hi5 has just added Games to its social network. It’s yet another way to waste time on hi5, and even interact with friends as many of the games are socially-integrated. With this global launch, I actually think it’s important that hi5 focused on creating the games in a socially-integrated environment, because it extends the social capabilities of hi5 as a network and communications platform.

It’s also interesting that hi5 has decided to launch Games as a native application within its network, avoiding the open platform approach where the majority of games would be made to available to hi5 users through third party developers. If you look at a platform like Facebook’s, there are several games available to users but they’re the result of third party developers that have taken advantage of Facebook’s open platform for both access and distribution. Some of these games are more social than others, and application games overall aren’t unified, even for some separate games that come from the same developer.
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When I sat down with Shervin Pishevar, CEO of SGN, at f8 earlier this year, I asked him about whether or not his company has plans to begin developing games for the iPhone. At the time he said little more than their company is seriously considering all social platforms. For me it seemed pretty obvious that one of the primary platforms for social games would soon be the iPhone.

While the iPhone has proven to be a revolutionary platform, the applications still lack significant social features. Event SGN’s latest iPhone games aren’t very social but for now that doesn’t matter given that they are already extremely successful. Within a few days SGN’s first game, iGolf, rocketed to the top of the application charts. In just a couple weeks the company would have a second game at the top of the charts: iBowl.

At least one commenter on the iBowl application asked for the release of an iBaseball game. My guess is that they will have a whole suite of Wii-like games before all is said and done. Just a couple months ago things weren’t looking as rosy for the company. There was a lot of chatter about developers leaving the company and it appeared that active usage of the company’s Facebook applications were dropping.

While I wouldn’t say that the company was near its end, I would be willing to say that the company was navigating some extremely choppy seas. No path to success is ever easy though and SGN may have just made it through one of their first serious tests of will. Just this past week Shervin Pishevar posted a note on Facebook that at first glance sounds trippy but after looking is the executive digging deep for inspiration.

The note would also go on to inspire others and while the company is still early in its iPhone history, there is no doubt that they may have just found a better environment to play. While the path to revenue for iPhone applications is a bit more challenging, I have no doubt that SGN will be able to get there quickly. The only thing that I’m left wondering is when will SGN’s social gaming competitors follow suit onto the mobile platforms?

Yesterday SGN launched a free iPhone game called iGolf. The new application enables users to take advantage of the accelerometer to hit the ball in a fashion similar to the Nintendo Wii. This move highlights SGN’s desire to move beyond social networks and take advantage of all the new platforms. When I spoke with Shervin Pishevar, CEO of SGN at f8 earlier this summer, he suggested that they were actively considering launching new iPhone applications.

It appears that the company has decided to proceed with new platforms and also a broader strategy as they acquire more wide reaching applications like (fluff)Friends. When it comes down to it, iPhone applications can be just as social as social platform applications so it makes sense that the iPhone is included in SGN’s strategy.

Personally, I found this game to be one of the more entertaining iPhone games even though it’s extremely simple. I could see an upgradable version in which you can purchase levels and actually play on a course rather than just hit the driving range. I’ll be interested to see if SGN decides to focus more on the iPhone instead of just social platforms.

This move also emphasizes how mobile platforms and social platforms are competing for developer resources. Larger companies will be able to play in both areas but smaller development teams have been stretched to the limits and now need to choose one or the other. Honestly, any company involved in social gaming needs to be expanding on to mobile platforms. That’s because mobile is inherently social.

When the Facebook platform launched over a year ago, many observers of the new platform quickly realized that gaming was quickly becoming one of the most popular category of applications on the site. What appeared to be revolutionary about this new series of games was the turn-based model that was seamlessly integrated into the Facebook experience.

Once other platforms launched, this “new” genre of games quickly followed. At the time, I think many people were simply amazed at the sheer number of users playing extremely simple games like “Scrabulous” (which was recently shut down). What many began to realize was an explosion of casual gaming through which I believe the awareness of each others’ gaming activities was a catalyst for.

More recently I’ve been wondering about the concept of a “social games” segment as part of the general gaming industry. Prior to sharing my personal thoughts on the matter, I thought it would be best to give a general overview of social games and the companies behind them.

What are Social Games?

Within months of the platform there was an explosion of “social gaming” and soon enough, many people (including myself) were convinced that social games were the next big thing on social networks. So what exactly makes a social game different from other games? I believe that there are a few factors which differentiate social games from the others:

• Turn-based – A social game is not social unless you are playing with another person. As such, social games enable users to take turns. Turn-based games are nothing new but in the current environment, turn-based takes on a new meaning. Keep in mind that turn-based is not a requirement, just a frequent feature found in “social games”.
• Awareness of others’ actions in games – I honestly believe this was the catalyst for “social gaming.” When you could see in your news feed that your friend just bit another one of your friends to turn them into a vampire, suddenly there was social context, making you more likely to interact with the game.
• Casual gaming – “Social gaming” is not really for so called “hardcore gamers”. As it is currently referred to, social gaming is for the average user and not for someone who plans on playing 24 hours a day. Then again, that may be an unexpected side effect.
• Multiplayer – This is a no brainer. You can’t be social without there being other people so whether it’s two or two hundred users, the game has to be multiplayer for it to be social.
• Based on Social Platforms – The final component that I believe typifies “social games” is that they are based around social platforms. In the context of social gaming, social platforms provide users with an identity and also can provide the backbone for simple forms of communication (such as notifications, etc).

So for the purpose of this article I’ll go ahead and put forth a definition of social games. As you will see toward the end of this article, there is still room for debate over whether or not such forms of classification are justified. So here is my best definition of social games:

Social games are a structured activity which has contextual rules through which users can engage with one another. Social games must be multiplayer and have one or more of the following features: turn-based, are based on social platforms for providing users with an identity and are casual.

What Are the Leading Companies Creating Social Games?

Since the launch of the Facebook platform a little over one year ago, a new set of companies have emerged to tackle the social gaming market. Each different in their approach, a number of companies have begun developing a wide range of games that target a broad audience of users. Below are a few of the leading companies that are involved in social gaming in one form or another. If I miss any, please feel free to let me know.

Zynga Gaming Network
I’ve written about Zynga a number of times on this blog. The company was started by Mark Pincus (who I previously did a podcast with) and really became a leader thanks to their Texas Hold’em game which now attracts over half a million users daily on Facebook and has close to 1 million total installs on MySpace (where active daily users are not publicly reported).

The company has raised a number of rounds of funding, the most recent one bringing in a whopping $29 million. Zynga is a company to keep you eye on as they have a killer set of investors and advisors and continue to grow at a steady pace.

Social Gaming Network
Social Gaming Network was founded by Shervin Pishevar and was an outgrowth of Webs.com (formerly Freewebs) after having a successful launch of what remains to be one of their cornerstone games: Warbook. Since the launch the company has raised a number of rounds of funding including a recent round from Jeff Bezos.

While the company has been building and acquiring games, making them the 4th largest network on Facebook in terms of installs, none of the games continue have the same sort of blockbuster quality that a number of Zynga’s games have. That’s not to say that this company is out of “the game” (pardon the pun), they are far from it.

This company definitely needs to start launching new games though. While speaking with Shervin Pishevar at last week at f8, it sounded like launching a number of new games on multiple platforms is part of the short-term game plan. With this company’s team of advisors and investors, there is a ton of potential moving forward.

Kongregate
When it comes to social gaming, Kongregate was in this space before it was defined “social gaming”. The company’s largest presence is their destination site but back in May the company made a play for building their presence on social platforms with the launch of the Kongregate Facebook platform. It doesn’t appear that their first attempt was highly successful but the destination site continues to attract a considerable amount of traffic.

Kongregate attracts a network of game developers and helps them promote their games through their site. The company also occasionally develops games of their own. So far their model has been effective at generating a substantial amount of traffic. Whether or not the company can translate that success onto social platforms has yet to be seen but as long as the company keeps innovating it doesn’t matter where they decide to position themselves.

Gaia Online
Gaia is one of the other large social gaming companies that doesn’t have a substantial presence on social networks. The company has developed a site in which users interact via their own custom avatars. Those avatars can then choose to participate in games, watch movies and simply participate in the community.

Playfish
Playfish is a more recent company on the social platforms but they have a solid team of developers and management. The CEO of the company has a history in mobile gaming and is trying to convert his lessons learned to the social gaming sphere. Right now it looks like the company is doing an amazing job. They only have three games so far but each of them have over 200,000 active daily users and appear to be growing.

The company’s most popular game is Who Has the Biggest Brain? and it has been around for months as it continues to attract the attention of Facebook users. I’d keep your eye on this company as it looks like they have some big plans cooking.

Serious Business
Serious Business is best known for their immensely popular Friends for Sale application, written by Siqi Chen. The application was so popular that it has since been duplicated on the MySpace with great success by other companies that ripped off Siqi’s idea. One of those companies (or individuals) now has the most popular application on Facebook.

The company became serious about social gaming when they raised $4 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners back in April. They have yet to release a second game yet but if the second game is anywhere near as popular as their first one, this company could become a serious force to be reckoned with. They already have the 9th most popular application on Facebook so the company has a lot of opportunity to extend that success to future projects.

Are Social Games Really That Much Different?

One key thing that I’ve been trying to determine over the past couple weeks is if “social games” should really be granted their own category. While there is a new set of companies that have emerged as a direct result of the opening of social platforms, most social games mimic the features that make other multiplayer games successful.

Personally, the launch of the iPhone has transformed my idea of “social games”. There are now a number of games that I can play at dinner with my friends and family such as Connect Four, Tic Tac Toe and a number of others, all of which I would consider “social games”. While the users I’m playing against may be physically present and don’t have an identity tied to an online social network, it’s inherently a social activity.

As such, I believe that the “social gaming” networks will slowly begin to mimic traditional gaming companies and simply become part of the group. Those that don’t adapt quickly will slowly drift into oblivion while those that do adapt will quickly become leaders in the gaming industry, not just in this newly created category of “social games”.

Do you believe that social games deserve their own category? How would you define social games? Is there any important points that I missed?

This morning I was watching samples of a couple upcoming iPhone games, one of which I’ve included below. While the examples I watched were not multi-player games, I think the social aspect of many of these games are one step away. It its current form, many of the “social games” on Facebook are different versions of the games found on sites such as Miniclip.com and similar sites.

Ultimately the “social” aspect of the games is really being able to see your friends high scores. Occasionally there are even turn based games but the social games so far are just the tip of the iceberg. It appears that there are much more serious developers invested in the iPhone platform which is sure to be a big hit.

The games that have appeared so far for the new iPhone appear to be mostly single player but I could imagine turn based games and the addition of other social aspects built right into the platform. The social aspect of the Nintendo DS was one of the key selling points. After seeing how robust the games on the iPhone can be, I think we are only one step away from many of these games transforming social gaming. Do you agree?

Rolando<

Crash Bandicoot

Yesterday evening Kristen Nicole published details about a new social gaming feed that SGN, the social gaming network, plans on launching in the coming days. The new feature enables users to display all of the gaming activities that they are active in on the social web.

While I think this could be an extremely useful tool I am also rapidly realizing how the newsfeed is becoming just as ubiquitous as a user login. If this does indeed take place (which I would predict it does), we are going to witness an extension of what already has been created in “Web 2.0″: the duplication of feature sets across every product offering.

How many feeds can we possibly create? Don’t get me wrong. Creating unique feeds for each type of activity makes a lot of sense. Then again, should users be the ones that are able to do this? Seriously there should be one feed tool that enables us to customize all of the news that we would like to have displayed. I don’t want to be too cynical but we are seeing the creation of a type of redundancy that is unnecessary.

I don’t need a bazillion feeds, I don’t need thirty sites to log into and I definitely don’t need multiple identities. So how do we get to one? It’s such a simple number but such a challenging target. Am I overly cynical (if I am it’s because it is so late at night )?

One of the most explosive areas of social applications is currently gaming. It’s also garnering a lot of media attention. Just this morning the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an interesting piece on the highly competitve and rapidly evolving space. Just about every leader in the social gaming space is interviewed in the article.

I did a little research myself to see how the gaming space is panning out. Right now Zynga Game Network, lead by Mark Pincus, is leading the pack. They have continued to experience growth on Facebook and now dominate the almost 10 of the top 20 applications on MySpace. This space is still in the infant stage though and naming a winner in the space would be absolutely ridiculous. Every day I receive a new press release from another new gaming platform.

Mytopia is one company trying to conquer the social gaming space. The company’s unique twist is that they are taking all the best components of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and integrating those features into their games. Just as many of the other social gaming startups offer, they too offer a messaging platform across all of their games enabling complete communication among your friends no matter what game you are playing.

Shervin Pishevar, CEO of Social Gaming Network, accurately states in today’s chronicle article, “We’re in the Pong stages of social gaming.” There is a lot of innovation that will take place over the coming years and we are going to see a boom in the social gaming player user base. Anybody can participate in social games and that’s the best part. Social gaming will succeed at targeting the same base of users that Nintendo effectively targeted with the launch of the Wii.

Do you have any favorite social games that you play on a regular basis?

Mytopia Screenshot

Zynga Traffic Chart

SGN Traffic Chart

The battle continues to become the leader in the social gaming space. There was a lot of debate over the weekend surrounding Fred Wilson’s claim that the Social Gaming Network is not a legitimate competitor to the Zynga gaming network. Tonight, Erick Schonfeld has posted that the Social Gaming Network has added Jetman and Free Gifts to their gaming network. This is not an acquisition but instead a partnership.

That’s not where it ends though. The drama is heating up as Caroline McCarthy emphasized last week. Following Schonfeld’s post which included a statement from Shervin stating “If you want to be a developer platform, you probably shouldn’t be copying developers’ games. If you want to compete with them, fine. That is why they are joining us,” Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga, sent in a message contesting Schonfeld’s post:

Wow erick.

A) you give them credit for traffic they don’t even own
And
B) you won’t give us credit for traffic (clz apps) we do actually own.

Do you even care how hypocritical sherwin is to accuse me of copycat games when he copied free gifts on bebo and risk on fb? Getting the irony? He is partnering with an app he literally copied in december while accusing me of this?

Erick, with all due respect I’m wondering if you work for sgn now?

There is a ton of drama stirring. While it may not all be justified, the highly competitive duo are each working to build gaming empires on the back of Facebook applications. It’s a high risk scenario and in high risk situations tempers flare. I’d expect the drama to continue.

When I got the information last night about Zynga’s developer network I figured that they were pretty much defining themselves as the leaders in the social gaming space. Apparently the Social Gaming Network was aware of the announcement and, according to Caroline McCarthy also decided to make the same one. At this point developers are getting spread thin across multiple platforms. Then again, developers have always been required to learn development for new platforms on a regular basis.

I think this is a great move but I also think that it will be difficult to attract developers en masse because of the development requirements of building a new game. Regular programmers were able to launch new applications and simple games overnight. Robust flash games on the other hand take a little more development time and also typically require design input. As such, the barrier to entry is already set higher then the average social platform.

Even still, this is a big play and for those companies that decide to create new flash based games, these platforms could prove to be extremely useful distribution channels. Caroline McCarthy has also highlighted the rivalry between the two companies (and founders):

Shervin Pishevar [who we previously interviewed] has been critical of Zynga’s games, which he claims infringe upon existing ones (Sea Wars, for example, is a lot like Battleship), and company representatives have said that they think Zynga’s popularity metrics are exaggerated. Both gaming start-ups claim to be “the biggest social gaming network.” It might not be HD DVD vs. Blu-ray, but this is a rivalry that could get ugly.

As I continue to say, this is one area in social technology to keep your eyes on. It’s going to be big.

This may not be as big as the Facebook platform but it’s pretty significant. Zynga Networks, the social gaming network created by Mark Pincus, has announced that they are opening their network to third-party game publishers and developers. When launching a game on this network, publishers and developers will gain access to social gamers on Facebook, Bebo, Friendster, Meebo and MySpace. This is the same strategy that Facebook took and this definitely has the potential to work.

If you think of Pogo.com, the online gaming site owned by Electronic Arts, they have had to develop each one of the games on their site. Yahoo had a similar game portal (they still do but it is not as active anymore) that hosted a plethora of games but it was limited to what Yahoo! developers could produce. This new service lowers the barriers for developers, grants them access to millions of users and also provides them with ways to monetize their applications.

This is a win/win situation for both developers and Zynga. Developers get widespread exposure and Zynga gains brand recognition as the go to network for social games. Zynga owns some of the most popular gaming applications on Facebook and other social networks and has been steadily increasing their reach over the past few months. We covered the network back in January and since then Zynga has continued to gain momentum. If there is one area to be bullish on in social networks, social gaming is it.