This week’s game of the week Tetris Battle is a highly successful social resurrection of the Gameboy and PC classic. It ranks #11 among Facebook games (according to DAU) and has been growing continuously since its release in 2010.

Title: Tetris Battle
Developer: Tetris Online
Genre: Action & Arcade
Languages: English, Chinese, French, Spanish, German
Platform(s): Facebook
Launch: 2010
Active users (Facebook): 16,200,000 MAU; 3,700,000 DAU (according to AppStats)

How to play

The game is played like the original tile-matching puzzle regular Tetris created by Russian programmer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. Falling game pieces  called Tetriminos have to be arranged to fill lines which are then cleared. The developer Tetris Online, based in Honolulu, Hawaii, was founded in 2006 by Minoru Arakawa, Henk Rogers and the game’s inventor Pajitnov himself.

Tetris Battle adds a competitive element as lines that are cleared by one player appear at the bottom of the opponent’s field.

Playing matches uses energy which can be refilled in the in-game store. Protection against losing XP in battles and customized Tetris blocks are also available for hard currency, seasonal items and special deals are offered regularly. The game’s battle system is very elaborate and encompasses several modes of real-time multiplayer against up to six other players, leaderboards and tournaments against friends or strangers. Friends may also gift energy and other items to each other.
The main mode is two players competing in 2 minute rounds to clear as many lines as possible, in sprint mode 40 lines have to be cleared as soon as possible. There are also different obstacles players can throw in their enemies’ way.

Who’s playing

Tetris battle is popular among men and women alike: 43 percent of the players are male. The game has a broad international audience but is particularly strong in Taiwan (according to data derived from Facebook’s ad targeting engine).

In the history of social games there seems to have been only one global number one: Zynga. But there are several companies fighting for the second spot – and interestingly the two hardest competitors right now are from Europe: King.com, headquartered in London with offices all over the continent, and Berlin-based Wooga.
This week, King.com announced it had overtaken Wooga to become Europe’s number one. Let’s take a look at the numbers:

King.com, whose most popular Facebook game is Bubble Witch Saga, now has 10,446,002 daily active users (DAU) putting it ahead of Wooga at 10,280,501 DAU.

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King.com’s performance is particularly impressive because King launched its first Facebook game just over a year ago. According to the company, the number of times King’s games are played each month has risen from 300 million to more than 2.5 billion.
When looking at monthly active users (MAU), Wooga is still in the lead with 44,669,005 MAU, King.com has 39,750,020 MAU.

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Usually, the DAU number is considered the more relevant one because it indicates users are actively returning to a game – so it would be fair to say that King.com wins this round due to a boost in DAU caused by the release of Candy Crush Saga last week.
Wooga hasn’t released a new game in a while but the German developer has been growing steadily and is likely to bounce back.
More in-depth information and data on Facebook games and apps is available on our all-new relaunched AppStats – the public beta is now open for free registration.

Out of the hundreds of games released on Facebook only a few make it big, the rest just dies unnoticed. But why is that so? In this industry predictions are especially hard to make but here are 5 issues we’ve observed about social games that don’t succeed.

#1 Not being self-explanatory

Facebook users are especially attention span-challenged. Also, the majority of them aren’t gamers so they won’t ever read blogs and reviews the way core gamers would to learn everything about a new title – social games usually find their players unprepared. Any concept that isn’t accessible or can’t be explained in one sentence is probably not going to work, no matter how clever and innovative it might be. If players are required to read a significant amount of text to understand what it’s all about, chances are they will lose interest before the tutorial is over.

#2 Not understanding the platform

Diamond Dash's clear concept and short session lengths helped make it a massive hit.

Facebook is the world’s largest games platform but first and foremost it’s a social network where people go to interact with their friends. As Trip Hawkins told us: Facebook has always been very casual and it’s a club where users don’t have the time to give either intention or attention to a game. They check on their game while looking at their friends’ status updates or uploading a photo in small 3-5 minute sessions spread out over a day. Many of the most successful social games offer gratification in a short time period of less than 5 minutes. Wooga’s top hit Diamond Dash and other casual games on Facebook are played in 60 second rounds. Though it might work in some cases, usually social games that are too demanding in terms of time and effort have a hard stand.

#3 Not making user engagement first priority

Engaging users with a Facebook game is a Hercules task fighting short attention spans, competition and internet users’ general indifference caused by over-stimulation.

CivWorld's interface looks cluttered and confusing.

All of the industry leading companies are obsessed with testing (pre and post launch) and would make significant changes or even kill an almost finished product if user engagement isn’t high enough or too many players drop out at certain points. Still, a lot of companies throw games on the platform that drive users away with too many features or confusing and cluttered UIs. One example would be CivWorld, the social iteration of Sid Meier’s Civilization series. Despite having a great and proven concept that can work on Facebook, CivWorld failed miserably in engaging and retaining its users.

#4 Being too greedy

Social games are meant to be free-to-play; enforcing paid items early hurts their momentum. The vast majority of users don’t like to pay for virtual goods. It’s certainly tempting to condition players to use premium currency early so they don’t become too comfortable with playing for free, but it’s counterproductive given the plenty of free games users could easily move on too.  Engaged non-payers can be equally important as paying users to reach critical mass and create viral effects. Making them feel unwelcome doesn’t make sense.

#5 Not being social

Even Zynga’s CCO thinks that social games aren’t truly social yet. Many social games could be considered single player or parallel play where social interaction is limited by asynchronous gameplay and mostly restricted to Facebook friends. This concept worked in the past and boosted viral growth when FarmVille enthusiasts would encourage their peers to join, but a lot of users find intimidating. For newcomers that can’t build and cross-promote on an existing audience it can be dangerous.

Some of the upcoming social games by smaller developers (e.g. FARKLE or Pool Live Tour among others) combine synchronous and asynchronous gameplay and enable real-time multiplayer gaming against users from all over the world without having to befriend them – even though new friendships are often the result.

Pet Vegas marks Crowdpark’s first social casino game on Facebook and currently the most successful of the Berlin-based developer’s three titles on the platform (the other two being 90Live – Football Game at 50,000 and Bet Tycoon at 30,000 monthly active users). Pet Vegas addresses two core human desires – winning (virtual) cash and looking at cute animals.

Title: Pet Vegas
Developer: Crowdpark
Genre: Casino
Platform(s): Facebook
Launch: February 2012
Language(s): English
Active users (Facebook): 260,000 MAU, 20,000 DAU
Monetization: Free-to-play with paid premium currency

How to play

Pet Vegas is a classic slot machine game that is themed around a group of cartoon pets.

Users bet virtual coins but also earn XP which each spin to level up and unlock new slot machines as well as maximum bets and number of pay lines activated. Coins and other features such as autospin and several boosters can be purchased with Facebook Credits. Inviting friends secures extra bonuses and players can send each other gifts.

The game runs smoothly and has polished graphics, however all the slot machine features are pretty standard.

What sets Pet Vegas apart from other slot titles is its cute animal theme. The pets add a nice and warm touch to the otherwise cold business of raking in money in casinos. This holds especially true for several of the minigames apart from the actual slots which feature card-dealing dogs and other adorable little creatures.

It’s a rather clever combination.

Scientist found that looking at something cute triggers a natural high in the human brain, while slot machines are known for being the most addictive of all the ways humans have designed to gamble – some reasons for this being the random variable payouts, increased arousal through sound and light effects, and instant gratification.

Who’s playing

The game’s formula seems to resonate well with female players – almost two-thirds of players are women, roughly half of the game’s audience lives in the US (according to data derived from Facebook’s ad targeting engine).

Especially outside of the US copied versions of successful Facebook social games are increasingly popular on open web portals. The approaches to spread the games vary. Companies like Goodgame Studios develop their own games and distribute them on thousands of partner sites all over the world. Publishers like Spil Games build up strong portals themselves and spread externally developed on those platforms. Spil Games claims to reach more than 170 million unique visitors this way. This approach did not go unnoticed. Social game developer Digital Chocolate is now partnering with Spil Games to use their distribution channels and spread their game Galaxy Life across the open web.  

As part of the partnership, teams from Spil Games and Digital Chocolate will work closely together to optimize Galaxy Life for maximum exposure, revenue and longevity across all Spil Games platforms. Additionally, the Spil Games API will give Digital Chocolate the ability to scale across multiple languages to target a global audience.

“Spil Games’ impressive global user base and expertise in reaching targeted segments like teens and families made this a natural fit,” said Jason Loia, Digital Chocolate COO. “Moreover, they were able to customize their offering to our needs and take on the cost and effort of marketing our games to their audience. ”

Galaxy Life – a free-to-play game that challenges users to compete with friends and strangers for intergalactic reign – will be available across Spil Games’ social gaming platforms beginning in April, with more Digital Chocolate games to follow. Spil Game’s social-gaming platforms are offered in 15 languages, including tailored channels for girls, teens, and families.

This step seems logical for cross platform developer Digital Chocolate. The company in constantly expanding on new platforms. Apart from games on Facebook and mobile, Digital Chocolate is publishing games on Google and teamed up with Pokki to release Galaxy Life as a free to play desktop app just last month.

German based social game developer Wooga has revealed performance stats of their hit game Diamond Dash. Diamond Dash is Wooga’s most successful social game in terms of users counting 18.200.000 million monthly active users (MAU) and over 4.200.000 daily active users (DAU) on Facebook. To illustrate: Diamond Dash has almost as many DAUs on Facebook as Wooga’s second (Bubble Island) and third (Monster World) biggest games combined. The game is on Facebook just over a year now and made its entry into the Apple App Store in December 2011.

Wooga states that the mobile version of Diamond Dash has been downloaded over 11 million times on iOS devices since its debuted on iOS. Diamond Dash was one of the first mobile games to launch with a fully realized implementation of Facebook Connect. The game offers social features like synchronized scores between mobile and flash versions, a real time leaderboard and the ability to gift friends playing on a desktop computer from a mobile device.

Wooga reveals that the percentage of users choosing to connect to Facebook on their mobile device has continued to rise since the game  launched – from 28% of users in December 2011, to 64% and rising at the end of March 2012. An interesting finding is that users who log in to the game with Facebook on their mobile device are eight times more likely to spend money, and spend 50% more on average.

Clicking a notification from Diamond Dash whilst browsing Facebook on iOS takes users directly to the Diamond Dash app.  In March users were directed to the Diamond Dash app from Facebook over 18.5 million times, highlighting Facebook’s growing role as a mobile distributor.

Looking into device numbers, over one hundred thousand users are currently playing the retina optimized update on the new iPad. In countries where the device launched on March 16th, 13% of all Diamond Dash downloads have since been for the new iPad, with 25% and 22% being for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S respectively. The iPhone remains the most popular iOS platform accounting for 51% of downloads, with the iPad increasingly closing the gap at 40%.

Developer Name: Goodgame Studios

Describe what you do in one sentence: Being the fastest growing games company in Germany and currently looking for 150 new employees!

Founded in/Office: Hamburg, Germany

Founded by: Dr. Christian Wawrzinek (COO), Dr. Kai Wawrzinek (CEO)

Founded in: June 2009

Funding: none

Acquisitions: spotsonfire GmbH

Number of employees: 170, planning to grow to 320 by the end of 2012

Number of Games published: 9

Games published on: our own open web sites, thousands of partner web sites and various social networks

Working with publisher: no

Acting as a Publisher: no

Publishing games in which languages: German, English, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Czech, Danish, Spanish, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Greek

Game genre/s: Strategy, Role Playing, Simulation, Poker

User demographics (gender): male and female from 18 to 65

User demographics (location): worldwide

Best-selling virtual item: The Tjostplace in Goodgame Empire (permanent productivity increase of units)

Most expensive virtual item: Bakery in Goodgame Empire (saving expenses for stationed units)

What do you see as the currently most exciting trend in the industry: This year will see a lot of consolidation while a few companies will keep on growing exponentially. We are excited to belong to the latter group and to see what 2012 will bring with a much larger team and new projects.

List of Games:
Goodgame Empire
Goodgame Mafia
Goodgame Farmfever
Goodgame Poker
Goodgame Café
Goodgame Fashion
Goodgame Disco
Goodgame Farmer
Goodgame Jupiter Jump

Hong Kong-based publisher 6waves today announced partnerships with 32 social game developers including Kabam, Game Insight and Large Animal. 6waves also announced a partnership with Atari.

According to Jim Wilson, CEO of Atari, the company hopes to leverage 6waves track record as a successful social games publisher to bring Atari’s world-renowned game franchises to social networks in the near future. “Discoverability and user acquisitions are ever-increasing challenges facing social games today, so partnering with 6waves was the logical choice for us,” Wilson said.

Earlier this month 6waves shared news of re-focusing the company on publishing social and mobile games as well as increasing traction in China.

“The momentum that we have gained in both mobile and social in 2012 should send a clear signal to the industry: we are committed to continuing our growth,” said Jim Ying, SVP Publishing of 6waves in the press statement. “2012 will see our portfolio expand significantly in all key genres. We couldn’t be happier to welcome so many exciting independent developers to our fold, as well as a powerhouse brand like Atari.”

Apart from a lot of  Chinese developers there are quite a few Russian companies such as Game Insight, Drimmi and Chiwawa Games as well as UK-based Enteraction among the list of newly signed developers.

Facebook credits are on the best way to become a global currency for services offered via Facebook. In the last months acceptance for credits increased significantly and an increasing amount of Facebook users purchased credits for the first time. Currently, most currency is spent in games or apps and Facebook is constantly adding new ways to spend Facebook Credits including downloading music, watching movies or TV episodes.

When a currency is formed it is only a matter of time until reward programs start popping up.  Plink, who launched in January this year, is heading to fill the pockets of virtual currency spenders by rewarding them for dining and making purchases at restaurants and stores. This is how it works: Plink members create an account at Plink.com, link their credit or debit card, and begin earning Facebook Credits by dining-out or shopping at participating restaurants and offline retailers. Participating retailers include Dunkin’ Donuts, Quiznos, Red Robin and Taco Bell.

“Facebook Credits is the missing ingredient that’s been needed to connect social media to offline sales,” said Peter Vogel, co-founder of Plink. “Now with the ‘glue’ of Facebook Credits our national restaurant and offline retailer partners have a way to tap into the nearly 800 million users on Facebook, motivate them to become loyal customers, and reward them.”

Just yesterday Arby’s Restaurant Group, the second largest quick-service sandwich chain in the U.S., joined Plink to increase gamer’s budgets.  Through this partnership, Plink members can now earn Facebook Credits at more than 3,500 Arby’s restaurants.

“We’ve experienced great success with the combination of offline and online marketing and experimenting with Plink is another innovative way to tie the two together and continue to drive loyalty with our valued customers,” said Bob Kraut, Senior Vice President Advertising and Brand Communications at Arby’s.

National restaurant chains are the initial focus of Plink as they represent nearly one-third of the total restaurants in the U.S. and spend significant dollars on marketing and advertising.

Plink was designed to be simple and easy for restaurants and offline retailers, among others, to implement. The program requires no POS (Point-of-Sale) integration and no paper coupons. Restaurants and offline retailers simply pay Plink a percentage of the sales generated by Plink members.

Plink began acquiring members through advertising efforts on Facebook, targeting social gamers, an audience of 60 million players in the U.S.

Hidden object games became largely popular on Facebook when Playdom entered the scene with Gardens of Time about a year ago. Meanwhile, Zynga has entered the game genre boosting their hidden object game Hidden Chronicles to almost 30 million monthly active users. But also other developers have discovered this genre successfully. One of them is Making Fun, a division of News Corporation, same as recently featured rising developer Bossa Studios.

Title: Hidden Haunts
Developer: Making Fun Games
Genre: Hidden Object 
Platform(s): Facebook
Launch: January 2012
Language(s): English
Monthly active users: 200,000 MAU; 50,000 DAU
Monetization: Free-to-play with paid premium currency

How to play

Making Fun Games launched their hidden object game Hidden Haunts mid January this year. In this short period Hidden Haunts gained 200.000 MAU and 50.000 DAU.  The setting of Hidden Haunts, as the title indicates, is a mysterious haunted village in which the user has to solve paranormal cases by building a village and solving mysteries.

The village Lost Haven is haunted and Professor Graves sends the user to help solving the cases of twelve ghosts whose souls have to be saved.

In the game the user needs to gain insight about the happenings in the village and does increase his insight power bar by learning more about the village’s history and by helping to expand the village.

In different scenes the user can now look for hidden objects. Assistance is given by a reloading magnifying glass. If the icon is fully loaded clicking on it the magnifying glass will help finding an object. Special attention is giving to supernatural sense discovery where  a picture of a special item appears and reaping it quickly will result in a high intuition bonus. Solving the scene quickly will result in a high speed bonus and so on.

The scenes look very real with almost photo quality items. Around the searching and the village expansion an active conversation is formed where different characters discuss the role of the player or exchange knowledge between each other. These conversations make the player feel involved in the plot.

In a nutshell: Atmospherically hidden object game with good story telling