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Tapjoy Hits a Milestone With 10,000 Apps

Azam Khan — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:30:26 +0000

Today Tapjoy has hit a major landmark of attaining over 10,000 apps in its network through its latest partnerships with OMGPOP and Moblyng among others. This milestone is significant because it shows that there are at least that many freemium based apps utilizing virtual currency to monetize their apps. More after the jump.

Apart from virtual currency based monetization offerings on Android, Tapjoy is still making strides on iOS by offering monetization solutions to publishers through videos, and high-quality CPA offers. Some of the recent partners in addition to OMGPOP and Moblyng include Craneballs Studios, Game Circus and Spry Fox. If you don’t already know, Tapjoy’s solution can be plugged into apps so that consumers can earn in-app virtual goods or currency in exchange for completing various tasks from Tapjoy’s platform.

“Free-to-play titles are driving user experience and engagement in mobile, and we are honored to partner with so many of the best and fastest growing developers leading this charge,” said Mihir Shah, president and CEO of Tapjoy. “Our developers tell us that nearly one-third of their total revenue comes from our platform, which speaks to the tremendous consumer demand for easy-to-use and 100% trustworthy alternative payment options like ours.”

Tapjoy is apparently delivering over 1.5 million ad completions everyday for app developers and brand advertisers and its partners are happy with the results. OMGPOP’s latest title Puppy World on iOS, which has garnered over 1M downloads, plugged in Tapjoy’s ad platform and is seeing great success. They plan on continuing using Tapjoy as they expand to Android. Craneballs Studios’ free-to-play title Overkill has also integrated Tapjoy’s ad platform, a choice the company made after evaluating various other solutions on the market.

“Tapjoy is a true partner in every sense of the word,” said Mike Wagner, owner of Game Circus, developers of hit mobile games such as Coin Dozer, Cookie Dozer and Prize Claw, which was voted one of the top free mobile games in July by AOL’s Games Blog. “Not only does their monetization platform generate incremental revenue that is critical to our freemium strategy, but their distribution channel – and especially their innovative engagement ad units on Android – delivers extremely high-value new users at remarkable scale.”

Having raised $21M in January, Tapjoy’s solutions remain one of the most popular in the community despite encountering an Apple-induced gauntlet against incentivized installs. In March Tapjoy announced a fund for developers that would pour resources and capital into pre-launch games to expose them to Tapjoy’s network of over 100M social mobile gamers.

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Interview: Jun Group’s Corey Weiner Hopes You’d Watch A Web Video For Facebook Game Prizes. Would You?

Neil Vidyarthi — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:21:47 +0000

Would you watch a video to get some virtual currency in your favorite social game? Jun Group, a New York social video advertising business, is betting that you would. I had the chance to sit down with Corey Weiner, co-founder and Chief Product Officer for Jun Group, to discuss how two of the web’s fastest emerging trends — video and social games — can work together to help gamers, advertisers and platforms alike.

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What EXACTLY is Zynga Trying To Do With RewardVille?

CJ Arlotta — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 14:30:16 +0000

Zynga is an interesting developer. I have always believed, as well as other critics of Zynga, that their games do not have any challenge to them. Users are not confronted with obstacles that take a lot of work to overcome. Sure, building a city can be hard at times, but you aren’t penalized for building a road a certain way or placing a building in a particular area. Zynga pushes its users to believe that there are no negative outcomes in their games — only positive ones. RewardVille acts as another barrier between the world of Zynga and the real world that we live in. continued…

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SupersonicAds' BrandConnect Simplifies In-Game Brand Engagements

Azam Khan — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 08:33:05 +0000

International virtual currency monetization firm SupersonicAds has launched a solution for their publishers called BrandConnect that lets them monetize their content using Cost-Per-Engagement campaigns. More after the jump. continued…

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Does Digital Content Slash A Developer's Profits?

CJ Arlotta — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 15:00:53 +0000

Ubisoft, a video game developer and publisher, claims that digital content — products that are available digitally — is costing the company money. CEO, Yves Guillemot, spoke very highly regarding the future of digital content in the gaming industry, but also claimed that digital content is placing a burden on the company. Guillemot clarified that just because a game is popular, does not mean the game is profitable – a lesson to be learned by smaller developers. continued…

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Social Times’ Top Stories Of The Week – February 7, 2011

CJ Arlotta — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:45:31 +0000

After watching Super Bowl commercials, did you rank them the same as Hulu? If not, maybe you’ll laugh out loud reading CJ Arlotta’s Ravenwood Fair Brings Some Humor to the Wild-Forest Town-Fair-Bulding Genre article or join Bilal Hammed as he discusses why Social Media Has Become Cuba’s Worst Nightmare. Either way, take a look at our headlines for the week!

If any of you would like to contribute to my selection each week, drop me an e-mail at cjarlotta”at”socialtimes.com for your suggestion.

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Google Trend Setting Can Help Break Game Creators’ Writing Block

CJ Arlotta — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 09:40:31 +0000

Creativity, a gaming development trait, can sometimes be missing in action. If you are a writer, you understand how to deal with your writer’s block; run through some quick writing exercises and you are on your way. A gaming developer must go through similar ways to jump over the hurdles to finish the race strong. Google Trends can be a helpful tool to when you are down on your luck.

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Social Times’ Top Stories Of The Week – January 24, 2011

CJ Arlotta — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:30:28 +0000

Take a look at the time at the bottom of your screen; it’s almost five o’clock, which means your weekend is near. For now though, take a look at our weekly headlines below. After a crazy football weekend, I decided to select Anthony Marcusa as our writer of the week for How Twitter Slowly Destroyed Cutler. The title itself gave me a good laugh and the article continued to keep my interest.

If any of you would like to contribute to my selection each week, drop me an e-mail at cjarlotta”at”socialtimes.com for your suggestion.
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Social Media Jobs: Working at LivingSocial Seems As Sweet As A Cupcake Eating Contest

CJ Arlotta — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 14:00:28 +0000

So you want a career in social media, huh? As you all know, SocialTimes has a job board available to its readers. Some of these positions are in need of part time workers, while the rest are looking for full time help. Before applying for any type of employment, it is a good idea to understand who the company is and what they are about. Not only is this a great opportunity to show your prospective employer that you are well versed in their business, but it also serves as a purpose for your own personal benefit to make you aware of what you may be getting yourself into. Every few weeks or so, I will look into the various companies on our job board to help support your search. continued…

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Facebook to make FB Credits Mandatory

Kenneth Musante — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:23:01 +0000

Facebook confirmed Monday that it will be making it’s own virtual currency the mandatory payment method for virtual goods sold on its network. That means any company developing apps for use on Facebook will only be able to use Facebook Credits to conduct in-app purchases.

Starting in July, all Facebook app makers will be required to switch over to Facebook Credits, a move that has faced some resistance.

Back in May, Facebook faced off with social game developer Zynga over its in-game purchasing system, with Zynga, makers of the hugely popular Mafiawars and Farmville, threatening to walk. The standoff eventually ended with a 5-year agreement to promote Facebook Credits.

Facebook will take a 30% of all Facebook Credit transactions, although it’s likely that Zynga got a discount as part of its deal.

The switchover has been in beta for some time, with 150 developers using them in 350 applications. About 70% of all virtual goods transactions on Facebook currently use Credits, according to a company spokesperson.

Games are currently using Facebook Credits in two ways: to purchase the company’s own in-game currency, or as the currency itself. However the ultimate goal is to eliminate third party currencies altogether, and Facebook is offering developers incentives such as higher visibility on the Facebook apps page.

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4 Monetization Solution Providers That Support Multi-Platform Billing

Azam Khan — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 13:50:21 +0000

Game developers need a single, unified billing system to support today’s devices and monetize users across the globe. In this article, we summarize four key players in this monetization solution space as relates to multi-platform billing. More after the jump. continued…

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Virtual Goods Summit: Americans Buy Shields Before Swords, Europeans Buy Swords Before Shields

Neil Vidyarthi — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:14:46 +0000

Day 2 of the Virtual Goods Summit started with executives from some of the largest free-to-play companies in the world discussing the importance of virtual goods.

Atul Bagga from ThinkEquity moderated the session and kicked off the panel by discussing how the per capita gaming spend in China is 50% higher than the US spend. If you look at the models, it’s pay to play in the USA and free to play in China, and Korea is a mix of both.

BigPoint CTO Jan Wergin explained that they opened a new SF market and feels that America is growing rapidly, and that their model of developing $200K games and determine whether it catches on or not, and if so, continue to add content. He pointed out how the virtual goods model properly adapts itself to gamers’ wallets: players can pay $1 or $100 depending on their budget and enjoyment. This is in contrast to the subscription model, where you put all users in one bucket, even though they’re not. He talked about how their psychological profiles found that European gamers tend to be a little “more strategic” than other gamers, and that means their game style should adapt.

Nexon CEO Daniel Kim explained how at this point, US revenues are still only 10% of their total revenues, but they’re seeing the US market expand rapidly as players adopt the free-to-play model.

Alan Chen, CEO of Perfect World USA, thought that the future is a unified type of ‘console’ or game playing system. That’s why they are aggressively pursuing browser-based games, and he believes that free-to-play is the natural extension. A free to play game is a service, and by its nature emphasizes user feedback to iterate on their games based on user feedback, and Alan felt that will always prevail over standard games.

Jan made an interesting point about customizing your game for the various locales, and one thing he found with BigPoint was that Americans tend to buy more shields and Europeans buy more swords, first. So they adjust their game markets to represent that.

Key Numbers:

Perfect World expects to increase revenues to $20 million in Europe, and Alan expects them to double their US market share over the next year
Nexon mentioned that China’s business has a lower ARPU but a huge user base, our China revenue was very close to the Japanese revenue but Japan had far less users. Korea and US fall in the middle. Overall paying users represent 10% or more of total users.
If a game has less than 200,000 concurrent users to be a successful game in China, according to Alan Chen from Perfect World

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Virtual Goods Summit — EA Founder: A Facebook Game Company “Is Like A Shipyard”

Neil Vidyarthi — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 12:51:41 +0000

Trip Hawkins, CEO of social/mobile game company Digital Chocolate and the founder of gaming behemoth Electronic Arts, kicked off the Virtual Goods Summit this morning by discussing fantasy leagues, Facebook game monetization and the world market for these goods.

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Buy Facebook Credit Gift Cards at a Target Near You

Azam Khan — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:20:42 +0000

Virtual goods have slowly begun making their way into mainstream society. Target today is announcing that it will be carrying Facebook Credits gift cards nationwide, making it the first brick-and-mortar retailer to do so. With the virtual goods industry blooming, both Facebook and Target expect these cards to become hits as gifts. More after the jump.

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Advisory Board to Help gWallet with Social Media Monetization

Neil Glassman — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:05:11 +0000

When Social Times spoke with Gurbaksh Chahal, Founder and CEO of gWallet, in February, he told us, “We have always been an advertising company, we will always be an advertising company.” Today’s announcement of an advisory board of marketing executives to help direct gWallet’s strategy strengthens that message to the industry as the company continues to feint and jab its way through the rapidly changing social media monetization landscape. continued…

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