Distribution and Marketing - Game Design Essentials - page 236

social Games
A social game is one that can be accessed and played through an online social
network like Facebook. Some companies, such as Social Express Inc., which is
owned by Viacom, develop social games for MTV, Nickelodeon, and other brands.
Nickelodeon provides an entire website called The Big Help , which offers excel-
lent information—especially for young or new gamers—on how to protect your
privacy while learning how to enjoy social gaming.
The company Zynga has made great strides in covering the social games
market with its game FarmVille. This social game is accessed through
Facebook and has attracted an enormous audience of players—over 80 mil-
lion at the time this topic was written. One of the reasons Zynga has been so
successful with this venue revolves around the variety of ways the company
uses the medium successfully through online advertising and sales of virtual
goods.
FarmVille is free to play, but Zynga makes money through advertising and
selling separate assets to players. According to AppData, FarmVille attracts
approximately 7,400,000 daily users (see Figure 10.5).

Appdata is an
independent
data-collection and
-analysis firm that
tracks usage of sites
online and can help
identify trends.

FarmVille - DAU

7,600,000

7,500,000

7,400,000

7,300,000

7,200,000

7,100,000

7,000,000

October - November 2011

FiGuRe 10.5 This graph is adapted from data presented online by AppData, which
charts daily use of the game FarmVille . DAU means daily active users.