Less than a week after its global launch, MiniTycoon Casino, is now the number one mobile social game on the iPhone ahead of the real social games including Empire City, TapZoo, Restaurant Story and Farmville. This is SGN’s first pure social game on the iPhone and iPod Touch. No doubt as a result of its social features, it’s also now the number one casino game, although you don’t bet real money… → Read More
Palo Alto based Social Gaming Network, which focuses on multiplayer iPhone/iPod/iPad games, has raised a first tranche in a second round of financing – $2 million from Tomorrow Ventures (Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s investment firm) and Xing founder Lars Hinrichs.
The company previously raised $15 million. Founder Shervin Pishevar says this new round is the first tranche in a much larger Series B… → Read More
SGN, a mobile gaming platform and publisher based in Silicon Valley, has named former EA and LucasArts executive Randy Breen as CEO. Founder and former CEO Shervin Pishevar continues at the company as executive chairman. Breen first joined the company in 2009 as COO.
SGN is one of the top gaming publishers on the iPhone, with 15 million unique installs of games like F.A.S.T and Skies of Glory. → Read More
We’ve had a chance to play SGN’s Skies Of Glory WWII person-to-person dogfighting game for the iPhone. But now they’ve released this trailer for the game to really show off what they’ve built. Look for a launch date shortly.
Video is below. → Read More
Another data point that profitable businesses can be built on the back of the iPhone/iPod Touch app store: Social Gaming Network’s F.A.S.T. dogfight game, which launched in early June and lets users try to shoot down other human players, pulled in over $1 million in download fees alone in the first six weeks it was available.
SGN is clearly trying to find the revenue-maximizing price for the game… → Read More
Social Gaming Network (SGN) keeps on pushing out great entertainment applications for the iPhone, and we can’t help continuing to put those in the spotlight. Not only because SGN produces some damn good games that we love to play – check out its suite of Wii-like games for starters – but also because we’d really like to see more developers leverage the network capabilities of the famed Apple… → Read More
People say the iPhone is really a gaming device with a mobile phone bolted on. And given how much time I spend playing games on my iPhone, I tend to agree. The touchscreen, accelerometer and (mostly still untapped) ability to play games against others over Wifi or 3G make gameplay compelling.
Social Gaming Network (among the first to exploit the iPhone accelerometer to create Wii-like games), is… → Read More
The ongoing litigation between Mob Wars creator David Maestri and SGN is over. On December 16 the two sides reached a settlement. The Mob Wars game goes to Maestri, but SGN will have rights to create similar style games itself. SGN also received an undisclosed financial settlement.
The history of this powerful little app is dramatic. It was first created by Maestri while still employed at SGN’s… → Read More
Social Gaming Network is launching new versions of its Wii-like iPhone sports games that let users play against others who’ve installed the apps.
In August I was disappointed that so few iPhone applications leveraged the network effect to spread virally. I used the chess apps as an example – there were lots of them, but none at the time that let you play against other people.
The chess problem… → Read More
We’ve had a blast playing SGN’s suite of Wii-like games over the last few months – iGolf, iBowl and iBaseball (basketball, tennis and boxing are coming soon). The apps are being downloaded like crazy on the App store, and no wonder – you get to swing your iPhone all over the place while you play the games.
Now SGN is rolling out something a little different. iFun turns the iPhone into a Wii-like… → Read More
Over the past year video games have begun invading every computing platform, from social networks to mobile devices. They’ve also been picked up in the portfolios of a number of firms.
London based Playfish has just raised a $17 million series B round led by Accel Partners and Index Ventures. Kevin Comolli, from Accel Partners and Ben Holmes from Index Ventures, will both join its board of… → Read More
SGN is definitely on to something with these Wii-like iPhone games. They’ve had over 2 million downloads of iGolf and iBowl. And tonight they’ve released the next game in the series, iBaseball (iTunes link).
Like the other games it’s free, and you use the accelerometer in your iPhone to control game play. The application includes applause and game sounds, vibrates when a hit is made, and supports… → Read More
No surprise that SGN’s iPhone games are doing so well – they’re fun to play and they’re free. iGolf is at no. 7 on the top ten apps list and has, the company says, more than 1 million downloads. The newly launched iBowl is at no. 8.
Both games extensively use the accelerometer to control game action, resulting in a Wii-like experience. The only problem is the high chance of throwing the iPhone… → Read More
Who needs a Nintendo Wii when you’ve got an iPhone? The Social Gaming Network, which released a Wii-like golfing game for the iPhone two weeks ago, has now followed up with a bowling game. As with iGolf (which has already been downloaded more than 900,000 times), iBowl uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to detect a player’s swing. You can twist your wrist to give the ball spin or direct it to the… → Read More
SGN founder Shervin Pishevar, jetlagged and sleep deprived on a “secret mision” trip to Eastern Europe, wrote a long and partially lucid email to friends last night. I reprint it here because it captures much of the entrepreneurial spirit that drives so many of the men and women who we write about.
The full email, along with a YouTube clip, are reprinted below with Pishevar’s permission. → Read More
Once you’re done turning your iPhone photos into works of art that Monet would be envious of, check out iGolf, a minutes-old app created by Palo Alto-based Social Gaming Network.
The application uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to detect a golf-swing like motion with the phone. Choose a club and swing the iPhone just like a golf club. Save your high scores and challenge your friends to beat your… → Read More
Social Gaming Network Tuesday announced that it has completed its acquisition of (fluff)Friends, a Facebook game that lets people adopt virtual furry friends and interact with friends who also have virtual pets.
(fluff)Friends users can choose from a group of “fluff” pets that can be personalized to match the user’s personality. Once created, the pet can interact with other users and the game’s… → Read More
Social Gaming Network, a startup behind a number of popular social network games, has partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation to create a Facebook game to raise money for, of all things, planting trees. SGN has created a game called “Space Movers: The Bloom Initiative”, and will donate up to $50,000 of the game’s advertising revenue to the cause. You can check out the app by… → Read More
Less than a year ago Alex Le and Siqi Chen were working at one of the web’s most ambitious startups, semantic search engine PowerSet (Due out soon). But last December they made the tough choice to quit it all and go full time for their own side project, a quickly growing little Facebook application called “Friends For Sale”. That project has grown into a full blown venture backed… → Read More
Consolidation is already beginning in the overcrowded Facebook application market (with 21,800 apps and counting). One of the first sectors to see buyouts of popular apps is in the social gaming sector. Earlier this year, Zynga bought CLZ Concepts and the Superheroes group of apps. Today, competitor Social Gaming Network (SGN) is responding with its own roll-up of Esgut (which created… → Read More
There is a new casual gaming network in town that’s got some serious cross-platform chops. Don’t be fooled by the cutesy graphics. Today, Mytopia is simultaneously launching across Facebook, Bebo, MySpace (currently pending approval) and its own Website with eight games (Chess, Backgammon, Sudoku, Dominoes, Bingo, Spades, Hearts, Video Poker). On Monday, it will release the same games… → Read More
(Update: SGN raised $15 million on May 13, 2008). It was only last week that the Social Gaming Network (SGN) and Zynga announced their respective developer platforms for games on Facebook and other social networks. I said the game is on between these two companies to win the hearts and minds of social gaming developers. The folks at Zynga took exception to this characterization. If you put all of… → Read More
Fred Wilson lit a fire today suggesting that certain bloggers need to step it up a notch to improve quality and be more like mainstream journalists. A fair point if spoken generally, although I’d argue that the quality of reporting done by many bloggers today, at least in the tech space, is equal to or better than most mainstream journalism. I think this is particularly true when we’re… → Read More
The social networking game is all about scale. There are so many apps now on Facebook alone, nearly 16,000, that it is nearly impossible to get noticed unless you are already part of one of the bigger app companies. Cross promotion between apps is the key. Some of the largest app companies like Slide or RockYou, for instance, typically charge 50 cents per install to distribute apps from smaller… → Read More
The saga of Scrabulous is nearing an end. The Facebook version of Scrabble raised the ire of Hasbro and Mattel, which jointly own the rights to the game abroad and in the U.S., respectively. They have already asked Facebook to pull Scrabulous, one of the most popular apps on the social networking site. So why is Scrabulous still up on Facebook? A flurry of behind the scenes deal-making has been… → Read More
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