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Facebook Game Developers

Facebook Game Developer Playdom Acquires Offbeat Creations

March 4, 2010

Playdom logo Facebook Game Developer Playdom Acquires Offbeat CreationsPlaydom, social game developer said Wednesday that it has acquired Bellevue, WA-based Facebook game developer Offbeat Creations Inc, creator of the dice-based online game Super Farkle.

Playdom has several popular games on Facebook like Sorority Life, Mobsters 2, Lil Farm Life, Tiki Farm, Tiki Resort, Wild Ones and Poker Palace to its credits with many of them making it in the 25 Top Facebook Games in February 2010, listed by ISG.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Offbeat founders Chia Chin Lee, Robert Reichner and Tom Fakes are said to be joining Playdom in leadership roles.

“With this acquisition we are bringing a talented new game studio into the Playdom family with a very exciting game pipeline,” said John Pleasants, CEO of Playdom.

“We have aggressive plans to expand our social gaming footprint in 2010 and the addition of Offbeat Creations will significantly enhance our development throughput and expand Playdom’s game pipeline this year,” Pleasants added.

Zynga, the largest game developer on Facebook, also acquired Serious Business for an undisclosed sum few weeks back. Also, Serious Business’ staff joined Zynga at the company’s San Francisco HQ as part of the business deal.

[Source: Techcrunch]

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Wildtangent’s BrandBoost to Enter Facebook

February 26, 2010

Playing games on Facebook is usually free. It is not a secret that Facebook game developers earn their profit from purchases of virtual goods and not through ads. But what if gamers do not wish to make any purchases? How can the developers get their income? Washington-based WildTangent answers that with BrandBoost.

WildTangent Wildtangent’s BrandBoost to Enter Facebook

This new advertising platform, called BrandBoost, had been developed from the concept of value exchange advertising. This means that for players to get something, they must do something in return. In this case, it allows players to access game features by watching advertisements.

If you think about it, this is a win-win situation for both gamers and brand owners. Why? BrandBoost offers players the opportunity to unlock game features and get virtual goods just by watching 30-second advertisements for a certain product or brand. For advertisers, new advertising platform paves a way for brand owners to gain entry, promote its products, and make its existence known to the fast-growing social gaming world.

Research has proven that advertising this way is effective. 95% of the gamers take advantage of this value exchange advertising. Additionally, more of these viewers are actually attentive to the ads when in exchange for game features.

Currently, WildTangent has a wide variety of advertisers. The company’s clients include 75 top advertisers like Kellogg’s, Kraft, Unilever, Wendy’s, Burger King, and Proctor and Gamble.

BrandBoost platforms are already being used by Massive Multiplayer Games such as Free Realms. This allows gamers to view ads in exchange for free one day trials, virtual goods, power boosts, locked weapons, and other premium items which are often bought with credit cards and Paypal. Soon, it will soon be making its entry to numerous games in the social networking giants, Facebook and My Space.

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Play to Get Paid: Job Boom in the Gaming Industry

January 8, 2010

With the increasing number of video games and more recently online games like role – playing games and social games like the ones on Facebook, more people are now becoming interested in becoming a part of the video game industry.

Social gaming is becoming popular because of their easy to use application and free – to – play concept. Due to this a lot of developers need brilliant minds to create new games every month.

Playing and getting paid at the same time is a dream job for almost everyone, and seldom do we find people who “whistle while they work”.

Game Developer Research stated that there are around 45,000 who are employed in the video game industry in the United States alone. These people would have an average salary of approximately $80,000. Programmers are among the highest paid employees. Projection for this industry will increase by nearly a third in the next decade as stated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Because of the increasing demands, there are forecasts saying that there will be a visible growth of universities trying to offer degrees that concentrates on games or interactive media.

Playdom, Playfish and Zynga are just some popular names of game developers who are currently sharing a huge chunk of profits in the gaming industry.

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