Virtual Goods Wrap-Up For The Week Of April 30

By On May 1, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Welcome to the Virtual Goods News Wrap-Up for the week of March 30, 2010. The Wrap-Up is where VGN spotlights stories that we didn't get to cover individually, but still make for interesting reading about the virtual goods industry. A Bridge Too Far Digital Chocolate founder Trip Hawkins criticizes Facebook, saying that changes the social [...]

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DeNA Reports Record 2009 Revenue

By On April 30, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Today the Japanese social game developer DeNA announced that it had earned $517 million in revenue in 2009, a record high. The company earned $205 million in Q4 alone, an 81% year-over-year increase and a new record for single-quarter earnings.  The company expects its record growth to continue, too. DeNA is projecting Q1 2010 earnings [...]

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Moblyng Partners With Playdom, Raises $2.65M

By On April 30, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Today the social game developer Playdom announced that it would partner with Moblyng to release versions of its top games Mobsters, Sorority Life, and Social City for Android and Palm's webOS. The Android version of Mobsters is currently available. Moblyng also announced that it had raised another $2.65 million from existing investors Mohr Davidow Ventures and [...]

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Fast Pay Partners Offers Advances To Social Game Devs

By On April 30, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Payment delays can be a serious problem for social game start-ups, one usually addressed by amassing enough venture capital to survive between checks. This week Fast Pay Partners announced that it was going into business to provide social developers with an alternative to taking investment funds.  What Fast Pay Partners provides is essentially a loan [...]

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Treasure Isle Passes Mafia Wars

By On April 29, 2010 · Leave a Comment

This week saw Zynga's four-week-old Treasure Isle game hit the 24.3 million monthly active users mark, according to AppData. This means Treasure Isle has been adding new players at the rate of roughly one million per day. Treasure Isle is now Zynga's fourth-largest game, behind Cafe World, Zynga Poker, and FarmVille.  This makes Treasure Isle [...]

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CrowdStar Files Suit Against Wonderhill

By On April 28, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Today the social game developer Crowdstar filed suit against rival developer Wonderhill, claiming plagiarism. This is rare in social gaming, where developers routinely "clone" each other's hit titles. Regardless, Crowdstar is alleging that Wonderhill's fish care game Aquarium Life bears an excessive resemblance to its own entry in the genre, Happy Aquarium.  Crowdstar's complaint against [...]

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Yahoo! Japan Partners With DeNA For Social Games

By On April 27, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Today Web portal Yahoo! Japan announced that it would partner with leading Japanese social network DeNA to distribute social games. The partnership would allow users playing social games on the network, tentatively titled Yahoo! Mobage, to pay for in-game virutal goods using the Yahoo!Wallet service.  The network and all its games would be compatible both [...]

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Foursquare Partners With VH1

By On April 27, 2010 · Leave a Comment

This week Foursquare rolled out the latest of its many brand partnerships, this time with music entertainment network VH1. The network has created its own Foursquare account, which it's using to post "tips" about locations featured in its latest reality show, What Chilli Wants, a dating-oriented series. These tips appeared both on the Foursquare service [...]

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Virtual Goods Wrap-Up For The Week Of April 23

By On April 24, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Welcome to the Virtual Goods News Wrap-Up for the week of April 23, 2010. The Wrap-Up is where VGN spotlights stories that we didn't get to cover individually, but still make for interesting reading about the virtual goods industry. Cultivated Play: FarmVille A.J. Patrick Liszkiewicz argues that FarmVille became popular by abusing the average person's [...]

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FarmVille Expanding To iPhone, iPad, Android, SMS

By On April 22, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Evidence surfaced this week that makes it seem very likely that Zynga will soon expand its hit FarmVille game to the iPhone, iPad, and Android platforms, while also adding support for SMS gameplay. Zynga has purchased the domains FarmVilleAndroid.com, FarmVilleiPad.com, FarmVilleiPhone.com, and FarmVilleSMS.com according to information found by Internet sleuthing site Superannuation.  Tweet

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