If the growing number of games being played on it are any indication, then San Francisco-based micro-messaging service Twitter has the potential to become the next major casual gaming hub. The thought first came to me a few weeks ago, when I discovered Spymaster, a game that allows you to run your own spy ring. Every action in the game is tweeted to your followers. After an initial burst, the game activity has moderated somewhat, but in the meantime it got me thinking about Twitter-based games, of which there are many. Continue »

We’re playing more online games than ever before, but we’re paying less for them, interactive marketing firm Future Ads said today. Of the 8,000 online casual gamers surveyed by the company this spring, 61 percent reported gaming more than last year, while nearly 80 percent of those who also own a video game console said they’ve been making “significant” spending cuts in console-related purchases due to their cost. (Separately, NPD reported a drastic dip in May 2009 video game sales, down 23 percent from the same month last year.)

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Offerpal Media, a Fremont, Calif.-based startup that links virtual currency from social games to real-world marketing deals, is suing startup Kickflip, alleging breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets and unlawful business practices, among other claims, according to court documents. Kickflip, headquartered in San Jose, Calif., is the creator of social games payment engine Gambit.

Offerpal alleges in the suit, which was filed in the Northern California District Court in late April, that Kickflip used Offerpal’s web service for two of its online gambling applications — Sports Bets and Bet Arcade — and applied the information it procured about Offerpal’s business model towards developing Gambit. If the court documents are any indication, the case will be an intriguing one to follow. From the filing: Continue »

When Google launched its O3D browser plug-in for displaying rich 3D graphics last month, I was dubious that the virtual world industry would eagerly embrace it as a platform for future MMOs. Most of the larger casual virtual worlds, like Habbo and Gaia Online, run on Flash; Mozilla and the Khronos Group are already developing their own 3D graphics API for Firefox. There’s also a lot of insider buzz about Unity 3D’s web plug-in, which already has an install base of 10 million, a company representative recently told me, and is the chosen platform for several major MMOs in development. What’s more, the weak launch and hasty execution of Google’s own virtual world, Lively, suggested the company had given up on the space.

After this weekend, however, I think O3D deserves a closer look from MMO makers. Continue »

There’s a new entrant in the rapidly growing market for retail cards and virtual goods for online games today: the Zeevex Virtual Currency Exchange. The coin of the realm is Zeev Tokens, which can be purchased via retail cards sold at thousands of brick-and-mortar stores, redeemed and stored online, where it can be used to buy virtual goods from participating partners’ games. Continue »

Booyah, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup developing a “playful life companion” for the Apple iPhone/iPod touch, just scored $4.5 million in Series A financing from the iFund of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. (Om wrote about KPCB’s $100 million app funding initiative last year.) The funding comes a month after Ngmoco, another iPhone game startup, launched with Kleiner Perkins backing, announced a second funding round of $10 million. No word yet on what exactly Booyah’s product will be, but the announcement hints at an MMO linked to real-world activity. (At any rate, they’re currently taking sign-ups for a private beta test.) Its three founders — CEO Keith Lee, CCO Brian Morrisroe, and CTO Sam Christiansen — are all alum of World of Warcraft creator Blizzard Entertainment, so expect a sleek, broadly appealing product designed with maximum stickiness.

When it comes to MMOs, freemium worlds for kids are enormously popular and lucrative; for the most part, however, the major game publishers have done little to pursue this market. That changes this month with the launch of Free Realms, a colorful virtual world from Sony Online Entertainment. Since this new franchise is targeted at kids, including girls, Sony changed its approach from the ground up. The developer of the Everquest series and other MMORPGs aimed at the 18-34 gamer dude demographic threw out long-held assumptions about what made online worlds appealing, and used market research to learn what kids actually wanted. Turns out that instead of dramatic backstories and complex gameplay, kids want free-form fun and tools for telling their own stories.

Has Sony’s kid-friendly effort succeeded? Based on my first-hand look at the beta version of Free Realms, I’d say yes — at least enough to prove that the big game developers can play in the space. However, I’m not convinced that Free Realms can capture attention away from Habbo, Club Penguin, and other scrappy pioneers in this field just yet. Here’s my take. Continue »