Corporations trying to boost their online businesses through social gaming by Zuzana Zelenakova

It could be said that social gaming sector is currently experiencing its high season as more and more giants corporations sucha s Google and Microsoft are trying to attract its biggest players. Over the past year the social gaming sector has experienced rather impressive grCorporations trying to boost their online businesses through social gamingowth. Leader in the field, San Francisco-based social network game developer Zynga has reportedly earned about $250 million in annual revenue. The social gaming company with the second highest number of users is Crowdstar. However, there is no doubt about who is the number one. While Zynga has average number of 223 million users a ! month, at Crowdstar it is only 58 million. Peter Relan, the chairman of Crowdstar did not comment on recent speculation about Microsoft and other companies offering a deal, but he stated the company felt „no pressure to sell.“ Zynga, whose value is estimated at $3 billion to $5 billion is currently unbuyable. When it comes to big acquisitions in the sector, Electronic Arts acquisition of Playfish last year should be mentioned. The deal was estimated to reach as much as $400 million. Another big deal was Disney buying social game developer Playdom for more than $500 million. "The truth is everybody is talking to everybody, every potential buyer is probably talking to just about every social game company out there," said Tim Chang, principal with Norwest Venture Partners, whose firm invested in Playdom. It seems that also Google is looking for ways to establish itself on the social gaming scene. In August, the search engine giant acquired social gaming company Soc! ialDeck founded in 2008. It was a fifth acquisition in a row i! n August . SocialDeck has produced several games such as Color Connect, Pet Hero Puzzle, Shake and Spell. Social game and app developer Slide is one of the other Google acquisitions.

related story (sgx18381): http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101010/tc_nm/us_socialgaming;_y...

by Zuzana Zelenakova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

Cantell TV is the fastest growing provider of digital broadcasting coupled with telecommunications, allowing people to easily control, view, upload and share digital content through proprietary interface coupled with fre! e phone calls. Cantell TV is committed to delivering infinite choices to your world of entertainment at the tip of your fingers.