Social Gaming

Next week, Enrique Iglesias fans will be blessed with an Avatar of the popular singer for the Zynga’s “CityVille” social game. The game is the company’s most popular title with 71 million monthly visitors. On Tuesday, players of the Facebook game will be able to interact with Iglesias character when he visits their cities. They [...]

Social game developer, RockYou, and the marketing research firm, Interpret, announced the latest findings of their ‘Social Gamer Thought Leadership Study’. The study is the first-of-its-kind as it analyzes behaviors, motivations, and purchase intent among the US social gaming demographic. The results both reaffirm existing assumptions and provide some insightful information about social gamers. More after the jump. Read more

Mobile social gaming network OpenFeint has just appointed Sarah Thomson, a former Glu Mobile and IUGO executive, as its Director of Developer Relations. Thomson is a heavy hitter in the mobile gaming world. As such, OpenFeint hopes to utilize her insight and deep connections to continue building its relationships with both traditional and free-to-play developers.

Tagged, the social network that specializes in helping people meet others, recently announced the acquisition of WeGame, a San Francisco based game discovery startup. Tagged has been hosting social games for quite some time and this acquisition signifies their continued emphasis on keeping users around through social game discovery.

The platform tracks how good each user’s advice is throughout the season, and is placed in appropriate guru category.

Social gaming development studio RockYou recently announced its release of Galactic Allies, an RTS game for Facebook. Galactic Allies was developed by 3 Blokes, an Australian-based team owned by RockYou. Can RockYou’s game hit a trajectory?

Companies progress forward by maintaining stability yet occasionally instituting dynamic change in leadership. Kabam, a major player in the social gaming space, announced Steve Klei will be assuming the role of Chief Financial Officer. We just covered a major shift in executive leadership at OpenFeint – namely John Citron being replaced by Naoki Aoyagi as CEO. At a time when social innovation is gripping tightly on the gaming industry, Kabam is making big plays in their growth as a company.

Naoki Aoyagi, ex-head of GREE International, has just been named the new CEO of Openfeint. Aoyagi will be replacing Jason Citron as he moves on to pursue other endeavors. While sudden shifts to the chief executive role occasionally appear out of left field, Aoyagi has been with GREE, Openfeint’s parent company for 5 years, having joined in 2006.

Competitive social gaming giant King.com announced today the launch of Bubble Witch Saga, a game available on Facebook. While the initial launch is only available on Facebook, King.com intends cross-platform portability on mobile devices later this year.

Tokyo based mobile social-gaming giant DeNA announced a plan of acquisition for Punch Entertainment Vietnam, a subsidiary of California-based Punch Entertainment Inc. As part of the acquisition, Punch Entertainment Vietnam brings engineering talent that will support to scale Mobage, the offspring of DeNA and ngmoco.