PlayFish Pet Society Has More Players Than World of Warcraft

Playfish, a British online gaming company, which has several huge hits, including Who Has the Biggest Brain?. Pet Society, its most popular game, attracts 16 million players a month — more than World of Warcraft.

Sebastien de Halleux, its co-founder, believes that online social gaming eventually could outshine console gaming.

Zynga Is MySpace Game Dev King

Q: Who is the biggest MySpace Game Dev?

A: Playdom is the biggest game developer on MySpace, with more than 25 million monthly active users. In one game, it sold more than $200,000 worth of pink virtual Volkswagen Beetles in two days. http://games.venturebeat.com/2009/10/05/playdom-raising-a-significant-round-of-capital/


And they are raising tonnes of cash. They are now lead by former EA COO John Pleasants who is the new CEO. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://ceoworld.biz/ceo/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/john_pleasants-ea-playdom.jpg&imgrefurl=http://ceoworld.biz/ceo/2009/06/19/electronic-arts%25E2%2580%2599s-john-pleasants-joins-playdom/&usg=__dhxlP3wPvln2yQ0LeHuxPu0BPXw=&h=500&w=325&sz=92&hl=en&start=5&sig2=7RZU0m1eG29pnAwVxcrUdw&um=1&tbnid=jsh4Iee5Trte6M:&tbnh=130&tbnw=85&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dplaydom%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1&ei=DvbjSvuJNIKfsgby8JzWCQ

No wonder they look so happy!

Zynga Oozes Cash

Zynga is generating revenues of more than $150 million (£91.4 million) this year. Not bad for a guy who was "washed up at 28 or 29" http://entrepreneur.venturebeat.com/2009/10/24/zyngas-mark-pincus-i-got-kicked-out-of-some-of-the-best-companies-in-america/

Score Your Payment System

With PG's Payment System Viability Index you can accurately assess whether your payment method mix reaches your target customer group and analyze and predict the effect of adding or removing payment systems and methods. Available for only $250 USD or 200 Euro. GMAIL PAYMENTGUY@GMAIL.COM.

Get Inside Virtual Goods For Only $995 Real Life Dollars

Wonder if they accept Linden $? "Inside Virtual Goods: The US Virtual Goods Market, 2009 - 2010 is a new in-depth research report by Justin Smith and Charles Hudson that is exclusively focused on the size and future of the virtual goods market in the United States. It was released for the first time on October 14, 2009. The big picture? We estimate the total 2009 US virtual goods opportunity at just over $1 billion." http://www.insidevirtualgoods.com/us-virtual-goods/

Pocoyo World Will Be Huge

Just watch, this will be HUGE as it has all the right ingredients for success; a) young family approved audience, b) Spanish demo, c) real world distribution in M&L (cartoons, comics...) and d) media channel (TV). "Pocoyo, the Spanish pre-school animated cartoon series created by David Cantolla, Luis Gallego and Guillermo García Carsi, is getting a virtual world spin-off designed to increase engagement among its pre-school audience. The world, which has a number free zones, also has premium content behind a subscription wall. Brand owner Zinkia has had a team developing Pocoyo World for almost two years, TBI reports. "Pocoyo is a positive and educational for kids and we were motivated to give them more content on a daily basis," CEO Jose Maria Castillejo said. "It was a big risk for us to develop this, but we wanted to give children more Pocoyo content." Zinkia Entertainment owns the brand; Granada International distributes." http://www.licensing.biz/news/4153/Zinkia-launches-Pocoyo-World

Skype Payment Pages ...

... and methods offer a good model for your virtual world or mmo. http://www.skype.com/intl/en/prices/paymentmethods/

5 Global Payment Partners ...

... for your consideration. All with individual strengths and weaknesses of course. But for those of you looking to expand your payment systems with a large international payment provider, PG says check out, in no particular order:

1. Chase Payment Tech: http://www.chasepaymentech.com/'


2. Netgiro http://www.netgiro.com/home.aspx


3. Adyen


4. Global Collect http://www.globalcollect.com/


5. Cybersource http://www.cybersource.com/


GMAIL PG to sort which is best for you and get the best T&C - guaranteed! PAYMENTGUY@GMAIL.COM

ClubCooee Partners With KOINUP

http://blog.koinup.com/2009/09/koinup-is-now-partnering-with-club.html
For those PG Readers un familliar with KOINUP, it is a scoial network for virtual world users. Innovative, unique and cool. http://www.koinup.com/support/about-us/

Wild Tangent Still Social Games Ad King

And they also have a virtual currency ... http://paidcontent.org/article/419-popcap-games-raises-22.5-million-funding-from-meritech-capital-partners/
and you can even play Club Penguin on PC's thanks to Wild Tangent - very cool! http://about.wildtangent.com/static/u/Club_Penguins_on_WildTangent_--FINAL.pdf

Pop Cap Raises An Eye-Popping Amount of Cash ....

Eying the growing popularity of social games, casual gaming company PopCap Games has raised $22.5 million in late-stage funding from Meritech Capital Partners; private investors Larry Bowman (formerly of Apple and Fidelity) and John McCaw also participated. The company plans to use the new money for potential acquisitions in the social gaming space. The new funding round represents a minority stake; a first for outside investors, PopCap says.

Founded in 2000, Seattle-based PopCap has grown into one of the largest casual gaming companies, with mobile and iPhone divisions, as well as deals that bundled its games suite onto new PCs from HP and Lenovo. It offers both pay-to-play and and ad-supported games; it turned over ad sales to rival WildTangent last year. Some of its games, like Bejeweled, have even gained popularity with more “hardcore” gamers (a version of Bejeweled was featured as side activity in World of Warcraft earlier this year). The company says it has “maintained profitability” since its inception; it now has over 240 employees, with offices in Dublin and Shanghai.
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-popcap-games-raises-22.5-million-funding-from-meritech-capital-partners/

Elvis Quietly Leaves The Virtual Building

So Philip Rosedale is starting a new company and leaving Linden Lab but will keep an office in Second Life https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2009/10/15/next-chapter. Kinda sorta big news but this announcement has met with little fanfare or press hype. Just GOOGLE "philip rosedale" in NEWS search http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&source=hp&q=%22philip%20rosedale%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn and you get 3 hits, 2 of which are off-topic and the 1 relevant one being in French. The blogosphere is somewhat more interested in PR's new plans but there is a striking lack of mainstream press attention paid to this. On the new plans, PR says; "I'm starting a new company, and wanted to let you know. It's a big idea - something that actually depends on Second Life existing to get started, and that I have been thinking about almost as long as I've been thinking about Second Life. I don't want to try to explain the idea here, because it is a decision I've just made and honestly I don't think I can do a good job describing it yet."

A big idea that cannot yet be explained. OK... clever subterfuge or just a guy who has not quite figured out what to do from 9-5 yet. PR has consistently said he could make more money "working in Second Life" than "working for Linden Lab". Let's see if this turns out to be true.
PG PS: PR will remain Chairman of Linden Lab