LOLapps' Ravenwood Fair nears 11M monthly players, but how?

LOLapps is not afraid to display its methods of success. In fact, it flaunts them in adorable infographics involving flagship game, Ravenwood Fair. This time around, the company is done educating the masses and shows that since Jan. 2011, the forests of Ravenwood have exploded with over 10 million monthly players and over 1 million daily players. However, the LOLapps may have unintentionally revealed how it achieved this milestone.

Then again, it could have been 100 percent intentional. Toward the end of the infographic, the company shows that the game has launched on three other platforms than Facebook: StudiVZ, Orkut and Imvu. Not to mention that Ravenwood Fair will soon launch on Mixi. (You mean other social networks exist?) Developers have a hard time getting close to even Zynga's worst-performing games. So, how does a game that suffered controversy and even a shut down short after its launch just explode in an instant? Alright, maybe not an instant, but it sure feels that way in social games at times.

All kidding aside, players from these networks could have easily migrated from their native social networks to Facebook, where the game was originally developed and released. Perhaps payments are complicated on these networks, as opposed to the simplified Facebook Credits method. Perhaps the game simply runs more smoothly on Facebook. Most importantly, perhaps there are more players already on Facebook. Granted, this is all conjecture, but let's be honest here: How many Ravenwood Fair players could there be on Orkut when compared to Facebook?

Social games require friends to succeed. It's plain and simple, and social gamers are privy to that. Is it possible that LOLapps intentionally released the game on other platforms to increase its player base inversely on Facebook? Perhaps this is too tin-foil-hat for some, and it could just as easily have been a pleasant mistake. But will this same thing happen again to the Mixi players? LOLapps said it themselves: A large reason why Ravenwood Fair and social gaming work is because of the nature of friend networks. Why do you think FarmVille isn't popular on its own website? Because that's not where the friends are, silly. You'll see if we're right in a few months.

Do you think this could be the reason for Ravenwood's rapid growth, intentional or otherwise? How long do Aside from being a well- designed game, how else do you think LOLapps achieved this success? Sound off in the comments. 5 Comments

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Disney-branded Facebook games coming in 2012, Playdom head says

Can we all just say, “finally?” During a panel named “The Rise of Social Games” at the f8 Facebook Developers Conference in San Francisco, Disney Interactive and Playdom head John Pleasants revealed that two to four Facebook games surrounding Disney xd brands will hit Facebook in 2012. The general topic of the panel was the fact that branded social games are taking off.

Pleasants was joined on the panel by Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, EA Interactive head Barry Cottle and Zynga CBO Owen Van Natta. Facebook director of games partnerships Sean Ryan moderated the panel with the preface that branded games will take over the Facebook platform. And he might be right: EA just released The Sims Social, Zynga will soon re-brand its new Adventure World with Indiana Jones and Kabam recently announced The Godfather: Five Families.

Playdom, which Disney acquired in July 2010 for a whopping $740 million, is ahead of the pack with two branded games on Facebook: ESPNU College Town and ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Both games performed well, thanks to advertising through the ESPN TV network. While Disney owns the ESPN brand, notice how neither of those actually involve the insanely popular Disney characters we’ve come to love.

Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Consider this: Disney has its own cable TV channel through which it could, in theory, advertise whatever it wants. Pleasants didn’t get into why it’s taken this long for disney channel games to throw its cast of characters into Facebook games, but did reveal the power of the Disney name.

Gnome Town, which Playdom launched in the summer–and we enjoyed quite a bit–peaked at 530,000 daily players. But just plopping the Disney logo on top of the existing one made users more likely to spend in the game just through trust of the company’s name, according to Pleasants. “We think it’s an advantage, if you put game play first,” Pleasants said.

It’s comforting to hear this emphasized by these developers. (Kabam’s Chou shared the same sentiment.) Branded games on Facebook are OK in my book, but the last thing anyone wants to see is the genre become a branding machine.

Disney-branded Facebook games coming in 2012, Playdom head says

Can we all just say, “finally?” During a panel named “The Rise of Social Games” at the f8 Facebook Developers Conference in San Francisco, Disney Interactive and Playdom head John Pleasants revealed that two to four Facebook games surrounding Disney xd brands will hit Facebook in 2012. The general topic of the panel was the fact that branded social games are taking off.

Pleasants was joined on the panel by Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, EA Interactive head Barry Cottle and Zynga CBO Owen Van Natta. Facebook director of games partnerships Sean Ryan moderated the panel with the preface that branded games will take over the Facebook platform. And he might be right: EA just released The Sims Social, Zynga will soon re-brand its new Adventure World with Indiana Jones and Kabam recently announced The Godfather: Five Families.

Playdom, which Disney acquired in July 2010 for a whopping $740 million, is ahead of the pack with two branded games on Facebook: ESPNU College Town and ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Both games performed well, thanks to advertising through the ESPN TV network. While Disney owns the ESPN brand, notice how neither of those actually involve the insanely popular Disney characters we’ve come to love.

Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Consider this: Disney has its own cable TV channel through which it could, in theory, advertise whatever it wants. Pleasants didn’t get into why it’s taken this long for disney channel games to throw its cast of characters into Facebook games, but did reveal the power of the Disney name.

Gnome Town, which Playdom launched in the summer–and we enjoyed quite a bit–peaked at 530,000 daily players. But just plopping the Disney logo on top of the existing one made users more likely to spend in the game just through trust of the company’s name, according to Pleasants. “We think it’s an advantage, if you put game play first,” Pleasants said.

It’s comforting to hear this emphasized by these developers. (Kabam’s Chou shared the same sentiment.) Branded games on Facebook are OK in my book, but the last thing anyone wants to see is the genre become a branding machine.