Game On

Facebook changed the world, and the world within Facebook has changed the way users spend their time and money — and how businesses target consumers. As Facebook’s platform constantly evolves, one constant has attracted millions of users: social gaming.

Mothers invite their daughters to feed their crops on Farmville and college friends play Battle Pirates in the middle of class. While the average Facebook gamer is a 43-year-old woman, according to the Information Solutions Group’s 2010 Social Gaming Research, most of the consumer-buying population of Facebook plays these games.

According to market research firm eMarketer, there will be 68.7 million Facebook gamers by 2012. They are different from the video gamer crowd of the 1990s and early 2000s that skewed much younger, says Suren Markosian, founder of Facebook game developer CrowdStar which publishes the popular game It Girl.

“Traditionally, games were a category that players had to buy off the shelf in the store, and online gaming just wasn’t that big or accessible,” Markosian says. “Social games made gaming very accessible. All the games are free to play, so anyone can just click and install the game. There are no restrictions … people who have never played before became gamers.”

Information Solutions’ survey found 95 percent of Facebook gamers played several times a week, with 34 percent playing several times a day. Markosian says that’s because the games are social. Considering Nielsen research estimates Americans spend 22.7 percent of their online time in social networks, companies like CrowdStar see a bright future.

Zynga, the largest online gaming developer, publishes popular games like FarmVille, CityVille and Mafia Wars that have 232 million monthly users. In July, the company filed intentions to raise up to $1 billion in an initial public offering. Analysts jumped on Zynga, saying it could be Silicon Valley’s biggest-grossing IPO since Google in 2004.

Social network gaming development has never been stronger. RockYou, the developer of the fast-growing social game Zoo World 2, recently announced Studio Partners, which will provide advertising, marketing support and analytics tools to independent game studios.

Couple this innovation with the sheer traffic new games generate and there’s a clear draw for marketers. Take Mahjong Saga, a puzzle-solving travel adventure. Launched by developer King.com in July, Mahjong Saga garnered some 2 million users within 30 days. What other outlet sees that kind of traffic so quickly?

“This market is moving so fast. It’s a very dynamic space,” Markosian says. “There are a lot of new little ideas that come up every day and change the way the market is going. It is extremely exciting, and also very fascinating.”

Retail players
Still, social gaming remains a largely untapped opportunity for marketers: 84 percent of U.S. interactive marketers have no plans to use games in their 2011 marketing strategies, according to Forrester Research, and a Forrester/GSI eCommerce report indicated social media has little to no effect on e-commerce sales.

Shoebuy.com chief marketing officer Jim Keller says Facebook is not considered a revenue channel; it’s a place to build community and listen to customers. The gaming side, however, presents an excellent return on investment for marketing dollars, he says.

“The one place that we have found some really great success has been in the social-gaming space,” Keller says. “Huge numbers of people play and the typical profile is a mom in her early 40s. That looks a lot like our typical Shoebuy customer.”

To help tap this demographic, Shoebuy.com enlisted the aid of iFeelGoods, a technology firm that helps retailers offer Facebook credit incentives to attract gamers. Customers can buy anything on Shoebuy.com and instantly receive 50 Facebook credits – a promotion that has really resonated with new and existing customers, generating “great revenue,” Keller says.

“You’re putting the offer in front of somebody while they are … playing a game, while they may be wishing they had an extra 50 Facebook credits so they could buy that virtual plasma TV for their virtual living room on CityVille,” he says. “Somebody sees the offer, they click, they come to Shoebuy and we display the offer in a very Facebook-friendly kind of way.”

On Shoebuy.com, the “Buy, Redeem, Play” banner follows the consumer as she shops, keeping the offers in front of her the whole time.

At checkout, “we thank them for their purchase and immediately ask them if they would like to redeem their Facebook credits,” Keller says, “and at the same time ask them if they want to share with their friends on Facebook about the experience.”

Nearly 70 percent of buyers share their Shoebuy experience on their Facebook wall. “That’s tended to drive some strong referral sales,” Keller says.

Virtual shopping
Other retailers have found ways to insert their products into the games.

In 2010, 7-Eleven and Zynga partnered to offer game-branded items like the c-stores’ iconic Slurpees and Big Gulps. 7-Eleven promoted it with a national advertising campaign and MTV character vignettes, and consumers purchased specially marked products to receive virtual redemption codes that could be used in the games.

The partnership was one of the most unique campaigns in the retailer’s history. In a press release at the time, 7-Eleven vice president and chief marketing officer Rita Bargerhuff said the promotion gave millions of players access to incentives on more than 30 products.

“Attracting millions of consumers to 7-Eleven stores with exclusive items for Zynga games creates an additional opportunity for them to try some of our newest products,” she said at the time.

Since then, others have found ways to incorporate stores or products into games. Old Navy built a store within It Girl, which has some 8 million monthly users. Players walk their characters into the virtual Old Navy store and buy clothing.

Many retailers believe mobile gaming is the next wave of opportunity. All Facebook games are already available on iPod or Android apps. Location-based mobile solutions are also showing great promise.

That’s why Dunkin’ Donuts tapped SCVNGR for a social game to promote its iced coffee. The game ran through the end of March and gave players a chance to win sports tickets, T-shirts and free drinks.

And CrowdStar’s Markosian says this is only the beginning. “What we are seeing now is the mobile market growing very fast,” he says. “This [smartphone] market is going to be larger than Facebook because everyone has a phone and the phone is always in your pocket. Social games will eventually be everywhere.”