News

Casual Connect 2012: Look to core, sports and turn-based casual games, reckons Facebook's Sara Brooks

#casualconnect Hot spots

Casual Connect 2012: Look to core, sports and turn-based casual games, reckons Facebook's Sara Brooks
When it comes to discovery, everyone's interested to see what Facebook can provide.

With 130 games having more than one million monthly active users on the platform, Facebook can point to its wider importance.

Indeed, Facebook's strategic partner manager for games Sara Brooks highlighted companies such as King.com, Peak Games, CookApps, FreshPlanet and OMGPOP who have burst onto Facebook in the past 12 months.

What's hot?

More specifically Brooks looked at the genres that were currently hot on Facebook.

There has been an explosion in hidden object games, casino and bingo games and bubble shooters.

"More 75 million users are playing bubble shooters per month," Brooks said.

As for new opportunities, she looked to sports games, casual turn-based games and core gaming.

In the case of the latter, Facebook has been pimping developer Kixeye, which is riding high with its War Commander release. She also pointed to Eruptive Games' Citizen Grim.

Pick your country

Another opportunity growth area Brooks' spoke about was emerging Facebook territories such as Japan, South Korea and Brazil.

Equally, one of the big local hit games is been Happy Farm from Chinese developer 5 Minutes, which was localised into Arabic by Turkish publisher Peak Games. It currently has 9 million MAUs.
Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.