Maestri had to settle with his former employer SGN because he launched the game while working for them when they were called FreeWebs.)

After Zynga launched Mafia Wars, it went on to reach around 10 million monthly active users in about half a year, while Maestri’s game stalled at about 2.5 to 3 million MAU.

PetVille, Happy Pets and Pet Society: Launched in December 2009, PetVille riffed on a long history of casual, animal care-taking games that have existed long before the Facebook platform even launched. It followed Playfish’s Pet Society, which came out more than a year before in the fall of 2008, and Crowdstar’s Happy Pets, which launched the previous month. Both PetVille and Happy Pets saw decent starts but then leveled off while Pet Society kept on growing.

Cafe World and Restaurant City: Zynga’s restaurant sim game Cafe World came out in September 2009 after Playfish’s Restaurant City had accumulated 16 million monthly actives. It added steps by making players chop up or dice ingredients before cooking dishes and requiring users to add friends as neighbors if they wanted to expand their restaurants. Restaurant City actually hit its peak usage two months after Zynga launched its game before it began a slow and steady decline. Cafe World also peaked shortly after at around 32 million monthly actives.

Gardens of Time and Hidden Chronicles: It’s not surprising that Zynga would want to get into the hidden object genre after Disney Playdom’s Gardens of Time topped growth charts for nearly five months in a row. It is a little surprising that it took Zynga so long to do it, however. Hidden object game designer Cara Ely was brought on at Zynga in July — three months after Gardens of Time’s launch — and it wasn’t until January 2012 that Hidden Chronicles saw the light of day. In addition to similar presentation of story elements, Hidden Chronicles also cribs Gardens of Time’s decoration-based progression system.

Mobile has been a more interesting story this past year because Zynga actually started out as the underdog on iOS. Several games like Playforge’s Zombie Farm and Storm8′s Restaurant Story were taking genres that social gaming companies had nailed on Facebook and were executing them well on the iPhone. Nevertheless, Zynga managed to accumulate 13 million daily active users by year-end, largely because of its acquisition of Words With Friends maker Newtoy, but also because it started getting its core franchises right on mobile.

Zynga Poker and Texas Poker:

Poker is a more than 150-year-old game, so it’s hard to say that any company could own it. However, Russian developer Kamagames said Zynga copied user interface details from its hit Texas Poker early last year.

Zynga started fading out non-active players on the board and added a vertical bar to raise and lower bets. Before last year, Texas Poker was trouncing Zynga’s Poker game on the iOS grossing charts and consistently had a top 10 ranking. But in the spring, Zynga Poker began a steady climb and now outranks Kamagames’ title.

Tap Zoo, Tiny Zoo Friends and Dream Zoo: Pocket Gems had an undisputed run as one of the highest-earning developers last year after Tap Zoo held on to a top 10 grossing spot for about a year. Unsurprisingly, Zynga took note and launched Dream Zoo just ahead of Thanksgiving. It took the same zoo concept but added some complexity with feeding and washing games along with more levels for each of the animals. In anticipation of such a move, Pocket Gems phased out its old game Tap Zoo and launched a new version called Tap Zoo 2: World Tour.

None of the games have managed to hold onto a top 10 ranking. In fact, a different zoo game from developer TinyCo is actually the highest ranked one in the genre right now at #17. Dream Zoo remains at #44 and Tap Zoo 2 holds at #77. It looks like all of these companies effectively split the market.

Pocket Gems hasn’t complained, with chief operating officer Ben Liu telling us, “Look. Our games have copied extensively by many, many companies.” He added, “The way we can stay ahead of Zynga is by listening to our users and putting the best features in our game. Consumers are going to judge what’s the best product.” Pocket Gems has been busy launching a number of new games in the last few weeks like Tappily Ever After and Zombie Takeover.

This story originally appeared on our sister site, Inside Mobile Apps.

While not the largest genre on Facebook, casino games are in the spotlight at the start of 2012 as more companies enter the genre with standalone slots or card games or complete casino simulations. Here are the top five games in the category by traffic as recorded by our AppData service.

Though Facebook doesn’t currently allow real money gambling on its games platform, many social game developers seem eager to cash in either when Facebook changes its policy, or via other social game platforms that don’t ban the practice. Earlier this month, market leader Zynga confirmed it is actively searching for means to add real money gambling into its offerings, while casino gaming company International Game Technology acquired Double Down Interactive, Facebook game developer of DoubleDown Casino for $500 million. Last month, U.S. casino giant Caesars Entertainment Corporation fully acquired Slotomania game developer Playtika, and earlier this month launched a new Facebook game, Caesars Casino. January also saw the closed beta launch of Zynga Bingo, which will likely become a major competitor to Bingo Blitz.

Taken together, our top five casino-themed games account for a total of over 45 million MAU and 10 million DAU.

Texas HoldEm Poker (Zynga): 6.6 million DAU, 31.3 million MAU

Zynga’s Facebook adaption of the popular poker game is also among the longest running games on the platform, having launched in 2008. Along with Zynga’s Words With Friends, it is also among the top Facebook games to enable cross-platform play between the social network, iOS and Android smartphones. After reaching a peak of MAU usage of about 39 million in the summer of 2010, the game lost several million MAU. However, since December 2011 (when it had 28.5 million MAU), the game has seen strong upward growth to its current level.

Over the last three months, its daily active users as a percent of MAU (or DAU/MAU) has fluctuated between 22.5 and 20.5 percent, which reflects relatively strong engagement compared to other social game genres. Helping drive this continued growth and activity is the Poker by Zynga app for iOS, which uses Facebook Connect to help enable play between iOS and Facebook. Launched in 2009, the app still holds a top rank on AppData’s iOS charts, currently number three in the Top Grossing Apps list.

Gameplay: After loading the game, the player is taken into a lobby area densely packed with options and player information. The game’s initial display lists the total number of online players, and an option to choose among the many servers where the game is hosted, listed according to geographic region, which is likely a move by Zynga to reduce latency in live multiplayer games.

Players can find an open poker seat from among the listed tables, or get auto-joined to an open table with a single click. The actual poker game is a faithful recreation of Texas hold ‘em for up to seven players. When it’s a given player’s turn to execute their move, a time meter ticks down over the person’s profile. If not made in time, the player’s turn is forfeited. One unique feature of Texas HoldEm Poker is a “hand strength meter,” which gauges the relative strength of a player’s current hand. (If this feature is enabled, the house takes a cut of any winnings.)

Other gameplay modes include one-on-one matches with a Facebook friend and team-based challenges with several friends. There is also a mini-game slot machine which players can play to win chips — given the relatively slim odds of payout, it seems to function mainly as a sink to deplete player chip holdings and nudge them toward monetization.

Viral growth and engagement: To encourage viral user growth, Texas HoldEm players earn more playing chips by successfully inviting friends to play. They can also broadcast their game activity by auto-posting wins and achievements to their Facebook wall. The game has a leveling system incorporated into a competitive leaderboard with the players’ friends.

Socialization seems to be an important feature for increasing engagement and retention in Texas HoldEm. Multiplayer matches not only come with a live, player-to-player chat feature; players can also buy each other virtual drink items and miscellaneous virtual gifts with chips or gold. Further, players can add each other as game buddies (as opposed to Facebook friends), enabling players to develop a mini-social network of people they enjoy playing with. In the game lobby, the game’s socialization aspect is emphasized by an in-game feed depicting friends’ recent game milestones, with an option to send them gifts or congratulation messages.

Monetization: Zynga monetizes Texas HoldEm by selling Chips and Casino Gold for Facebook Credits, with an option to buy via mobile phone. Chips are used for basic gameplay, and Casino Gold to purchase premium items and buy into weekly tournaments. A monetization option window pops up when the player attempts to make a bet or join a table that is more costly than a player’s current holdings.

Slotomania – Slot Machines (Playtika): 1.700,000 million DAU, 5.6 million MAU

Launched in December 2010, Playtika’s Facebook slot machine game enjoyed steady growth through 2011. The game saw a strong spike in July shortly after the company was partially acquired by Harrah’s, a casino brand in the Caesars Entertainment Corporation. In the last three months, the game has seen relatively stable usage of between 5.25 and 5.6 million MAU, and a very strong engagement rate of between 26 and 33 percent DAU/MAU. As previously mentioned, Caesars Entertainment bought out the rest of the company in December 2011.

Gameplay: New users are given a 200 coin welcome bonus, and are then presented a menu of eight different themed slot games to choose from (farm items, pirates, etc) though only the first game is available to play at launch. Basic gameplay is modeled on traditional slot machines, with players paying a number of coins for each spin and payouts awarded based on symbol matches generated randomly from spins. Players can choose how many items they want to match, with larger sets of matches earning a better payout (while costing more coins, with riskier odds). Successfully completing some matches will launch a separate mini-game with the chance of winning play bonuses. For example, spinning to match three or more tractors in a farm-themed slot machine launches a “Beat the Mole” mini-game in which players must choose vegetables from rows of crops while avoiding a mole underneath the garden. Spins that generate other matching items unlock a series of free spins, which in turn sometimes generate even more free spins, creating a long succession of free spins in which the player is largely a passive viewer.

Viral growth and engagement: To foster retention, returning Slotmania players are offered a special bonus every four hours. The game includes a leveling system, with coin bonuses given at level up, which also unlocks new slot game boards. To encourage viral growth, player can post slot game wins to their wall, and are intermittently given the option to send ten free spins to friends. Facebook friends playing Slotomania also compete on a leaderboard.

Monetization: The primary source of revenue for Slotomania is virtual currency which is purchased in batches with Facebook Credits.

Bingo Blitz (Buffalo Studios): 970,000 DAU, 2.9 million MAU

A fast-paced Facebook adaptation of the classic casual casino game, Bingo Blitz launched late in 2010 and had slow but steady growth through most of 2011. It gained faster traction in August of that year before reaching its current, stable player base of between 2.5 and 3 million MAU. In the last three months, DAU/MAU rates have been very strong, fluctuating between 30 and 35 percent.

Gameplay: New players are first invited to play a 30 second tutorial, then given the option of choosing among several open games based on payout rate and player level. These are displayed in the game menu as “cities,” and also list the number of online players currently in session. Once entering a city, players can buy one to four cards with Credits (one of the game’s two currencies), then must wait for the current game to finish before joining the next match. Bingo card numbers are rapidly called out in audio and displayed in an animated row at the top of the screen. When a player earns a bingo on any of their cards, it’s their responsibility to click the “Bingo” button beneath the appropriate card. All winnings are collected at the end of each match.

Bingo Blitz includes a number of features to increase engagement and encourage retention: Clicking a timed power-up button places free squares or bonus items on squares; if they monitor the charge-up timer carefully, players can use this option many times during a match. Bonus squares pay out power-ups and game credits (displayed as treasure chests with game bonuses), and are won regardless of whether a player earns a bingo. Adding a level of suspense and skill to gameplay, it is possible for a player to select incorrect squares on their cards and call out a bad, invalid bingo — if so, the designated card is rendered ineligible for the remainder of the match. In addition, only a select number of winning Bingo cards can be claimed during each match; this is depicted as a countdown display at the top left of the screen, creating further excitement.

Bingo Blitz has a number of features which add a social element to gameplay. Each player has a user profile listing their national origin, game level and other game stats. These profile icons are displayed at the bottom of the match screen. Further, players can live chat with each other during matches.

Viral growth and engagement: New players are offered a game bonus for repeated play in the first two days after installation and there is also a daily credits reward for returning players. Bingo Blitz has a player leveling system, and some cities are locked until a certain level and other game goals are reached. The game also includes achievement badges for gameplay, such as collecting selected game items, and for reaching gameplay milestones. To encourage viral growth, winning bingo matches and other successes can be shared on a player’s Facebook wall. Players can also win extra Credits by inviting friends to install the app.

Monetization: Bingo Blitz has two currencies, Coins and Credits, which can be converted between each other. Coins can be spent to complete game collections (which in turn earn Credits), customizations for player cards, game power-ups, and “keys” which unlock bonus prizes. Extra Credits can be bought with Facebook Credits. Bingo Blitz also monetizes through a slot machine mini-game, in which players can spin to win Credits; these spins are bought with directly with Facebook Credits.

DoubleDown Casino – Free Slots, Blackjack & Poker (DoubleDown Interactive, LLC.): 1.3 million DAU, 4.7 million MAU

Launched in early 2010, DoubleDown Casino began steady growth in the fall of that year, then gained momentum through most of 2011. In the last three months, growth stabilized at around 4.5 million MAU, with an engagement rate in a range of 30 percent DAU/MAU, a level consistent with high monetization rates.

Gameplay: At game launch, the player is presented with several variety of casino-style games: video poker, blackjack, slots, tournaments and roulette. Most are single-player, but blackjack is live, with up to six competing against the AI dealer. To leverage the live multiplayer gameplay, blackjack includes a player-to-player chat feature, and a timer which requires each player to make bets, request hits, etc. within a few seconds, or risk forfeiting their turn. Blackjack play includes high roller options with large buy-in levels which restrict play to high level or highly monetized players. Roulette games, also in real time, come with similar multiplayer functions.

Viral growth: Viral user growth and engagement in DoubleDown Casino is encouraged with a number of features. A player can earn more play chips for sending game invites to friends or by adding friends and can win chip bonuses by returning everyday to do a “daily spin.” Players can also compete with each other on the game’s leaderboards and direct their gameplay to earn achievement badges for various game successes. Earning these badges also win the player chip bonuses. Players also have the option to share individual game victories with friends on wall posts.

Monetization: New players are given a free number of set playing chips to start with, and can buy more through Facebook Credit purchases. Along with appearing when a player attempts to make a bet which exceeds their current chip holdings, the purchase option payment window is displayed immediately at launch of game. This monetization method is more in line with real world casinos, which typically demand an up-front chip buy-in before play.

JackpotJoy Slot Machines (iwi): 380,000 DAU, 1.8 million MAU

Launched in mid-2011, the slot machine game saw strong growth for most of that year, then stabilized to around its current traffic level in October. In the last three months, its DAU/MAU rate has fluctuated between 20 and 27 percent — a good level of engagement, though somewhat less than category leader Slotomania (see above).

Gameplay: Similar to Slotomania, new users of Jackpot Joy are given 200 coins as a welcome bonus and sent to a lobby of eight slot games with different themes, only one of which is available to play at first. Gameplay is modeled on real life slot machines, with players able to bet a range of coins for each spin and payouts awarded based on matching selected patterns of symbols. Successfully spinning some matches launches a mini-game with the chance of winning game bonuses. Players can win awards for special symbol matches, and win achievements for game milestones. Jackpot Joy comes with a multiplayer tournament mode with high buy-in and large prize rewards.

Viral growth and engagement: Players can share 250 free coins with ten friends, share coins with friends already playing and ask friends for coins by posting the request on their Facebook wall. JackpotJoy has leaderboard, leveling and achievement systems. To encourage retention, coin bonuses are given out every four hours. Further, early on in gameplay, players are encouraged to play the game in full screen mode — selecting this option reveals a robust and active player-to-player chat system, and the option to play mini-games.

Monetization: Game coins are bought through Facebook Credits for cash payments between $5 and $200.

Note: Since it is localized only in Turkish, gambling game Mynet Çanak Okey was not included in this report. It currently sees 520,000 DAU and 2.4 million MAU.

Tagged sunsetting hi5’s gaming network – Social network Tagged has revealed what it will be doing with hi5, the rival social network it acquired in December. According to an interview on TechCrunch, the company will be sunsetting hi5’s gaming platform and replacing it with games developed by the Tagged team.

Zynga to release fourth quarter results on Valentines Day – Zynga has announced it will hold its first earnings call as a public company on Tuesday, February 14th. The company will discuss its financial results for the full year of 2011 and its fourth quarter. The call is scheduled for 2:00 pm pacific, after the close of the stock market.

Amazon still hiring for mobile, social gaming - Amazon is ramping up its hiring of game developers for both mobile and social games, according to job postings spotted by Xconomy. The company’s a2z arm has positions open for mobile game developers, and in Seattle the company is recruiting specifically for social game positions. Last May Amazon posted a job for a game designer to lead the company in creating mobile and social games, which lead to the hiring of game industry vet Jonathan Tweet. While Amazon has been working on its gaming project for a number of months, so far no details have emerged.

Social game school opening in Japan – Japan is getting a school specifically designed to help developers create social games according to Japanese industry watcher Serkan Toto. The aptly named Social Game Academy will open in April in Tokyo’s trendy Roppongi Hills district.

The Sims Social is surprisingly sexy – According to some fun statistics released by EA, since the Sims Social debuted on Facebook, more than 11 million dirty jokes have been told and more than 70 million love confessions have been made. EA also noted that Sims in the game ‘woohoo’ more than 680,000 times a day.

Konami releasing Star Wars social game – Siliconera is reporting Konami will be releasing a social game based on the Star Wars franchise, but only in Japan. The game will be called Star Wars Collection and will be on GREE’s mobile social network.

Virgin Gaming platform now has 1 million members – According to Virgin, the company’s foray into a social gaming with its VirginGaming.com platform has paid off. The service has gathered more than 1 million members since it launched in June 2010.

Google+ now allowing nicknames and online handles – Google+ has added support for alternate nicknames to its service. While it will still require users to register their real names, alternate names will now appear alongside a user’s name.

DeNA partnering with Mixi to open virtual shopping mall - Mobile social games company DeNA has signed a partnership with Japanese social network Mixi to open an online shopping mall on the Mixi platform. Penn Olson is reporting the virtual mall will open in late march.

Andreessen Horowitz looking for $1.5 billion more for VC funds – The New York Times is reporting that Marc Andreessen is raising $1.5 billion to fuel two new funds at his high-profile venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. The firm currently holds stakes in a number of well known social and mobile companies such as Zynga and Instagram.

Zynga kicks off a closed beta today for the next title in its Casino franchise, Zynga Bingo.

The game is a recreation of the classic gambling game where players receive cards with numbers placed along a grid and each column is identified by letter. A “caller” draws numbers at random from a pile, calling out the letter and number while players search for the corresponding spot on their cards. Should a player find the number called, they place a “dauber” token on the number; if they fill an entire line of numbers with daubers, they have a “bingo” and can claim a prize. Other winning conditions include filling up an entire card with daubers, placing daubers on each of the four corners of the card or completing specific number sequences that have been marked for prizes by the organizers.

Zynga’s main update to the game comes from power-up and bonus items, which are either bought, earned or gifted from friends. The power-ups are unlocked and used during the actual game of bingo; a boost bar fills up with each play, and once full, the player can click it to activate whatever power-up item they have queued. The power-ups available at launch are limited to placing down a dauber on certain numbers as if they had been called in normal play or increasing the number of bonus items received at the end of a game. Bonus items include soft currency, tickets (which are used to purchase bingo cards), mystery crates and keys to unlock said crates. The crates can contain power-ups, soft currency or tickets.

Other features in Zynga Bingo include real time chat, themed rooms that sometimes draw from Zynga’s own games and a Zynga Casino navigation bar above the canvas that presumably allows players to jump easily from Zynga Bingo to Texas HoldEm Poker or other Zynga Casino games as they are released. During a press demo, a Zynga spokesperson declined to discuss any upcoming features related to the Zynga Casino interface beyond what had already been revealed at Zynga’s 2011 Unleashed preview event.

Among social games, bingo has been slower to catch on than other casino titles like poker or video slots. It wasn’t until the beginning of 2011 that Buffalo Studios’ Bingo Blitz began to gain traction, hitting 2.8 million monthly active users and 930,000 daily active users before the end of the year. Other bingo games have since launched on Facebook to more modest success and some virtual casinos have added it to their lineup of games.

Zynga Bingo is the developer’s second Facebook title of 2012. Its first 2012 game, Hidden Chronicles, launched in the first week of January and currently enjoys 12.5 million MAU and 6.1 million DAU as recorded by our AppData traffic tracking service.

Analysts say Zynga must add nine million new DAU per quarter - Industry analysts Cowen and Company have calculated than in order to maintain its current DAU count across its business, Zynga must add at least nine to 10 million DAU every quarter — approximately 100,000 new users every day — to outpace the number of DAU lost quarterly. According an interview on Gamasutra, Zynga’s games lose about 18.4 percent percent of DAU each quarter.

Japan gets mobile social games platform for adults only - Japanese video distribution company DMM has launched its own mobile social network featuring pornographic social games according to Japanese industry watcher Serkan Toto. DMM is a leading Japanese producer of adult video content.

Namco Bandai: free-to-play damaging game industry – Gamespot is reporting that Olivier Comte, Namco Bandai’s SVP for Europe has come out swinging against the free-to-play model, saying games that follow the model aren’t high quality, and that low-cost games lower the perceived value of games, ultimately harming publishers.

Sterne Agee: Zynga loses $150 to acquire every new paid customer – According to Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia, Zynga has spent $120 million on new player acquisition so far this fiscal year, or $150 for every new paying customer according to his interview with Develop.

513 million internet users in China - Penn Olson is reporting that China now has 513 million citizens online. According to the latest data from the China Internet Network Information Center, 38.3 percent of the country’s population now uses the internet.

MegaZebra appoints Godager and Goeldner to board - Munich-based social game company MegaZebra has appointed European video game industry veterans Gaute Godager and Jürgen Goeldner to its board of directors. Gaute Godager was a co-founder of Funcom.

Japanese social games market to be worth $4.4 billion in 2012 – Japanese market research firm Yano is predicting the Japanese social game industry — driven mainly by mobile social game companies like DeNA and GREE — will be worth $4.4 billion in 2012.

Zynga moves towards online gambling – Zynga has confirmed what many already suspected, telling All Things D that it looking into real money gambling. The company is currently is undertaking “active conversations with potential partners to better understand and explore this new opportunity.” While Facebook does not currently allow real-money gambling on its platform yet, the company will soon in regions were it is legal.

Final Fantasy Brigade has half a million users – Square Enix’s first mobile social game based on the Final Fantasy franchise is now live on  DeNA’s Mobage network for both feature phones and smartphones. According to Andriasang, the game already has more than 500,000 users.

GREE buys stake in Mobicle for mobile social game development - GREE has bought a 6.8 percent share in Korean game company Mobicle. The two companies will co-develop a variety of mobile social games that will be available globally in the second quarter of 2012.

Nexon licenses Unity - Tokyo-headquartered gaming company Nexon has signed a deal to license Unity’s game development platform, reports Develop. According to a statement from Nexon, the company will be using Unity to develop multi-platform content.

[Launch] University of Washington releases Facebook game – The University of Washington Bothell has released its first Facebook game. Called UWB Wetlands Restoration, the game was created by undergraduate students and 100 percent of the proceeds go to restoration of the real UW Bothell wetlands.