How the Games Changed the Face of Social Networking and how Brands Communicate with Consumer Through Them

1. Social Media Gaming
How the Games Changed the Face of
Social Networking and how Brands
Communicate with Consumer
Through Them
Bucharest Hubb, 2nd of June, 2010
Adrian Niculescu - Business Developer @ Crystal KBC Group - Social Media Strategist @ Clubv3

2. Virtual goods in the USA will reach $1.6 billion revenue in 2010
$1 billion revenue in 2009
(source: Inside Network)
$ 835 million start-ups
Virtual Goods Market in Asia: $5 bn (2008), $7 bn (2009)
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3. The Big 3 Companies:
1. Zynga
700 employees, $200 mil. 2009
2. Playfish
250 employees, $75 mil. 2009, acquired by EA in nov. 2009
3. Playdom
300 employees, $50 mil. 2009, #1 on MySpace
Top Facebook Games and Apps:
1. Farmville (75 mil. Users), Birthday Cards (41 mil.),
Café World (30 mil.), IHeart (28 mil.), Happy Aquarium (27 mil.)
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4. What is a social network game?
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5. ... to game players?
Customization/ personalization of something they own;
The feeling of playing in real time with real people;
The creation of something valuable to them;
Showing their valuable creation to friends and others;
Giving things to their friends and enjoying gifts back in return;
Challenging friends and competing with them;
Using their friends to play the game in some way;
Finding new friends through play;
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6. ... to brands and advertisers?
Sharing representations of real items in a virtual environment;
Very high quality data;
The capability to trade very low value objects for very HQ data;
Surrounding and integrated media;
New forms of audience interactions;
New forms of sponsorship (free chat emoticons brought by ___);
Players offering up more personal data via in-game avatars;
Brands can be represented in a more fantastical or emotional fashion;
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7. ... to the future?
Social networks are growing in size and popularity:
(e.g. Facebook on smartphones grew 112% in Q1 2009 alone);
Social networks are widely seen as the new email and the new SMS
giving rich, shared content that capitalises on mass interaction;
Games are growing in popularity on all devices and as movies
continue to struggle against digital piracy, games become more and
more secure both transaction and content-wise, securing their
position as the No. 1 global entertainment by every metric.
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8. ... to the future?
Games become more an integral part of human interactions as they
change and become more social than ever before;
The single experience is still valid and extremely popular, but the
result of that experience are more likely to be shared
in one of the many ways;
Humans haven’t changed, but the way in which they enjoy games
on new devices and media, changes rapidly;
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9. ... to the future?
Games always have been mass-market but now they are mass media
gobbling un screen time, TV time, newspaper timeand traditional human
intercations ... based on old human patterns to play;
Children have adapted the fastest but the 40+ and the “mass
market” is also present;
The Nintendo effect, the paradign shift which came with
Nintendo DS and Wii has expanded to online and mobile games;
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15. Thank you!
Q&A
adrian.niculescu@kbc.ro
adrian@clubv3.com
0040744777544
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