Welcome to the Engage Digital Wrap-Up for the week of April 23, 2011. 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. Avatar Reality Appoints Tetris Popularizer Henk Rogers As CEO: Blue Mars Mobile developer Avatar Reality [...]
Social gaming firm MindJolt has acquired mobile social developer SGN and online game portal Hallpass Media, each for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition effectively doubles MindJolt’s headcount to 80, gives it four million new users, and adds over 1500 new games to its network. MindJolt strengthens its mobile presence through SGN, whose apps like MiniTycoon [...]
Japanese mobile social network GREE has acquired American smartphone mobile social gaming network OpenFeint for $104 million, as part of a process called a triangular merger. GREE says it is Japan’s leading mobile social network with over 25 million users and a market cap of over $3 billion. OpenFeint likewise says it is the largest [...]
Hi-Rez Studios has announced its own freemium arena-style online combat game, SMITE. Players in the game control one of a pantheon of ancient gods in team-based battles against other players and their computer-controlled minions. It’s another game seeking to compete with Riot Games’ successful League of Legends, which successfully transitioned DoTA (Defense of the Ancients) [...]
Mind Candy has announced that the inaugural issue of the Moshi Monsters Magazine has sold out its entire initial print run of 80,000 copies. Mind Candy says these sales “dwarf” the circulation of competing magazines and indicate the strength of the Moshi Monsters brand. The Moshi Monsters virtual world serves over 40 million registered users [...]
Funtactix has announced its next virtual world project, New Boyz: The WORLD, based on the Warner Music Group hip-hop duo New Boyz. The virtual world, built on Funtactix’s The WORLD engine, will include a music-driven online gaming and digital merchandise platform. Funtactix says that New Boyz: The WORLD will be the first music-based virtual world [...]
Apple has begun rejecting apps for containing pay-per-install ad offer walls, apparently now considering the tactic of convincing users to download a game in exchange for virtual currency a violation of clause 3.10 of the iOS Developer Agreement. Clause 3.10 states that, “Developers who attempt to manipulate or cheat the user reviews or chart ranking [...]
Zynga has closed the MySpace version of its Mafia Wars social game. Players of the MySpace version are being directed to Zynga’s MafiaWars.com if they wish to continue playing the game. At the time of its closure, Mafia Wars was the second most popular social game on the MySpace network with over 13 million registered [...]
Gaming-oriented social network hi5 has announced that it is now part of the comScore Media Matrix top 10 online gaming sites. According to comScore’s March 2011 report, Hi5 is the world’s sixth-largest gaming site. This means Hi5 ranks alongside other major online gaming properties like EA Online, WildTangent Media, Nickelodeon Casual Games, and Yahoo! Games. [...]
Funium has launched its new genealogy-themed Facebook game, Family Village. The game blends city-building social gameplay with a player’s real-world genealogical data provided by an integration with FamilyLink‘s We’re Related application. Through We’re Related, Family Village can access online public historical documents including including census records, newspaper articles, and marriage records. These documents are available for players [...]
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- First 17 Tech Career Expo San Francisco Participating Companies Announced
- San Francisco Tech Career Expo to Bring Leading Employers Together with Top Technology Talent on June 28-29, 2012
- Reddwerks Presents iPads to Top Candidates Recruited from Tech Career Expo
- 10 Reasons Why You Need to be at Digital Kids
- Speaker Lineup Reaches 95 with YogiPlay, Electrotank, Bare Tree Media CEOs and More
- Digital Kids Registration Ends this Friday
- Ink New Partnerships at Digital Kids
- An Interview with Joby Otero, VP of Art and Technology & Creative Director for Product and Brand, Activision & Skylander
- Universal Pictures, Lego, Microsoft, National Geographic and More Bring Digital Kids Speaker Lineup to 80+
- Digital Kids Conference Call for Volunteers
" @AnatHovavEsq please follow us at @DigitalKidsCon. Formerly Engage! Expo, we've re-branded to Digital Kids Conference, April 25-26 in L.A. " — engageexpo
