At Karma we send out a weekly news blast to our investors and partners to help them better monitor the gaming space. We’ve been getting positive responses and thought it might be useful to feature what we find on our blog. So, we’re going to provide a ‘lite’ version of our favourite finds here each week. If you’re interested in receiving the full version you can register by entering your email on the main ‘buzz’ page.
Our favourite stories for Week 7….
Zynga expressed strong interest in online gambling during their earnings call this week. “We think it’s actually a very interesting opportunity, because we’re in a unique position. We have the world’s largest online poker game and the most social online poker game we’ve been running for four years. We had record results last quarter. And it’s one of the top six games on Facebook. So I think we’re in a very good position and it’s a category that’s interesting to us.” What do you think, should online poker companies be worried?
Angry Birds finally touched down on Facebook. Like most Facebook games it is free to play, however there are multiple powerups that you can buy. The game also features added social elements and Facebook-exclusive levels.
The trend towards gambling companies looking for success in social games continued this week as WMS launched their first social casino game on Facebook. WMS now joins the ranks of IGT, Caesars and many other traditional gambling companies that have recently made moves into social gambling. Casino-themed games have emerged as the third most popular game genre on Facebook so we fully expect this trend to continue.
Forrester came out with some interesting stats projecting there will be 1 billion smartphone customers by 2016. The trend to mobile will result in a mobile spending market of $1.3 trillion and an app market worth $55 billion, forecasts the group.
Zynga teamed up with Slingo to bring the popular bingo/slot mashup to the Facebook platform. Slingo has been popular for ages on VLT machines in casinos, Yahoo’s online games portal and more recently as a mobile app.