RIP Empson-writer at TechCrunch. He did not find friends here, he is here to win and you don't forget it. You can contact him at rip [at] techcrunch [dot] com ? more
When it comes to social games, Zynga is the undisputed king. But when it comes to second place, it is not so easy to say — the competition is stiff. However, today a German developer of social games, Wooga has (at least for now) with EA as new Deputy in town. Wooga now see over 35 million monthly active users, through its social games from EA in just under 31 million, 30 million Playdom and CrowdStar on the 22 million people, rounds out the top 5, according to Appdata.
Wooga does not receive nearly as much attention as Zynga or EA, with former steaming to the IPO and the last veteran of the industry that just so happened to acquire PopCap for about $ 1.3 billion last week.
However, seeing as 75 per cent of Wooga 35 million monthly active users playing outside the United States (and that 70 per cent are women), Wooga many qualities that set it apart from the Pack. Not to mention the launch of a 24 million dollars in may from Highland Capital Partners and a number of other VCs.
Of course not yet adopted the Appdata numbers into account the fact that Popcap is in the process of being integrated into EA umbrella. Yes, it may take some time to complete, but when combined the two, he undoubtedly will EA right back on top (like Popcap 17 million + users of his name). Wooga founder and CEO Jens Begemann, however, see EA move as one to get new users to purchase. And he certainly has.
Nevertheless, given that wooga grew 300% last month, Begemann has reason to be confident that his company has a lot of growth ahead. It is also interesting to note that we can be at the point where Facebook social gaming market in the United States closed at saturation, and that we could see the game developers, moving to international markets, increased and more users. If so, wooga already has a good start.
Although Zynga and PopCap is already firmly on the mobile market, wooga seemingly not to rush to bring their games to mobile, despite the fact that this obviously offers great potential for growth of the company. Today however, this strategy has changed as the game developer announced that he will be bringing top games, diamond dash, iOS later this summer. Game gem bashing Facebook has already racked up 10 million users and will be the first game at the iPads and iPhones. But the Director said that she plans to application for Android, which will be released shortly thereafter, and also plans to develop a new title exclusively in HTML5, which users can be expected to give approximately the same time.
The rest of his suite (which includes games like Happy hospital and Monster world), he continued, will soon follow. The company hired another team to develop mobile applications, then the one which is his game of Facebook, how he wants to optimize his game for the mobile platform, not just to move just because this is an area of growth. "We know that if we copy the Facebook game, we would not be successful," said the Director-General within social applications.
Begemann was adamant about that from the outset, the company focused on creating engaging gaming experience for the user, not just the preserve of viral growth. It's an interesting lesson for emerging social game developers to learn and seemingly simple: If you make a good game, you simply cannot establish any endurance on the market. It will be interesting to see where wooga does go for mobile devices; If this is successful, EA may very well be German enemy, Nipping at its heels.
Read More