The Good NET Guide

Posts Tagged ‘social-gaming’

You might find this suprising, but the top social gaming companies on the iPhone are not the same ones you know of from Facebook and MySpace. Zynga, despite $54.2M in funding, has hardly made a dent on the iPhone. Neither has Playfish, which was recently bought for $300M. Playdom hasn’t done squat, either. Although “the big three” of social gaming are great at online games, they aren’t doing too well on the iPhone. For example, Zynga’s Mafia Wars game hardly hit the top 25 throughout its time on the App Store.

It seems that social gaming is where the action is right now, and we’re not just hearing that from the kids.

Following Electronic Arts’ $300 million acquisition of Playfish, and the just-reported $43 million further investment that Playdom has raised, we’ve caught wind that Berlin-based wooga has secured €5 million ($7.5m) of additional funding. The round is being led by Balderton Capital, although earlier investor Holtzbrinck Ventures has also participated.

I’m currently blogging from a boat, rented by Belgian social network operator Netlog to host about a hundred of their closest business partners for a presentation about their freshly redesigned website and a roadmap of what’s in store for the future.

In their presentation, co-founders Toon Coppens and Lorenz Bogaert introduced something other than the newly revamped site. The company has also been developing a separately branded social gaming platform called Gatcha! which was talked about publicly for the first time today.

Games, both online and on mobile devices, draw such an intense following that often there are fan communities and forums created entirely around a single game. PlayHaven is hoping to empower developers with the tools to create their own online and in-game (for the iPhone only for now) fan communities for free.

PlayHaven has created shell communities around 15,000 games on Apple’s app store, so most developers can automatically claim their community. If their community hasn’t been pre-created, developers can also create their own communities. The transition between online communities and in-game communities are fairly seamless, says Raymond Lau, co-founder and CEO of PlayHaven.

Lau says that in-game communities on iPhone apps can be integrated by inserting a snippet of code. In the app, the “community” feature will be able to be accessed under the menu button, so users can access the community from within the feature. On both the app and online communities, fans and developers can share their passion for games by creating guides, tips, reviews, and other content. Developers can also have a channel to connect to fans to notify users of news and new releases.

PlayHaven is already testing its communities in-game and online for several apps, including Geared, Minigore and The Quest. In fact, one-third of all Geared players are active on PlayHaven’s community on a daily basis.

Competitors include OpenFeint and Plus+.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

People say the iPhone is really a gaming device with a mobile phone bolted on. And given how much time I spend playing games on my iPhone, I tend to agree. The touchscreen, accelerometer and (mostly still untapped) ability to play games against others over Wifi or 3G make gameplay compelling.

Social Gaming Network (among the first to exploit the iPhone accelerometer to create Wii-like games), is coming out with a new jet fighter dogfight game. The graphics are stunning, and you can fight against computer opponents or other people playing the game.

This isn’t the first iPhone dogfight game (Flying Aces and Top Gun are popular), but the graphics are way beyond what I’ve seen with the other games, the social fighting aspect is a first and unlike those games, SGN’s will be free. I had a chance to play it this morning in our offices, a video of that demo is below.

The application hasn’t been named yet and is still a month or so from launch, but SGN says if you email launch@sgn.com they’ll respond back when the game launches. The game will be free, and eventually users will be able to pay to upgrade their jets and weapons. In the first version users will train and add levels, but when the iPhone 3 comes out this summer, they say, a war is going to break out.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

We just received a screenshot of an iGoogle page, that appears to show a couple interesting new elements of Google’s ever-evolving social blanket. The screenshot supposedly comes from the developer sandbox version of iGoogle (where it tests out new features), and shows options to socially integrate Google widgets. The one shown in the image below is the Google Finance widget, which apparently will be able to access your Google Contacts and place its activity in something called “Updates.”

It’s worth noting that Google just recently rolled out a version of Google Contacts that is wholly separate from Gmail. Why a Google Finance widget would need to access that data, I’m not sure. Perhaps it has some kind of easy-to-use “share this with” functionality. Or more specifically, as our tipster notes, that data may be be used to filter who you share something with in your social sphere. But the more interesting element is the posting to the Updates area. One would have to imagine that this will be a river of information similar to Facebook’s News Feed, that will pipe in new information from you when you update something.

Where such an Updates area resides will be extremely important. I’d guess it will be on your Google Profile, but there needs to be a centralized place for a full contact stream as well — or centralized places. Maybe Google will simply make another widget for all of your contacts’ updates to place on your iGoogle homepage or maybe even in Gmail. That seems like a smart play as it would be taking on Facebook by doing something slightly different than what Facebook is doing — allowing you to choose the area you wish to view the social stream. There would only be a walled garden insomuch as Google itself is a walled garden — a giant walled garden that encircles most of the web. Of course, Facebook is attempting to at least somewhat do this as well by opening its data stream outside of its walls.

I’ve made my distaste for some of Google’s social stumbles very clear. But, if this screenshot is legit, it shows a broader picture that is starting to make some sense. The real question now will be if Google will be able to keep all of this relatively complex tangle of social elements (and the underlying social relationships) simple enough for any user to grasp. Facebook had been really good at that, but it’s getting more complicated. Keep it simple, Google — and it just may pay off.

Update: The iGoogle Developer site has a FAQ which answers more questions about the impending social features.

Here’s the key section:

Who are friends in iGoogle?

For development purposes, you can add friends through the friends manager gadget included with the developer tools. You can only share activities with other friends who have access to the developer sandbox. This is not the final network that will be used in iGoogle. Users will have full control over who their friends are and will be able to easily modify their list of friends. Stay tuned for details.
Profiles

What are profiles in iGoogle?

For development purposes, you can modify your profile data (displayname and thumbnail) using the profile gadget included with the developer tools. This is not the final profile or data that will be used in iGoogle. Stay tuned for details.
Updates gadget

How often can a gadget post an activity to the Updates gadget?

A gadget can post up to 5 activities per user per day. For gadget development and testing purposes, these limits are not implemented in the sandbox. Posting activities requires explicit permission from the user granted during the installation of a social gadget.

And here’s another screenshot:

[thanks David]

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors