When companies like Zynga release a new game and muster up some 6 million daily users in 8 days, it apparently gets other companies thinking about social gaming as well. In fact, French startup MXP4 – who specializes in interactive music solutions – has recently made a step towards social music gaming and launched Pump It. We announced back in September that the company would be launching on Facebook and the application is finally live.
Pump It is a new social music gaming application to hit Facebook fan pages. Launching on some 30 fan pages – including that of David Guetta, Nelly Furtado, the Ministry of Sound, Kylie Minogue and Enrique Iglesias – now through January, the application lets fans play the role of DJ with a song’s rhythm. Fans can compete for various prizes and the best scoring “super fans” are displayed on the fan page of the artist.
For the moment, the application is free although MXP4 is looking at how to monetize the game – either via micro transactions or virtual goods. However, it seems other social music games publishers have had issues with monetization in the past, including Zynga-owned Conduit Labs : the company shut down Super Dance in September along with its other music games because they were “not commercially viable” (at least that’s what it says on Facebook). And another music social game, Instant Jam, was shut down because it was believed to be fraudulent.
MXP4’s Pump It is apparently the 12th fastest growing social game on Facebook. This is the first social music game to be launched by the Paris-based startup, which is also looking at launching a karaoke battle game on Facebook.