Social games are a bit part of many people's lives, maybe without them realising it! They are games aimed at mainly casual gamers but are played through social networking sites such as Facebook. The major company in this field is Zynga - if you have played a game on Facebook, the chances are it will be a Zynga game. Castleville, Chefville, Words with Friends, Cityville, Farmville, Mafia Wars just to name a few - If you haven't played one of these, I bet somebody on your Friend's List has!
The big part of their business model is that they can scale to a massive user base without having to spend a massive amount of money on marketing, somethign that can more than double the cost of building a traditional game. They did this by causing you as a player to automatically spam your friends with requests to join the game.
Facebook enjoys a symbiotic relationship with Zynga as both companies profit from these games - Facebook takes a slice of any real money purchases made in the games. In fact, in 2011 Zynga was responsible for 12% of Facebook's total revenue (money coming in).
The social gaming market has appeared so lucrative that traditional console game companies, such as Sony and Electronic Arts, which target more serious gamers, are starting to experiment with more casual social games for mobile devices.
The lifespan of these social games are often quite short - with many estimated at a 3 month span - so it is imperative for Zynga and other social gaming firms to make as much money as possible and come up with the next big hit. This has led to numerous complaints of plagiarism as EA and other developers have said that Zynga simply copies ideas from other gamemakers and polishes them up and brands them with the Zynga name. It is a cut throat market and morals often come into question! Especially in the last week as it was announced that Zynga have partnered up with online betting site BWin to create a 'real money' casino game. Cue the Daily Mail worrying over whether this will encourage younger Facebook users to develop gambling problems. So Zynga is a company that is often in the news at the moment!
Zynga's Wikipedia page - Useful for a bit of background to this company, as well as the controversies behind some of their practices.
The Zynga Petting Zoo - Marketing campaign for Farmville
Inside Zynga - An insight look at the social gaming company (Note: vid made by Zynga = GLOSSY!)
Useful articles though simply Googling Zynga can lead to the latest news on the company.
6 Reasons Zynga and Social Gaming are dying
Zynga in Slumps-Ville, but social games are still hot
Zynga shares surge after earnings report
EA believes social gaming's collapse is overhyped
235 million people play games on Facebook every month
App Center hits 150 million monthly visitors
Zynga in trouble over Mafia Wars guerrilla marketing
Bingo! Facebook gambles on games using real money, not credits, to engage users
Zynga makes first move into 'real money' games, partners with Bwin
EA sues Zynga for copying The Sims Social
Indie developer calls Zynga out over plagiarism
EA makes millions using Facebook Ads for Battlefield 3
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