[Chiffres] Le boum de l’industrie des jeux en ligne et mobiles. Online Gaming Audience Defies Stereotypes. The online gaming space is an exciting place for both gamers and brand marketers. In particular, the growing appeal of casual and social games is encouraging users to play them across multiple platforms, from PCs and consoles to smartphones and tablets. And that appeal is growing beyond the typical gamer demographics. “Gone are the days when only males ages 18 to 34 were hardcore gamers or only moms were pelting their Facebook friends with requests for hens or heifers in social games like FarmVille,” said Lisa E.
Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Online Gaming Audience: Lines Blur as the Market Grows.” “Today’s core gamers are also playing casual games. More women are using game consoles beyond the Nintendo Wii, and their game choices include many genres.” eMarketer estimates that social gaming will reach 61.9 million US internet users by the end of this year, or over a quarter of the online population. To purchase the report, click here. OpenFeint Actively Recruiting Social Game Devs Looking to Go Cross-Platform, Experimenting With Monetization Product. Mobile-social gaming network OpenFeint, which was recently acquired by Japan’s GREE in April, announced an initiative today to bring more Facebook and social game developers over to its platform.
OpenFeint currently claims 90 million users and 6,000 games across iOS and Android devices. Spearheading the initiative is Ethan Fassett, an ex-Playdom executive producer now named Senior Vice President of Product at OpenFeint. In his role, Fassett looks to foster new relationships with social game developers that want to port their Facebook or social network games to iOS or Android. The company has snagged one relatively big social gaming client already: Crowdstar, which elected to use OpenFeint over Facebook Connect in its first serious attempt at free-to-play gaming, Top Girl. “We see more free-to-play and social game developers making a move [to mobile], and we want them to have the same kind of access that they’ve had on the web platform,” Fassett tells us.
Tapjoy Raises $30 Million from JPMorgan to Fuel Push on Android. Tapjoy, which helps developers on Facebook, Android and iOS earn revenue through offers and CPA ads, raised an additional $30 million from JPMorgan. The announcement comes just a few months after Apple clamped down on one major revenue stream for the company — incentivized installs — or where game developers cross-promote other apps and give their players virtual currency for downloading titles from other companies. Tapjoy chief executive Mihir Shah said the company remains profitable despite the setback.
“We’ve been profitable for a number of quarters and top-line revenue has been growing,” he said. “Our gross margins have grown quarter-over-quarter even after all of this.” At the same time, the company has seen a tenfold increase on Android in the size of its network and the number of paid actions it pushes in the last three months. Shah did concede that revenue on the iOS platform had flattened out though.
“It’s basically retargeting,” Shah said.