Spil Games positions itself as an alternative platform for social games with 170 million monthly unique visitors

Games portal and publisher Spil Games wants to be an alternative for social game developers looking to expand off of Facebook, where rising advertising costs have cut into profits.

Speaking to Inside Social Games, Spil Games’ CEO Peter Driessen (pictured) explains that the portal — which consists of several games sites — spent the last several months adding social features that enable developers to use engagement-driving gameplay mechanics like friend invites or gifting within their games. The result is continued year-on-year growth for the portal; monthly unique users grew by 30 percent between March and December 2011. The portal now has 170 million monthly unique visitors. Based on internal research, Spil reports that average user time spent on a site within the portal is around 85 minutes with average revenue per paying user hitting $60 in some markets. Though Driessen declined to get more specific than that, additional data sent to us by Spil Games indicates that those same markets saw conversion rates of around 4 percent.

The point Spil Games is trying to make is that there are other platforms out there for social games besides Facebook and Google+. The more closely these platforms resemble the social network, the easier it is for developers to adapt their games for release. The real challenge comes from finding which platforms will reach with the demographics that sync up with a game. Though Spil is mostly female- and teen-oriented, the company has seen success with a family demographic and a budding male demographic based largely in Germany — where the higher ARPPU and conversion rates are.

“The users we have are growing as local [social] networks are declining,” Driessen says. “So we’re at the right point of time to make ourselves a success and go above 200 million users this year.”

According to Driessen, a good game live on Spil Games’ network with a team handling community management and post-launch support can gross at least $5 million annually. That’s not a lot for established social game developers, but smaller independent developers would be lucky to see that much in a year from a single title on Facebook given the current platform environment. As of press time, we don’t know how well that stacks up against what individual games can earn on Google+.

“We do the marketing and a revenue share and that’s the way it is [on Spil],” says Driessen. “On Facebook, you have to buy the marketing and that’s why some developers don’t make any money. If [we see] a social game that we really believe in, we give it a good place on our portal and really market it. Also, we do the localization and community management for these developers so they don’t have to spend resources.”

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PyramidVille Adventure buries itself into iPhone, iPad Jan. 26 [Video]

by Joe Osborne, Posted Jan 24th 2012 11:00AM

Ah, trailers. The number one tool to build hype for an upcoming, well, anything. In this case, of course, it's games, and French social game developer Kobojo looks to build buzz with the launch trailer for PyramidVille Adventure. The game is set to hit both iPhone and iPad this Jan. 26, and while not much has changed since it Facebook, the developer has thrown in a few twists.

Namely, PyramidVille Adventure employs a number of mini games for players to master, which will undoubtedly serve to break up the monotony of running an Egyptian kingdom. Players will get to race ancient Egyptian boats, fend off attackers to defend an Egyptian boat as it crosses the Nile and load supplies into an Egyptian boat. We smell a theme here.

Aside from the nautical mini games, not much seems to have changed. The 'Ville-inspired play hooks are all still present, and will likely be the meat of PyramidVille Adventure. (Nearly 25 percent of the Facebook game's 730,000 monthly players play daily, so it looks like players dig it.) But for zero dollars, it's worth at least a shot when the game lands on Jan. 26. Until then, check the trailer:

Are you excited to try this game on your iPhone or iPad? How well do you think games like these translate on mobile devices? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

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Tags: bulkypix, ipad games, iphone games, kobojo, mobile gaming, mobile social games, pyramidville, pyramidville adventure, pyramidville adventure ipad, pyramidville adventure iphone, pyramidville adventure mobile, pyramidville adventure trailer

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Early Look: Apollo 69 Fires Itself Onto Facebook

Young, 2009-founded social developer Nimbus Games released Apollo 69 on Facebook in early March. It’s an arcade-style game that has players launching hamsters into low orbit to achieve a distance-determined “high-score.”

Other than visual style, Apollo 69 isn’t terribly different than older titles Paf le Chien or Kickmania! where players use cannons, explosives, and other power-ups to launch a projectile as far as possible. In Apollo 69, players launch a hamster out of a swiveling cannon, timing a spacebar press or mouse click first to stop it at the ideal angle and then a second to time to determine launch strength via a fluctuating power meter. Once airborne, the hamster’s flight is affected by whatever he hits or by power-ups a player can activate to gain extra distance, like a grenade. Striking birds in the air or jello on the ground will slow him down, while landing on explosive packages, balloons, or other cannons will send him farther. During flight, the hamster collects coins whenever he happens to touch them. Players can use coins to purchase more powerful launch cannons. Each launch costs the player energy, meaning a player can only fire so many hamsters in one sitting. Players can increase energy by inviting friends to the game, but for the most part, social interaction comes from leaderboards and wall posts.

If there were one difference between Apollo 69 and its predecessors, it would be that players can complete achievements to earn “Stars,” which can be used to upgrade special items. As mentioned above, some items give the player an extra distance boost when used after launching the hamster. For example, using a grenade will re-launch the hamster once it hits the ground, while a spring boost item passively improves all launching items he happens to hit. Each item or power-up, if not consumable, uses up large portions of energy when activated.

Apollo 69 monetizes by selling consumable items for virtual currency simply named “Money.” The currency can be bought in quantities of 200, 600, and 1300 with Facebook Credits equivalent to $2, $5, and $10 amounts respectively. The virtual currency can also be earned by completing offers through SuperRewards.

Because the game is still very young, developer Nimbus Games tells ISG that it is open to user feedback to improve the game. According to the developer, there are still about 50% more features to add including viral hooks, new levels with new items, a leveling system for the hamster with character customization, and an equipment system where players can construct things from from items collected in flight.

In the meantime, Nimbus Games tells us that they will be expanding their collection of quiz games like News Geek to include health, kids, and music, eventually combining all of them into a larger meta-game. The developer also just released a hidden object game called Seek & Find Emporium to Facebook. Readers can track it and Apollo 69’s traffic trends on AppData, our tracking service for social games and developers.

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