[Editor's note: This is a guest post by Martin Frindt; Co-Founder Crowdpark, developer of social betting game Bet Tycoon and slot machine app Pet Vegas on Facebook. Martin takes a closer look at user demographics behind social gambling apps and what differentiates them from real money gamblers.]

Social casino and betting games are a hot market. Gambling operators are eyeing and buying social games developers in hopes that social gamers will convert to real money gamblers or to include a new stand-alone business with a lot of growth potential into their portfolio. Social casino and betting games – with a virtual rather than real money payout – have been bringing in high revenues. The relatively small sums paid for virtual goods add up well due to the huge reach of social games. Although there are far fewer online gamblers, their lifetime value is impressively high. When offered in tandem with real money (payout) games, social casino and betting games’ revenue potential is remarkable.
Two major factors have created much excitement regarding the potential of social casino and betting games. First, Facebook has been rumored to be in talks with gambling operators to allow real money gambling on its platform. Second, there’s a greater chance than ever that the U.S. will legalize online gambling. While these important variables are being negotiated by influential parties, gambling operators and social games developers can turn their focus to game-player data. These companies must gather and interpret data determining potential synergies between virtual and real-money payout casino gaming that are not contingent on regulations beyond their control.

Successful social games require a deep knowledge of social graphs so that they are designed to generate maximum reach. And maximum reach is the key factor for monetization. Gambling operators have demonstrated their need to seek social games expertise by investing in or purchasing social games companies. Here, we investigate the player demographics and behaviors of social casino and betting games players to elaborate on why the social casino and betting games market is heating up.

Social betting games, in which users bet on sports, politics, gossip, etc., are a very new category of social game that Crowdpark is pioneering. As the number of social games grows, social casino games are becoming increasingly popular and now include: slots, bingo, blackjack, roulette and poker on Facebook. Casino games are among the best monetizing social games. The Casual Games Association Sector Report describes casino, poker and role-playing games as, on average, monetizing the best of all social games categories with 5-10 cents expected average daily revenue per daily active user (DAU). This number compares to 3-7 cents for hidden object, adventure and tournament games and 1-5 cents for puzzle, arcade, caretaking and simulation games.

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Social games developers must be extremely responsive to their players’ behavior, especially since players expect games to be constantly evolving with new features and ways to connect and compete with friends. Both virtual and real money payout online gambling games currently offered by gambling operators tend to be single player games. Social games, on the other hand, leverage a social graph to motivate gameplay through relationships. Another difference between online gamblers and social casino and betting games players is that gamblers play online games for the chance to win big while social gamers play to show off achievements and to advance in the game, as well as for fun.

The average social network games player is a 40-year-old woman, quite closely resembling the average land-based casino user. Social casino games, however, attract a slightly older population with the average player being over 45. Virtual goods purchasers in social games are 58% female, 42% male.

Social casino apps like Crowdpark's Pet Vegas appeal primarily to women.

Of top spenders, 70% are female and 30% are male. One of the most successful slots games on Facebook has a user base that’s approximately 60% female. Women, who are more likely to play casino games, are also social games’ money makers.
Social casino and betting games offer the gambling operator not only the chance to convert players to real money gaming, but also the opportunity to reach a broader audience than their traditional games. Real money online betting is notoriously male-dominated with over 90% of players being male. Overall, social games are played mostly by women, and so social betting games can achieve higher rates of female players than their real money betting counterparts.

The prospect of converting millions of social casino and betting gamers to real money gamblers is driving social games company acquisitions despite the uncertainty of major variables such as real money gambling on Facebook and its legalization in the U.S. Nonetheless, virtual payout social casino and betting games offer an opportunity for gambling operators to diversify their offerings and widen their net.

According to Wooga Diamond Dash has been downloaded over 11 million times since the release in December 2011. So what makes it so appealing that millions play it on a regular basis?

At its core Diamond Dash is a ‘Match-3’ arcade puzzle game.  Your goal is to achieve points by clearing gems in an 8×7 field. Gems can only be cleared when at least 3 gems of the same type are next to each other (not diagonal).  If the player taps on such a set of gems, they vanish and new gems fill up the field from the top changing the field and leading to a new set of gems in the field.

Every game is limited by 60 second, in which a new high score has to be set. The key to do so is to chain combos.  If you swiftly clear several gems in a row you enter an overdrive mode, where not only the matching gems are cleared but also the surrounding ones, leading to more point for you. If you keep your run up, you stay longer in this boosted mode.

Another way to earn more points is clearing gems rapidly without tapping on wrong combinations.  This will fill a meter, that when fully charged, lets a burning diamond appear in the field.  Triggering it lets a meteor crush down on the field and clearing every gem in the row of the triggered diamond.  Also playing the game for a longer period will get you advantages.

You get ‘experience stars’ with every game you play. Higher scores result in a higher amount of experience. Every level increases your score bonus. With level 12 you get access to magic spells that make it easier to get higher scores.But the true reason why this game is so addicting is the social part.

To play the game you need lives. They replenish every 7 min and stack up to a maximum of 5. You can increases your number of hearts by buying them with gold you gets for every level up. Gold can also be purchased via In-App purchase.  The less costly way to be able keeping playing is to ask friends to send you lives. To do that you can connect with your Facebook account.

Diamond Dash was one of the first games that came with Facebook Connect. This allows users to log in with their Facebook accounts. This not only makes it able share their scores and achievements on Facebook, but also to play with the same profile as in the flash version on Facebook.  This is important because you get a better chance to win weekly tournament.

Both versions are synchronized and scores are loaded into the same leader board in which you can compare your scores with those of your friends. Every week it is resented and the best player of the week gets a medal as a reward and the bragging right of being the best. This Facebook integration brings a whole new dynamic into the mobile game, because you are no longer competing with strangers in the game center but with your friends.  You know who you have beaten and also who has surpassed you in the high score.

Diamond Dash is in many ways a success. It shows how cross-gaming is done right. Not only does it manages to translate a Facebook game on to the mobile platform but also adds to the whole experience of social games.  You play on the same data base and every game matters.  Even if you are not connected with your mobile device, scores are stored and the added to the database when you are connected again.
This game really shines if you connect it with your Facebook Account, a good example how social gaming is translated onto a mobile device. If more games of this kind enter the freemium mobile market, many have to reconsider their stand to social platforms.

]]> http://www.socialgamesobserver.com/mobile-game-of-the-week-diamond-dash-14160/feed 0 http://www.socialgamesobserver.com/nexon-korea-kartrider-dash-14096 http://www.socialgamesobserver.com/nexon-korea-kartrider-dash-14096#comments Tue, 15 May 2012 10:27:27 +0000 Regina Leuwer http://www.socialgamesobserver.com/?p=14096 Nexon Korea has just launched an open beta of KartRider Dash on Facebook. The announcement comes hot on the heels of Nexon’s Q1 2012 earnings report which revealed that the company has seen a 60% year-on-year revenue increase, mostly due to achieving particularly strong results in China.

KartRider Dash is based on Nexon’s original high-speed racing action KartRider, but with the added social networking features. Last year, Nexon had launched a mobile version of the franchise, KartRider Rush. On Facebook, the game allows users to play real-time kart racing with friends and other opponents selected by a match-making system.  Social features include friend invitation, sending gifts, posting game records and weekly rankings. The game balance has also been adjusted for the social platform such as the faster charge of booster gage and easier control of attack items.

KartRider Dash features various game modes including “item mode,”“speed mode,” “team mode” and “single mode.” Players will be able to meet familiar characters, tracks and karts from its original PC version along with new Facebook-only contents.

“KartRider is a great game franchise and we believe this game will provide social gamers a similar look-and-feel that the original delivered,” said Seung chan Lee, the head of the New Development Department in Nexon Korea. Lee thinks that KartRider Dash will raise the quality level of social games by offering exciting and competitive gameplay.

KartRider Dash’s performance can be tracked on our database AppStats.

Title: Bubble Speed
Developer GameDuell
Genre: Arcade
Languages: English
Platform(s): Facebook, iOS, Web
Launch: 2011
Active users (Facebook): 380,000 DAU; 2,100,000 MAU

How to play

Ingo Vahl, Finance Director and Company Lawyer at ATLAS Interactive, will examine the impact on the German games industry and the options businesses have to avoid double taxation. The Federal Association of the Computer Games Industry (G.A.M.E. – Bundesverband der Computerspieleindustrie e.V.) and the German Association for Telecommunication and Media (DVTM Deutscher Verband für Telekommunikation und Medien) are the event organizers.

Cash flow according to industry-specific sales tax regulation until 2009

Payments from the player to the game provider follow the telecommunications chain. An example: subscriber – network operator – ATLAS Interactive – game provider. According to the “industry solution”, as reflected by Sect. 45 h para. 1 Telecommunications Act (TKG) in conjunction with Sect. 3 para. 11 Value Added Tax Law (UStG), the national network operators remit the sales tax portion of the collected earnings directly to their local tax authorities. The network operator costs and ATLAS Interactive’s margin are deducted, and the remaining amount is passed on as earnings to the client companies.

Changes in taxation since 2009

German game providers have been faced with incremental changes in this practice since 2009. The German tax authorities currently only apply the original, industry-specific scheme to domestic sales. If the paying gamer and network operator are located in another EU country, any revenues generated are still subject to German value added tax. If the foreign network operators have already remitted sales tax on the gross receipts to their local tax office, sales tax or VAT is actually paid in two instances, thus resulting in “double taxation”. This situation puts German game providers at a significant disadvantage. Until now, the German tax authorities have not established a common standard practice regarding the prevention of double taxation and application of interim rulings.

Payment service provider ATLAS Interactive is the partner of several companies in the computer games and entertainment industry marketing their digital products globally. The sale of in-game items is transacted by way of web billing, premium SMS or telephone-based billing. This is the part handled by ATLAS Interactive. Agreements must be reached with a multitude of national/local network operators around the world to ensure that text messages and phone calls are routed to the ATLAS Interactive servers. The company has implemented such arrangements in more than 85 countries to date.

]]> http://www.socialgamesobserver.com/double-taxation-burdens-german-game-publishers-14028/feed 0 http://www.socialgamesobserver.com/529-million-dena-sales-record-14019 http://www.socialgamesobserver.com/529-million-dena-sales-record-14019#comments Wed, 09 May 2012 16:32:28 +0000 Gary Merrett http://www.socialgamesobserver.com/?p=14019 Japanese mobile social game company DeNA today announced its financial results for the quarter and the fiscal year ended March 31, 2012. The company reported that its quarterly net sales performance was $529 million, 32 percent higher than the same quarter last year, and operating income rose to $234 million, 19 percent higher than the same period of the previous year.

DeNA concluded a successful fiscal year, with record-high $1.82 billion in sales and $794 million in operating income, up 29 and 13 percent respectively. DeNA is running its mobile social gaming platform Mobage and acquired social mobile game developer ngmoco in 2010. About a year ago MObage was rolled out internationally outside Japan.

“DeNA has had an eventful and fruitful quarter and year,” Isao Moriyasu, CEO of DeNA, said. “For our social games business, we invested heavily in foundation, talent, technology, partnerships and the market knowledge necessary to achieve our mission of building the world’s leading social gaming platform.

Steady growth in the last quarter confirms the value of these strategic investments and our core capabilities. Now, with Mobage live across the world, we will continue to add the best-in-breed content to our portfolio, fine-tune our platform and cement our global leadership.”

During the quarter, DeNA saw continued growth in consumption of Mobage’s cross-game currency Moba-coin, topping $640 million. During the period, DeNA launched Daum Mobage in South Korea, expaning its cross-border footprint. DeNA also shows that local Japanese titles can be successful abroad.

Japanese-developed, and localized flagship title Rage of Bahamut has been holding the number one spot on Google Play’s top-grossing charts in the U.S. and continuing to rank high in the charts in other Western markets.

These insights are based on a fresh round of National Gamers Surveys that involved 17,000 respondents, in combination with monthly iOS and Android game revenue and download data of the top 200 grossing games, a service provided by Newzoo in cooperation with Distimo.

iOS versus Android

Of all American mobile gamers, 19 million play on an iPhone, which is 28% of all smartphone gamers. An additional 18 million plays games on an iPod Touch. In the tablet gaming space, the iPad is dominant with a share of 60%, or 12.7 million Americans. Apple’s position is strongest when it comes to revenues. In March 2012, all iOS devices combined earned 84% of mobile revenues generated by the top 200 grossing games in the three stores combined: iPad, iPhone/iPod App Store and Google PlayStore. For both Android and iOS devices, the majority of money is not spent on downloading games but within the games:  an astonishing 91% for Android and 91% for iOS games. This share is significantly higher in the US than in Germany and France, where figures are between 73% and 87%. The comparison does not include advertising revenues.

Newzoo’s CEO Peter Warman: “When analyzing Apple’s successful monetization, there is one dominant factor outside of differences in audience demographics and preferences: Apple requires users to connect their credit card information directly to their account, thus creating a seamless purchase experience. I can hardly imagine any other company in the world that would be able to get away with this, including Google and Microsoft. Facebook can come a long way, but Amazon clearly has the best chance and is proving this as we speak.”

On Amazon and its Kindle Fire, Peter Warman adds: “ The Kindle Fire, being the runner-up tablet in the US only 3 months after launch, has single-handedly doubled Android’s share of revenues in the US compared to European countries. It will do the same in the UK soon after launch, but the rest of Europe might be a different story. Now that we have monthly revenue insight into game revenues across both Apple’s App Stores as well as Google PlayStore we will soon be able to report on this. And after that, there is Mac versus PC apps, and then finally… the battle for the TV. Exciting times.”

US versus other countries

Overall trends are similar for the western countries involved in the study, however there still are some significant differences when it comes to game preferences. Americans have massively switched to playing games on smartphones and tablets, with only 19% still using a regular phone for playing games. The difference with mobile players in France for instance is huge, with 34% still using their regular phone to play. Both the US and the UK have a similar share of mobile gamers who use a smartphone to play games (69% and 75% respectively). But, in the US, Android takes 16% of the revenues, whereas in the UK this figure is the lowest of all countries involved at only 6%. This big difference can be explained by the huge uptake of Kindle Fires in the US with 17.4 million active users.

Factors fueling growth

Naturally, the uptake of smartphones and tablets are the driving power of the mobile gaming market as a whole, but there are more factors that are accelerating growth. Two of these factors are the potential of “core” games on mobile devices, accompanied by the fact that tablets and smartphones have double-digit growth potential, as the role of both screens in a consumer’s life is different. Increases in processing power and screen resolution, especially in tablets, over the past several years have led to the availability of more immersive play experiences on mobile.

In 2011 already a majority of core console and PC gamers in the US (62%) are also playing games on smartphones or tablets. From a consumer’s perspective, the combination of casual gameplay and immersive experience could specifically appeal to core gamers who, as they grow older, no longer have hours to spend on learning and playing a game. An increasing number of publishers and developers are focusing on this “mid-core” market.

Title: Superball
Developer: Cookapps
Genre: Arcade
Languages: English
Platform(s): Facebook
Launch: January 2012
Active users (Facebook): 400,000 DAU; 2,000,000 MAU

How to play

Superball (sometimes also spelled ‘Super Ball’) is a very accessible arcade game that lets users shoot a limited number of cannon balls at blue and red pegs. The balls bounce off the different obstacles, not unlike in a pinball machine, until they drop on the floor. If a ball lands in a constantly moving bucket on the ground, the player is granted another one. Only red pegs need to be cleared but blue ones are often in the way, making it harder to pass a level. Hitting multiple pegs at once unlocks various rewards and bonuses.

As usual in arcade games, players spend lives to play which refill over time or can be purchased using Facebook Credits. Other items available for hard currency are boosters like the Split Ball (splits up in mid-air to hit more pegs) – these boosts are only sparsely distributed as players advance through the different levels.

Leaderboards show how well each level was mastered compared to Facebook friends. A tournament mode is available from level 35 onwards.

Superball’s viral user acquisition strategy is quite aggressive for a contemporary social game. Upon launch, 50 random friends are selected to receive invites; users have to manually opt out if they’re not in favor of sending out unwanted requests. Users are later prompted to gift lives (energy) to other peers that are not yet players of the game even though it’s implied otherwise by calling them ‘Super Ball friends’.

No reason to stop here for the Swedish company. Today their newest game Pyramid Solitaire Saga was released on Facebook. The game is exactly what the title promises: an Egypt/Pyramid themed solitaire game with the typical Saga element. After a plane crash the user needs to navigate the main character Helena out of the desert and goes through different episodes of the adventure. On the map the user can see his Facebook friends advancing, can send them lives and can see the end of the episode. The game launches with six different episodes with ten levels each. Each episodes new types of boosters can be unlocked like bonus tiles, extra time, extra jokers, mix of tiles, score boosters etc.

On every stepping stone on the map the user needs to solve a solitaire game. The sessions offer the well-known solitaire game play: Ancient Egypt style tiles are piled on top of each other. The tiles available for clearing are highlighted. The user gets a given tile and needs to select a tile one above or one below from the pile. If no matching tile is available the user can switch tiles. The process continues until the user runs out of tiles. Points are earned according to speed of level advance, amount of switched cards and bonus moves like Egyptian scarab bugs appearing. The bugs must be cleared before they leave the screen. Additionally tasks are assigned for each level the user reaches.

Pyramid Solitaire Saga fits smoothly into the King.com Saga portfolio and is targeting the same audience: 35 plus and female.

Sports Car Challenge is a 3D racing simulation. It comes with two tracks, one is “Black Forest Germany” that is an adaptation of the real racetrack “Nürburgring” and the other is the frozen “Yunlong Lake China”. The handling of the cars is significantly different on the frozen lake and the more powerful cars tend to be less manageable on it. There for it is better to take the first turns with a slower car on the German track, until you get used to the controls.

Typically for mobile racing games you steer the car with the accelerometer by turning the device. Accelerating is done automatically and to hit the brakes you have to touch the screen. For those of you who want more control, manual shifting by swiping and manual acceleration via touch screen can be enabled. As an alternative you can also use the touch screen for steering. To get the perfect view of your car or the track, you can choose from three different camera positions – a cockpit view and two outside views, for those who want to admire their car while racing.

As for other racing games the selection of cars is an essential part of the game, but since we are dealing here with a branded game it is limited. We have cars from Volkswagen Group that covers Porsche, Bugatti, Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini and of course Volkswagen. You can make photos and videos of the exterior and interior of the car and then share them on facebook. After Races you can also share your times and compare them with others in the Game Center.
Customization options are limited to color and rims, but the game has an option to visit the website or search for dealers and contact them immediately.  If you prefere to turn a few laps virtually you can choose one of three game modes; Time Trial, Slalom, Breaking. In Time Trial you try to drive the best time over track. Slalom asks you to drive a short slalom course as fast as possible and in Braking you are have to accelerate and then stop in a target zone.  All three modes can be played on both tracks.

In conclusion Sports Car Challenge is a solid free racing game for iOS devices. It doesn’t set new standards or blows anyone away, it was never meant  to. It’s purpose  is to introduce you to the brands of the Volkswagen Group, not more. Unfortunately that is not enough to be a good game. It feels like a generic racing game that has been painted with some brands. On paper it seems that everything is there, 3D, 2 Tracks, 8 Cars 3 Modes, but lack something different. It has an identity but no soul. And this is the problem with many “branded” games. Because marketers and their concept of “gamification” tend to fall short due to a misunderstanding of what makes a game a game.
Sports Car Challenge is available for free on all iOS devices in the App Store.