Engage Digital Wrap-Up For The Week Of October 30, 2010

Welcome to the Engage Digital Wrap-Up for the week of October 30, 2010. The Wrap-Up is where Engage Digital spotlights stories that we didn’t get to cover individually, but still make for interesting reading about the business of user engagement.

• Allods Online “More Free-To-Play Than Ever” With New Patch: Allods Online‘s latest patch gives free players more access to items that are usually only obtainable as real money purchases, through a new daily quest mechanic.
• Android Games ‘Rapidly Gaining App Market Share’: Rapid growth of smartphones running Google’s Android mobile OS is propelling the mobile sector as a whole toward $10 billion.  App-based gaming is expected to account for 95% of mobile game revenues by 2014, driving by broader adoption of freemium publishing models.
• Creating A $1M Virtual Goods Brand In Second Life: Forbes profiles Jonty Glaser’s Second Life line of virtual high-fashion shoes, Stiletto Moody (link is not safe for work). Individual pairs retail retail from $4.50 to upwards of $10 per pair, with a pair at a charity auction selling for $650. Stiletto Moody has done $1 million in sales since Glaser began selling the shoes in 2007.  In the pieces, Glaser notes that dedicated Second Life players spend more on their hobby than social gamers, which he thinks ensures that Second Life will be up and running for a long time to come.
• EA Layoffs Hit NBA Elite And Skate 3 Dev: EA is laying off more employees from its packaged goods divisions, this time focusing on its EA Canada studio. Layoffs are also rumored to be affecting another Vancouver-based EA-owned studio, EA Black Box. EA Canada’s NBA Elite 11 game has been indefinitely delayed by EA Sports President Peter Moore, citing that the game was simply “not yet ready.” The number of employees laid off is rumored to be over 100.
• Facebook Celebrity Game Borrows From Fantasy Sports: Ayeah Games is launching FanSwarm this weekend, a social game that incorporates celebrity gossip and tabloid news.  The game will monetize both by selling virtual goods and selling its database of user opinions on various celebrities to interested parties.
• FarmVille Free Black Witch Cat With Facebook Credits!: FarmVille players who use Facebook Credits to purchase the game’s Farm Cash virtual currency will receive an exclusive virtual pet, the Black Witch Cat. The minimum required purchase is 10 Facebook Credits ($1) for 4 Farm Cash.
• Foursquare Introduces Super Duper Swarm And Epic Swarm Badges: Now Foursquare is offering a Super Duper Swarm badge for users who check-in from a single location in groups of 500 or more and an Epic Swarm Badge for groups of 1000 or more.  Foursquare is rolling out the new badges because of the high percentage of users earning the previously existing Swarm (50 users) and Super Swarm (250 users) badges.
• Game Power 7′s ASDA Story (World Of Secrets) Goes Live: Game Power 7 is launching the freemium MMO ASDA Story in Arabic for the Middle East and North Africa as World of Secrets.
• ‘Happy Farmer’ Looking For $20 Million: i-Jet Media, Russian publisher of social games like Happy Farmer, is looking to raise $20 million in exchange for a 25% stake in the company. i-Jet says that about 25% of all Russian social network users play social games.  i-Jet is the Eastern European distributor of Playdom’s games.
• High Rollers, But In A Virtual World: Singaporean MMO publisher IAH Games recently held a “high roller” party for players of its freemium game, Granado Espada (a.k.a. Sword of the New World), who had spent over S$3000 ($2318.57) each on virtual goods in the game. The 80 players hosted at IAH’s party had altogether spent over $200,000 ($154,571.45) on Granado Espada. MOL Global says that the region’s top spenders invest hundreds of (Singaporean) dollars per month on virtual goods in online games. Granado Espada’s virtual goods confer real in-game power in addition to cosmetic enhancements like character costumes.
• Neonga To Publish Mad Otter MMORPG: Newly-formed MMO publisher Neonga will publish an unnamed MMO from Eugene OR-based developer Mad Otter. The MMO will be multiplatform, with client-based, browser-based, Facebook, and mobile versions planned.
• Our Solution For Anonymizing UIDs On Facebook: Facebook will be making methods for anonymizing data associated with UIDs available through the Graph API and FQL early next week. Developers will have until January 1 to implement the anonymizing changes, but ad offer firm Tapjoy (formerly Offerpal) intends to implement the changes long before that.
• PayPal’s New Virtual Goods Payment System: Inside Virtual Goods details the payment flow users encounter when they attempt to buy virtual goods through PayPal’s new microtransaction offering. The transaction is completed in a mini-browser window that pops up when a user decides to initiate a purchase. The new PayPal solution can also offer recurring payment support, ability to donate portions of a transaction to charity, and shopping carts that can contain items from different sellers.
• Rumor: APB Buyout Apparently Nearing The “Light At The End Of The Tunnel”: A notice to former APB players sent out through the game’s automatic patcher says that “there appears to be a buyer for the game.” Former APB community manager Ben Bateman has tweeted the location of the patch notes to help get the word out about APB potentially coming back online. Bateman currently works for European software publisher Codemasters, fueling speculation that Codemasters may be APB’s buyer.  APB went offline last month.
• Runes Of Magic Client Gets Lighter: Frogster America has released a streamlined version of the Runes of Magic client, designed to run on laptops, netbooks, and older PCs.
• RuneScape Publisher, TIGA Launch Project Ignite For Browser-Based Games: RuneScape publisher Jagex is partnering with UK video game trade association TIGA to publish Project Ignite, a server that will help small studios distribute browser-based games. Jagex hopes to become a hub for browser-based game publishing that features content from the best small European developers.
• The Second Life Economy In Q3 2010: Linden Lab‘s latest figures show Second Life‘s economy in a holding pattern in Q3, with only minor changes to any key measure. Active economic participants are down 1% both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year, but the L$ grew 1.2% quarter-over-quarter and 6.1% year-over-year. World size is down 1.4% quarter-over-quarter but up 7.2% year-over-year.
• This Year’s Halloween Virtual Goods In Social Games Trump 2009: This is a round-up of all the major Halloween virtual goods promotions occurring on Facebook right now. FarmVille, for instance, is offering 85 seasonal Halloween virtual items, split between farm items and avatar costumes. Users can buy some of the Halloween items by collecting a seasonal virtual currency called Candy. All of Zynga‘s games are doing similar Halloween promotions, tailored a bit to fit each game’s themes and gameplay. RockYou‘s Zoo Paradise is doing a promotion that lets players take cheap virtual pets to a witch, who may transform them into more luxurious pets. Playdom is putting out sets of themed optional locations for its top games City of Wonder and Social City. Market Street and Wild Ones are doing more conventional promotions, with special paid items. This year’s Halloween promotions are more extravagant than virtually any prior holiday promotion, probably due to rapid growth of the social game market.
• We Rule Quests Hits The App Store: Ngmoco has issued an update to its mobile social game for iOS, We Rule, that adds quests to the gameplay. Most quests require users to engage in social activity like visiting a friend’s kingdom and reward users with time-based virtual currency, XP, and exclusive decor. We Rule Quests is actually issued as a separate app from the original We Rule on iOS, but it will use ngmoco’s Plus+ network to transfer player accounts over from the original We Rule.

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