subject: Battle lines emerging between the major players Zynga, Playdom, and playfish in social gaming [print this page] Battle lines emerging between the major players Zynga, Playdom, and playfish in social gaming
Ever since the acquisition of playdom and playfish by the Walt Disney Co and Electronics arts Inc respectively, the focus has been to bringing their brand intellectual property to the social gaming world. It means there is a possiblity of playdom game with marvel superhero characters, or Playfish version of Monopoly now in the works as Electronic Arts already owns the digital rights to the board game.
Zynga is so far the industry leader in social gaming both in size and revenue but it lacks the strong intellectual property (IP) that comes with being part of Disney.So Zynga is looking at marketing tie-ins with likes of McDonald's and convenience store chain 7-11. CTO of Zynga, Cadir Lee says, "One of the things that we really believe in is going to happen. We think there is going to be much more connection between real world and virtual world".
Playfish has already rolled out social gaming versions of the popular Electronic Arts sports games FIFA soccer and Madden NFL. Electronic Arts in 2009 acquired Playfish at a deal estimated to be at $400 million. Electronic Arts have high hopes on its version of Monopoly game , which it plans to launch later this year on facebook. Electronic Arts is in a big time aiming at capturing the Zynga market. Statistics say that Farmville is played by 60 million users a month, according to inside network. Playfish's co-founder Sebastien de Halleux adds that games like farmville has dropped a third of their audience since their peak which means to say that though these games are very popular, people do get tired of those games.
Right now Playfish ranks third with a user base of 40.7 million players, behind Zynga and crowdstar, according to inside network.
Playdom's CFO Christa Quarles has said that her company does not have to rely on disney characters and franchises for its content but she also does not rule out the possibility of using disney-owned marvel characters and the use of sports content in its social games through partnership with Disney-owned ESPN.
As per the CTO of Zynga, Cadir Lee more than the strong Intellectual property, what has succeeded for Zynga is the cross-promotion partnership with 7-11. Earlier this year Zynga could rope in 6000 outlets of 7-11. Last week Zynga did a similar cross-promotion with McDonald's where for one day McDonald's had its own virtual farm-with prizes to boot- embedded in farmville game. The McDonald's announcement is considered to be one of the most interesting deal in history for social gaming. It always highlights the potential it presents to use social gaming for advertisement.
