Pacific Creative » facebook http://pacificreative.com/pacificreative Sun, 09 May 2010 15:32:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 2009: The Year of Social Gaming http://pacificreative.com/pacificreative/2009/10/05/2009%e2%80%a6the-year-of-social-gaming/ http://pacificreative.com/pacificreative/2009/10/05/2009%e2%80%a6the-year-of-social-gaming/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:56:02 +0000 Patrick http://pacificreative.com/pacificreative/?p=175 If 2007 was considered the year of social networking then 2009 and now 2010 must be the year of social gaming. The ever increasing worldwide popularity of Apple’s iPhone and mobile functionality of Facebook along with the release of the Google Android has allowed consumers to instantly use their mobile platforms to download games and interact with many of millions of worldwide gamers on the go, which shows an explosive growth towards social networks and games on those platforms. Social GamesFacebook has played a major role in the increased presence of social gaming where it has made games a popular category and as of today, the top 10 facebook games has accounted for over 260 million active monthly users including such games as Farmville, Mafia Wars, Pet Society and RestaurantCity.

Within the past 24 hours, two of the leading social gaming companies and Facebook application developers, Zynga and RockYou have received additional rounds of financing and this comes off the big news last week when Electronic Arts (ERTS) acquired social gaming company, Playfish for $300 million. The $375 million that was used to acquire and further finance these social gaming companies shows a shift between traditional console gaming towards social and digital gaming.

Zynga, the San Francisco based social gaming company with over 200 million users just recently received $15.18 million in an extension of its series B Funding. Zynga popular for the #1 facebook game, Farmville, with 65 million active monthly users, currently has 5 of the top 8 facebook games by user and has a reported annual revenue of $150 million. Zynga will use the money raised as cash to build out their portfolio of top 10 games on the facebook and social network platforms.

RockYou, the Redwood City, CA- based publisher and developer of applications and social network services received $50 million in series D funding from Softbank. RockYou, the most successful widget maker for the Facebook platform operates the largest independent ad network in social media with a reach of 213 million monthly unique visitors and 15 billion monthly impressions. RockYou is expanding their efforts in the social gaming space and increasing advertising efforts in the space with the additional money raised.

Playfish was acquired by EA for $275 million in cash, $25 million in equity and could receive an additional $100 million if it performs well. The company has more than 150 games on several platforms including Facebook, MySpace and mobile devices. The top 2 Playfish games on Facebook, PetSociety and Restaurant City, account for over 40 million active monthly users. The acquisition is more evidence that online games that make money by selling virtual goods are turning into a surprisingly big business.

By Building simple, free games that leverage existing online communities, social-gaming companies can create addicting experiences that appeal to a much larger audience than traditional gamers. Social-gaming companies have begun to take in respectable money through a combination of in-game ads, the sale of virtual goods and marketing offers exchanged for in-game currency.

The question I propose for all readers: In what way will social networks, Twitter and MySpace play in the future and monetization of social gaming?

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