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Tag: Facebook games

  • Facebook Game Ads Now Allow For Virtual Goods Purchases From The News Feed

    Facebook announced an update to its desktop app ads, enabling game developers to sell virtual goods directly from News Feed and right-hand column ads.

    “A developer with a desktop game on Facebook can now promote the sale of a virtual good, such as an extra booster pack, and gamers can purchase the virtual good directly from the ad and start playing the game,” explains Facebook’s Pin Lu.

    “Kixeye used these desktop app ads for virtual goods for their game Battle Pirates to reengage active players who were past purchasers, as well as active ones who had not yet paid,” Lu adds. “Kixeye offered discounts on their gold virtual currency and they saw over a 10 percent click-through rate and a 50 percent conversion rate for past purchasers. They saw a 14 percent conversion rate for those who hadn’t paid before. In addition, they targeted their highest value spenders with large discounts — for instance, $500 worth of gold virtual currency for $250 — and saw over 5,000 percent return on ad spend.”

    The ads can be created through all Facebook ad interfaces, including Create Flow, Power Editor, or through PMDs.

    Promotions that are of a $3 or less value are free to developers to provide to eligible people. This is part of Facebook’s Payer Promotion feature.

    Image via Facebook

  • Candy Crush Saga Publisher Preparing For IPO

    In the two months since its release on Facebook, Candy Crush Saga has quickly become the most-played game on the social network. With tens of millions of users, the game is raking in money through micro-transactions on Facebook and mobile platforms. Now, Midasplayer International Holding, the game’s publisher, is looking to take its success public with an IPO.

    The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Midasplayer, also known simply as King, has hired banks to prepare for an initial public offering. Some of the banks contacted include J.P. Morgan Chase, Credit Suisse, and Bank of America. There are not yet any details about a possible IPO date or initial pricing. A spokesperson for King indicated that taking the company public is just one of the options the company is considering.

    King’s rise to the top of the Facebook gaming mountain in many ways parallels that of competitor Zynga‘s. King got its first taste of casual gaming success last year with Bubble Witch Saga. Since its release just over one year ago, Candy Crush Saga has dominated mobile and Facebook gaming, making King the latest developer to find fast success in the genre.

    However, Zynga’s more recent history may temper King’s ambitions a bit. Zynga was the first of such developers to find instant success with games such as Farmville. It quickly went public, and briefly enjoyed success, putting out versions of other popular games while buying up successful developers such as Draw Something creators OMGPOP. In the past year, however, Zynga’s popularity has waned as quickly as its success was earned. The company’s earnings and stock price have plunged, and the company has announced layoff after layoff in an attempt to stay afloat. Just this month, the company shut down OMGPOP, which it paid $180 million for in March 2012.

    (via Wall Street Journal)

  • New Facebook Games Section For Timeline Goes Live

    At GDC yesterday, Facebook unveiled the Games Developer Center. The hub promises to contain all the information a game developer needs to make games for Facebook or Facebook integrated games for mobile devices. That wasn’t the only announcement, however, as Facebook is also bringing games to the newly redesigned timeline.

    Facebook announced that it will begin rolling out the new Games section to timeline and users’ About pages. The section will only appear for those who have played one or more social games in the past 30 days, or those who have liked at least one game on Facebook.

    New Games Section For Timeline Goes Live Today

    It should be noted that the Games section contains the same privacy controls as other sections on timeline. A user can mark a game’s app privacy to “close friends” and only those designated as such will be able to see the game on their timeline.

    If you want your game to be a little more special, developers can use Open Graph to create a stand-alone app section for their game. Players can then place the game in its own section of timeline for all to see. You can learn more about that here.

    As for the weekly bug report, Facebook says that 33 bugs were fixed while 60 were assigned for further review. You can check out the full bug fix list at the blog post.

  • The Walking Dead Social Game Gets Otis And Other Characters

    AMC announced today that it has added some new characters to its Facebook game, The Walking Dead Social Game.

    In a post on the network’s blog, AMC says:

    Ever wish you could’ve hung out with Otis before Shane used him as walker bait? Now you can in The Walking Dead Social Game. In the “Help Otis” Story Mission, you get a chance to clear out the woods surrounding your camp in order to provide Otis safe passage back to Hershel’s farm. You’ll also encounter other familiar faces in the game’s newly launched Chapter 3 including Dave and Tony (who met their untimely demise at Hershel’s favorite bar) and Randall (who, like Otis, got in Shane’s way with fatal results). Ready to meet the game’s latest additions?

    AMC recently pointed out that it has added availability of the game to more countries, including: Portugal, Italy, Brazil, and for Spanish-speaking users.

    The Walking Dead returned to AMC this past Sunday after hiatus, and set a series record for viewers.

    More The Walking Dead fun here.

  • The Walking Dead Facebook Game Available In More Countries

    Last summer, AMC launched The Walking Dead Social Game, a Facebook game based on the popular television series.

    Today, the network took the time to make sure everyone knows you don’t have to be in the U.S. to play it. In a blog post, AMC says:

    Think walkers are only in the United States? Think again! Zombies are taking over the world (and so is The Walking Dead Social Game). Check out these international fan pages from across the globe. Want to share a tip to a friend in Lisbon? You’re in luck. Looking to connect with players in Rio? Look no further. Remember, the more friends you invite to play with you, the more daily energy gifts you can receive.

    AMC points to the pages for Portugal, Italy, Brazil and for Spanish-speaking users.

    More The Walking Dead fun here.

  • Bingo Blitz Proves It’s Easy To Port Flash Applications To Mobile

    Bingo Blitz Proves It’s Easy To Port Flash Applications To Mobile

    Adobe made some controversial decisions regarding Flash last year. The company ceased development of Flash for Android, and instead made Adobe AIR the de facto development platform for mobile devices. Some developers may have resented that choice, but Adobe is here today to tell you that it’s not that bad.

    In a case study published on Thursday, Adobe looks to Buffalo Studios, developer of popular Facebook game Bingo Blitz, and how the studio was able to use Flash in conjunction with AIR to provide a solid gaming experience across both Web and mobile.

    It’s important to understand first that Buffalo Studios comes from a background in native mobile development. That means the studio made their iOS titles in Objective-C and ported the game to Java for Android. It’s less than ideal, and can be frustrating at times.

    For Bingo Blitz, the team did a little something different. They took a game built for the Web in Adobe Flash and ported it to mobile using Adobe AIR. The studio’s director for Flash Development, Lorenzo Nuvoletta, said that “having one Adobe Flash content pipeline and using Adobe AIR to rapidly port to all devices cut our development cycle in half.”

    Now, every usage case is not going to be the same. Buffalo Studios may have had the right people at the right time, but it still stands to reason that developing with tools that are platform agnostic is much better than developing a native application in some cases. It’s especially true for games, but others could benefit from it.

    As for the future of Buffalo Studios’ games, SVP of Technology, Barry Sohl, says that Adobe’s products are the future:

    We are basing all our current and future titles on Adobe Game Developer Tools. It’s very cool to be able to simultaneously release all our platforms every week, which is extremely difficult for one team to do without Adobe AIR.

    Adobe’s products aren’t the only development tools that can achieve these kinds of results either. Unity, another popular game development toolset, boasts that developers can create games using its toolset and port to any number of platforms, including mobile devices.

    Until HTML5 becomes the go to platform for mobile Web development, Adobe, Unity and other similar programs will be the go to platforms for developing applications across multiple devices and platforms. Users demand that applications be the same across the Web and mobile, and developers must be ready to answer that call.

  • Angry Birds Star Wars Released For Facebook

    Rovio announced today that its popular Angry Birds Star Wars game has been released as a Facebook app. The new app has been “upgraded” to take advantage of Facebook’s social networking capabilities. The game now features social leaderboards, tournaments, and new power-ups.

    “It’s all the fun of Angry Birds Star Wars taken to the next level,” said Petri Järvilehto, executive vice president of Games at Rovio. “You get the great Angry Birds Star Wars gameplay for free, plus you can compete against your friends to see who is the ultimate bird-flinger and Jedi Master.”

    The game still features all of the same Star Wars-inspired birds and levels, though only the Tatooine levels are unlocked at this time. The Death Star levels are labeled as “coming soon” and there are no signs of the Hoth levels to be found.

    Weekly tournaments will be staged with five new levels released every week. Tournament winners can receive in-game rewards, such as the new power-ups.

    The new power-ups are the blaster droid, saber sling, and thermal detonator. The blaster droid sends a small blaster orb sailing along with a bird. The saber sling greatly increases the distance birds can be flung. The thermal detonator is self-explanatory. In addition to the power-ups, a new “Clone Bird” ability gives players the chance to duplicate a bird of their choice.

  • Zynga Shutting Down Mafia Wars 2 On December 30

    It’s common knowledge that Zynga isn’t doing so hot anymore. The company has already laid off over 100 employees in an attempt to cut costs, but now the social games maker is shutting down entire games that aren’t performing to its expectations.

    Zynga sent out an email to Mafia Wars 2 players that the game would be shutting down on December 30. AppData pegs the game as having 20,000 daily active users and 280,000 monthly active users. Compared to the original’s 280,000 DAU and 1.1 million MAU, Mafia Wars 2 is underperforming at an alarming rate. It’s not hard to imagine why Zynga wants to cut its losses here and usher players back into the original.

    Mafia Wars 2 may have been a failure, but it still has a few hundred thousands players that Zynga can shop other titles to. As part of the closing, the company is offering a complimentary bonus package to any Mafia Wars 2 players in one of Zynga’s more successful games – including CastleVille, ChefVille, FarmVille 2, Mafia Wars or YoVille.

    Mafia Wars 2 is the latest game to get the axe following a leaked memo from Zynga CEO Mark Pincus that said the company was shutting down 13 games over the next year. It was preceded by Treasure Isle, FishVille and Adventure World which are all set to shut down in the next two months. The company also shut down three of the games developed by its Japanese branch.

    After all these closures, it’s important to remember that Zynga still has quite a few popular games still in operation. The company isn’t done just yet, and its amended contract with Facebook could prove advantageous as it allows the social games maker to pursue other partnerships in the social games space. 2013 could very well be the year Zynga finally figures out mobile and has a hit that can stay profitable for more than a few months.

    [h/t: Games.com]

  • Game Developers Met With Zuckerberg To Discuss The Future Of Facebook Gaming

    Game Developers Met With Zuckerberg To Discuss The Future Of Facebook Gaming

    Facebook gaming, and social gaming in general, is not the revenue behemoth it used to be. Most players are now moving to mobile, and that’s a problem that Facebook has to overcome. The social network recently invited some big names in social gaming out for dinner to toss around some ideas, and one is a potential winner.

    All Things D reports that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook games boss Sean Ryanmet met with some of the top Facebook games developers to discuss the future of the platform. Zynga was notably absent, but Facebook invited other major players, including Kixeye, Disney and Electronic Arts, to the dinner. The talk focused on ways that Facebook could further monetize games with the developers reportedly doing most of the talking while Zuckerberg listened.

    According to the report, a major talking point was concerned with the current cut Facebook takes from all in-game purchases. Right now, Facebook takes a 30 percent cut from all sales. Developers suggested that the social network introduce a sliding pay scale that reduces the cut Facebook takes from new developers to help bring in new talent. Those who become successful will have the cut Facebook takes from their revenue slowly increase until it hits the standard 30 percent.

    In all honesty, it’s a good idea. It would help Facebook undercut mobile platforms that take the same cut from developers. It might not be as promising as mobile is these days, but some game developers may choose to go with Facebook first if the revenue cut is lower to start with. Drawing in more game developers could also lead to a Facebook gaming renaissance of sorts that would see revenue and innovation return to the platform.

    The report doesn’t go into much detail on other matters discussed, but one hopes that Facebook would start to take mobile seriously. It’s efforts thus far have been mediocre at best. To its credit, it has improved enormously since first starting out. Now Facebook has to figure out way to effectively monetize its mobile platform. One such idea would be to run mobile games through its mobile platform in App Center, and collect a cut of the in-app transactions.

    2013 will be the first year that Facebook has conducted its gaming business without its exclusive partnership with Zynga. The social games maker wasn’t bringing in as much revenue as it had in the past, but it was still an important partner. That being said, Facebook and Zynga will still continue to work closely together in the new year. The social network will just have to broaden its network of partners to include more social game developers.

  • The Walking Dead Facebook Game Gets New Chapter, Features

    In August, AMC launched a Walking Dead Facebook game in beta. The beta status still applies, but now, a new chapter and some new features have been added. These include fullscreen mode and improved weapons.

    “Chapter 2 lets fans battle walkers and fight for survival in downtown Atlanta alongside Glenn, Daryl and more characters from the show,” explains AMC in a blog post. “Just complete Chapter 1 — where you escape down the highway with Shane, Lori and Carl — to get to Chapter 2.”

    Updates to the game, based on feedback, include:

    • Wide screen and full screen modes for a richer game experience.
    • Energy is no longer needed for moving and fighting.
    • Upgraded weapons, with greater abilities, accuracy and range
    • Intel and morale are no longer required to play missions.
    • An enhanced normal mode that makes expert mode obsolete.

    In September, AMC paid tribute to the film The Social Network (about the founding of Facebook, of course), with a poster similar to the one for the movie. This marked The Walking Dead surpassing 10 million Facebook fans. The page has added nearly a million more since then.

    If you want a chance to star in another The Walking Dead game, there is a contest you can participate in.

    More The Walking Dead fun here.

  • Facebook Talks Game Development At GDC Europe

    Facebook is getting more and more involved with the games industry. They have one of the biggest gaming platforms on the Web and they need to enlist new talent if they are to survive. That’s why the social network attends all the major game developer conferences and meets up with indie developers who want to push their product on Facebook. They did just that in August during GDC Europe.

    GDC Europe is not as big as its American counterpart, but it’s just as important to the livelihood of the industry. There are plenty of talented game developers working out of Europe and Facebook was courting them with a number of excellent panels. Unfortunately, Facebook made it impossible to embed the videos from their talks, but the links in the panel names will take you to their respective talks.

    The social network opened up their GDC talk with “Growing Social Games with Facebook: Lessons from European Partners.” All European developers should check this one out as Facebook highlights the success that European developers are having on Facebook. In fact, five out of the top 10 Facebook developers are based in Europe.

    Up next is “Building your next generation social game with Facebook.” The platform has evolved from its simple roots into a gaming powerhouse. The App Center alone pushed over 170 million people to mobile apps last month. It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re interesting in taking advantage of all the new features Facebook offers.

    The third presentation was called “Simple steps to build and grow a social game on Facebook.com.” This is for the developer who is just starting out on Facebook development. Some developers, like Zynga, have complained in the past that Facebook makes it harder for players to discover their games. In reality, they mean that Facebook is now giving smaller games the chance they deserve. Thankfully, this presentation is available in handy .pdf format. Check it:

    GDC EU: Steps to Build and Grow a Social Game on FB

    Next up is “How mobile games can plug into Facebook for massive growth.” This one is a repeat of previous efforts on the part of Facebook to extoll the virtues of implementing Facebook into games. They found that most apps get a lot more traffic through Facebook than any other method. Game developers who haven’t yet jumped on board the Facebook train may want to check it out.

    It wouldn’t be a Facebook presentation without Open Graph and that’s just what they did. The presentation titled, “Driving installs and re-engagement with Open Graph,” helps developers get the most out of Facebook’s social graph APIs. Once again, developers who are new to Facebook development should check it out.

    The last two presentations will be of most interest to Facebook developers who have been in the social gaming industry for a while now. “Advanced features for getting the most out of Facebook” covers all the new features in Facebook that helps developers gain the edge on their competitors. “Turning players into payers: best practices for monetization” will show you how to get the most out of free-to-play titles. The most popular games are able to convince players that paying real money for in-game items isn’t a waste, but rather an investment in fun.

  • FarmVille 2 Now A Reality

    Zynga as launched FarmVille 2, the sequel to one of the titles that helped make the company a household name.

    “FarmVille 2 is now live!” Zynga said in a status update. “Grow and harvest beautiful crops, raise adorable animals, and craft delicious treats while you customize your very own lifelike farm. It’s time to grow wild!”

    Comments on the Facebook page, so far, include things like:

    “It won’t load.”

    “So far, I like it.”

    and

    “Why not just fix the f—ing regular Farmville game?”

    There’s also a dash of “Looks cute,” and “Awesome.”

    In a recent SEC filing (via TechCrunch), Zynga reported that online game revenue increased $27.6 million in the second quarter of 2012, as compared to the same period of 2011. Farmville accounted for $11.1 million of that.

    “The increase in revenue from FarmVille was due to new content releases, which resulted in higher bookings over the last several quarters as compared to bookings generated prior to the second quarter of 2011,” Zynga said in the filing.

    Zynga shares are up 3.18% at $2.92 at the time of this writing.

  • Facebook Updates Their Games Policy

    Facebook hasn’t been super busy in the world of development this past week. We can only hope that their hard at work improving the Android app. That being said, the social network does have a few big changes coming your way in the weekly Operation Developer Love update.

    Facebook announced a policy change for games that went live yesterday. The update is meant to “focus engineering resources where social games have the highest impact and drive the best user experience.” The policy makes it so that Web games that aren’t hosted on Facebook, like on Zynga.com, can only use the Facebook API for authentication, publishing and social plugins. Game developers have until December 5 to implement the change.

    Facebook also announced a change for betas. Starting this week, only developers who have authorized the app dashboard and test users will be able to access the Beta Tier. The Beta Tier is extremely important for developers who want to make sure their apps are in compliance with the latest breaking changes.

    While you’re authorizing the app dashboard, you should check out the latest change Facebook has made to it. They have renamed the Credits section to Payments. It’s also now under general settings on the App Dashboard for easy access. The move was a long time coming as Facebook has been phasing out credits in favor of real money for some time now.

    The next round of breaking changes will take effect on September 5. Check out the blog post for more details on what to expect. Facebook also reports that they received 176 bug reports in the last week. Out of those, they were able to fix 27 of them. They also accepted 33 bugs for further research.

  • Facebook Gaming Gets A Boost From App Center

    Zynga used to be king of the Facebook game. All of their games performed extremely well and it looked like they were going to remain on top. Things rarely ever stay the same, however, and Zynga learned that lesson the hard way. The company is now struggling to retain employees after missing out on the first wave in mobile gaming and buying up short lived fads. Zynga isn’t the only Facebook game developer though. The others are doing just fine.

    Facebook announced today at GDC Europe that there are more than 235 million players on Facebook each month. That’s an increase from 205 million from last year. The number has also risen 8.4 percent from the beginning of this year.

    Facebook is also beginning to embrace mobile in a big way. They pushed users to the Apple App Store and Google Play more than 170 million times in the last month. That number might increase even more now that developers have access to mobile ads for apps on Facebook.

    They also revealed that five out of the top 10 game developers on Facebook are from European countries. That’s a huge increase from just one last year. These developers are growing because more than 80 percent of Facebook users are outside the U.S. European gamers love European games so it only makes sense. The developers leading the charge in European Facebook development include Wooga, Kingcom, Peak Games, Rovio and Social Point.

    Facebook also announced that App Center is beginning to lead people to more apps than ever before. They said that 150 million people used App Center in the past month and that the service is driving 2.4 times more installs than the old games dashboard.

    In far more interesting news, App Center is also getting players to revisit games over longer periods of time. They found that a game downloaded through App Center is 35 percent more likely to be revisited the following day. It drops to 17 percent for the rest of the week. For games that are nothing more than distractions, that’s huge. Keeping players engaged in Facebook games, which are nothing more than fads at this point, is incredibly difficult.

    Facebook gaming might actually have a pretty bright future if they can keep up this kind of commitment to the platform. As Facebook moves to mobile, you can be sure that they want to bring games along with them. App Center is the first step in that move and it seems to doing well for both Facebook and developers.

  • Kill Some Walkers On Facebook With This New Walking Dead Game

    AMC, by partnering with Eyes Wide Games and RockYou, has released a new Walking Dead social game for Facebook ahead of the show’s third season, which starts in October. Here’s the trailer for the game:

    The social game lets you complete missions, meet characters from the show, and recruit your Facebook friends to “defend your camp from walkers.” If your friends die, they may come back as walkers, by the way.

    AMC says the game has an array of missions that will test your survival skills, and that the only way to survive is with a team of allies. So social is indeed a key.

    Walking Dead Game

    The Walking Dead game

    The Walking Dead game

    When you’re not online, “anything can happen,” the game’s page notes, so you’ll want to play with some friends who are as dedicated to survival as you. Someone has to stay on guard.

    Of course, there are plenty of weapons to use in the game, but you have to unlock them.

    While you’re at it, you might as well check out this deleted scene from season 2.

  • Zynga Desperately Tries To Keep Employees After Stock Crash

    Things are not looking good for Zynga. Their stocks crashed, COO John Schappert left and they’re being investigated for insider trading. After all this, employees would obviously want out. The company is going to keep them the only way they know how – throwing money at them.

    Bloomberg is reporting that Zynga is now handing out equity grants to all of the company’s 2,800 plus employees. The company used to pay pre-IPO employees in restricted stock units, but their value is now almost nonexistent as the company’s stock hovers around $3.

    Will the equity grants help keep on the talent that Zynga desperately needs? Analysts on Wall Street seem to think so with Arvind Bhatia, an analyst with Sterne Agee & Leach, saying that the offer is “positive for morale.” Frank B. Glassner, a partner with Meridian Compensation Partners, said that “when people have meaningful equity in a company, they have skin in the game.”

    Glasnner also said that offering equity grants to employees will not have any negative effects on the company as far as shareholders are concerned. It’s about the best move that the company can make right now. They need a hit, badly, and the only people who can do that are the developers. Keeping them on board will help Zynga transition into the world of mobile where returns are much higher.

    If Zynga is able to get back on top, those equity grants will become very valuable to the employees who stick around. If Zynga doesn’t perform as well as expected, they will be meaningless. The company is asking the employees to gamble on the future of the company that is currently uncertain. It will be interesting to see how many actually stick around.

  • Facebook Games Can Now Take Your Money At A Monthly Rate

    Sometime ago, Facebook announced that they would be playing around with the idea of in-app subscriptions. It’s an easy way to receive continued sales from players who would rather pay a set amount per month instead of shilling a few dollars every week in their favorite games. The subscriptions beta was apparently successful as the option is now available to all.

    Facebook announced that subscriptions can be implemented into all games starting today. There were already a few developers, like Kixeye, Playdom and Zynga, who were playing around with the idea of subscriptions from the very beginning. There’s been no word on the actual success rate for subscriptions, but I’m sure a future Facebook Developer Spotlight post will sing the praises of subscriptions sooner or later.

    So, you’re a developer who wants to add subscriptions to your Facebook game. How do you go about doing that? it’s all quite simple really. The simple feature, which is detailed in the official documentation, allows developers to set prices based on local currency and offer different levels of subscriptions.

    Facebook does caution that developers should be careful when mixing subscriptions with traditional in-app purchases. Players might not buy a subscription if they can get everything through in-app purchases and vice versa. They suggest that you offer the subscription for more game content like extra time or more in-game money while the in-app purchases are for more superfluous things like vanity items.

    The addition of subscriptions should be a wave of relief for people who are addicted to Facebook games or have kids who play them constantly. In-app purchases can drive up a credit card bill in no time. Setting a monthly subscription is far healthier on the wallet and it ensures a steady stream of income for the developer.

  • Amazon Goes From Game Retailer To Game Developer

    Amazon Goes From Game Retailer To Game Developer

    Amazon has been doing a lot lately to position themselves as one of the major players in the gaming market. The retailer seems to have a hand in everything these days from traditional sales to free-to-play digital games. They never had a hand in actual game development, but a retailer wouldn’t make games, right?

    My assumption was wrong as Amazon announced yesterday afternoon that they are indeed now in the business of making games. The retailer revealed the existence of Amazon Game Studios and their first game, Living Classics, on the newly minted Amazon Game Studios Web site.

    So why would Amazon, a retailer, get in the business of making games? The company says that they’re providing additional entertainment and value to their customer base that plays a lot of free-to-play social games. To ensure they have a hit with their first game, Amazon Game Studios plays it a little too safe with Living Classics. Here’s the description:

    Living Classics, our first major release, is what we call a “moving object game.” In the game, a family of foxes have wandered into vibrant, animated illustrations from their favorite books including Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and King Arthur. Players help to reunite the foxes by exploring beautifully illustrated scenes and spotting moving objects. You can visit friends, share rewards you’ve earned, rediscover famous stories, and reunite fox families.

    Regardless, Amazon entering the actual game creation business is pretty big news. While their first game is only available on Facebook, what’s to stop them from making free-to-play desktop games? They already have a portal for other publishers to distribute their games and content to players. Will Amazon use their power to push their games over those of others? It’s too early to tell, but they are questions that we must keep in mind going forward.

    If you want to see how Amazon’s first game turned out, check out Living Classics on Facebook. If you’re unwary, check out the trailer first to see if this “moving object” game is right for you.

  • New Facebook Study Reveals Motivation Behind Facebook Visits

    New Facebook Study Reveals Motivation Behind Facebook Visits

    Published this month in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, a new Facebook study suggests personality type determines how much time you spend on the social networking site and how often you visit.

    At the root of the study, its authors hoped to uncover the reasons why so many users flock to the site and spend time there, or rather, what are the motivations behind the phenomenon.

    The study by the University of Connecticut’s Daniel Hunt and Archana Krishnan and Michigan State’s David Atkin found that much of what caused people to spend time on Facebook could be traced back to personality and a desire to be entertained.

    The authors comment on the results from the study:

    “The entertainment motive was shown to be the most powerful predictor of how much time participants spent on Facebook,”

    “If individuals are using Facebook for entertainment purposes, this differs from cases where it’s being used to maintain relationships. For example, individuals may use Facebook in a similar fashion to a blog or to promote their viewpoints.”

    Looking at motivational factors that could encourage individuals to spend time on Facebook, the researchers found that entertainment and passing time, along with information seeking, to be the top driving forces for visiting the social site. So, in other words, people are just looking to keep themselves occupied and entertained.

    While self expression was mentioned in the study a possible factor for visiting Facebook, limitations of the design kept the authors from formulating any theories on how it actually played into the time spent. Oddly enough, maintaining relationships wasn’t found to be the top factor, as many would expect.

    Perhaps we overestimate how important staying connected to people 24/7 is. Everybody is different, but constantly making social comparisons between yourself and others has been found to be unhealthy for many, especially in younger populations where ridicule and persecution are common place for those who go against the mainstream.

  • Zynga Digs Deep For Its Next Facebook Game

    Despite a sluggish stock, Zynga is still toiling away on new games hoping to catch their next big break. They pushed Zynga Slots to mobile last week which will probably do really well. Their next Facebook game, however, is a little more uncertain.

    The next Facebook game from Zynga is called Ruby Blast. It’s a match-three puzzler with a twist. The player is not trying to clear the board of gems, but rather going deeper until the timer runs out. It’s a popular variation on the match three puzzle genre. So, does Zynga bring anything new to the table?

    Surprisingly, Zynga has added some neat additions to the classic formula. The first is that your friends can join your game to help clear blocks. It appears that your friend’s face is applied to a drill and then they destroy a line of blocks.

    While not new to the genre by any means, the fact that Zynga has included power-ups is a welcome addition. Too many puzzle games are just boring grindfests. Being able to destroy entire lines of gems or blocks with multi-tiered explosions is one of the best puzzle game mechanics.

    That game also features the requisite leaderboards for competing with friends. If your friends are into puzzlers, then Ruby Blast may just be the Facebook game for you. If your friends hate you for your constant requests for items in Farmville, you may just want to play this one alone.

    Check out the trailer for Ruby Blast. It should give you a look into the gameplay as well as Zynga apparently trying to tell a story via animatics. You can start playing the game once it goes live on Facebook or at Zynga.com.

  • Facebook Games Can Still Have Success Stories

    There’s been a lot of doom and gloom lately about Facebook games. Zynga’s stocks plummeted after a report saw that players were moving from Facebook to mobile. Facebook is having none of it, however, as they highlight a success story for a game that is completely immersed in Facebook.

    The game in question is Candy Crush Saga. As the name suggests, it’s a match-three puzzle game that has players progressing through stages that increase in challenge along the way. It uses basic Facebook functionality such as comparing scores with friends, but does it in a more personal way.

    The game utilizes a Facebook feature that allows the game to place friends’ faces onto each level. Players will be encouraged to beat that friend’s high score, but will keep on playing as each level has a friend’s face on it. It taps into our natural need to compete and Facebook helps attach a face to that instinct.

    After competing for the high score and showing that one guy who’s boss, you can gloat about your victory all you want. The game even has a giant candy bar shaped share button so you can tell your friend how bad they are match-three puzzlers.

    Of course, now you feel bad about gloating to your friend. You hurt their feelings in regards to their ineptitude at match-three puzzlers and want to make it up. The game has thought of this outcome as well and added in easy sharing options to send gifts to your friends. You then make up, but will inevitably start competing in the arena of Candy Crush Saga sooner rather than later.

    So how has the cycle of battle and reconciliation affected Candy Crush Saga? The game grew 100 percent in May to 2.7 million daily active users. If that’s not impressive enough, the game has been played over 800 million times since its debut. Now it just needs a mobile version with Open Graph to really take off.