GREE's mobile social games network to be 'borderless', to hit Q2 2012

And still, we know little about just exactly how the Japanese social game publisher's platform will work. GREE has revealed a sliver of information about its upcoming mobile social games network, namely that it will be "borderless". While company says this means that users will enjoy single sign-on into GREE on their iPhone or Android phone, we hope this means cross-platform play.

The company goes on to say that the platform will feature a global payment solution and a series of "robust out-of-network cross promotional opportunities," which sounds to us a lot like in-game advertisements. The OpenFeint-powered platform will provide developers with rich analytics tools, meaning game makers will be able to read and evaluate your actions within the GREE games you play. (That might sound a bit too much like Big Brother, but Facebook game makers do the exact same thing.)

"This new GREE platform continues to show the commitment we have to building a truly global, free-to-play ecosystem for mobile developers," GREE founder and CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka said in a release. "Our goal is to offer the best social gaming experience to players around the world. GREE worldwide has the largest cross-platform network and this is a step closer to our goal of reaching one billion users."

GREE's mobile social games network will offer games discovery to players as well as all the latest social features. Of course, leaderboards and achievements will be a staple in GREE's offering. However, the company plans to take the mobile social games world by storm in Q2 2012, or as early as April. With DeNA's Mobage network already out of beta testing on Android and Zynga's Project Z on the horizon, that sounds like a lifetime.

[Image Credit: Wired]

Can GREE combat both DeNA and Zynga in the mobile social games space coming in so late? What would GREE need that the other companies don't have right now for you to use its service?

Kiip rewards mobile gamers' achievements with real-world prizes

Well gii, we never thought we'd see the day when another product successfully used the letters "ii" in its name. Kiip, a new San Francisco-based start up, wants to turn the world of in-game advertising on its head, Mashable reports. Well, at least in mobile games, but is anything stopping this from hitting Facebook someday? Not likely. Kiip is a rewards-based advertising platform for mobile games that rewards players when they reach a milestone like a new high score with real-world prizes. Say you beat a level in Angry Birds with a three-star rating. With Kiip, this otherwise minor achievement turns into a reward for hard work--play, we mean play.

How it works is that when an achievement is reached, a banner ad will rise from the bottom of the screen, offering free stuff just for reaching a new height in Doodle Jump. Clicking on the ad will open a new page that asks you to provide your email information so that you can redeem the reward. The platform has support from several partners on day one including Popchips, Sephora, 1-800-FLOWERS, Carl's Jr., Dr. Pepper, Sony, Vitaminwater, GNC and Homerun.com.

And while Kiip has its lips sealed on what games will take on the new ad platform, you could imagine how Kiip could work in Zynga games like FarmVille or even Words with Friends for iPhone. Finally master that new crop in FarmVille? Here's a coupon for free Dr. Pepper. Reach 600 points in Words with Friends? Enjoy some Popchips. Kiip's success won't be visible for some time, but you can bet that social game developers are already salivating over it.

[Video Credit: Kiip]

Do you think you'd be more likely to click on a banner ad in your game of Words with Friends if it offered (legitimately) free stuff? How long do you think it will be before social games adopt a similar advertising model?

If DeNA's Kaito Royale got a TV series, could a FarmVille movie work?

Maybe a straight-to-DVD flick? DeNA's 10 million player-strong Kaito Royale on its Mobage network will be brought to life in an upcoming television series, Kotaku reports. The game focuses around "gentlemanly thieves," which is what "kaito" translates to roughly, that act as vigilantes to rid the evils of society. Think of Mafia Wars-meets-Robin Hood, and you're about there.

Throughout the game, players must battle each other for supremacy in a rock, paper, scissors-style combat system and steal goods from the competition. More importantly, players will face the bosses of the criminal underworld, one of which is known as Sister Snake. Japanese fashion model Nozomi Sasaki (pictured) will star in the Kaito Royale series as Sister Snake, complete with habit and machine gun, according to Oricon.

Of course, we can't help but wonder what this means for future films and TV shows based on casual or social game products. The Angry Birds movie is very real, and set to land in 2014, while a FarmVille flick is at least in talks right now. But because of how early the supposed FarmVille movie is in its creation, that could go either way at this point.

As much as we hate to admit it, if a mobile social game with 10 million players can get a TV series, then a social game with 28 million players can probably seal a film deal. Then again, there are a lot of places that a TV show based on righteous thieves can go, and that's not really the case for FarmVille. Unless, of course, it goes the parody route.

Would you watch a TV series based on your favorite social game? Do you think mobile and social game developers are onto something with this, or should they stay away?

Nordeus passes Top Eleven's stat-crunching soccer to Android devices

Before you get into a tizzy, it was for the sake of the headline--we all know it's known as "football" everywhere else in the world. Serbian social game creator Nordeus announced that its hit football simulator game Top Eleven has launched for Android phones. Of course, the game is 100 percent free to download right here. But more importantly, the game allows for cross-platform play.

This means that, if you started something with Top Eleven on Facebook, you can easily pick it back up on Top Eleven for your Android phone later. For all intents and purposes, the game is essentially the same as it is on Facebook, which currently caters to 3.1 million monthly players, according to AppData. However, there are certain advantages that Android users might have over the non-mobile competition.

Top Eleven for Android takes advantage of push notifications, "reminding [players] to bid on the best strikers and hiring medics to overcome player injuries," according to a release. This way, Android players have no excuse to miss lucrative player transfers or training timers that keep their teams in tip-top shape.

This new version of the game comes just after Nordeus updated Top Eleven on Facebook to Version 2.0. Top Eleven for Android marks Nordeus's new motto: "Unifying gaming experiences throughout devices and platforms," as company CEO Branko Milutinović told us recently.


"Top Eleven on Android allows you to never miss the big match and discreetly access and manage your team at critical moments, so that you can win the league even if in real life you're stuck in a boring business meeting," Milutinović said in a release. Aha! We think your staff might be onto you, Branko.

Click here to download Top Eleven for Android Now >

Are you a Top Eleven fan on Facebook? Do you think a mobile version of the game will help your game?

Facebook mobile social games will grow industry at once, CTO expects

When Facebook launched its mobile apps and games platform on iPhone and iPad, we were admittedly confused. But after Facebook CTO Bret Taylor (pictured) spoke with mocoNews, we have a better idea of what Facebook is getting at with "Project Spartan." According to Taylor, Facebook hopes to go 100 percent cross platform with Facebook Mobile through the mobile web, but its master plan goes deeper still.

"It really addresses some of the areas I've heard a lot of concerns about from mobile developers, and it plays to our strengths," Taylor told mocoNews. "For startups, it's very difficult to get their apps discovered. They have a honeymoon period in the app stores where they might be in a top 10 list and get a lot of downloads, but once that honeymoon period is over, discovery is very difficult. By integrating with these social channels in mobile, they can get discovered in really organic ways."

Facebook looks to bring the discoverability of Facbook games and apps to mobile. Sure, Facebook has the support of some major game creators with HTML5-based versions of Words with Friends, FarmVille and even wooga's new Magic Land. But at the moment, users have to search for these apps through Facebook's iOS app or mobile web presence--not exactly an ideal method for discovery.

It sounds like Taylor and Facebook look to grow the mobile and social games industries all at once across all platforms including Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry. To do that, Facebook is encouraging more developers to create HTML5 or native mobile app versions of their social games that Facebook Mobile can redirect to, which is about the only way we see this method working. However, with game shares (at least for non-gamers to see) almost entirely in the Ticker--which doesn't exist on mobile--where do the new social gamers come in?

[Via PocketGamer.biz]

Have you tried the current lot of HTML5 Facebook games yet? Do you think Facebook's mobile gaming strategy will work in the long run?

It Girl maker CrowdStar looks beyond Facebook for 1 billion players

At last month's HTML5 Dev Conference in San Francisco, CrowdStar CEO Peter Relan (pictured) said, "We want to create the game that reaches a billion people." The company has announced just how it plans to make that happen: Project Trident. CrowdStar revealed its plans to create a global, mobile platform and recognizable gaming franchises. Of course, CrowdStar will still hang out with Facebook--let's just say "it's complicated."

TechCrunch reports that, as part of its plan to diversify beyond Facebook, CrowdStar will launch It Girl (and Top Girl for iOS) franchise in Asia across Japan, Korea and China. Starting with NHN Japan, the company plans to introduce both It Girl and Top Girl to five Asian social networks in Q4 (October through December) alone. According to TechCrunch, Top Girl has already been downloaded from the App Store 4 million times.

In addition to launching It Girl on five Asian social networks before Dec. 31, CrowdStar reportedly plans to release another three games before year's end across Facebook, mobile and global networks. That amounts to more games released in the end of 2011 than CrowdStar put out in all of 2010.

It looks like the maker of hits like Happy Aquarium seeks to make a comeback, and according to TechCrunch, one of those eight games will hit this weekend. (We'll have more details on that soon enough.) But this comes just as competitor Zynga announces its own pseudo-independent social game platform and a ton of games. Anyone else feeling a bit ... claustrophobic?

What do you think of CrowdStar's plans to gain financial independence from Facebook? How do you plan on finding the time to play all of these new games that are likely to hit before the holidays?

G5 builds a free download of Virtual City Playground on iPhone, Android

CityVille Hometown is the only definitive CityVille experience on iPhone, but some mobile gamers might dream bigger. That's where Swedish developer G5 hopes to come in with Virtual City Playground for iPhone and Android. The game was just released to both devices for absolutely free, which allows players to enjoy its Sandbox Mode, building and maintain their own city.

Recently released to the iPad in August, the game appears to take numerous factors into consideration as players develop their cities like mass transit, recycling and general eco-friendliness. Players get to launch community events in their cities to keep citizens happy, which contribute to the balance players must keep between Time, Income, Environment, Population, and Happiness for a successful city.

G5 will provide free updates to the game regularly, but Virtual City Playground contains 87 quests that you must pay up to access through in-app purchases. And just like its city-builder competition, the game sports Game Center and Facebook integration as well as 95 achievements to earn.

And when you keep Virtual City Playground in the background, it's said that your citizens will continue to work for you by transporting goods. Not much seems to have changed since the game hit iPad, but that doesn't seem to be the point. If you've yet to get a look at what Virtual City Playground is all about, check out this trailer. (Hint: It looks a lot ... like, way similar to most city-builders.)


Click here to download Virtual City Playground on iPhone and here to download on Android Now >

Are you interested in taking on another city-builder on your mobile phone? What do you think of G5's approach to the crowded city-builder genre on both Facebook and mobile?

Beat down wizards for sweet deals with Wizardia on Facebook and mobile

Wizardia, an upcoming sword-and-sorcery Facebook game by Lithuanian developer Yummi Apps, seems to promise everything cool these days. Wizardia is both an Android and iOS game with Google Maps integration for location-based gameplay and sponsored real world prizes.

Taken separately, none of these features are particularly novel, since Parallel Kingdom is another fantasy mobile title that's already well-known for its use of Google Maps. Games And Prizes is entirely devoted to the namesake. But Yummi Apps, which just recently remodeled itself from a commercial apps producer into a social games developer, plans to bring all these elements into one package. And they plan to pull it off sometime this fall, too.

As far as what playing Wizardia would be like, Yummi Apps hopes to combine city building with turn-based strategy. According to a release, Yummi Apps specifically cites CityVille as an inspiration, and gives a nod to the PC stalwart, Heroes of Might and Magic.


Though billing itself as "the first social game in the world to integrate real life into online gaming" would be a lie, Wizardia does enough to take the concept farther than most. Not to jinx Wizardia, which looks more polished than anything we've seen before (just watch the above trailer), but we've also known of similarly ambitious projects that never took off. Yet if everything works out, one day this brand-integrated Facebook game will have you battling in a Barnes & Noble for a book discount. Or perhaps, like Rovio's caffeinated plans for Angry Birds, you could get your game on in Starbucks for free cups of coffee.

Do you play games on Facebook as well as through a smartphone? Does Wizardia sound exciting enough for you?