SocialGaming
Latest
Gree closing down OpenFeint on December 14
I believe we've now reached the end of iOS' first generation as a platform -- it's almost every week now that we're hearing about a major startup losing a founder or a big franchise shutting down. This time it's OpenFeint, the social gaming platform started up way back by Jason Citron and Danielle Cassley, that at one point claimed 25 million users, and then was sold to a Japanese social network named Gree for $104 million. Gree has announced that it's finally shutting down the network on December 14, leaving developers who still depend on it in the lurch, and closing a book that makes up the first big chapter of the iOS marketplace. OpenFeint was originally started from a game itself, but it grew into an easily implemented social network that connected the App Store's offerings together, both in terms of user accounts and leaderboards, and in helping developers promote and share their apps with a large group of consumers. Gree is planning to migrate current OpenFeint users to its own social network, but it says that the current OpenFeint API calls will no longer work after December 14, which means any developers who still depend on those calls will be out of luck. Of course, Apple's Game Center service is the official version of OpenFeint, and though Citron and his crew (and later, Gree) fought to try and keep OpenFeint relevant even when Apple introduced its own service, it appears the battle's finally been lost. Citron left the company late last year as well. We'll see if Gree tries to do something to appease devs angry about the short notice on the changeover, but it's much more likely that those devs will just make their own switch to Game Center and be done with third-party services in general. As I said, it's the end of an era for the App Store. Going forward, Game Center reigns supreme.
Amazon announces GameCircle, similar to Apple's GameCenter
Amazon has announced a new service for its Kindle Fire platform called GameCircle, which is akin to Apple's own GameCenter service. It's set to provide a series of APIs for leaderboards, achievements, and other socially-centered game-related features. GameCircle has already been tested with a few popular titles on the Kindle Fire, and it's available for developers to sign up and check out right now. Obviously this has nothing to do with us iOS users, as GameCenter not only covers our needs on Apple's portable devices, but it's also coming to OS X in the quickly approaching Mountain Lion. But this does show that other device manufacturers are learning from Apple's history. Originally on the iOS platform, there was no official social gaming network, and it was a free-for-all between popular networks like OpenFeint, Crystal, and plenty of others. But Amazon's heading all of that off early, aiming to bring developers under its own official umbrella for social gaming.
EA opens SimCity Social on Facebook, really, really hopes you'll 'like' it
Sure, it may not have been the most, you know, explosive launch at this year's E3 -- but if Facebook "likes" are any sort of metric (which, granted, is debatable), EA's newly reborn and heavily-socialized SimCity has a bright future ahead of it. SimCity Social opened up shop on the Zuckerbergian social network this week, letting players plan and build cities, harnessing the site's massive user base to build friendly relationships or form rivalries between towns. The 800k or so likes the game has currently racked up clearly aren't enough, so EA is offering up exclusive content for those who click the friendly thumb. And seeing as how sitting in front of your computer wouldn't be complete without some fried breakfast pastries, Dunkin' Donuts is getting in the act, allowing players to gift coffee and doughnut "Boosts" in-game.
Zynga acquires Draw Something dev OMGPOP for $200 million
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how App Store fortunes are made. We've posted already about the almost overnight success of Draw Something, an app that has picked up over 30 million downloads and even beaten Zynga at its own game on Facebook. And because everyone knows that Zynga has plenty of cash and just needs as many users as it can get, the check has apparently been written: The company is expected to announce the acquisition of Draw Something's developer, OMGPOP, at a press conference happening in just a bit later on today. All Things Digital says it has indeed been confirmed. OMGPOP has a few different titles out, as well as a New York-based team of about 40 people. But what Zynga is really after here is the audience -- its games are social, so the more people playing them the better, and with the overnight audience of Draw Something, Zynga can promote its other games quite a bit. As for OMGPOP, my guess is that the company hasn't had too much success on the App Store until now, and basically decided to get on the money train while it's still in the station. Zynga's known for swooping in fast on deals like this -- if things had gone the other way, and OMGPOP had decided to hold out and try to really monetize the app on their own, odds are we would have seen Zynga try to take advantage of Draw Something's popularity anyway. At any rate, congrats to the OMGPOP team. Plenty of Draw Something players are groaning on Twitter, and lots of them are hoping that Zynga doesn't ruin what's still a pretty good and clean experience. But you never know -- with Zynga's resources, maybe Draw Something will turn into something even better yet.
Mobile is the fastest-growing segment of social games
The iPad, iPhone and other mobile devices are a growing source of revenue for those selling virtual goods, says a report from Inside Virtual Goods. The report looks at the virtual goods market and tracks sales from mobile devices and social games like those on Facebook. Though social games will remain the leader with US$2.9 billion in sales expected this year, mobile gaming is on the rise. Mobile virtual good sales are expected to climb to $500 million in 2012, up from $350 million in 2011. And this is just the beginning. "Mobile gaming is still hitting its stride," said Justin Smith, the founder of Inside Network, in an interview with Venture Beat. While social games tend to attract older females, the Inside Virtual Goods report claims mobile gaming attracts a different audience. Being on Facebook is important, but the social network shouldn't be a games-only outlet. The winner in this market will be the company that can target both demographics by launching on Facebook and mobile devices at the same time. [Via Venture Beat]
Zynga's Pioneer Trail is like The Oregon Trail without the typhoid
Zynga has finally released The Pioneer Trail, the long promised sequel to FrontierVille on Facebook. Those familiar with The Oregon Trail will be right at home here but there's no indication as yet that you can die of dysentery. The game abandons many of Zynga's social gaming trademarks; rather than doing anything related to farming, players must instead journey across one of three maps. The creators claim that each one of these maps is five times larger than any of the outfit's previous games. Significantly, you can only play the game with three friends, as each player is awarded specific skills necessary to reach "Fort Courage" at the finish. The company hopes that by forcing four players together it will create "intimate gaming" experiences (translation: you can't give up if you get bored, friends are relying on you). Each map is said to take three weeks of hard pioneerin' to complete and if that still leaves you cold, remember: there's always that history textbook waiting in your app queue.
Google slides Prizes into beta, helps you get real paid
Come on down! You can be the next contestant on the Prizes site. That was overkill, we know, but it's a necessary introduction into a new world of online solution-based social gaming pioneered by the Slide team. Acquired by the Goog back in 2010, the low profile entertainment-driven app developer has been hard at work making the web 'more social' and filling its Big Daddy's pockets. Debuting in classic Google beta form, Prizes takes your Twitter or Facebook accounts and signs you up for cash prize-winning, user-created contest shenanigans. In case you missed that fine point, we'll reiterate -- users design the challenges, you post a solution (or vice versa). Like the $40 "Give my Dad a makeover!" competition we're completely unqualified to enter, or the $30 "Comprehensive 'get healthy' plan for living in a large, polluted city" game we're sure Al Gore could win in his sleep. It's a kooky idea, but we can definitely see the service having widespread appeal. Let's be frank here: Google + social gaming + prize money = solid user gold.
Games at Google revealed in job posting, takes a stab at social gaming
Well, one of the few remaining sectors that Google has yet to conquer, gaming, will be Big G free no longer. The tech giant is looking for a product manager to man a new property called Games at Google. Obviously, with just a job posting to work with, details are scant, but we can tell you that the gaming platform will boast some social features -- an area where the Goog has struggled mightily. What don't we know? Just about anything else. Will it be a Game Center-like feature for Android phones? Or, perhaps, a web-gaming outlet for Chrome built with help from the folks at Zynga, who Google quietly partnered with back in the summer of oh-ten. Regardless, we're waiting with bated breath to find out when and where we'll be able to order hits in Mafia Wars next.
Zynga buys Newtoy, studio rebranded as Zynga With Friends
Well how about this -- Facebook and social game giant Zynga has bought up iPhone developer Newtoy, makers of the popular Games with Friends apps, including Words with Friends and Chess with Friends. Newtoy has now been rebranded as Zynga With Friends, and will apparently be working on new titles for Zynga in their own style. There's no word on what kind of money changed hands, unfortunately, but Zynga is worth around $5.6 billion, so it has plenty to spend. This is that company's seventh such deal in as many months. As deals for iPhone devs go, this is a big one -- Newtoy previously also worked on the We Rule title for Ngmoco, so the studio has extensive experience in social mobile gaming and monetizing those experiences. Zynga is the company behind Farmville, the most successful social game out there, with its own deep roots in the social gaming field. So this will be an interesting combination to be sure. We just chatted with Newtoy's David Bettner at the Austin GDC a little while ago, and he'll be stepping into the position of studio director, with his brother Paul Bettner becoming a Zynga VP and GM of the new studio. Bettner also told us that the company was working on "at least three prototypes that were up and playable," but it's not clear whether those titles will continue to be made or whether Zynga will have their own products for the former Newtoy devs to work on. If nothing else, this is a big vote of confidence in the App Store yet again -- Words with Friends has been a runaway hit for Newtoy, and clearly Zynga sees potential in the "with Friends" brand.
Facebook Credits coming to Walmart and Best Buy
Feel like taking your hard-earned capital and turning it into ones and zeros? Stocking up Farmville "cash" just got easier as Zuckerberg and Co. have announced that they're bringing pre-pay Facebook Credits cards to the impulse racks at Best Buy and Walmart. In Target stores since September, they'll be available in denominations anywhere from $5 to $50, and as for the credits themselves, they're redeemable within over 200 games and apps on the site, but sadly they're utterly useless for that one need we have above all others: stopping people from tagging really unflattering pictures of us. [Thanks, Jeff]
Social gaming numbers on the rise, Farmville likely to go down in history
We've seen console gaming numbers as a whole dip somewhat over the past few months, but gaming numbers on the social networking side have been anything but down. A new report on the matter from the NPD Group asserts that a full 20 percent (that's 1 in 5, if you're counting) of Americans ages 6 and older have played a social networking game of some sort, and we're guessing that number would be far higher if people weren't embarrassed to admit the truth. Unfortunately, the report doesn't dig deep into what exactly they were playing (our Monopoly bucks are on Farmville), but we are told that "10 percent of social network gamers have spent real money playing these games and 11 percent indicate that they are likely to make a future purchase." Curiously enough, the gender split is just about even, with 47 percent of social networking gamers being female, 53 being male and 2.4 percent being unidentified beings from District 9. You heard it here first, folks: the console is dead.
OpenFeint's Jason Citron talks Game Center and Aurora Feint 3
The first thought on everyone's minds as we heard during the event yesterday that Apple would be forming their own social gaming network on the iPhone called Game Center, was probably, "What about OpenFeint?" Since almost the very beginning of the App Store, OpenFeint founder Jason Citron has been working hard to provide developers with a free and easy solution for implementing a social network and social features on their iPhone apps, and with one small announcement, Apple appeared to make all of that work obsolete. Quite a few unofficial social networks have spawned on the iPhone (OpenFeint is one of the first and definitely the biggest, with over 12 million users at last count), and with one fell swoop, it appeared that Apple's new official network would make them all unnecessary. Not so, Citron told us in a quick interview today. Yesterday, he confirmed in a statement that OpenFeint would still do their best to sit on top of any official network that Apple would build, and today he talked a little more with us about the future of OpenFeint, his worries about Game Center, and how the company's first iPad title, Aurora Feint 3, is doing.
Freeverse goes with ngmoco's Plus+ for iPhone social gaming
Freeverse has picked a partner in the ongoing dance of social gaming networks on the iPhone. They've joined up with ngmoco and their Plus+ system for all of their games, including Flick Bowling, Flick Fishing, and Moto Thunder. The first Freeverse game to use the system (which allows players to earn points across games, track friends' playing habits, and vie for the tops of leaderboards) will be an upcoming title called Warpgate, and then it'll be ported back to the already-released games as well. This is actually a fairly big shot across the board of other networks vying for players, including Aurora Feint's OpenFeint, Chillingo's Crystal SDK, Scoreloop, and a few other competing services. ngmoco had originally announced that their Plus+ service would be proprietary to the titles that they published, but the inclusion of Freeverse as a partner means they're likely headhunting for quality titles to add to the mix, much like everyone else. To a certain extent, this is a behind-the-scenes battle -- consumers will likely choose games based on what they want to play, not necessarily on what social network they're hooked into. It's as if Microsoft, instead of having the overarching Xbox Live system, left it up to developers to award and track achievement points. But you have to think that one big player will emerge here, and then it'll be interesting to see what kinds of rewards the devs who connected with that system will reap. [via TouchArcade]
Live Anywhere bad news for gaming IM
Being able to seamlessly connect with your friends while playing games is becoming increasingly important, both to gamers and to games companies. Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony all emphasised the importance of online as well as offline play, but Microsoft's announcement of Live Anywhere must surely have struck a nerve with a few niche companies.Niche up till now, that is. Companies like Viacom and Verizon who are heavily investing in the gaming IM space -- bringing social networking and gaming closer together -- are now in direct competition with a company that can reach multiple platforms easily. By connecting Xbox Live, Windows Vista, MSN Messenger and mobile phones together, Microsoft will make it hard for others to encroach on their territory.
MySpace and gaming: the power of social networks
The social world of MySpace seems a far cry from gaming, but as games become more socially focused, the two are converging--Alice, at Wonderland, muses on a MMO that would combine the social power of MySpace with MMO dynamics. A lot of the emerging social technologies on the Web--from social bookmarking to photo sharing--could easily translate into a game world, and as a commenter on Alice's post points out, Second Life already achieves some of the same goals as the MySpace network.With games and MySpace intertwining in new and unusual ways, perhaps MyMMOG isn't as far off as it sounds.
