1. The Social Gaming Revolution
Innovations Team, BSkyB

2. 2009 will be remembered as the year that casual gaming
stormed social platforms and changed the way millions of
people socialized with friends online.

3. “Casual Gaming is the Arcade business
rising from the ashes of the 1980s”
Nicholas Carlson, Business Insider

4.  Arcade games were usually played in a social
environment. Online games are played on
Facebook, a virtual social environment.
 Arcade games made money by addicting
people to simple games, introducing friction into
these games by making them harder after each
level.
 Arcade games charged small amounts of
money to ease that friction by allowing gamers
to buy lives.

5. The Rise of Social Gaming
Four major developments are driving the growth of Social Gaming
 The opening up of more social networking platforms for third
party developers.
 An increase in social games on websites outside of social
networking platforms.
 Growing interest in mobile social gaming.
 Entry of further big players into the social gaming industry.

6. The Rise of Social Gaming
 Playfish was recently acquired by Electronic Arts (EA) for £260
million.
 News Corp. acquired Irata Labs, a developer of social games
across Twitter and Facebook.
 Playfish generates revenues of £50 million from selling virtual
goods on Facebook and other platforms.
 Virtual goods are expected to reach revenues of £1 billion in 2010,
according to a report by Inside Network.

7. Zynga hits 100 million users with FarmVille

8. Zynga hits 100 million users with FarmVille
“Who would have guessed, in an age of
rapidly advancing technology, that one of
the most popular online games would be a
game about good old fashioned farming?”
Ronny Kerr, Vator News

9. Zynga hits 100 million users with FarmVille
 When a game is built on top of an existent platform, eg. Facebook,
it has the opportunity to connect a user with their entire network of
friends.
 Zynga will create a game as quickly as possible, distribute it to its
audience, and go and optimize each part of the game based on user
feedback.
 Social games evolve and grow with user feedback.

10. Social Platforms

11. Social Platforms
South By Southwest Interactive
Developers showed off demos of games that had Facebook Connect built in,
allowing you to share scores, statistics and even a personalized gaming
highlight reel to your Facebook profile, direct from your Xbox 360 or
Playstation. “
The latest generation of games on Apple's iPhone include the same sort of
features, designed to let you share your achievements with friends.

12. Social Platforms

13. Social Platforms
“Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and
innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on
the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever
seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create
even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we
“
sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider
and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted
by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.”
Steve Jobs, April 2010

14. Social Platforms
“

15. Social Platforms

16. Social Platforms - Consoles

17. Social Platforms - Game Portals

18. Social Platforms - PC

19. Social Platforms - Mobile Phone

20. Social Platforms - Mobile Phone

21. Social Platforms - Mobile Phone

22. Social Games

23. Social Games
Zynga Electronic Arts
237.1 million users 53.3 million users
CrowdStar Playdom
49.2 million users 37.1 million users

24. Social Games
 FarmVille is the most popular game application on Facebook, with
over 82.4 million active users.
 FishVille had 875,000 users within two days of launch.
 World of Warcraft is currently the dominant MMO in the world
with 12 million monthly subscribers worldwide.
 World of Warcraft has generated over £1.4 billion since 2005.

25. Social Games
Top reasons people play social games:
1. Fun and excitement (53%)
2. Stress relief (45%)
3. Competitive spirit (43%)
4. Sense of accomplishment (23%)

26. Social Games
Appeal of social games beyond social interaction:
1. Competition
2. Interactive game play
3. Opportunity to win prizes
4. Cooperative game play
5. Regularly scheduled tournaments

27. Micropayments

28. Micropayments

29. Micropayments

30. Micropayments
Apple has already built out the basic
payments platform through iTunes. Adding
in payments for services won't be that
much additional work.

31. Micropayments

32. Micropayments
 When a Facebook friend has a birthday, users are encouraged to
spend £1 on a gift, posted to their profile page for all to see.
 Micro-payments are expected to steadily grow in popularity in
major markets over the coming years.
 Recently, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), responsible for
implementing the European Union's Electronic Money directive in
the United Kingdom, relaxed the guidelines that determine what can
be purchased via a mobile device.

33. Micropayments
 The majority (41%) of those playing social games work full-time,
followed by 13% who are retired and 11% who are homemakers.
9% work part-time and another 9% are not currently working.
 22% of the UK social gamers earn less than £15,000 annually,
19% earn between £15,000 and £25,000, 20% earn £25,000
and £38,000 and 23% earn £38,000 or more.

34. The Future of Social Gaming

35.  Social gaming is still in its very early days. A unique idea can
quickly capture the social gaming audience.
 There are substantial opportunities for social game developers
with virtual goods revenue models, but the market is still evolving
rapidly.

36. Games today are so flashy and expensive
to make that they almost seem to miss the
point.

37. It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to connect the dots

38. Sources
 2010 Social Gaming Research – Information Solutions Group
http://bit.ly/bJ9hBl
 Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2010
http://www.insidevirtualgoods.com/future-social-gaming
 Smartphone Adoption Shifting Dynamics of U.S. Mobile Gaming Market
http://bit.ly/cgxhyG
 Social Games Observer
http://www.socialgamesobserver.com
 Inside Social Games
http://www.insidesocialgames.com