Facebook Credits gift cards set to rule the world. First stop: Target

It's official -- Target has everything. In addition to buying camping supplies, kitchen equipment and cheap designer duds, you will soon be able to buy Facebook Credits gift cards.

Starting September 5, Target will be the first retailer to carry these cards, which will be available for $15, $25 and $50. The $15 card will be available exclusively at Tar-zhay.

If you play social games, you know that Facebook Credits are quickly becoming a popular way to buy virtual items in games such as FarmVille, Mafia Wars, Bejeweled Blitz, City of Wonder, FIFA Superstars and more. To see a complete list of games that accept Facebook Credits, go here.

Considering that Americans are predicted to spend 1.6 billion on virtual goods and social games this year and Facebook Credits is quickly becoming the de facto currency for making those purchases, we're sure that we will be seeing these bright blue cards in every big box retailer when the 2010 holiday buying season rolls around.

Hey, I'm not complaining. I already plan to ask St. Nick to stuff a few of these in my stocking as well. The only people that might have a problem with these cards are folks who work for FarmVille publisher Zynga (which has its own special form of currency for its games). We'll see who wins out in this virtual currency battle in the end.

Do you use Facebook Credits to buy virtual items in games? Or something else?

AM Linkage: Zynga worth more than Electronic Arts, How to prep for zombie invasion

Zynga's Value Tops Electronic Arts as Virtual-Goods Sales Surge [Bloomberg]

10 games to help you prepare for a zombie invasion [Gamasutra]

Why social game maker Zynga wants a patent on virtual currencies [Venture Beat]

Report: Your Office Cube-Mate is Stalking Your Facebook Wall [Social Times]

Zynga "expanding operations into Ireland" [Gamesindustry.biz]

Facebook, Groupon And Zynga Investor Mail.ru (aka, DST) Shoots For $5.7B Valuation In IPO [TechCrunch]

What Disney Got in the Playdom Acquisition [Inside Social Games]

Facebook mobile social games will grow industry at once, CTO expects

When Facebook launched its mobile apps and games platform on iPhone and iPad, we were admittedly confused. But after Facebook CTO Bret Taylor (pictured) spoke with mocoNews, we have a better idea of what Facebook is getting at with "Project Spartan." According to Taylor, Facebook hopes to go 100 percent cross platform with Facebook Mobile through the mobile web, but its master plan goes deeper still.

"It really addresses some of the areas I've heard a lot of concerns about from mobile developers, and it plays to our strengths," Taylor told mocoNews. "For startups, it's very difficult to get their apps discovered. They have a honeymoon period in the app stores where they might be in a top 10 list and get a lot of downloads, but once that honeymoon period is over, discovery is very difficult. By integrating with these social channels in mobile, they can get discovered in really organic ways."

Facebook looks to bring the discoverability of Facbook games and apps to mobile. Sure, Facebook has the support of some major game creators with HTML5-based versions of Words with Friends, FarmVille and even wooga's new Magic Land. But at the moment, users have to search for these apps through Facebook's iOS app or mobile web presence--not exactly an ideal method for discovery.

It sounds like Taylor and Facebook look to grow the mobile and social games industries all at once across all platforms including Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry. To do that, Facebook is encouraging more developers to create HTML5 or native mobile app versions of their social games that Facebook Mobile can redirect to, which is about the only way we see this method working. However, with game shares (at least for non-gamers to see) almost entirely in the Ticker--which doesn't exist on mobile--where do the new social gamers come in?

America 2049 on Facebook: A dismal game about a dismal future

Professionals and supporters alike have clamored for social game developers to use the rallying powers of Facebook to create interesting interactive experiences that spur players to change the world around them. A noble cause, sure, but the struggle has always been the fun factor. Can you spur people's desire to change their abysmal environment without them knowing that they're doing it? After playing America 2049, a Facebook game by Breakthrough (a company that uses popular culture and media to raise awareness to severe social issues), it's beginning to seem as if that's impossible.

Don't worry, this isn't some bash session: America 2049 is a finely-designed game with a start-studded cast of characters like Harold Perrineau of Lost, Victor Garber from Alias, Cherry Jones of 24, Rent's Anthony Rapp, and comedian Margaret Cho. In other words, Breakthrough spent a lot of money to not only garner some notoriety for its game, but for its creation as well. America 2049 looks fantastic, and while it is just a series of menus and maps, those are damned beautiful menus and maps.

America 2049 Clue
The game starts with an immense premise: You are a new member of the Council on American Heritage and the country has collapsed. It's up to you to find out what went wrong and reclaim the American culture for good use in the future. You must follow a series of clues by commanding "operatives" to uncover spots on a map. These spots may or may not hide clues to the puzzle squares, which normally amount to word puzzles or code cracking.

Of course, these actions all consume Energy, which will replenish over time or recharged with capsules you'll find in otherwise empty squares. Unfortunately, it's all as boring as it sounds. However, playing the game for longer than a few minutes will unlock some seriously intriguing stuff. Breakthrough has created an entire alternate reality through mock news websites, blogs and even a website representing "your organization," the Council on American Heritage. Eventually you must use this crafty little alternate-reality to find answers to the games more difficult puzzles.

America 2049 Information Reward
While set almost half a century into the future, it's all a clever way to raise awareness to the scars on the face of America and other developed countries today. It most definitely is galvanizing to be reminded of societal plagues like violence, division and corruption with such a perspective albeit fictional. America 2049 is a success in its mission, but the lack of engaging gameplay might bring the excitement to change the face of America to lukewarm temperatures.

Click here to play America 2049 on Facebook Now>

Have you tried America 2049 yet? What do you think of social games built around the goal of social change?

Little Cave Hero on Facebook mines for fun, strikes gold

Who remembers Dig Dug? You know, that classic 2D arcade game in which you dig through blocks of dirt, avoid obstacles and hunt underground monsters? (Maybe Mr. Driller rings a bell?) Play Little Cave Hero for about five minutes and the similarities become unmistakable, but trust us, this is a good thing. Developed and published by Chile-based Atakama Labs, Little Cave Hero embodies exactly what made those classic arcade games so nostalgic, while introducing interesting social features.

Upon logging into the game, its adorable pixelated graphics hearken back to a time when games delivered a sense of awe to your 6-year-old self. You are a miner, one of many who the mayor of a miscellaneous town has enlisted to help rebuild his city in ruins. To make it happen, you must venture into a series of small mines to dredge up resources and treasure. And like most social games these days, your day-to-day activities are guided through quests.

The Town ... and Mayor
But Atakama Labs decided to alleviate the monotony with a dash of humor. In fact, your interactions with the mayor will probably make for the funniest quest dialog you've ever read in a social game. The mayor essentially breaks the fourth wall with every chance he gets, making quips at the more obscure aspects of not just social games, but video game culture in general. All in all, it makes completing a seemingly endless amount of fetch quests a chuckle-worthy experience.

Atakama Labs isn't above borrowing the concepts that work in social games. Free gifts are aplenty, as are buildings, crafting materials and paid currency (known as Crowns). Little Cave Hero achieves that ultimate social game balance: Players gather resources to create new buildings; players use these buildings to create new tools to find better items and resources; finally, players use those resources and treasures to build even more grandiose buildings. And the cycle continues.

Gallery: Little Cave Hero

The crux of Little Cave Hero is how you find those resources and buried treasure, and it's brilliant. It's quite simple, really. Just click on the blocks in the direction of where the treasure chest is, busting through soil, gravel and sometimes rare gems. Of course, each block destroyed, key acquired and chest opened consumes one Energy point, which leads to what ultimately makes this game so refreshing.

Each mining mission is graded on a scoring system based on the amount of Energy you use to get from the origin point to the ever-present treasure chest. However, certain blocks will require more than one whack to destroy, so you must choose your moves wisely and plan ahead. The less Energy you use, the higher your score will be by the end of it all, which results in more coins and more XP to level up with. Read this paragraph again and see if it clicks: Atakama Labs wants you to play for as long as possible without spending money.

Little Cave Hero score
In fact, it's challenging you to do just that. Never have I heard of a developer do this, and it makes for one of the most admirable games you'll have played in a long time. So, go on and see how many A+ ratings you can score--just cancel any appointments you might have for the next hour.

Click here to play Little Cave Hero on Facebook Now >

Have you tried this game on Facebook yet? What do you think of Atakama's approach to the Energy system?

UK Facebook users could soon gamble their earnings away (for real)

As in, gamble their real cash away with the chance of actually winning money in return. According to eGaming Review (eGR) [paywall link], Facebook is talking with a number of UK operators to possibly open up its platform to real-money gambling. And the change could happen as soon as the first quarter in 2012. We can almost hear the sobs of British men in the gutter already from bad Zynga Poker matches.

eGR reports, citing anonymous sources (of course), that Facebook is considering providing eight licenses to UK operators looking to get into a market that developers are already trying to crack. According to the website, Facebook is already staffing up in preparation for the initiative. This type of thing is likely years away from happening in the US, where online gambling is, for all intents and purposes, illegal.

The UK-based online gambling companies in question reportedly include Gamesys and 888 Holdings. However, more details on how age gates, payment solutions or revenue splits between Facebook and the companies would work aren't available. The website speculates that Facebook could be using the UK as a testbed for similar efforts in other countries.

The news comes as particularly striking considering the number of mock-casino and betting games that have hit Facebook in recent months from DoubleDown Casino to Yazino's games and Bet Tycoon, to name a few. In fact, Yazino CEO Hussein Chahine thinks that the social gaming market would be vastly different today if not for how the US handled online gambling prior to the rise of the genre. Well, it looks like those floodgates are about to open--at least elsewhere in the world.

[Via TechCrunch]

[Image Credit: Gabriel Not]

Would you ever gamble real money on a Facebook game? What do you think is the likelihood of such games hitting the US?

Facebook updates formula for active users, player numbers plummet

Just before the weekend, Facebook threw everyone for a loop with a new approach to calculating just how "active" monthly active users are of its thousands of apps, namely social games. And as a result, the numbers of monthly active players of just about every Facebook game and developer have dropped significantly. And we say "significantly" because of Facebook's reasoning behind the change.

"Given that most apps work this way, we're changing our active user figures for Apps on Facebook to publicly report the number of users that authenticate with the app," Facebook's Rushi Desai writes. "We believe this shift from "visitors" to "authenticated users" more accurately reflects the usage of an application, and it brings our measurement methodology for apps into alignment with how we measure engagement on Facebook."

What Facebook is essentially saying is that it is no longer counting the users who visit an app or game's Canvas, but refuse to authenticate the app and leave the page before ever entering the game. Instead, Facebook will now only count the amount of users that actively log into the app or game per month.
CityVille MAU
The company goes on to say that the one-time drop will result in a perceived decline in the number of active users of its many social games and apps, but the number of users actually engaging with the apps is unchanged. But that's just it: Regardless of whether the same rough portion of players have been "actively engaging" with games like CityVille this month, this still means that nearly 20 million people merely visited the app in the last month and did not play the game. And that goes for not just CityVille, but Facebook games across the board.

This is certainly a positive change for all, as it promotes a more accurate measure of just how many players are actually playing these still-massive social games. However, the change reveals how many players are actually logging into these games every month as opposed to merely visiting. And no matter how you slice it, the numbers are smaller than previously imagined.

[Via Inside Facebook]

[Image Credit: AppData]

Do you agree that this new measure is revealing as to just how many active players there are of most Facebook games? Do you think this change will help or hurt Facebook game developers in the long run?

Are social games cool now? Gen Y is 30 percent of US social gamers

Social games aren't just going "hardcore", but it seems they're no longer just for old middle-aged folk. According to an eMarketer report citing data from Information Solutions Group (ISG), 30 percent of US social gamers are between 18 and 29 years old. That figure is as of September of this year, and in January 2010, Generation Y made up for just 15 percent.

With that change, the average age of the social gamer has dropped from 45 to just above 41 years old. So, social gamers are getting younger--how did this happen? Well, "hardcore" games are generally for younger audiences, so perhaps the recent boom in strategy games on Facebook accounts for at least some of this shift. Generally speaking, social games are slowly becoming more visually attractive and action-packed. Take The Sims Social, CastleVille and Mafia Wars 2, for instance.

As for what this could mean, social game makers are likely going to create games that are more appealing to this younger crowd. That's especially considering the data from ISG finds that younger social gamers are more likely to pay up for virtual items. Will 2012 be the year of the Facebook shooter? Probably not, but you can probably expect more games like this.

Will social games change now that younger players are getting into the mix? If so, how will they change, and if not, why should they remain the same?

3 Blokes launches strategic assault on Facebook with Galactic Allies

We can almost hear the 3 Blokes team in Australia screaming "Fire everything!" as they hit the proverbial "Launch" button on its first Facebook game under publisher RockYou, Galactic Allies. (It would be most appropriate, no?) Real-time strategy fans can jump in on the thrill of space-faring, asynchronous player vs player combat, complete with 3D visuals.

Essentially, Galactic Allies is RockYou and 3 Blokes's answer to the growing trend of hardcore strategy games on Facebook. However, the duo make a point of mentioning that this is a more casual approach to the burgeoning sub genre, and that the game features a heavy focus on an episodic storyline. And in keeping with current trends sparked by developers like Kixeye in War Commander, players can control units individually.
Gallery: Galactic Allies on Facebook
This means you'll likely be able to maneuver your starships around enemy fire, adding another layer of strategy to combat in the game. "Galactic Allies alters expectations for what a Facebook game can be," said 3 Blokes VP and GM George Fidler in a release. "It's a deep and compelling strategy game, but with the accessibility of a browser game." (It also looks like it takes the general idea behind Galactic Trader, one of 3 Blokes's first games, and blows it wide open using some familiar art assets.)

Hopefully this accessible approach will apply to the litany of upgrades players will accumulate across various missions and episodes. Judging from these early screen shots, it looks like Galactic Allies will focus heavily on dialog, but more importantly: Battles will take place both on the surface of alien planets and far above them in the infinite void. In other words, there will be plenty of things high and low to make go boom in Galactic Allies.

Click here to learn more about Galactic Allies on Facebook >

Are you a fan of strategy games on Facebook? How do you think Galactic Allies might size up against its competition? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment

Facebook games could get crazy good graphics with Unreal Engine 3

That's right, you supposed 80 million hardcore gamers on Facebook, Gears of War maker Epic Games announced that the upcoming Adobe Flash Player 11 will support its Unreal Engine 3. Considering the majority of Facebook games are created and played using Flash, we can't imagine it will be long before social game makers craft Facebook games in gorgeous 3D.

Kotaku reports that the Flash version of Epic Games's Unreal Engine 3, the technology through which numerous hardcore console game series like Unreal Tournament and Mass Effect are made, appears less powerful than on PCs and consoles. Regardless, this marks a huge step toward 3D gaming on Facebook, considering other methods like Unity have yet to catch on.

That's mainly because games that use the Unity Player requires an additional download, which could arguably scare less technologically-savvy players away. Flash requires no download, aside from the occasional update, though that's merely thanks to Flash's growing ubiquity. It's also important to note that Apple's iOS devices support Unreal Engine 3, meaning developers could create games that run similarly on both Facebook and iPhones or iPads. (Infinity Blade on Facebook, anyone?)

This type of cross-platform play is something social game makers have clamored for awhile now, many of which turning to HTML5 to make it happen. (Even Zynga mobile chief David Ko said that HTML5 is still too early.) But with the possibility for full 3D games that players could play between their iPhones and on Facebook, it's possible that developers could come running back to Flash. Check out what Unreal Engine 3 looks like on Flash Player 11, though not yet in motion, here.

Are you excited to hear that Flash games, primarily Facebook games, will be capable of full 3D graphics? How do you think this might change the enormous social games industry? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment