I thought we were collectively over Draw Something. I have the manual dexterity of a trout, so I was happy when friends stopped sending me play requests in the first game — but now, Zynga is back with a sequel.

Draw Something 2, available now globally for iOS and soon for Android, brings back the Pictionary-style gameplay of the original with a heavier emphasis on social features. The developer is positioning it as an Instagram for artwork; you can follow certain people to see what they finger paint.

At its core, Draw Something 2 is still just a cooperative multiplayer game where one person draws a certain word and the other has to guess it. Zynga will sell extra colors and other in-app purchases to generate revenue in the title.

Check out the launch trailer below:

Indie developer OMGPOP launched the original Draw Something in early 2012. The mobile title quickly skyrocketed in popularity leading to Zynga purchasing the studio in March 2012 for $180 million. Draw Something eventually topped out at 13 million daily active users before plummeting and stabilizing around 1 million DAUs.

Zynga is hoping that the social aspects of the sequel will improve its stickiness and keep players engaged for longer than the first title.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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GungHo Online Entertainment has moved from obscurity to becoming one of the major players in mobile games this year thanks to the enormous success of its free-to-play Puzzle & Dragons game, which has dominated the top-grossing app store charts on a worldwide basis for months. It’s generating $2.5 million in revenue a day, with downloads above 11 million. It combines casual Bejeweled-like gameplay with a hardcore role-playing game.

Five months ago, GungHo’s stock was worth $280 million. Now its value is $4.5 billion, or more than Zynga ($2.8 billion). The company is about to become a majority-owned subsidiary of Japan’s telecommunications giant SoftBank, headed by Masayoshi Son, whose brother, Taizo, is chairman of GungHo. To players, that success isn’t a surprise. One woman, who shall remain nameless, told me she had spent more than $300 on the game.

A game built by just six people.

Puzzle & Dragons launched in the spring of last year, and it hit No. 1 on the Apple iTunes App Store in Japan on the top-grossing chart within a few days. It has been there ever since. It has also dominated the charts on Android, though the number of actual downloads has been small. A well-timed television commercial helped push it into the stratosphere in Japan. It’s not an overnight success story, as the company has been in business for more than a decade and it has created hits such as the Ragnarok Online game. The company operates multiple studios, and it now has more than 40 working on updates for Puzzle & Dragons.

In the U.S., however, Puzzle & Dragons isn’t as popular. Launched in November, the U.S. version is ranked at No. 53 on the Apple iTunes App Store in terms of top-grossing apps, and it is No. 874 in terms of downloads, according to App Annie. Morishita said the company hasn’t spent any money on marketing in the U.S., and it will wait to do so until it has higher average ratings for the game.

Meanwhile, GungHo acquired Grasshopper Manufacture, the maker of Lollipop Chainsaw. That company was founded by legendary game designer Goichi Suda, also known as Suda51. He made acclaimed games such as No More Heroes and Killer7. Such investments could improve the odds that GungHo will be more than a one-hit wonder.

We looked up Kazuki Morishita, the chief executive of GungHo, at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week. Here’s our edited transcript of our interview with Morishita, who spoke through a translator.

GamesBeat: I had never heard of you guys until I started looking at some of the worldwide results of the top-grossing games. How did your success happen? How did your games become so popular?

Kazuki Morishita: GungHo was established back in 2002. It’s been more than 10 years. We specialized in PC and console games, so mobile was a later step. We only started there two years ago, and we’ve gone from there to lead the mobile space.

GamesBeat: How many mobile games had you done before Puzzle & Dragons?

Morishita: We’ve published a total of 10 mobile games so far. Five of those were in the past year.

GamesBeat: Why did this one become so popular?

Morishita: Good luck. [Laughs] I established the company when I was in my mid-20s, and back then I had a very hands-on approach. The company was smaller, so I could oversee all of the creative direction and production and development. We had a very big title in Ragnarok Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, and as the company grew from there, I focused more on the business aspect.

A couple of years into that, the quality of our games started slowly declining. They weren’t as well received by the public. Three years ago, I decided to change our business style and go back to taking charge of the creative direction. I’m president and CEO of GungHo, but at the same time I’m also executive producer of all games. I’m very hands-on with all these releases. If I have to push back certain games because they’re not up to standards, I can do that. That helped with Puzzle & Dragons when it came to controlling the level of quality.

GamesBeat: What was it like to begin that project and see it through to completion? How much time and how many people did it take? Was there a time when you knew you had a hit?

Morishita: The concept stage for Puzzle & Dragons started in August 2011 or September 2011. At the time, card battle games were really popular in Japan, so I thought we could come up with a new type of game in that genre. I personally thought most of the games there were crap. I couldn’t understand why they were such a big deal. I thought we could turn the genre upside-down and come up with something very innovative. A month after the concept stage got going, I knew we had something pretty special. It was a lot of fun.

Altogether it took a little less than half a year to make. The first month after release, the team was only six or seven people, not counting the illustrators. Right now we’re up to about 40.

Originally, the game was designed so that you could play the puzzle sideways. You held the screen horizontally. Then, two or three weeks later, I had the idea of moving it this way and making this part the puzzle, so we could focus more on the dungeon-RPG elements. By doing that, we were able to merge more genres together. That was a turning point, where we realized this was going somewhere. It was almost by chance, but that’s what I mean about good luck.

To be honest, I wasn’t anticipating the sales to be so high. Even though I knew we had something fun to play, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a moneymaker. But I’m confident now that Puzzle & Dragons is the most addictive and fun game in the world right now.

GamesBeat: What day did it launch in Japan? How quickly did it take off from there?

Morishita: The iOS version launched on February 20, 2012, and it was only two or three days before it became a top-grossing game in Japan. Seven months later we released the Android version. Originally, we wanted to do a simultaneous launch for all platforms, but at the time we were a little short-staffed and our people were more used to developing for iOS. We developed on the native platform first, and when we had more people who were comfortable working in Unity, that’s when we started on the Android version. Android took about a week and a half to reach No. 1.

When we launched the Android version, since the game was now available on both platforms, we did a new marketing push. We aired a TV spot in Japan, which isn’t very common for mobile games, but we were confident that we had something very strong. Up until that point, it was all word of mouth spreading the game.

GamesBeat: Is your team all working on continuous updates for the game now?

Morishita: Right now, about half of those people – around 20 – are working on updates and ongoing operations.

GamesBeat: Most games that hit No. 1 only stay there for a few weeks. This one has been there for how long? What are some of the other records you’ve set?

Morishita: From day two until now, we’ve stayed at number one on iOS. We’ve never dropped out. It’s the same with Android.

GamesBeat: When did the bigger companies start paying attention, like SoftBank? When did bigger things start to happen?

Morishita: SoftBank was actually one of the first investors in GungHo. They had 33 percent of stock in the company in 2002. When they bought an added 7 percent that just brought their share up. As far as the operation of GungHo, nothing has really changed. Some people just sold their shares and Softbank picked them up.

GamesBeat: Are you surprised at how successful you’ve become?

Morishita: I’m not shocked or surprised, and some people find that kind of strange. [Laughs] We’re just so focused on creating and developing the next new fun game. I’m very calm about all this media interest. It’s not going to change our philosophy about making games.

GamesBeat: Puzzle & Dragons hasn’t done quite as well here in the United States. Are there any reasons you think might explain that difference? Do you think there’s something you can do to make it more successful here?

Morishita: In Japan, the game came out in February. In the U.S., it didn’t come out until November. There’s that lead time that Japan had. Since we reached the top of the charts there in a matter of days, it was very easy to get started on marketing quickly. If we’re going to do any major marketing push, first the user reviews and ratings have to be high. Otherwise people aren’t going to be interested when they go to see the product. Our thinking is that we’ll wait a while – however long it may take – for the reviews to be very positive. The game is already up to a 4.5 average on the App Store, and we’re at 4.1 or 4.2 on Google Play, so we’ll be ready to start soon.

Geography is another factor in play. The size of the country is so different. Something spreads through the media much quicker in a country like Japan. There’s a lot more lag from the time difference and the size difference over here.

Another important thing that we focus on before we spend a lot of money on marketing is to make sure that the operation is very smooth. When users review the game, I want the fun aspects of the game to be part of what they talk about, but also the online support and customer service. For mobile games that are constantly updating and doing events, we have to make sure the operations are perfect. It’s not like a console game that’s a one-time purchase.

At GungHo, we had 10 years of providing that kind of online customer service and operations on the PC side in our online games. We’re very familiar with what customers appreciate, and I think that’s part of why we were able to do so well in that regard with Puzzle & Dragons.

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Everything is a remix, and according to Zynga, all games are derivative works.

Zynga published an open letter from Dan Porter, the general manager of Zynga New York, to his employees that further explains comments he made at a New York panel on wearable computers Friday. During his talk, Porter seemed to admit that the social-game developer copies popular games when designing their own, according to Quartz — now he says the press took his quote out of context.

“What I actually said was that all games are derived from other games, [I said] that this has been happening long before Zynga, and that the debate about originality in games is vastly overblown and misses the mark,” Porter said.

Gamers, publishers, and developers often loudly criticize Zynga for releasing games that seem to ripoff other popular titles. In August, Electronic Arts sued Zynga for copyright infringement. The publisher claimed that Zynga’s The Ville stole specific concepts from EA’s The Sims Social.

EA and Zynga settled in February.

“Before making Draw Something [and before Zynga acquired us], we ran OMGPOP for four years and made lots of games that were inspired by games we loved, and we emulated the mechanics from games with great U.I.,” wrote Porter. “This is no great revelation.”

Porter is slightly conflating emulating mechanics with outright cloning. When Super Mario Bros. popularized side-scrolling in a platform game, it was clear that other platformers would have to use that mechanic to compete. EA accused Zynga of making nearly an exact copy of The Sims Social with The Ville.

In addition to explaining his comments, Porter also apologized to Zynga staff for generating “negative press.” He also explained what Zynga does best.

“The bigger point that I made, one that was overshadowed, goes to the true genius of Zynga,” he wrote. “After making games for years, it was joining Zynga that made me understand the art, science and special sauce running games as a service.”

Porter called the debate over copying a games a “distraction” and that Zynga’s games-as-a-service model is what is truly important. From a purely financial standpoint, he has a point.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Those gifted with new mobile devices this holiday season have a world of fun awaiting their fingertips — maybe too much fun. Thousands of games have been made available over the years, especially since iOS and Android have increased in popularity, making the selection process frustrating for those navigating Google Play, the App Store, or the Amazon App Store for the first time. Well, consider this list of the best mobile games your saving grace. We’ve compiled a source for mobile gaming based on user friendliness, accessibility, and more importantly, fun factor. Whether you have an iPhone, iPad, Galaxy device, or Kindle Fire, these games are waiting for your attention. Think of this list as a beginner’s guide to gaming on your mobile device.

Plants vs. Zombies

Developer: PopCap Games
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Plants vs. Zombies still stands as one of the more addictive games I’ve played. Ever. The object of PvZ is to protect your home from a hoard of zombies that hungrily make their way across your yard. All that stands in their way are plants curiously armed for your war against the living dead.

Specifically, the plants are equipped with a variety of weapons, such as projectile peas. Other plants eat zombies while cherry bombs blow them to deader than dead bits. The more plants you create, the better your chance at survival. You must position your plants strategically, or the game will end rather quickly.

Cut the Rope

Developer: Chillingo Ltd.
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Cut the Rope is disgustingly cute. How so? A piece of candy hangs on a rope over an adorable little monster, and the player must swipe to break the candy free and drop it into the creature’s mouth. His smile is priceless. He’s a happy, goofy-looking little beast named Om Nom.

Cut the Rope’s puzzles are mostly based on physics and timing. For instance, the candy may be hanging from two or three ropes. The order in which you cut them becomes a strategic decision, and timing a cut perfectly so that the treat lands in Om Nom’s mouth can prove tricky. Some of the tougher parts incorporate elements such as hungry spiders that also want the treat, forcing the player to act quickly while still trying to carefully plan moves. More often than not, you’ll retry a level in the hope of feeding the little guy a candy so you don’t have to see his pouty face. It’s heartbreaking, and you can’t help but feel overwhelmed with guilt every time you fail.

Infinity Blade and Infinity Blade II

Developer: Chair Entertainment
Platform: Apple App Store

Infinity Blade is the first iOS game developed using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, and it looks beautiful. It’s truly a showcase of what can be accomplished visually on a mobile device with the right resources, and it’s not far from what current consoles are capable of.

You walk through a castle fighting monsters using simple left, right, and swipe gestures to dodge, block, or attack your enemy. These controls work well with touch screens because they don’t rely on precision finger movements. Instead, the player must focus on timing and pattern recognition to win. It’s Punch-Out!! with shields, swords, ogres, and knights.

Angry Birds series

Developer: Rovio
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

I admit that every time a new Angry Birds game hits the download market, I pretend I’m too cool to be interested. How many times can Rovio reskin the same game? Then I pick it up, and I’m hooked. Angry Birds is arguably the most popular mobile game around right now, and for good reason. It’s no wonder the developers keep releasing sequels and making Angry Birds available on every thinkable platform because even when you want to hate it, you have to admit it’s fun.

The object of the birds’ anger are evil green pigs that have stolen their eggs. The player’s job is to slingshot the birds into said pigs’ fortresses, rendering them dead and bacon. You have a limited number of birds per level, and you must find clever ways to efficiently eliminate all the pigs before advancing. The puzzles are physics-based, so players have to calculate distance and trajectory to win. You’ll often find that what was supposed to be a few minutes of playtime can become an hour or more of slaughtering hogs and cursing at the touch screen.

Draw Something

Developer: Omgpop
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Draw Something was one of the first mobile games to bring a social element to the general public thanks to its Facebook integration. In fact, the social network is very likely the reason Draw Something became so huge. It’s easy to sign up for because most of us have a Facebook account. It’s also very accessible to nongamer types since drawing is a basic skill, which eliminates the need to learn complicated control schemes or rules to enjoy the game.

One player is given a word and must do his best to represent it in a drawing by using his device’s touch screen. Then, he sends it to the other person, who must guess the word based on his (usually horrible) illustration. You can be playing against several friends at once, and it’s not unusual to have 10 or more games going at any given time. Keep in mind that it may be hours or even days before a friend gets back to you with a reply. The only downside to any of these social games is that you are forced to rely on others if you want to play. Once the initial popularity dwindles, it’s a little harder to find opponents.

Rayman Jungle Run

Developer: Ubisoft
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Ubisoft is one of those top-tier gaming companies that wasn’t afraid even early on to invest in development and publishing for mobile platforms. Rayman Jungle Run was picked by Apple as its best game of 2012. Luckily, Rayman is multiplatform, so Android users don’t have to sit this one out.

Rayman Jungle Run is what’s called an autorun game. The character — in this case, Rayman — continuously runs through the levels. The movement is out of your control. It’s the player’s job to jump, glide,, or attack at the right moment. This genre has grown in popularity on mobile devices because it brings elements of traditional run and jump games (often called platformers) yet keeps gameplay simple enough so that users aren’t annoyed by sloppy touch-screen controls.

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The Walking Dead
Released: July
Platforms: iOS
Developer: Telltale Games

Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead is groundbreaking in more than one way. An episodic adventure game in the classic style, today? Turns out, it’s a winner due to brilliant storytelling, solid controls, and, well, zombies. It’s based on the award-winning The Walking Dead comic book and television series, and by making this into a video game, it allowed for the introduction a new lead and set of supporting characters — a brilliant move. This enabled its authors to explore the same themes and ideas as the TV show and the comic book, but with a different emotional tone. Lee Everett and his young charge, Clementine, fill the emotional heart of the story in a way that Rick and his wife never quite do.

Curiosity
Released: November
Platforms: iOS
Developer: 22cans

The first release from Peter Molyneaux and 22cans is an experiment in massively multiplayer gaming with a simple yet compelling premise: “What’s in the center of the cube?” Like a huge virtual Tootsie Pop, the curiosity cube has layers upon layers of colored squares. You simply tap squares to remove them from the top layer of the world-sized cube — you and half a million players others using their iOS devices. Curiosity distills the very essence of its namesake, with teasing lines of prose scrolling across layers, various pictures buried in the skin of each cube layer, and some random coin earning mechanics. All of this seems to add up to one very innovative tapping experience that’s of a less game and more of a participatory experience.

Draw Something
Released: February
Platforms: iOS, Android
Developer: OMGPOP, Inc.
Draw Something was Zynga’s big gamble. Developed by indie team OMGPOP, Draw Something went viral and became as well known as Words With Friends or even Angry Birds. Why did this game become so popular? On the face of it, it’s a simple concept: This is nothing more than multiplayer Pictionary. Get a word and draw a picture that a friend attempts to guess. If they choose the correct word, you both get more points. Playing Draw Something is a lot more compelling, however. Artistic individuals challenge themselves to illustrate more and more abstract words with more and more elaborate, even painterly, images. Unfortunately, the Draw Something bubble burst soon after Zynga spent an obscene amount of money to acquire it. Still, the game continues to have a loyal following, with folks spending real money to buy new colors, word lists, and the like.

Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition
Released: December
Platforms: iOS
Developer: Overhaul Games
One of the pillars of RPG gaming from BioWare recently showed up on iOS, and it still made a huge splash with retro enthusiasts and hardcore RPG fans alike. While the enhancements include new playable characters with new backstories and touch-appropriate controls, this is essentially the same game as came out for PC 14 years ago. The game uses Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules, making it as hardcore and difficult as the original PC game. While RPG games continue to streamline and simplify to interest new players, this 1998 gem remains as true to the form as ever, which is a powerful draw.

The World Ends With You
Released: August
Developer: Square Enix
The World Ends With You made me sit up and take notice when it first released in North America in 2008. The J-Pop flavor of the score; the quirky angst of protagonist Neku and his spunky, optimistic partners, Shiki, Joshua, and Beat; the fun mechanics of searching for and then fighting demons; the overarching storyline of The Game and its Reapers — this is not a typical handheld game. When it came to iOS this year, the loss of the dual-screen combat mechanic proved to have less of an impact than I feared. It’s still a ton of fun to play, with an irreverent wit and unique gameplay mechanics I’ve not seen anywhere else.

Bastion
Released: August
Platforms: iOS
Developer: Supergiant Games
Supergiant Games had a monster hit on its hands with Bastion, one of the best downloadable console games of the last several years. That it’s now available on an iPad or iPhone for five bucks is a revelation. Players follow The Kid through a dying world that somehow re-assembles itself ahead of the main character. The soundtrack is an oddly joyous combination of future-Western loops, guitar work, and haunting vocals — be sure to get the soundtrack if nothing else. The narration makes it all come together, as it tells its simple but compelling story about saving the world, one hammered monster at a time. It works exceedingly well on the touchscreen, too.

Plague Inc.
Released: May
Platforms: iOS, Android
Developer: Ndemic Creations
You’d think that a game featuring the travel paths of a viral plague would be dead boring, but Ndemic Creations proves that a game that’s essentially a spreadsheet simulation of a deadly viral plague across the globe is compelling entertainment. It has no fancy 3D graphics, cutscenes, or voice work, just a map of the world, several choices about how to best spread the disease most effectively (rats? air travel? mosquitos?), and a well-built simulation of how the world responds to your pandemic infection. It’s a chilling and realistic look at how disease can and does spread from place to place.

Angry Birds Star Wars
Released: November
Platforms: iOS, Android
Developer: Rovio Entertainment
Rovio somehow put two of the strongest intellectual properties together into one incredibly lust-worthy combination. Star Wars plus Angry Birds seems like an odd match, but it hit number one in the iTunes app charts within the first two and a half hours of release. It likely sold a huge number of copies via the Google Play store as well: Who can resist Angry Birds with lightsabers and officially sanctioned Star Wars sound effects? No one, that’s who.

Letterpress
Released: October
Platforms: iOS
Developer: atebits
Letterpress is like Boggle with friends with a particularly nasty twist: When you tap out words using the letters provided in the grid, they turn blue, taking points and potential victory from your opponent, chosen at random or from your Game Center friends list. The longer the word, the more points you get, and the less your opponent can rack up. It’s Othello or Go with letters and words, all built with care and a clean, modern design aesthetic.

Fieldrunners 2
Released: July
Platforms: iOS
Developer: Subatomic Studios
Tower defense games are all over the various mobile platforms, perhaps more than any other type of game. The opportunity for deep strategy exists with the tower defense genre, as does quick, pick-up-and-play instant gratification. Fieldrunners 2 is the apogee of tower defense games, as it boasts a variety of sub-genres, like open fields, fixed path, and survival wave modes. It has plenty of towers for you to buy and upgrade, more enemy types, and three levels of difficulty to try your patience and skill.

Infinity Blade II
Released: November 2011
Platforms: iOS
Developer: Chair Entertainment Group
Infinity Blade II came out in November of 2011, so it just missed our top iOS games post last year. Let’s rectify that now. This is a showcase title on any mobile device, though it does only exist on iOS at this point.  Infinity Blade II is a must-own title for iPad an iPhone gamers wanting to see the cutting edge of mobile gaming and visual design, due to the combination of console-level graphical quality and surprisingly tactile combat. It makes good on the promise of the first title, adding more story, more giant beasts to slay, and a continually satisfying challenge throughout.

Horn
Released: August
Platforms: iOS, Android
Developer: Phosphor Games
Horn surprises with a well-developed fantasy world, solid controls, and a quirky sense of humor that permeates across encounters, levels, and character design. Horn is a delight to play; it’s also farther away from Zynga’s core casual business as I thought was even possible. The platforming is well done, the three-dimensional environments are fun to explore and play through, and the enemies are a striking mix of science and magic.

Super Hexagon
Released: August
Platforms: iOS
Developer: Terry Cavanagh
Those who like punishing, tough retro arcade games are bound to thrill to Super Hexagon, developed by indie darling Terry Cavanagh. The point is to rotate your triangle-shaped avatar around a pulsating, spinning, chip-tune spewing hexagon, avoiding the walls that close in on the center in wave after endless wave. Survival is the point of Super Hexagon, moving minimally and staying one step ahead of things as they spin, flash, and pound like a bad trip at a rave.

Waking Mars
Released: February
Platforms: iOS, Android
Developer: Tiger Style Games
Waking Mars takes you on a trip to the red planet to explore, trapping you underneath the surface. You’ll need to navigate a maze-like system of caves, teeming with varieties of plant life that you’ll need to harness to survive, and, eventually, terraform Mars with. If you liked Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, you’ll enjoy Waking Mars for the story, the gorgeous artwork, and a compelling science fictional storyline set on one of our favorite planets to dream about.

Rayman Jungle Run
Released: September
Platforms: iOS, Android
Developer: Ubisoft
The smartest thing Ubisoft could have done with its popular Rayman franchise was to release it to iOS and Android, not as a copycat game full of poorly translated controls schemes, but as a mobile title built specifically for the platform’s touch-based control systems. Rayman Jungle Run is an endless runner, like Canabalt or Jetpack Joyride, but it trades on the glorious cel-shaded illustration, cartoony animation, and delightful ukulele-infused soundtrack that made the console version of Rayman: Origins such fun to play. That joy translates well to the mobile version of Rayman as you jump, swing, and soar across several well designed levels with smooth touch controls.

This story was contributed by Tom Price, product PR manager of mobile-game developer Gameloft.

After perusing this year’s list of nominations for Spike’s annual Video Game Awards (a.k.a., the VGAs), I felt a bit disappointed. Hardly the first time, mind you — as an opinionated gamer I often feel my tastes are at odds with the mainstream, and that mainstream is well represented by the VGAs. But usually I just say “c’est la vie” and move on with my life. I’m not shallow enough to need my opinions validated by an awards show, be it about video games, movies, or music.

But this time I felt like there was a major injustice, one that has been building for years now and has reached and probably surpassed the tipping point, and that’s the blatant dismissal of mobile gaming. Yes, there is a “mobile” category, but it shares its slot with “handheld” games (PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS). Worst of all, not a single iOS or Android game was nominated.

OK, one was: Draw Something, in the Best Social Game category. It was available on mobile, but I assume its inclusion in this category had more to do with its presence on Facebook. Also, didn’t we all stop playing it back in June or so?

Full disclosure here: Though I used to write about video games from a journalistic perspective (GamePro, X-Play, and Computer Gaming World are just a few names I used to find on my paychecks), I now make my daily bread as a PR guy for Gameloft, who develops and publishes games almost exclusively for smartphones and tablets. So I do have a vested interest in this.

But this isn’t sour grapes about none of my company’s games getting nominated. This is about the shock that I felt to see that none of the hundreds (thousands?) of games released for the iOS or Android platforms by anyone were deemed worthy of nomination.

I could go into a long rant about how the number of people playing games on smartphones and tablets is surpassing PCs and consoles at an unheard-of clip. Or you can just read all about that here: http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/14/2012-mobile-game-study/. The short of it is, the mobile age is upon us, and there’s no looking back.

I don’t want to use success metrics as my justification. Rather, my concern has to do with the lingering perception that mobile games are somehow lesser or that they’re nothing more than casual time-wasters that people play on the bus or waiting in line at the DMV. This perception, obviously still held by a large number of the traditional video game media, is not just short-sighted and incorrect, it is damaging to our industry as a whole.

Amazing games with high production values, engaging narratives, and complex gameplay are being released on mobile devices every week. And even some of those with stripped-down productions and simplified yet captivating gameplay are, too, and they are being played by larger numbers of people — in part because you don’t have to go to a brick and mortar store and shell out $60 to enjoy them. I’m not trying to slag off console games, but we are at one of those moments in our gamer history when an outmoded way of thinking is having a hard time accepting what is coming in the very near future. I know, because I was there for the last one.

When I started writing about games back in the late 1990s for Computer Gaming World, we were in a very similar situation in terms of prevailing attitudes: “Real” gamers played PC games, and console games were just dumb diversions, for kids and people who liked to just click on buttons really fast. At least, that was the expressed opinion of some of my more antiquated colleagues. They also thought these websites would never supplant traditional print media, but that’s a story to laugh about another day.

The point is, attitudes are already changing around the industry — just read the twitter feeds of game journalists, especially those on the VGA advisory board, and see how often they talk about what mobile game they’re obsessed with at the moment — but the VGAs seem stuck in an era that is quickly evaporating. That really needs to change. There’s no good reason to not consider the best games on iOS and Android (and now Windows Phone 8, too) along with their console and PC cousins.

I like the VGAs and think they provide a great service. We should be championing the best creative output our industry has to offer in big, showy, televised ways. Games, as a source of entertainment and as an art form, deserve that. But let’s be true to our industry and stop ignoring such a huge swath of it. Otherwise the VGAs will soon become as meaningless as so many of the other major awards show out there. I’m looking at you Oscars and Grammys — but not you Golden Globes. We still cool.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Turning traditional game branding on its head, Hasbro and Zynga are teaming up to launch popular Zynga social games as Hasbro-produced board games for U.S. retailers.

The four games will hit store shelves this month and include Words With Friends, FarmVille, CityVille, and Draw Something. Together, these games have been played by hundreds of millions of users on Facebook and mobile platforms. Zynga currently has 306 million monthly active users for its mobile and social network games.

Because these social online games have reached deep in the zeitgeist of mass culture, the companies have decided to take the digital game brands and introduce them to the real world of family board games. Usually, board games are adapted to become online games.

The Hungry Hungry Herd (pictured right) game draws inspiration from the characters of FarmVille. In that game, players try to gobble up the most apples. This game and the CityVille and Words With Friends titles include special digital values that help enhance a player’s online or mobile game play. Parents can redeem 50 Farm Cash digital currency to keep their farms going online. You can choose from among a Gobbling Horse, Munching Pig, Snacking Sheep, or Chomping Cow. You let loose marbles into the middle and try to eat at many as you can. The game will sell for $22.99 and is for players ages four and up.

In CityVille Monopoly (pictured left), players race to build their dream cities. You can buy locations such as the train station, the toy shop and the bakery. You can use stackable houses to build businesses, apartments and homes. And you can give and receive Mystery Gifts to improve the value of your neighborhood. It sells for $24.99 and is targeted at kids eight and up. It also gives players 85 City Cash to use in the online version of CityVille.

In Words With Friends, which closely resembles the Scrabble board game, players can play word combinations in the hope of scoring the most points. But there are probably more people playing Words With Friends on the planet than there are playing Scrabble. Players get access to a bundle of digital features, including Word-O-Meter, The Count, and Tile Pile to boost their scores in the mobile or online versions. You get letter tiles and arrange them in a rack.

As with the online version, the game gets more interesting if you can land a word in the Double Word or Triple Letter squares. The game has four tile racks and 104 tiles. The game is available at most major retailers this month for $19.99. It is targeted at ages 13 and up and can accommodate two to four players. It is also available at HasbroToyShop.com.

In Draw Something (pictured below right), a title that takes on Pictionary, players will be able to show off their artistic capabilities. You choose a card and pick one of three items to draw, ranging in difficulty from easy to hard. The more difficult the item you’ve chosen to draw, the more coins received if another player guesses correctly. The game will sell for $19.99 and is for kids eight and up.

“We are thrilled to be working with Zynga to give their millions of fans an exciting experience with the Zynga games they love,” said Eric Nyman, senior vice president and global brand leader of Hasbro Gaming in Pawtucket, R.I. “We love how gaming brings people together, especially during the holidays, and we can’t wait to offer friends and families even more great options to play.”

“We are proud to team up with Hasbro and excited for our players to experience their favorite Zynga games in a new way,” said Barry Cottle, executive vice president of corporate and business development at Zynga. “Our hope is to enhance relationships through play through our web and mobile social games and now, with the new Hasbro games, we can make those connections even stronger for our players.”

“Hasbro’s new games bring popular Zynga brands to life, offering fans a unique new gaming experience,” said Laurie Schacht from Toy Insider.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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AOL wants your ugly mug and your phone’s front-facing camera for a new social game for the iPhone.

Clucks is a turn-based social word-puzzler that’s a lot like that party game Taboo. It gives you a word and five associated, forbidden descriptors, and then you record a 12-second video (social-video company Viddy is aiding AOL with that) for a second player to guess what you’re trying to communicate.

As this second player tries to name your word, the game records him. When his round is over, you can watch the both videos side-by-side.

I know what you’re thinking: “But what will prevent lame cheaters from saying any of the forbidden words.”

That’s where a dragon comes in.

Well, at least, the Dragon voice-recognition software from Nuance Communications. Many people already use Dragon to dictate speech to their computers. AOL is using it to recognize when Clucks’ users try to score some easy points.

“No one has captured the trend for social video sharing in mobile gaming yet,” said Sol Lipman, vice president of Mobile First at AOL, in a press release. “By leveraging the fun of short-form videos, integrating Nuance’s Dragon voice recognition to deter cheating, and partnering with Viddy to enable sharing, we have created a first-of-its-kind app that’s fun and different.”

AOL also announced that it is working with Sony Pictures to have some of their stars record Bonus Rounds for users. The two media conglomerates are still ironing out the details, but just imagine playing the game when your next round comes from Edward James Olmos or Alf (AOL cannot confirm the involvement of either of these amazing actors.)

“We’re thrilled to have Sony Pictures on board to help us launch Clucks,” said AOL entertainment sales director Karin Mihkels. “The game offers partners, especially entertainment partners, a unique opportunity to feature their brands and get their talent in front of an active, mobile, and social user base in an easy, fun, and organic way.”

Are you listening, Alf? This is best way for you to get back out in front of the people.

Clucks is available now in Apple’s App Store as a free download.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Joining the exodus of executives who have left Zynga recently, Wilson Kriegel, the former chief revenue officer of Omgpop, has left the company, GamesBeat has learned.

Kriegel was part of the company that Zynga bought earlier this year for at least $180 million, after Omgpop’s Draw Something game scored big with more than 35 million users. (The game now has more than 90 million installs.) At Zynga, Kriegel was in charge of making Draw Something into a “global juggernaut.” He is otherwise focused on the driving of ad revenues, distribution of mobile games, and monetization partnerships at Zynga Mobile.

Kriegel joins a large contingent of Zynga executives who have left the company in the wake of a weak earnings report. Among those who have left are chief operating officer John Schappert, chief marketing officer John Karp, chief creative officer Mike Verdu, infrastructure chief technology officer Allan Leinwand, and general managers Eric Bethke, Jeremy Stauser, Ya-Bing Chu, and Alan Patmore.

New York-based Omgpop was founded six years ago and initially focused on web-based gaming. The company’s focus later shifted to Facebook games and is now on mobile games. Zynga hasn’t commented yet.

[Image credit: Telecoms.com]

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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With the rise of casual games over the past few years, it should come as no surprise that some intrepid players have found ways to beat the system and “win” in dubious ways.

It’s human nature to want to succeed, even if your means are less than honorable (never mind what that says about you as a person), but considering the fact that these are games, and the stakes are really low, it’s still a bit alarming the lengths some casual gamers will go to in order to raise themselves above their competition.

The methods of cheating at casual games vary, but they have one thing in common: They are all incredibly lame.

Multitasking

If you’re like me, and your entire knowledge of Bingo culture comes from sitcoms, then you know that every parlor has that lady who plays 20 cards simultaneously to increase the odds of winning. Never mind the number of wins it takes to make this strategy result in a net gain; players of Mass Bingo just want to win.

The same logic applies to certain Facebook titles, apparently, like developer Broken Bulb’s Pokémon clone Miscrits. If you want to build up a lot of experience points (XP) quickly, one user on game help and strategy site Super Cheats suggests the following: “Open more than one tab (you will need Google Chrome for this cheat). Go into Miscrits on all the tabs you opened and [run] multiple fights at once. After [that,] you should have more XP.”

Making new friends

The problem with a lot of the games on Facebook is that you have to have friends to make any kind of progress (or even play them at all). If you’ve ever hovered your mouse over the “hide all” button on your mom’s eighth request for sticks to build a stable or whatever while annoyance and guilt wage a tug-of-war in your heart, you’ve seen how this process works.

Few people actually want to be a burden to their friends and family, but they also don’t want to stop playing social games (for some reason). And so, a few Internet heroes, like Superman and Batman before them, have figured out how to have it both ways: extra profiles. Here’s a bit of advice on how to get ahead in developer Playdom’s Facebook shooter Wild Ones:

Create another Facebook account and send a friend request to your main account. Go to your main account and accept, and start up Wild Ones. Then click “Add Neighbor,” and click your new account. Switch back, accept the neighbor request, and start up Wild Ones. After you go through these steps, you will see a present at the bottom right. Click that and click “Send Gifts to Friends.” After that, click your main user to recieve it. This process can be repeated as many times as you desire.

You have to wonder if these people are still playing a “social” game at this point, but such questions are better left to philosophers.

Trickery and shenanigans

You don’t necessarily need to enter a special sequence of keystrokes to cheat; sometimes you can overcome your adversaries through some simple mental manipulation. Take this tip, also for Wild Ones, on how to increase your odds of winning battles:

A sneaky way of increasing your chances of winning is to tell everyone that you have lots of Goo Globguns when you start a match, and if they want to get free Goo Globguns, they should press Ctrl + Z + W. Those who enter the code will close their windows and log themselves out, making them leave the match.

This strategy could not be more simple: You turn your opponent’s desire for a powerful in-game weapon against them, tricking them into quitting and awarding you the win by default. It requires a certain amount of gullibility on the other person’s part, sure, but it’s probably pretty funny when it works … provided you don’t mind getting a nickname like “Baron Cheater von Cheapenstein.”

Anagram finders

We’re getting a little more high-tech with this one and bringing in third-party programs. Games like developer Zynga’s Words with Friends (also known as Scrabble) give players a bunch of letters and ask them to form words from them. But who has time for that? Why not just feed the contents of your tray into a free site like Words with Friends cheat and let it tell you how many points you’re sitting on?

Your friend will never know how you pulled a 33-point word like “MUZJIKS” out of thin air — unless they know you and remember that you failed English in seventh grade.

“Automagic”

Free sites will only get you so far, however, and the day may come when you are so desperate to succeed at a casual game that you’re willing to lay down money for the thrill of victory. That’s when apps like Draw Solver Pro come in. These programs promise to help you get those coins in OMGPop/Zynga’s Draw Something, even if the person you’re playing with has the artistic ability of a snail.

How does it work? Well, when you come up against an inscrutable image, you just take a screenshot and feed it into the program. The app will analyze your partner’s scribble and tell you exactly what it’s supposed to be “automagically.”

That’s what that screen-capping business makes it look like, anyway; what Draw Solver Pro actually does is pull the letters from your captured image and tell you which words you can make out of them. So basically, the makers of this program are charging 99 cents for the convenience of not having to enter the letters into an anagram finder yourself.

These apps are especially silly because the cost of failure in Draw Something is so low — all you stand to lose with an incorrect guess is your winning streak; you won’t lose coins for guessing incorrectly. Besides that, it’s a cooperative game, so what exactly does one gain by cheating at it?

Buddies

It takes a brave person to admit defeat. It takes a much stranger person to deny defeat so much that they will subscribe to a service that will count cards, provide hints, and even play a game for them automatically. It is for that second group of weirdos that Play Buddy exists.

Play Buddy offers a vast suite of programs for casual titles on Yahoo, Facebook, MSN, and Pogo. Here, for example, is the description of an app that will help you win at online Backgammon:

Looking for Backgammon strategy help to improve your play? Trying to get a higher Backgammon rating? Need a Pogo badge? Or do you just want to win a few games? [. . .] This specialized Yahoo and Pogo cheat surpasses all other Backgammon autos. This Buddy puts you in a league with the pros and is a tool no serious Pogo or Yahoo Backgammon player should be without. Capable of winning matches against 2500+ rated players thanks to its advanced strategy, this phenomenal helper is guaranteed to improve your game.

Presumably, “improving your game” in this case means “improving your win-lose ratio so you can win virtual awards.” Backgammon Buddy even goes so far as to take you out of the equation entirely, playing matches automatically so you can receive badges that would otherwise require you to be good at Backgammon.

Because journalist and satirist H. L. Mencken was right, and “No one in this world [. . .] has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people,” Play Buddy charges for its products. For just $4.99 a month, you can acces everything the company has to offer: almost 200 programs that will do all the work (so you don’t have to).

Cutting out the middleman

Maybe at this point, you’re thinking, “I don’t have time to sit through a whole round of Backgammon. How can I make people think I’m good at games that’s faster than all of these other options?” Well I’m glad you asked, super-busy lazy person. People who want to show off to their friends with no effort of their own whatsoever have only one place to turn.

Cheat Engine is an open-source toolset that allows users to modify single-player PC games. Its powers are not limited to casual titles, but for the purposes of this article, I’ll focus on what you can do with something like 3D Pinball for Windows. Specifically, you can just go in and change your high score.

Honestly, what’s the point of even playing if you’re going to do that?

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Zynga blamed the shortfall in earnings and its lowered outlook on several factors: general softness for existing titles, delay of The Ville people simulation game, changes that Facebook that seriously hurt engagement of older games, and a disappointing performance for the Draw Something mobile game. The consequences of the miss could be far-reaching.

Arvind Bhatia, analyst at Sterne Agee, said the Zynga problems bode ill for Facebook, which reports earnings today. Zynga’s market value, with its stock price at $3.15, is now $2.3 billion, well below its December initial public offering price of $10 a share and market value of $9 billion. Zynga’s stock price is a little embarrassing, considering it has $1.6 billion in cash.

At the Casual Connect game conference in Seattle, lots of people were stunned at the weak earnings and sharp stock drop. The woes of the biggest casual game company were the topic of conversation at the conference parties on Wednesday night. Zynga still has 220 million monthly active users, but that figure is down from the past.

“I was very surprised,” said Lon Otremba, chief executive of Tylted and one of the 2,700 attendees at Casual Connect, in an interview with GamesBeat. “This isn’t good for the rest of the industry.”

Indeed, Electronic Arts’ stock price is down 3 percent today and Glu Mobile’s has dropped 12 percent.

Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Securities, noted that investors had been banking on a good second half of the year for Zynga, but the guidance Zynga offered changed that view. The company guidance — that revenues would be 50 percent lower than previously expected — implies that the second half “will not be the stronger half, in direct contrast to management’s comments earlier this year,” Pachter said. He lowered his prediction for Zynga’s stock price over the next year from $17 a share to just $7.

Ben Schachter, an analyst at Macquarie Research, said the results were “shocking” and guidance of revenues raised “our worst fears about the stability of the business model and competitive positioning.” He lowered his price target from $7 to $3.50 a share. Zynga said its revenues are expected to be $1.15 billion to $1.225 billion for the year, compared with Wall Street’s previous expectations of $1.44 billion.

He wrote in a research note, “Our key long-term concern remains this: What is Zynga’s sustainable competitive advantage? On Facebook, it executed well against its first-mover status, but with changes from Facebook, this advantage is wearing thin and users seem less willing to pay.”

He added, “On mobile, thus far, Zynga looks little different to us than a myriad of other casual game companies. It has acquired some hit mobile titles that monetize reasonably well through advertising, but without first-mover advantage and a platform on which to scale, it has not yet been able to leverage mobile hits into significant successes for its other games.”

With the uncertainty, Schachter said, “We have little faith in our, or the company’s ability, to model revenue in either the near or long term. Additionally, while real-money gaming remains a potential positive catalyst, it is extremely difficult to quantify at this early stage and we prefer to see management at least begin to execute against the opportunity before giving them any credit. The bottom line is that Zynga over promised and significantly under delivered.”

Atul Bagga, analyst at Lazard Capital, also was disappointed. He said in a note that the “magnitude of the miss and the outlook revision make us concerned about users’ long-term value and Zynga’s ability to profitably re-engage with users.” He downgraded his recommendation on the stock from “buy” to “neutral.”

“The results were a surprise, and contradicted what we have picked up speaking with a few companies in the space,” Bagga said. “We believe that the miss could have partially stemmed from the loss of some of the super-high-paying users or “whales.” He said he was surprised by the “sudden change in fundamentals.”

Colin Sebastian, an analyst at R.W. Baird, also said the results were worse than anticipated. Users appear to be tired of “management style” simulation games, but the outlook in the long-run for mobile games is good, he said. Average daily bookings per daily active user, or the money coming from each paying user, declined 10 percent from the previous quarter. That means that existing games aren’t monetizing as they once were.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The common belief is that Zynga has social games locked up on Facebook. But the social network is eager to dispel that idea, even if Zynga has 243 million monthly active users, or more users than the next top five players combined, according to AppData.

Sara Brooks, the game strategic partner manager at Facebook, said in a talk at the Casual Connect game conference in Seattle that plenty of new players have engaged in social games in the past year. She said more than 130 games have over 1 million monthly active users (MAU) on Facebook.

King.com, for instance, now ranks at No. 2 on Facebook with 51 million MAU. In August, the company launched its first Facebook game, Bubble Witch Saga, and reached 3.5 MAU in its first month.

Other up-and-comers include Peak Games, Cookapps, and Fresh Planet, the maker of SongPop. Omgpop also saw a fast rise to the top with Draw Something early this year. Zynga acquired the company for $183 million-plus.

New genres that have emerged include hidden object games, which a year ago only had two titles. Now there are at least a half-dozen hits, Brooks said. Those include Victorian mysteries, romance games, and titles such as Disney’s Animal Kingdom Explorers.

Casual arcade games have also experienced a boom. More than 75 million MAU are playing bubble-shooter titles, where you shoot bubbles at fruit hanging on trees or something like that. Big hits in the arcade space include King.com’s Candy Crush Saga, which has 13 million MAU; GameHouse’s Collapse Blast!; Social Gaming Network’s Panda Jam; and Wooga’s Diamond Dash.

Casino games are on the rise, as seen with IGT’s $500 million acquisition of Double Down Interactive, a social casino game company that has a big hit in slot machine games. Sports titles are also catching on. And hardcore games such as Kixeye’s War Commander are taking off. Other hits include Citizen Grim and Total Domination.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Mark Pincus wants Zynga to reach a billion players. Facebook has been good to Zynga over the past five years, but the social network is not going to give it that many users. To get there, he’s counting on David Ko, the social gaming company’s chief mobile officer.

Zynga has been steadily expanding, buying mobile game companies such as OMGPOP, the maker of onetime mobile sensation Draw Something. Zynga has also opened up a new mobile publishing division so it can publish mobile games made by third-party developers. That way, Zynga can cash in even if its own game designers aren’t the ones to come up with the next Draw Something or Words With Friends.

But ultimately, Ko believes that Zynga will hit its goals if it can establish brands with its mobile games that everyone knows and wants to play. Ko discussed this with Wired Game|Life editor Chris Kohler (pictured right) at our recent GamesBeat 2012 conference, where the theme was the Crossover Era: moving from one segment of the game market into another as a result of marketplace disruption. Here’s an edited transcript of the interview.

Chris Kohler:
There once was a company called Zynga.
Who did a quite interesting thing-a. Words With Friends popularity,
Caused Alec Baldwin hilarity.
If only he played Draw Something-a.

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to have a fireside chat about Zynga’s mobile business. Here’s David Ko!

David Ko: Hello!

Kohler: Fair or not, GamesBeat has only just begun. And yet I’m already getting a sense from a lot of the presentations here that there are a lot of challenges affecting mobile developers. You hear sentences like, “Of course it’s very difficult to get an app discovered…unless you’re Zynga.” “Of course it’s very difficult to decide what platform to put something on…unless you’re Zynga.” True? Untrue?

Ko: Well, I think it’s a mixture. We announced a new program around publishing to address that. We have been, for I would say the past year, getting lots of inquiries and focus from third-party developers saying, “There’s this real oxymoron in app development today. Through tools that are out there, and through third parties, it’s easier than ever to create apps in the marketplace. And there’s varying degrees of that. But it’s harder than ever to get discovered and to find the right audiences. Are there ways that companies like Zynga and others can help us do that?”

I do think you see a number of companies trying to address this. But I think it’s challenging; as the marketplace and the ecosystem has gotten more competitive, there’s tens of thousands of apps today that are getting submitted. There’s billions of apps now that are getting downloaded each month across multiple platforms. So I do think there’s a challenge there for smaller, independent developers to get their apps noticed. Unless you have a larger network, a larger player base to cross-promote from, it’s very challenging.

Kohler: So what is it that you propose? Because Zynga is essentially moving into this idea of third-party publishing for mobile apps: not simply promoting Zynga stuff, but taking other apps that are out there and leveraging what it is that you have to help them out. What is it you propose doing differently that’s not what Apple is doing with the App Store already?

Ko: For us, it really started with the network. We started publishing on the web in about March earlier this year. If you look at the combined network of mobile and web today on the Zynga Network, there’s about 300 million monthly users. There’s about 65 million daily active users, who we call DAUs. We’ve announced previously that there’s about 21 million on mobile, daily active users, on the average for the quarter. We like to see that as an average.

And then when we think about social interactions, on our network alone there’s over 450 million social interactions per day. So for a while, we were very focused on our own first-party games across mobile and web. Then we saw this opportunity to increase the overall ecosystem for games. Eighteen months ago, we were not that large in mobile. Many of you attended Mark Pincus’s earlier conversation. He talked about us being early [on Apple's iOS].

That was really 18 months ago, when we first started getting into the mobile gaming space. Today, I think our metrics speak for themselves. We focused on first-party gaming. We view ourselves as one of the largest mobile/social gaming companies that’s out there today. And then what we’ve said is, when we open it up to third-party developers, how do we grow that ecosystem together? We have a network today that’s highly focused on mobile games, and what we want to see is how we take that to the next level. Not really just taking the 21 million that we have today, but how do we grow that pot together?

Kohler: What do you see about five years in the future? As far as mobile goes, how important is it to Zynga? What part of the business is it, and what do you envision as the ideal future for you in the mobile space?

Ko: I think the vision Mark has been very clear on is that our vision is to connect the world through games. We have a mantra that we want to get to a billion players. The reality is that we’ve seen a shift. We’ve seen more of our players come and say, “We want to be able to play your games anytime and anywhere.” Internally, we’ve spoken about how we ultimately, as a company, need to work with the best content creators that are out there, regardless of platform. And so what we’ve done is focus on asking, “How do we focus on getting our content out there across multiple platforms?” And then we really give you experiences tailored to those platforms.

What I do see out there in the future is a shift. I only have to look at my personal habits today. I don’t know if this holds for the majority of you, but I use my personal laptop, if it’s not for work, a lot less. I barely use it during the week. I moved to more of a tablet-centric usage for my own purposes, whether it’s in front of the TV or whether it’s just day-to-day. And I’ve used my phone for almost everything. There will always be that PC experience, but there is the tablet experience that is growing really fast. And then, obviously, there’s the sheer number of mobile phones that are in the marketplace today.

Kohler: During the keynote earlier this morning, Mark mentioned the initial FarmVille move into mobile and how users were ultimately kind of disappointed with that experience. He’d imagined that they simply wanted to play the same game they were playing, just on their mobile device. And he found out, learned the lesson, that in that case that wasn’t in fact what they were looking for. What were the lessons of that process?

Ko: I’ve seen some people say that Mark said we were early to mobile about two years ago. That’s not the case. I’ll just clarify that. The fact that Mark was talking about was that two years ago, we took on an ambitious project with one of our largest franchises to create, I would say, the same type of game experience across mobile and web. Everything is part of a learning experience. What we tried to find was, on the web, with FarmVille, they had an update cadence of updating things multiple times per day.

The way we had architected some of our apps two years ago was that we had made them in a way that, with the updates and the approval processes that are out there today, things would break and lag in the in-between period. Players weren’t getting the best experiences. We’ve learned a lot since then. We’ve learned in terms of how we think server-side versus client-side and how to utilize new technologies like HTML 5. We’ve tailored new experiences for players today and their playing habits. So I’m glad that we made those investments and learned two years ago, because I think it’s made our experiences today that much better for players. You see it across things like Words With Friends, for example, Draw Something, and all the new games that we’ve come up with.

Kohler: Take, for example, Draw Something. What are the ongoing lessons from Draw Something? Where is that product now, and what are you planning on doing to push it in the future?

Ko: I think Draw Something, for us, has been similar to Words With Friends. I would say it’s a cultural phenomenon. It was one of those apps where it took the world by storm. We’re right now very close to our 10 billionth drawing on the network, which is just incredible. And in just this short amount of time. What we found was this game went viral; it went all over the world. And it grew, not only basically across iOS and Android and other platforms, it grew because of social. It was easy to play. You could share it and connect, and it was a game that required very little localization. People played it all over the world. Since that time,  we’ve tried to make the game a lot better.

What we’ve found is that we really want to create brands in mobile. We want to take this and extend it; we think it can become a brand that has an evergreen character to it. We’re really thinking about our portfolio in that manner. Earlier in the day, Mark talked about when we launch games. For Zynga, it’s really just the beginning. We don’t look at launching games, and then we put them to the side and say, hey, we’re done. When we launch games, this is really just the beginning of an arc, hopefully this long arc that we want to take with the game. Because you want to be social. Inherently, that is the foundation of all games that we build today. We’ve found that focusing on social can move scores like active social network (ASN) that Mark talked about and deliver games that are much longer in arc than, I would say, single-player games.

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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Apple brought the iOS GameCenter to Mac, Silicon Knights confirmed a small number of layoffs,  and the Diablo III real-money auction house went live. You can also find a roundup of GamesBeat’s complete coverage for this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the game industry’s largest trade show.

You’ll also find a review of Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown.

GamesBeat:

The DeanBeat: Apple and Samsung give console makers a reprieve

APB Reloaded: Turning a game that killed a studio into a 3-million-user success (interview)

Steam Workshop support added to Civilization V

Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition update fixes zombie pigmen, adds auto-save

Tony Hawk developer Neversoft answers the Call of Duty

The9′s Chinese mobile game network reaches 10M users and 12M downloads (exclusive)

Digital game sales are up but still can’t touch Call of Duty (infographic)

Fruit Ninja follows Angry Birds’ flight plan with licensed products

Microsoft’s NUads on Xbox Live ‘motions’ boring TV commercials forward

Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is a triple-A fighting game with an iffy price tag (review)

Habbo’s woes continue with threat of regulation and loss of retailer support

Diablo III real-money action house finally goes live

Player’s decade-old Civilization II game is a world of “hellish nightmare”

A visual tour of the 2012 Apple Design Awards winners

Investor drops support for teen social game after allegations of sexual chats

Draw Something goes global with 12 new languages and celebrity endorsements

Silicon Knights head confirms “a small number” of layoffs

VentureBeat:

Embracing Silicon Valley, EA gears up for its digital empire (interview)

Despite huge Diablo III launch, May video game sales fall 28 percent

GamesBeat’s gigantic E3 2012 roundup

New studio uCool to launch ambitious Tynon social fantasy role-playing game (exclusive)

Kickstarter project aims to reimagine classic Atari game M.U.L.E. (exclusive)

Indie studio Thatgamecompany raises $5.5M to create magical games for wider audiences

PopCap survey shows 44 percent of people play mobile games

GamesBeat 2012 panel will examine the rise of social casino games

Trion Worlds will soon have multiple gargantuan online game worlds (interview)

Activision Publishing teams up with Flurry to release third-party mobile games

Bored, impressed, and giddy: Our final thoughts on E3 2012 (with photos)

Zynga stock price takes a dive, triggering circuit breakers

Apple brings its iPhone Game Center to the Mac

68-year-old grandmother to attempt world record 30-hour gaming marathon for charity

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Draw Something, the game that saved small studio OMGPOP and prompted a huge buyout from Zynga, is coming to CBS. Draw Something is the game in which you draw something and a friend guesses what it is. According to Variety, celebrities and everyday users will test their skills on live TV while audiences at home can join in to win prizes — including a chance to compete with the celebrities. A group including Sony and Ryan Seacrest is producing the show, but no date has yet been set for the first airing.

Of course, Zynga has been widely criticized for its purchase of OMGPOP, a one-hit studio. Draw Something has been an immense success but has tailed off sharply in the past few months, losing about seven million users in the past month alone.

This drop has paralleled Zynga’s own stock woes. The company has lost almost two-thirds of its value in the last few months:

All of this suggests that Zynga has to do something, anything, to make its exuberant $200 million purchase make cold, hard financial sense. A network TV deal has the potential to do this in two ways. One, the deal itself will be worth some money — how much was not released. But two, and perhaps more importantly, a popular TV show could reignite public interest in Draw Something.

It’s easy to be a little bit cynical about this deal, but all sarcasm and joking aside, this has the potential to be something very, very innovative. Zynga and CBA will be combining live game-show-style television with interactive audience engagement on smartphones and tablets. That’s interesting and, at the very least, should suggest some new twists in the future of entertainment.

Image credit: Draw Something Facebook page

Musical artists Enrique Iglesias and Jennifer Lopez will team up with Zynga as the company promotes 12 new languages coming to the hit mobile game Draw Something.

The effort shows that the social game company is willing to bring out the big stars to support the growth of Draw Something, which Zynga acquired when it bought OMGPOP in March for $210 million.

Users can now play in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, Danish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. During the seven-day promotion, Iglesias and Lopez will choose a new word of the day under the newly added Special Words feature in Draw Something. Players can access their choices under the “JLo Enrique” option.

“Draw Something has only been available to players in English since its launch and became a cultural phenomenon around the globe,” David Ko, chief mobile officer for Zynga said in a statement. “We are excited to be able to give back to our players around the world by offering an experience that is more locally relevant to them.”

This isn’t the first time Iglesias has partnered with Zynga. Last September he offered his likeness for an interactive avatar in CityVille. Zynga has a history with partnering with celebrities, and previously worked with Lady Gaga and Martha Stewart.

“With native pop culture references and our partnership with global superstars such as Enrique Iglesias and Jennifer Lopez, the game will be even more fun for players. How do you draw ‘caliente?’ We’ll soon find out,” Said Ko.

Beyond expanding the number of supported languages in Draw Something, Zynga also revealed that Chinese gamers can use Sina Weibo, or a Chinese microblogging service, to play the game.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week Minecraft on 360 broke all digital-sales records on its first day, controversial marketing specialist Paul Christoforo filed a lawsuit against N-Control, Activision Blizzard touted Skylanders as bigger than Angry Birds, and Take-Two delayed BioShock Infinite.

You’ll also find reviews for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition,  Toy Soliders, Lone Survivor, and Awesomenauts.

Other GamesBeat stories included:

The DeanBeat: A tale of two industry giants

7 reasons why you should play The Secret World

Vita sales struggle in a new, tablet-ruled world

Carmageddon devs run over Double Fine’s Tim Schafer in the name of Kickstarter

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition is a successful port of an imperfect gem (review)

Minecraft on Xbox 360 breaks digital-sales records in first day

Civilization V: Gods and Kings will give you a reason to rebuild your empire (hands-on preview)

Toy Soldiers: A Great War in a small box (review)

The Sims Social on life support? EA says no way

Official DICE servers disappear from Battlefield 3

Skylanders is bigger than Angry Birds, says Activision Blizzard

Activision Blizzard says Black Ops II may be the biggest Call of Duty ever

World of Warcraft still on top with 10.2M subscribers in first quarter

5 Kickstarter games we may never see

Electronic Arts and Insomniac Games announce Outernauts for Facebook

Who wants a Wii U? Not three out of four gamers

Bethesda and id release 20th anniversary edition of Wolfenstein 3D as web/mobile game

Controversial marketing specialist Paul Christoforo files a lawsuit against N-Control

Are Chinese gamers addicted to crack?

Adventure game veteran Jane Jensen reaches Kickstarter goal

Mojang talks Minecraft subscriptions, boycotting E3

Lone Survivor delivers story better than big-name games (review)

MMORPG writer discusses the thin line between labor and love (exclusive)

Awesomenauts: Think of it as multiplayer online battle arena training wheels (review)

Company of Heroes 2 explores WWII’s Eastern front

Journey designer: PlayStation Network players “more likely to be interested in artistic games” than 360 or Wii

VentureBeat:

Why China’s game business will hit $20B by 2016 (exclusive interview)

Cmune spreads UberStrike to new platforms and raises funds from Skype founder

Game sales crash 42 percent in April with a light release schedule and early Easter

Facebook games don’t have to be stupid, according to AviNation (exclusive)

Call of Duty, Skylanders lead Activision Blizzard to beat analysts’ expectations

Milestone for a mobile blockbuster: Angry Birds hits 1 billion downloads

Take-Two delays highly anticipated BioShock Infinite until Feb. 2013

EA’s focus: Brands, platforms, and talent

Zynga launches Bubble Safari as it moves into arcade-style social games

Starhawk developers learned from social games that “analytics is king” (interview)

Hackers disrupt the gameplay of Zynga’s YoVille social game

EA chief suggests that Zynga overpaid for OMGPOP/Draw Something

Angry Birds creator Rovio says merchandising is 30 percent of revenue

Awesome! Raptr will give you targeted rewards just for playing games

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

That was a not-so-veiled reference to Zynga’s $180 million-plus purchase of OMGPOP, the publisher of mobile gaming phenomenon Draw Something, which skyrocketed to tens of millions of users in a matter of two months after its release on the iPhone. But Draw Something’s numbers have slipped by 5 million users in recent days, and that’s made some observers wonder if Zynga paid too much for the acquisition. Riccitiello did not specifically name Zynga in his comments. But some analysts have suggested the same thing more directly.

EA is expecting to launch a major social game this quarter. But the company has seen its share of the Facebook gaming market slump since The Sims Social ran its course during the past year. EA bought Playfish in 2009 for $400 million to get into the social game business, but it has not been as acquisitive as Zynga.

Riccitiello said that he is “anxious” about paying for new hit games and their developers.

“There’s an awful lot of noise around a brand when it rises,” he said. Acquirers are willing to pay 10 times or 20 times a company’s current earnings on such acquisitions, he said. But he thinks that three times or four-times earnings multiples are a more reasonable price. Otherwise, he said, “You have to have a belief that it will last for a very long time.” He said that EA brands such as The Sims, SimCity, and Bejeweled have withstood the test of time.

“We don’t need to buy a brand,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we won’t invest.”

But he said the assumptions of “hockey stick” upward rises in valuations for startups are not reasonable.

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Data gathered by an independent application traffic tracking organization reveals daily active users for Zynga’s Pictionary-esque app Draw Something in steep decline.

Draw Something’s traffic trends for the 30-day period between April and May show a rapid loss of 3 million daily active users after peaking at 14.6 million on April 3.  The app also shed 900,000 players within the last week, suggesting further decline ahead for the doodling social game. Surprisingly, Zynga’s recent sizeable update didn’t dent sinking player counts. Getting bored from repeatedly drawing starfishes and boom boxes apparently trumps additional functionality.

AppData, the provider of the traffic figures and a division of Facebook research firm Inside Network, claims it gathers information directly from Facebook’s active users formula. Players who registered through email or other methods aren’t reflected in reported numbers.

Draw Something launched in early February by original developer OMGPOP, quickly achieving hit status due to its accessible premise of trading drawings with friends to earn coins for rewards. In March, social gaming giant Zynga acquired OMGPOP for $200 million, a transition turned rocky when OMGPOP Chief Executive Officer Dan Porter called a single employee refusing to join Zynga “the weakest one.”

GamesBeat contacted Zynga for comments but didn’t receive any response before press time.

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week in news: Digital downloads for full retail games coming to 3Ds and Wii U, Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami working on a new survival horror game codenamed “Zwei”, Valve reveals inventive Defense of the Ancients 2 pricing, and Nintendo posts its first fiscal year loss.

You’ll also find a review for Bloodforge and previews for PlayStation All-Star Battle Royale, Dishonored, and Crysis 3.

Other GamesBeat stories included:

The DeanBeat: Follow the people. Follow the money. Into casino games.

Leaked Rayman Legends trailer shows NFC tech in action on Wii U (gallery)

PlayStation All-Star Battle Royale: Really, though? (preview)

Nintendo CEO Iwata: No Wii U pricing at E3; digital downloads coming to 3DS and Wii U

Draw Something now on the Kindle Fire

Star Wars: The Old Republic launches in 38 additional countries

World’s tiniest Star Wars arcade cabinet is fully operational

How Dishonored’s artists created an oppressive, Victorian, steampunk world from scratch

Bethesda’s Arkane shoots for an original action game with Dishonored (preview)

Breaking down Conquest Domination in Battlefield 3: Close Quarters’ Donya Fortress (preview)

How gaming’s biggest blockbusters affect monthly sales (infographic)

Cryptic Studios hacked in December 2010; attack only “just” discovered

Resident Evil creator working on new survival-horror game codenamed “Zwei”

X-rays of game controllers reveal ghostly circuitry

Xbox 360-quality graphics could come to mobile devices by 2014

Bloodforge brings a good, gory romp to Xbox Live Arcade (review)

Crysis 3 first look: Bullets, bows, and the Big Apple (preview)

Free-to-play games on Xbox 360? It could happen sooner than you think

The four lessons other developers can learn from the Valve employee handbook

Max Payne 3′s massive 35GB install vs. other big games

Supposed list of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 multiplayer details leaked

Ben Sawyer on how Games for Health will lead to “human joysticks” (interview)

The Fez soundtrack’s hidden images and how they got there

Stories that also appeared on VentureBeat:

Google Zerg rush attacks your search results with this fun Starcraft-inspired easter egg

Non-gamers, here’s why you should care about games

Big Fish Games CEO hands reins back to founder Paul Thelen

Casino games surpass farm games as the darlings of social networks

Nexon to publish A Bit Lucky’s Lucky Space in South Korea (exclusive)

Two Angry Birds leaders leave the nest to start Boomlagoon (exclusive)

Zynga earnings call: three key wins in mobile, social and diversification

Zynga beats Q1 earnings estimates

EA stock spikes on rumor that Nexon will buy it (not likely)

Smith & Tinker revives Nanovor with mobile app (exclusive)

Nintendo posts fiscal year loss and expects to return to profitability

Arrggh: KingsIsle Entertainment unveils Pirate101 online game

YouWeb and StartEngine incubators to hold Double Demo Day for 20 startups

Japan’s DeNA signs up Kabam and Nimblebit

PixyKids launches 3D-animated characters for kids social network

Report: Amazon pulling ahead of iTunes in average revenue per user

Real online gambling and social network casino games are on a collision course

Valve’s new pricing will charge players based on how much of a jerk they are

AMD takes a swing at Intel and Nvidia with new mobile graphics chips

Gamers: Get the most out of your Android device

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Good news, Kindle Fire owners. Draw Something is now available on the Amazon Marketplace, meaning you can finally jump into all the Pictionary-mania your friends with iOS and Android devices have enjoyed for a while now.

Just like in the previous versions of Draw Something, Kindle players will have a choice between the free, ad-supported app and a $1.99 ad-free edition. Regardless of what you pay for up front, additional bombs (to remove words that you don’t want to draw or to remove letters to make it easier to guess the clue) and color sets for your drawings will be available for purchase in the game.

Developer OMGPOP also revealed a list of the most and least popular words in the game. Unsurprisingly, “latrine” is one of the least used. That’s probably because many players might not realize that’s just a fancy word for toilet (well, sort of fancy, when applied in the military sense).

Most Popular Words: Starfish, pregnant, hangman, six pack, boom box

Best-Guessed Words: Rainbow, catfish, sun, fish, house, god, tornado

Least-Guessed Words: Oar, Metroid, Warhol, pounce, polaroid, meathead, Autobots

Oh come on now, I bet everyone can guess what this is:

(It’s a Polaroid of a Metroid!)

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week in news: Polytron admits to bugs found in Fez, Kickstarter is on track to triple their earnings this year, and THQ reports its revenue is slightly higher than expected.

You will also find reviews of Trials: Evolution and Skullgirls.

Other GamesBeat stories included:

The DeanBeat: GamesBeat 2012 to focus on crossover strategies

Diablo III open beta weekend begins today

Awesome art: Disney princesses reimagined in Final Fantasy X-2′s dresspheres (gallery)

Blade Games World brings 3D game creation to everyone with Jumala

BBC to publish games with 6waves as the Brits invade Facebook

Prey 2: Not canceled, just delayed

Update: Sony confirms God of War: Ascension (with video)

Tim Schafer shares 5 tips to Kickstarter success

Temple Run sprints past 10 million downloads for Android

Zynga adds new social features to Draw Something, raises streak cap to 999

Sci-fi author sues Ubisoft over alleged Assassin’s Creed copyright infringement

Trials Evolution hits the throttle and never lets up (review)

XEOPlay’s beautiful iOS game Tilt World strives to make a real-world impact

Rock Band Blitz developer discusses dropping the plastic instruments

Beating Ocarina of Time in under 25 minutes and other crazy speed runs

Zynga’s got $1.8 billion in cash and is aggressively looking for the next OMGPOP

Electronic Arts announces Crysis 3 for Spring 2013 along with preorder packs

Skullgirls revisits the Golden Age of fighting games and animation (review)

How Fez’s first-day sales compare to Braid, Limbo, and other XBLA hits

Polytron acknowledges “pretty serious” bugs in Fez

Stories that also appeared on VentureBeat:

Author David Kushner tells the inside tale on Grand Theft Auto and the video game violence wars (interview)

Bicycle card game owner to launch Zeniz mobile social casino games platform (exclusive)

Can minors buy Facebook Credits? Parents demand refund in class action suit

Kickstarter funding explodes, on pace to triple this year to around $300M

With Xbox 360 sales slowing down, Windows Phone desperately needs to succeed

World Golf Tour, now simply WGT, launches Major League Baseball game on Facebook (exclusive)

Bluega takes web-based HTML5 touchscreen interface across platforms

THQ reports revenue to be significantly higher than expected

Aeria Games gets strategic investment from Sony division

Behind the scenes of how Bethesda marketed giant fantasy hit Skyrim

Finally shipping: The $35 Raspberry Pi computer that can play Quake 3 Arena

Social mobile game maker Zattikka goes public on London Stock Exchange

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Zynga has announced the implementation of new social elements for its hit Pictionary-esque app, Draw Something. Players can now share their masterpieces on Facebook and Twitter, as well as save drawings to the device photo library. This functionality is only available on iOS and to be added to Android at a later date.

Other new features include short messages up to 100 characters that can be attached to drawings. I wonder how many of these will say, “It’s a monocle! Please guess right I need coins lulz!”

The standard iOS “pull down to refresh” feature has been added, as has an undo button that erases the most recent stroke. Streaks have been increased from 100 to 999, allowing you to play in the same session much longer.

According to Zynga, 6 billion illustrations have been created worldwide in Draw Something, with the “most popular” words being: table, airplane, bubbles, starfish, and birthday.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Here are some of the stories that ran on GamesBeat this week. We’re running more articles exclusively in the GamesBeat section of VentureBeat, particularly when they’re mainly of interest to our game readers. The broader-interest posts will continue to run on VentureBeat as well. Please visit the GamesBeat section to catch up on the latest game news. We’re ramping up our game coverage, so you’ll find a larger amount of deeper news at GamesBeat.

Here are the best stories that appeared exclusively on GamesBeat this week:

Anomaly: Warzone Earth successfully reverses tower defense (review)

Game of Thrones painstakingly recreated in Minecraft (video)

Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter surpasses $400k goal—Mac version coming, too

Borderlands 2: Four potential problems (and what the developers are doing about them)

Kingdom Hearts boosts 3DS in Japan while PS Vita lags

Multiplayer beta details for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

Stung by fans, EA/BioWare will create new content to clarify ending of Mass Effect 3

Seasoned developer MunkyFun launches Bounty Bots on iOS (exclusive)

Pokemon Conquest gets a Summer release in US (gallery)

Game publisher Electronic Arts is voted the “Worst Company in America”

League for Gamers takes stand against warning-labels on games (exclusive)

Porn network Brazzers will sponsor a pro fighting-game team

Kinect Star Wars fails to live up to its potential (review)

Wii U reportedly launching on November 18 in North America

A sick April Fools message from Batman: Arkham City’s Calendar Man

Xenoblade Chronicles redeems the Xeno name (review)

Rovio to launch Angry Birds cartoon series this fall

And here are some of the big game stories of the week:

The DeanBeat: How developers can avoid a bloodbath in fighting for new users

Retro revival: PC games raise $6.7M and counting in Kickstarter campaigns

Major tech and gaming companies unite to purge sex offenders from online games

Kontagent launches its kSuite DataMine analytics tool for monetizing mobile games

Final Fantasy characters showcase Prada’s 2012 collection

Activision embraces freemium monetization strategies with Skylanders Cloud Patrol for iOS

TwitchTV launches iPad and Android apps to stream game tournaments

Draw Something hits mobile game record as it passes 50M downloads

Ghost Recon Commander will be a “gamer’s game” on Facebook

BigDoor raises $5M for gamification platform

The Tap Lab raises $550K to fund location-based mobile games

Israel’s Dragonplay raises $14M for free-to-play mobile social games

Can we panic now? — Core gaming has a problem

OMGPOP CEO tweets that only employee not to transition to Zynga was the “weakest” one (UPDATED)

After 17 years, Sony closes SOCOM studio Zipper Interactive — with a tweet

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

In just 50 days, the title has become the fastest-growing original mobile game of all time. The game regained its top spot as the No. 1 paid app in the App Store, retaking the title from Angry Birds Space.

More than 6 billion drawings have been created. About  three draws per second were created on the day the game launched, and now that number is 3,000 drawings per second. The most popular words in the game are starfish, pregnant, hangman, six pack, and boom box. The least popular word is latrine.

Apparently the pace hasn’t slowed despite an ill-considered tweet from OMGPOP chief executive Dan Porter, who reacted angrily to an anti-Zynga post by former OMGPOP employee Shay Pierce.

In the past six months, Zynga has released 15 games.

The core-gaming market has a problem: A single mistake is costlier than ever. Meanwhile, the mobile/online/social-game market provides an alternative model that cuts down on that risk. From a purely economic perspective, why do developers keep making console games?

Fleet Fighter, Dinglepop, Aim For The Nuts — most consumers have likely never heard of these online games. UDraw Studio, Thor: God of Thunder, and MAG, on the other hand, are titles that a wider audience is familiar with. Despite their varying public profiles, all of these games have one thing in common: They failed to find a substantial audience. The difference is that Zynga just paid $180 million-plus for the developer of the three obscure titles (OMGPOP) while the creators of the big-name console releases (THQ, Sega, and Zipper Interactive) suffered layoffs, cancellations, and a studio closure, respectively. If you watched the news in the last week, it would be easy to conclude that hardcore console game publishers are collapsing.

OMGPOP, THQ, Sega, and Zipper Interactive have produced flops, but they’ve all had successes as well. In fact, all of them except for the Draw Something developer (OMGPOP) have had multiple hits. Something about the mobile market is allowing content creators to make multiple attempts without the fear of financial collapse. Traditional games, by comparison, are a very risky proposition.

What happens when you forget to look backward and fail to look forward?

“The issue with the games business is that it’s high-risk/high-reward,” said David Cole, analyst at DFC Intelligence, in speaking with GamesBeat. “In terms of raw money to be made, it’s still the big budget products that make the most. An iOS hit cannot come anywhere near the size of the big budget hits for console or PC.”

In 2010, THQ released a surprise hit casual art game for the Wii called uDraw Studio. UDraw came bundled with a tablet peripheral that allowed users to create paintings and sketches on their television. By March 2011, THQ had sold over 1 million of the devices to customers.

Next, THQ decided to take a high-risk/high-reward gamble. The publisher made a version of the uDraw game and tablet for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It didn’t work out.

Last month, during an investor call, THQ Chief Financial Officer Paul Pucino admitted that the company had 1.4 million unsold uDraw tablets sitting in inventory. The crudely drawn bubble burst, and Pucino explained that revenues were a breath-takening $100 million less than expected for the art title.

Now, excuse me while I go take my turn in Draw Something, a similar title to uDraw, but born on a different, fast-growing platform. THQ latched on to a sinking platform, the Wii, while Draw Something took off on iOS and Android.

It’s unfair for me to sit here with the benefit of hindsight and suggest that Pucino and THQ who hold rights to Pictionary and a successful drawing game could have beat Draw Something to the punch. That’s almost not the point. The issue is that the uDraw failure cost the company $100 million and has crippled the company. Even if the company had a failed uDraw or Pictionary app on iOS, the damage would have hardly been a fraction of that.

So why didn’t THQ take its uDraw brand and its Pictionary license to the mobile space?

“Success [on iOS] is all about companies that aggregate hundreds or thousand of games. So for an individual developer, the biggest bucks will still be in traditional development unless you happen to be really lucky,” said Cole.

Because who knows that Draw Something is going to create $1 million in revenue every four days before it actually does? Until the industry witnesses that kind of success, it doesn’t exist as far as the executives making decisions are concerned. The traditional publishers believe (or at least they did believe) that a $100 million gamble is worth it for the type of returns that the traditional consoles can produce.

Despite the fact that we’re in a world with Angry Birds and Draw Something, the real money for an individual game development company or game publisher is going to continue to be in making a a game that succeeds on the traditional platforms.

Of course that’s the problem: not every game succeeds. I’d never heard of Ballracer, which is one of OMGPOP’s handful of other titles. It is probably a fine ball-racing game, but for the sake of argument — and no evidence exists to suggest this is the case — let’s assume that Ballracer is the worst failure the development team has ever had. Even if the game didn’t make a dime back of its budget, its failure wouldn’t wound OMGPOP’s finances.

The business model for mobile games is a lot less risk for what is typically a lot less reward. It makes for a more stable job market, and that one-in-a-thousand chance to blow up and go mainstream is always just out of reach to keep everyone motivated. OMGPOP’s single hit game more than made up for 34 previous so-so titles that just kept the team afloat.

It’s halftime for hardcore games

Downsizing is never good. As illustrated above, it is usually the byproduct of myopic leadership. It can, however, be used as an opportunity to right a company’s trajectory. For example, mixed in with the news that many people were losing their jobs at THQ was an announcement that Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium is shifting from a massively multiplayer-online game to a single-player title with some online features.

That’s a good thing. No one was clamoring for another MMO. Better for the developer to cut it’s losses now than to try to support a game that won’t stand a chance against World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Clearly the studio was forced to make this alteration based on a financial situation that is out of its control (THQ is down to its last $50 million), but that has forced them to be creative with a smaller budget — it’s forcing the company into the smart move by default.

THQ knows how make a hit. If it can just stay on the Darksiders/Saints Row: The Third/UFC: Undsiputed 3 side of Metacritic, then it has a shot to rake in some cash. It has to avoid making mistakes that cancel out any good the hits produce.

It’s like that Clint Eastwood commercial that aired during the Super Bowl. The one where he’s giving a pep talk to American industry and encouraging Detroit automakers to get back on their feet after years of hemorrhaging money and jobs.

Only…it’s nothing like that. Ford, GM, and Chrysler were on a real decline. Detroit was facing a crisis because its entire consumer base found an alternative that served all of their needs. Social and mobile games are finding an audience, but no one is wholly replacing their cinematic Xbox 360 titles with CityVille.

It doesn’t help that publishers are uncertain about the future. The next round of consoles should have started by now. This extended cycle has caused a transitional lull that has every publisher in an awkward holding pattern as they await new hardware.

Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are all taking an extra beat because they don’t really know what gaming is going to look like in two years. It’s a war of attrition, and the winner is very likely going to be the manufacturer who makes the fewest number of mistakes. As a result, it seems like the industry is suffering perhaps more than it actually is. The NPD group tracking numbers show that February sales are down significantly from the same time frame in 2011. That alone wouldn’t be much of an issue, but third-parties like Sega are probably assuming that this is a trend that’ll continue until the PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 hit store shelves. With the news that Microsoft will definitely not reveal a new console at this summer’s E3, Sega and THQ are likely attempting to conserve their last bit of money until the next generation can drum up consumer excitement.

The rich keep getting richer

The real problem is gaming’s complete lack of a middle class. It drops from high-risk/high-reward to low-risk/low-reward with nothing in between. If a middle-risk game does exist, it’s like Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog series. It’ll always sell to a large enough group of dedicated fans, but nostalgia isn’t a business model others can follow.

This is one issue that the big three are going to need to address in the next round of consoles. Pricing for retail titles is archaic. The $60 model represents a large risk for the customer, and if they get burned on a bad buy, they may just end up sticking to their free-to-play Angry Bird games. Freemium needs to come to consoles, and it likely will.

Brian Fargo, chief executive of InXile Entertainment, pointed to the lack of a middle tier in games that made it hard to raise money to build Wasteland 2. Like Double Fine Productions, Fargo had to turn to Kickstarter to raise the money for Wasteland 2. It’s a good thing he could raise that money, but it’s sad that no one would fund it otherwise.

We’re in a very strange stage for gaming. Everyone on the production side knows that the way the entire industry works is going to be turned on its head in the next generation. The winner could possibly define the way games are delivered to customers for the next 10 years and beyond. With so much on the line, however, the industry has hit a lull that is exacerbating poor decisions and mistakes.

Sega can’t find its voice. Zipper Interactive releases a SOCOM game just before PlayStation Network experiences a blackout for weeks. THQ blows it on uDraw. These are errors that a strong home-console market can withstand, but not the uncertain one we find ourselves in now.

Those three companies must be looking at OMGPOP and Zynga with envy right now. Draw Something is a phenomenon. What THQ and Sega should be looking at is the stability of the social game market. These are companies with a handful of properties that they can leverage to build up a steady stream of revenue. They’ll probably never match Zynga, but it’s not a race. A freemium Warhammer 40K strategy game that echoes Hero Academy (a hit iOS game) would probably be a good start, and maybe an iPad version of Seaman from Sega. The idea should be to limit the amount of damage a single bad choice can do, and it’s clear that including mobile, social, and online games is probably one of the best ways to protect against that. And who knows, maybe the next Draw Something will come from THQ.

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Dan Porter, chief executive of OMGPOP, has apologized for his angry tweeting yesterday.

Early this morning, GamesBeat reported that Porter (whose company developed the Pictionary-clone Draw Something), publicly called out the only employee not to join Zynga after the $180 million-plus buyout. In two different updates (which have since been deleted by Porter), the CEO said that former employee Shay Pierce was the “weakest” person on the development team. Porter also said that Pierce is “selfish” and a “failure.”

“When the game blows up and we have the chance of a lifetime to do something special, and one employee — who didn’t work on the product and is more about his own games than the team — jumps in the press and becomes the story, it is very hurtful to all the people who are on the team,” Porter wrote in an email correspondence with GamesBeat this morning.

On Twitter, Porter has been trying to clean up the bit of mess that his comments have made. Indie darling Markus “Notch” Persson (creator of Minecraft) told the executive, “You’re an insane idiot.”

“It’s been the (sic) craziest ride. So yes, I may be temporarily insane. I just wanted my team who stuck with us to shine,” Porter replied to Notch.

That he wants to make this about the team that transitioned to Zynga is a point that Porter made several times in his conversation with GamesBeat. OMGPOP’s Draw Something has generated so much traffic that it has lifted Zynga’s mobile game traffic by 25 percent.

“When I saw how all the people who actually worked on [Draw Something] felt after [Pierce's Gamasutra] article, it was very hurtful,” Porter wrote. “It’s grandstanding, and I’m sure I was overly emotional, because I wasn’t thinking about Shay. I was thinking about the people [on the team] who don’t get in the press.”

Most criticism for Porter’s hoodie comment was directed at the suggestion that adding the word “hoodie” to Draw Something made the game socially relevant. The CEO defended that comment, writing: “I do honestly feel like [the game] can be socially relevant.”

“I spent almost ten years in educational non profit,” Porter wrote. “I was a public school teacher in Brooklyn. As such, the things I learned working in the south Bronx, east Harlem, and Crown Heights with kids are always with me.”

Porter did tweet a public apology: “I’m sorry for what I said on Twitter last night. No excuses.”

Jerry Lee Lewis, chief executive of Seattle-based Big Fish Games, was grinning from ear to ear at the feat. In Mime Something, you wave your hands in front of the camera of your iPhone or iPad, which captures your movements and shares them with a friend who has to guess what you are trying to mime. If you guess wrong, your device gives you a tiny electric shock. Contacted via Facebook, Zynga chief executive Mark Pancakes said, “I’m gonna sue.”

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As reported last week, Shay Pierce was the only OMGPOP employee to decline a position with Zynga after it bought the Draw Something developer for $180 million. Pierce wrote an editorial for Gamasutra in which he explained that if he were to accept a position with the FarmVille creator, that he would be obligated to sign away the rights to an iOS game that he authored in his spare time. Pierce refused, writing: “I don’t have a job, but I can sleep soundly at night knowing that I’m not working for any employer with whom I strongly disagree.”

Yesterday, OMGPOP Chief Executive Officer Dan Porter shot off a few messages on Twitter in an attempt to have the last word:

“The one OMGPOP employee who turned down joining Zynga was the weakest one on the whole team,” Porter tweeted. “Selfish people make bad games. Good riddance!”

The deal has been an important one for Zynga because it has increased the company’s mobile traffic by 25 percent.

Porter didn’t stop with that. In another tweet, the CEO said, “What’s so interesting about success is the number of failures who try try to ride on your back. Shay Pierce is just one of many….” Or in other words: They see me drawing something — they hatin’.

Porter’s response to Pierce is being seen by many as petty.

In a response to Porter’s comment, PopCap Director of Editorial and Social Media Jeff Green tweeted, “Time to uninstall Draw Something!”

Green is not the only one with a public reaction to the CEO’s opinion on Pierce. In a reply to Porter’s “good riddance” tweet, Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson wrote, “You’re an insane idiot!”

That’s not quite the end. On March 24, Porter wrote, “Games are fun, but they can be socially relevant too. Please share this. At Draw Something, by OMGPOP & Zynga, we just added the word HOODIE.” This was apparently done as a response to the Trayvon Martin shooting in which the unarmed black teenager was shot while walking home from the store. In the wake of that tragedy, Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera infamously said that Martin’s hoodie was as much to blame for his murder as the alleged shooter. The hoodie has since become a symbol of unity for those who support Martin’s family.

While Porter is apparently attempting to engage his product in a social issue, his suggestion that people “please share this” comes across as leveraging a tragedy to promote a game.

Draw Something is one of mobile gaming’s hottest properties right now. The Pictionary-clone is reportedly earning around $250,000 in revenue every day. The OMGPOP success story was capped off when the company was purchased for $180 million (with an additional $30 million in employee retention) by the biggest name in social gaming: Zynga.

After Pierce published his editorial on Gamasutra, Business Insider published a piece from an “OMGPOP source” suggesting that before Pierce turned down Zynga, he was about to be fired. The source claimed he took long lunches and had poor coding. In an email with GamesBeat on Thursday, Pierce attempted to clear up much of the confusion.

“I never received any indication from my manager or company that I was performing poorly and about to be let go,’” Pierce told GamesBeat. “An offer of employment was extended to me, thus I assume that they must have wanted to hire me.”

Pierce also made it clear that he did not work on the Draw Something team.

All of this doesn’t help Zynga with its public persona. Many gamers and developers have accused the company of being evil, as GamesBeat has detailed here. Zynga just paid millions of dollars for someone who is calling a former employee a failure. That can’t help with that persona. Especially if the the negative response to this incident on social media is any indication.

GamesBeat has reached out to Zynga and Dan Porter himself. As of this post, we’ve yet to receive a response.

Pierce decided not to join Zynga in part because he couldn’t get a clear answer on whether he could still own the rights to his Connectrode indie game.

UPDATE: Porter has now apologized for his tweets. And he sent us this email explaining his actions:

Let me share my perspective on the record. The struggle to build and support Draw Something has been an emotionally draining and hard one. Many, many employees gave everything they had to make and support this game as it took off. These are guys and gals who will never be in the press, whose name people will never know but who are the kind of folks who work at omgpop and zynga and make the magic happen. It would not have happened if it weren’t for them.

When the game blows up and we have the chance of a lifetime to do something special, and one employee, who didn’t work on the product, and is more about his own games then the team, jumps in the press and becomes the story, it is very hurtful to all the people who are on team.

Working at a startup and sharing the ups and downs is a very emotional and bonding experience. To survive, everyone has to care about everyone else. When I saw how all the people who actually worked on the game felt after his article it was very hurtful. Sure it’s business. But when you give blood, sweat and tears on something and someone who doesn’t even work on the project, and prioritizes his own games as his own professional development over the team, becomes the story it is very demoralizing. It’s grandstanding and I’m sure i was overly emotional because I wasn’t thinking about Shay. I was thinking about the people who don’t get in the press. When I think about what the team at omgpop gave, yes I get emotional.

So was my language a little harsh in the tweet. Yes it was. But my point is that it wasn’t about Shay. It was about the 41 other people who made it happen. Those are the people I would throw myself in front of the train for and those are the people I want to celebrate.

In terms of hoodie – I spent almost ten years in educational non profit. I was a public school teacher in Brooklyn. I am passionate about social issues have given almost 1/3 of my professional career to working on creating equal opportunity for folks. I was so devastated by what happened in Florida that I wanted to do something through the game which is the main platform we have at the company. I do honestly feel like it can be socially relevant. I asked folks to retweet not to promote the game but because I felt like every company with a platform should do their best to help recognize social issues and do what is right in the world. I am really lucky that I’ve been able to do both – work with kids directly and work in business. As such, the things I leaned working in the south Bronx, east Harlem and crown heights Brooklyn with kids are always with me.

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Zynga’s bear, Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia, wrote in a report, “If the media speculation of the acquisition price ($150M-$250M) is anywhere close to being accurate, the deal may look expensive. Recall, Zynga previously acquired Words with Friends creator Newtoy for $53M in late 2010. Reiterating Underperform; $7 target.”

Investors evidently disagree, as Zynga’s stock price is up 1.68 percent today, at $13.95 a share. That values Zynga at $9.76 billion. OMGPOP was valuable in Zynga’s eyes because Draw Something has been downloaded more than 35 million times since its launch.

Atul Bagga, an analyst for Lazard Capital, was more bullish. He said in his report that he estimates Draw Something is generating about $200,000 to $250,000 in revenues a day. At that rate, then the $200 million valuation would be about three times the current revenue run rate.

“We believe that he acquisition makes a lot of sense for Zynga,” Bagga wrote. “With more than 13.3 million daily active uses (versus 15 million DAU for all of Zynga’s mobile games), Draw Something could help Zynga meaningfully grow its footprint in the mobile space.”

Bagga said that mobile games are the fastest-growing segment of the video game market with a 39 percent compound annual growth rate over the next five years. A larger footprint in mobile will help Zynga cross promote its mobile games. Bagga expects Zynga to continue to be aggressive in mobile with internal launches and acquisitions. He has a $16 price target for Zynga’s stock.

Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, is an even bigger bull. He has a 12-month price target on Zynga of $17. He said that the deal would give Zynga a better mobile presence and the company is well-positioned for long-term growth.

Zynga has not yet confirmed the purchase price of the deal. But Ben Schacter, an analyst for Macquarie Capital, said that he believes a bidding war for OMGPOP led to “too high of a price.”

“We remain concerned that Zynga is a single-platform company and is much less dominant on its own platforms,” he wrote. He thinks Zynga will be challenged to continually establish hits. And he raised the question of whether the new Angry Birds Space game will siphon away mobile users from Zynga and OMGPOP.

He has a neutral rating on the stock and a $10 price target.

Bhatia has been a bear on Zynga since before its IPO. While sinking at first, Zynga’s stock began rising this year as a result of speculation that its Poker and casino games could benefit from a legalization of online gambling in the U.S.

“While this may be a coincidence, it is interesting that Words with Friends seems to have seen a bit of decline in recent weeks following the launch of Draw Something. In fact, Words with Friends recently lost its position as the top App on iPhone to Draw Something. Another article has speculated that Draw Something has been generating on average $250K in daily revenue in recent days,” Bhatia wrote. “We suspect that most of this revenue, at least currently, is being generated from the one-time purchase of the paid version of the App. In other words, it would be incorrect, in our opinion, to assume the $250K daily revenue run rate (if that’s accurate) is sustainable.”

Source: AppData

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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