I recently had a chance to chat with several leading executives from top social gaming companies for my first Social Times Pro report, “Virtual Goods in Social Games: What Sells Best, Who Buys Most, and How Your Company Can Profit”. This is a must read if you’re in the industry.
Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews. 
Backyard Monsters, from Casual Collective, is the social game for gamers who usually hate social games. Mixing real-time strategy gaming with offbeat visual cuteness, it plays like a slow motion version of Starcraft crossed with a Pixar movie, and while most of the biggest social games have recently hit a growth plateau, Backyard Monsters has been growing quickly since July. It now boasts nearly 900K monthly active users, and CEO Will Harbin told me it should reach a million monthlies in a couple weeks. Given current trends, Harbin believes Monsters could ultimately grow to 15-20 million monthly actives; even more impressive, Harbin says the game is already cash flow positive. So its success is proof positive a relatively complex “gamer’s game” can work on a social network, and offers a bunch of interesting takeaways for developers and gamers alike:
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