The Troubling Rise of Facebook's Top Game Company

Correction Appended

Cheryl Blitman got a horrible shock when she opened her cell-phone bill. It was $170 higher than usual. Her phone company told her that her daughter had subscribed to 17 premium texting services. But Michelle, 15, was adamant; she had not. Eventually they figured out the source of the charges: FarmVille.

FarmVille is the most popular game on Facebook — 65 million unique monthly players and growing. It is also the furthest place imaginable from the seedy underbelly of the Internet. It's a hamlet where the sun always shines, crops always grow and your friends drop by to do chores accompanied by plinky guitar music. Its astonishing popularity is a testament to the potential of gaming on social networks. Social games promise the golden pork-chop combo of the addictiveness of computer games with the communality of Facebook and MySpace. And they generate some of their revenue from product come-ons, which is where Michelle — and FarmVille's owners — has run into trouble.(See how adopted children are finding their birth parents on Facebook.)

FarmVille is part of Zynga, the fastest-growing, most buzzed-about social-game company of the moment. In October, Zynga operated six of the 10 most popular Facebook games: FarmVille, Cafe World, Mafia Wars, YoVille, zyngapoker and Roller Coaster Kingdom. Founded in July 2007 by Mark Pincus, 43, Zynga had 45 staffers by June 2008 and now employs 600, counting contractors. Its most recently launched game, FishVille, hooked 9 million users in a week. Zynga is privately held, but a rival less than half its size was recently bought by Electronic Arts, the GM of games, for $400 million. How could an outfit that offers scammy mobile-phone horoscope subscriptions get so popular?

To figure that out, we have a useful analogy close at hand: FarmVille. There are two ways to move ahead in the game. One is to grind, as it's known — plow, plant and harvest. Once you've grown, say, eggplant, you accumulate enough points to move up to a wider choice of crops. You invite friends to be your neighbors. You exchange gifts and help out, all of which let you accrue the capital you need to expand your farm, thus making it ever more remunerative.(See how Facebook is redefining privacy.)

But if you want to skip all that backbreaking plowing, er, clicking, or if you've run out of friends who faux-farm, you can buy farm cash and get what you want. These virtual goods are the products that social games are actually trying to hawk. People hand over real money for make-believe merchandise. It's like using greenbacks to buy Monopoly dollars — but if you want to win, you'll pay up.

Starting a social-gaming company is also a grind. You have to do a million little things to get ahead. Industry watchers credit Zynga with figuring out hooks for its games that make people want to revisit — a combination of shrewdly timed rewards, incentives and opportunities to play with friends.

Pincus calls these the "golden mechanics." He learned them by trial and error, mainly while working on his two failed start-ups, Tribe.net and Supportsoft. He also has a behavioral psychologist on staff. Unlike traditional electronic games, which can't be changed much after they're shipped, Zynga's games constantly evolve in response to users' preferences, so they're more habit-forming. "They're making movies," he says of console-based-game creators. "What we're doing is more like weekly TV programming."

AvenueSocial focuses on strategic Facebook Game Company. At AvenueSocial, we have professional Facebook application developers who are well trained and well equipped with all the skills and technical requirements for a perfect Facebook application.

RSPCA launches Facebook game to encourage donations

A Facebook Game Company has been created by online games developer 3rd Sense with the aim to raise money for its client the RSPCA.

The announcement:

Move over FarmVille, social gaming in Australia is about to get a lot more charitable with the launch of RSPCA Rescue Shelter.

The Facebook game is an Australian first for a not-for-profit, transferring the day-to-day work of the RSPCA from the real world to the virtual world.

RSPCA Rescue Shelter tasks the player with building and running their own animal shelter. Just like a real life shelter, sick, injured and abandoned animals arrive at the shelter and the player must house, feed and care for them.

Players are given in-game cash ‘Silver Paws’ to purchase enclosures, buy food, employ qualified staff and more. Players can also earn ‘Paws’ by helping animals recover and adopting them out. But, just like in the real world, their animal shelter can always do with more and players are able to purchase ‘Gold Paws’ with real money to significantly increase their buying capacity in the game. All revenue from in-game cash purchases goes to the RSPCA to help care for their real world charges.

“Just like the RSPCA in the real world, players will be asked to care for many different animals from many different backgrounds and most of them will need significant care and attention. The RSPCA is excited to get the opportunity to translate our work into the virtual world to give people an understanding about the daily challenges we face,” said Heather Neil, CEO RSPCA Australia.

“Last year more than 150,000 animals sought refuge in RSPCA shelters. Some had been surrendered, some neglected and others were victims of terrible cruelty. The most rewarding part of our work is rehabilitating those animals and adopting them into new loving families so we want to share that joy with players too.”

“The RSPCA could not have embarked on this exciting new venture without the significant pro bono support of the game’s developers 3RD sense.”

The developers of the game are Sydney-based 3RD sense, who have charted the rise of Facebook social games and early-on identified that Facebook was changing the profile of the typical online game player.

‘Today’s online game player is more often than not a woman in her 30s who plays with and against her friends on Facebook,’ said Colin Cardwell, CEO of 3RD sense. ‘Farmville, Cityville and other social games have shifted online game-play to a much wider demographic. Over half of all Facebook users play Facebook games and more than 40% of time spent on Facebook is playing games. And a proportion of them are happy to spend money to excel in a game. When you combine that desire with the altruism of contributing to the essential work of an organisation like the RSPCA, the potential is obvious.’

RSPCA Rescue Shelter launches today in beta release. Players can access the entire game, but in addition to playing, RSPCA and 3RD sense are inviting players to provide feedback and report bugs.

The game will evolve as a result of user feedback over the coming months.

Facebook Tells Some Developers They Have 48 Hours to Authentication Data Leaks

Facebook has sent an email to what it calls a “very small percentage of the developer community” informing them their apps are suspected of leaking authentication data to third parties, and that they have 48 hours to fix the leaks or be subject to enforcement. They can become compliant by switching to OAuth 2.0, or by adding an interstitial page the removes the authentication data as a stop gap before the mandatory migration to OAuth 2.0 on September 1st.
However, several developers have posted to the Facebook Developers forum that they have checked their apps and found no data leaks. This indicates that a widespread panic may be unnecessary because some that received the warning may not actually be in violation of policy and may not need to make any changes.
The situation appears to be connected to the issue that developers using an older authentication system were purposefully or inadvertently sharing access tokens for user data with third-parties such as ad networks. This violates Facebook’s Platform Policy, though the actual negative impact to users is limited. In response, Facebook accelerated its app security roadmap, mandating a move to OAuth 2.0 which prevents the leak by September 1st, and requiring developers to attain an SSL certificate by October 1st.
Some are reporting the the email is inciting a small-scale panic amongst developers, though we’re seeing more of a state of confusion. Since the email appears to have been sent to developers singled out by Facebook’s automated system, and those that are violating policy may have done so in one of several ways, the notification doesn’t indicate exactly what developers have done wrong. Many suspect they received the message in error, and they aren’t in violation.
Facebook recommends developers use an HTTP proxy or monitor such as Fiddler or Charles to check to see if the HTTP Referrer Header is passing access tokens. If they find they are in fact violating policy, they can switch to OAuth 2.0 early. Those unsure of whether they violate policy should consider this option because they’ll have to migrate to the newer authentication system eventually. However, this may be a considerable amount of work for a relatively soon deadline.
Alternatively, developers can add an interstitial page that clears authentication data as per the Legacy Connect Auth documentation. This should be a quicker solution for those looking to ensure compliance before the deadline. If developers don’t do either and are found to be violating policy after the deadline, their apps may be suspended.

By setting a fast-approaching deadline, Facebook is taking a hard line against developers who are violating policy, either accidentally or willfully. This will send a message that the site is serious about protecting users. However, the short period of time to make changes and the potential that some developers may have received the worrisome message when they haven’t done anything wrong could hurt Facebook’s relations with the developer community.