Social gaming: a downright term that kept us busy during 2010! Through the years we saw games evolving on Facebook and MySpace like Farmville (by Zynga). This game is all about being a farmer and the daily job involved. In this game you can interact with your facebook friends and even become neighbours of them. This is still a big game on Facebook, over 82 million people worldwide play this game at least once a month and over 32 million people play it daily. Estimations tell us Zynga has more than 230 million active players across multiple social networks.
In the year 2010 games like Frontierville, Zoo World and Social City are speeding to the top. Games are getting more realistic, like in Social City. Just a small fact: in little more than 6 weeks this game reached the barrier of 12 million users, bizarre This game is all about running a real city like a major. We all know this from Sim City, but with a lot more options and of course the social aspect.
Imagine, 12 million users in just 6 weeks! Established social gaming companies like Zynga, Bigpoint, Playdom and Playfish are growing massively on this trend. Maybe you can remember Electronic Arts bought Playfish for $400 million last year? This year Playdom got acquired by Disney for about $750 million!
Since 2008 the Social Gaming market started to grow big time. According to Inside Virtual Goods the Western Social gaming market grew from about $250 million in 2008 to $490 million in 2009 and predictions for 2010 rise up tp $1 billion. That same company states the following: "2010 will be remembered as the year that games on social networks became a billion dollar business". Predictions for 2011 say $1.25 for the overall global market.
Where will it stop? How exciting will the users of social networks stay in the next year? Just like every good old business the cash cow eventually turn into a dog. Will this happen after 2011? Let's just wait and see!