Facebook currently represents only about a third of worldwide traffic for social networks, according to a recent white paper released by social games and apps platform Viximo and Superdata Research. The non-Facebook category of social gaming will represent the bulk of worldwide revenue generated in the social gaming market, the study states.

Further, the study found that non-Facebook platforms in Western markets will be responsible for nearly one-quarter of worldwide social gaming revenue within the next three years and that the majority of social gaming revenue is made on other platforms, beyond the borders of North America, where Facebook is the clear market leader.

These recent findings as well as strongly increasing user acquisition costs on Facebook are reason enough for us to examine international social networks that might offer opportunities to social game developers. In the third of our series we present the key facts on Orkut, the Google-owned social network most popular in Brazil.

• Name: Orkut

• Country: Brazil, India, US

• Founded in: 2004

• Owned by: Google

• Specifics: Gaming, communities, photo sharing

• Offices in: Belo Horizonte, Sao Paolo, other Google offices worldwide

• Membership: open

• Languages available: Primarily Portuguese; 48 total languages available

• Age restrictions: 13+

• Audience: 66 million (as of Oct 2011)

• Audience demographics: mostly young (18-25 years old); over half of users are from Brazil

• How many games live: hundreds

• Own virtual currency: No

• Top5 Games: MiniFazenda (Vostu), MegaCity (Vostu), CaféMania (Vostu), Colheita Feliz (ELEX/Mentez), World Mysteries (Vostu)

• Open/closed for developer: Open

• Revenue share for developer: 100%

• Payment systems: Developers are responsible for collecting payments

Facebook currently represents only about a third of worldwide traffic for social networks, according to a recent white paper released by social games and apps platform Viximo and Superdata Research. The non-Facebook category of social gaming will represent the bulk of worldwide revenue generated in the social gaming market, the study states.

Further, the study found that non-Facebook platforms in Western markets will be responsible for nearly one-quarter of worldwide social gaming revenue within the next three years and that the majority of social gaming revenue is made on other platforms, beyond the borders of North America, where Facebook is the clear market leader.

These recent findings as well as strongly increasing user acquisition costs on Facebook are reason enough for us to examine international social networks that might offer opportunities to social game developers. In the second part of our weekly series we present the key facts on the biggest Spanish social network Tuenti.

•  Name: Tuenti

•  Country: Spain

•  Founded in: 2006

•  Owned by: Telefonica

•  Specifics: Social networking, Games (casual and social), Premium video content

•  Employees: 200-500

•  Offices in: Madrid and Barcelona, Spain

•  Membership: Invite only

•  Languages available: Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Galician, English

•  Age restrictions: 13+

•  Audience: 12 million

•  Audience demographics: Students/young people

•  How many games live: 20 social games, 60 casual games

•  Own virtual currency: Tuenti Créditos

• Top5 Games: Backyard Monsters (Viximo/Kixeye), Fitness City(Pyro Studios/iZ), Texas a lo Grande (Metrogames/Viximo), Parchis(Playspace), Millionaire City(Plinga/Viximo) -based on Tuenti rankings for social games

•  Open/closed for developer: Closed

•  Revenue share for developer: 70%

• Payment systems: Credit/debit cards, Mobile phone, Landline phone, PayPal, Paysafecard, Offers

• Other relevant info: Very little banner advertising (the site aims for a clean, curated experience); video ads have been introduced over time

San Francisco-based social network Tagged announced its 2011 fiscal performance. Record business results included revenue growth of 35 percent to over $43 million, tripled registered users to over 330 million with the acquisition of hi5 and doubled active users to over 20 million, tripled staff size and a fourth consecutive profitable year for the company.

Tagged also completed its first four acquisitions to-date, with December’s acquisition of hi5. The company founded its own internal game studio, its virtual currency revenue up 60 percent from 2010. With a new suite of mobile offerings mobile usage grew to over 30 percent of its daily active users, according to the company.

Tagged was founded in 2004 and focuses on social discovery and meeting new people rather than managing existing relationships.

• Name: VZ Network (comprised of  StudiVZ, MeinVZ and SchülerVZ)

• Country: Germany

• Founded in: 2005
• Managing Director: Stefanie Waehlert

• Specifics: social networking

• Employees: 300+

• Office in: Berlin, Germany

• Membership: Open for StudiVZ and MeinVZ.  SchuelerVZ is limited to secondary school students

• Languages available: German / English

• Age restrictions: SchuelerVZ is limited to secondary school students

• Audience: 16 million registered users

• Number games live: StudiVZ & MeinVZ:  140  / SchuelerVZ: 99

• Own virtual currency: No

• Top5 Games: StudiVZ & MeinVZ: Frohe Ernte, Frohe Ernte 2, Frohe Ernte 3 (all ELEX), Mein Fisch (HappsSNS/Rekoo), Dorfleben (Socialgamenet)  / SchuelerVZ: Frohe Ernte  (ELEX), Pet Party (Plinga), Icy Tower (Plinga), Mein Fisch  (HappsSNS/Rekoo) , Frohe Ernte 2 (ELEX)

• Open/closed for developers: Open

• Revenue share for developer: 70%

• Payment systems: game developer must integrate payment methods

• Additional notes: StudiVZ and MeinVZ share a user base.  StudiVZ is in German and was the first of the three networks which was originally designed for university students, MeinVZ is also available in English and has been added for non-students.  SchuelerVZ has an entirely separate user base.

Kabam operates at the convergence of social games and so-called hardcore games with elaborate strategy multiplayer titles like Dragons of Atlantis or Kingdoms of Camelot. We were curious to learn more about Kabam’s philosophy, especially in the wake of its latest move to publish the first The Godfather social game exclusively on Google+, and caught up with their COO Chris Carvalho to explore the topic.

Social Games Observer: The Godfather: Five Families (TGFF) was released on Google+ exclusively – why did you take this step?
Chris Carvalho: To paraphrase The Godfather, “It was strictly business.”
TGFF had performed well in beta and we were ready to take it to large audiences.  As we were evaluating our options, Google+ games came to us and put together the most compelling marketing and merchandising package to support the expansion of The Godfather: Five Families onto their platform.

Kabam's Chief Operating Officer Chris Carvalho

SGO: Are you happy with the game’s performance so far?
Chris: We are very happy with the performance of The Godfather: Five Families to date. In fact, the game experienced the best performance in beta of any game Kabam has released to date. We continue to see growth in players and revenue, and expect that to continue.

Is it already possible to tell if players on Google+ show different behaviors or enjoy other things in a game than players on other platforms, especially Facebook?
Chris: There are some differences with G+ and other platforms, but so far the internal metrics are pretty similar.  That’s because it’s the game itself that has the most impact on players, as each title has its own game and design mechanics which engender different player behaviors.

SGO: Google+ has a reputation for having a very male-heavy audience – how does that reflect on your user base?
Chris: The G+ user base to date is definitely complementary of our users as the demographic profile of Kabam game players is 70% male, mostly under 40.  This is a direct result of our overall strategy.

Google+ made them a marketing offer they couldn't refuse.

Kabam was the first social gaming company to take a different strategy, consciously targeting and developing games for the core gamer audience, not ‘casual’ gamers. We develop hardcore social games that combine the deep, immersive gameplay found in MMO games, strategy and RPG style games, with the connectivity and interaction benefits of social platforms. Consequently, our player profile is much more in line with what one historically sees in the gaming category.

SGO: From a technical perspective, which are the main differences when publishing on Google+ compared to Facebook?
Chris: Kabam created a solution for multi-platform publishing specifically to address this challenge, a new technology framework called Pyramid™.  The Pyramid layer allows us to leverage a single code base engine, which in turn enables Kabam to rapidly integrate a game as well as deliver simultaneous game updates across multiple platforms. As a publisher, this means we can easily and efficiently integrate, and update games across multiple platforms. No more branched code… games are always kept up to date, no matter the platform.

Kabam built a new publishing framework to run games simultaneously across different platforms.

We deployed this solution not only for The Godfather: Five Families, but for other Kabam games that are running on multiple platforms (Dragons of Atlantis and Edgeworld are also on both Facebook and Google+ games).  It has enabled us to solve for the problem of multi-platform development, which in turn will enable us to achieve the broadest possible global reach for Kabam games and reduces our dependency on any one platform.

SGO: What happens when the exclusive period of 45 days is over – are you rolling out The Godfather: Five Families to Facebook and/or other platforms as well?
Chris: Yes, we plan to expand distribution of The Godfather: Five Families. Our goal is to make Kabam games available to as many gamers globally as possible.  Whether it is on Facebook or not is an open question.  No platform captures all gamers – e.g., Facebook only has about 30% penetration in Europe. As noted above, this is one of the reasons we developed Pyramid – it enables us to be a multi-platform game company.

SGO: Are you planning to release more titles exclusively on Google+?
Chris: As we develop and release more titles, we’ll follow the same process we did with TGFF. We’ll evaluate the game’s performance and talk to third party platforms about marketing and promotion to drive users to our games and make our distribution decisions based on what is the best path for each game.

SGO: What other platforms will be in your focus this year for launching new games?
Chris: We will have multiple games across European networks – VZNet, Hyves, Tuenti, etc. – and believe that managing the distribution channels is going to be one of the key factors for success in this evolving games market, so Kabam is constantly looking to expand our game distribution to reach more gamers and provide unique value to our players.

While our focus will continue to be on developing and releasing free-to-play, hardcore social games that are delivered digitally, the ecosystem is rapidly evolving and new opportunities are appearing on a regular basis.
For example, we recently announced a deal with Pokki that enables players to access a Kabam game directly from their computer desktop via an app – it operates much like mobile apps. We feel this has the potential to open up a major new chapter in distribution for core social games.

Australian Olympic swimming icon, Ian Thorpe, has joined former Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh and Indian cricketer Rohit Sharma as an official brand ambassador for a new sports social network, which has recently launched worldwide.

PlayUp is a mobile social network to enable sport fans to follow their choice of 30,000 live games around the world for sports such as Premier League, Cricket, NFL, NBA, US College sports and a large variety of Football leagues. All this while being able to discuss the action with other fans for free on their mobile devices.

Speaking from Melbourne where he is completing for the first time in six years Thorpe said he was excited about his role as an ambassador with PlayUp and would become an active user of the app where he can provide his thoughts on his preparation direct to fans. “I am passionate about the role of technology in sport and PlayUp offers the chance for me to connect with fans during my training as well as having the opportunity to follow my favourite sports – such as Premier League Football and tennis – while in transit, “ Thorpe said.

Survey: 94% are up for second screen entertainment
It is this ability for PlayUp to enhance his own viewing experience that has Thorpe excited. A recent study by Yahoo Mobile and Razorfish found that 94% of the 2,000 surveyed engaged in some form of mobile communication while watching TV, such as exchanging email, sending IMs, texting, talking or social networking.

Opportunity for direct interaction
PlayUp Founder and CEO George Tomeski said: “What’s unique for Ian Thorpe is that PlayUp allows swimming fans the chance to have direct interaction with him as he prepares for the 2012 Olympics. “He’ll be able to create a dedicated discussion area around a live sports event of his choice allowing fans to message and interact with him. We hope to provide unprecedented access for his fans using this real-time messaging feature.”

In 2010 PlayUp games were distributed throughout more than 20 countries across the UK and Europe, India and the sub-continent, Asia and Africa. PlayUp will grow to 50,000 live games on the platform by June 2012. PlayUp was founded by Australians Luke Bunbury and George Tomeski in 2007.

Nicolas Anelka signs next big contract in China
Another top athlete to endorse games is French international Nicolas Anelka. After his move from Chelsea Football club to Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua Liansheng Football Club. The9, an online game developer and operator in China, has announced that it has entered into an endorsement agreement with Nicolas Anelka, for worldwide endorsement and promotion of Firefall, a highly-anticipated team-based shooter game developed by Red 5 Studios, one of The9′s subsidiaries.

Under the agreement, Anelka will participate in various promotion and endorsement initiatives for promoting Firefall. Anelka has also granted The9 some certain other rights relating to the promotion activities, including the use of Anelka’s name, voice and likeness. The worldwide endorsement agreement is for a term of one year. In consideration for the endorsement services provided by Anelka, The9 agrees to pay Anelka a sum of EUR2.7 million.

Cooperation Anelka and Shenhua Football Club
The9 has also entered into a cooperative promotion agreement with Shanghai Shenhua Liansheng Football Club Co., Ltd. (“Shenhua”) for endorsing and promoting Firefall for a term of two years. Shenhua is a long-established leading soccer team in the Chinese Super League, the highest tier of professional soccer association in China. Under the agreement, Shenhua players will wear jerseys bearing the name and logo of Firefall in all domestic and international soccer games and also make appearances at press conferences and product promotion and sales initiatives for Firefall and participate in other activities for promoting Firefall. Shenhua will also reserve advertisement space for Firefall at its host auditorium. The9 will pay Shenhua RMB32 million for the promotion services.
Overlap of gamers and soccer fans

Chris Shen, The9′s VP of Marketing, commented, “A big portion of Firefall gamers are also soccer fans, most of whom are male, passionate about sports, and actively followers of entertainment stories of sport stars. We are going to implement the cross-marketing campaigns throughout the year that leverage the popularity of Anelka and Shenhua to enhance the brand awareness of Firefall among the target audiences in both China and the global market. We have successfully promoted our online games via cross-marketing campaigns in the past years and we believe this would be a very innovative and effective way to enhance the Firefall brand and attract more gamers.”

Ngmoco and Glu have announced that they are bringing blockbuster freemium game Gun Bros to the Mobage mobile entertainment network for Android. Glu’s title joins Mobage’s unparalleled lineup of gaming content for the Western markets.

Ngmoco creates and publishes games for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Android in collaboration with the game makers.Ngmoco is part of Dena who also operates Mobage social gaming platform, social networking services and e-commerce websites.

“Mobage is the premier mobile destination for social games and the perfect platform to bring Gun Bros to an even wider audience,” said Adam Flanders, SVP of Sales & Marketing of Glu Mobile. “Mobage provides independent developers like Glu an opportunity to quickly, easily and profitably deploy our games to a massive mobile audience around the world.

Woozworld, a massively multiplayer user-generated social game for tweens and teens (ages nine – 14), announced today that it has beta launched its complete social network, WoozIn, to its site, where there are more than 15 million unique visitors from over 180 countries. Users from all over the world who are unable to use Facebook because of their age have a place to commune “legally”.

“We know that tweens and teens are aspirational by nature, so what we are offering them with WoozIn is their own social network where they can communicate with like-minded and -aged people,” said Eric Brassard, CEO of Woozworld. “This is what truly makes WoozIn different than any other social network, as we provide life and personality to each Woozworld avatar. Basically, we are melding a virtual world and social network — it’s like Facebook meets Second Life.”

Woozworld grants the online and COPPA-compliant virtual identity for teen and tweens. With this new social network, “Woozens” can basically make use of the same features that we now from Facebook. Woozworld is an online place where tweens and teens build entire worlds to creatively engage with their peers, build businesses or set up restaurants, hotels and games as they choose, with their imaginations being their only limit. The time users can spend playing on the platform is limited to 50 minutes per day. So far the community has created 8 million avatars and 16 million virtual spaces.

Cultural differences certainly affect the popularity of games genres across countries and their social networks. Fishing games in Russia, as pointed out by Alexey Kostarev, or resource management and strategy games in Germany are common examples.  We discovered a less known trend in Spain, where gym simulations are soaring on the country’s local social network Tuenti.

Fitness trend in Spain

Fitness City - click to enlarge

“Sports City” was a popular title on Tuenti that was in the top charts for quite some time and about a month ago “Fitness City” entered the stage. In a rather short period of time Fitness City become the most popular game on Tuenti. Today, Fitness City counts almost half a million monthly players. As a comparison: star titles like Backyard Monsters or Millionaire City each count just about half of Fitness City’s user base. What does not sound like much at first is the Tuenti’s by far most popular game today. We will not speculate why the Spanish love to spend time in front of a virtual gym, but it is certainly worth having a closer look at Fitness City.

Build your own gym

The game loop works like this: The gym equipment (treadmills, exercise bikes, etc) serve as equivalent to “farms”, where the user can earn cash to build other gym, swim or wellness equipment (massage chairs, hairdressing saloons, etc). With the wellness equipment the user can earn prestige points, the other currency in the game. The prestige points are needed to start marketing campaigns to attract new gym members which are in turn needed to exercise the gym equipment in order to earn more cash.

Well known and well done mechanics

Fitness City - click to enlarge

Other than that we see the classic features of visiting neighbors to earn “karma” and an energy bar refilling an energy unit every five minutes. Also, different characters are introduced with missions to encourage the user to expand the variety of possible activities at the gym.

Some nice features include different advertising campaigns to win new customers like mailing or email advertising or chatting up people in front of the gym to convince them to join.

From ringtones to social games

The game was developed by Pyro Studios and belongs to iZ, who are part of ZED Games. ZED is a company traditionally involved in mobile content subscription. The company now also publishes games across social networks and is working on their own open web game portal.