The Social

The Social Gaming Network, parent company of social-networking applications that do exactly what the name implies they would, has reason to celebrate.

The company has netted $15 million in first-round funding from Greylock Partners, the Founders Fund, Columbia Partners, and Novak Biddle Venture Partners.

Yes, that's $15 million for the people responsible for the Warbook, Jetman, and Super Snake applications clunking up your friends' Facebook profiles.

It makes sense. Gaming applications have proven to be some of the most popular apps on social-networking developer platforms like Facebook and MySpace.com, and veteran entrepreneurs have taken note. The Social Gaming Network was started by the founders of Webs.com--known in the Internet's earlier days as Freewebs--and Zynga, another well-funded gaming start-up created by Tribe.net founder Mark Pincus. Both companies have turned to independent developers too, encouraging them to work on games on their platforms-within-platforms.

The new funding will be used to "allocate even greater resources to research and development of its gaming platform, and produce more tools for social game developers who want to create a richer gaming experience on the social networks and the social Web," according to a statement. But it was also hinted that the cash will help the company add "more depth to its platform and diversity to its portfolio of games."

Considering the Social Gaming Network has made acquisitions in the past--snapping up Facebook applications such as Free Gifts--there will probably be more on the way.

Wonder if they'll make a play for Scrabulous.

Whoever predicted that social gaming was the next niche of the Web to get totally saturated was very, very right.

On Monday, a new casual-gaming social network called Mytopia entered its public-beta phase. Taking a conscious cue from massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), Mytopia players create custom avatars and win points in games that they can trade in for virtual goods and real-world prizes, like iTunes and Amazon gift certificates.

Membership is free, but for a $5-per-month premium membership, players have access to an ad-supported version of the site and "grand prize" tournaments. The site already has 300,000 registered users, 150,000 of whom have paid memberships.

Since Mytopia is centered on "classic games," the offering--Sudoku, chess, backgammon, hearts, spades, dominoes, bingo, and poker--is a bit of a yawn, though the company has said new games will be added on a monthly basis. On the flip side, the familiarity of those games may be a draw to players who don't want to learn a whole new set of rules. Indeed, Mytopia is targeting a thoroughly non-"gamer" demographic.

The kicker with Mytopia is that it promises social-network interoperability. In addition to running applications on Facebook, MySpace.com, and Bebo's developer platform (with Orkut and Hi5 on the way), Mytopia also offers widgets on the Windows Vista Toolbar, Apple Dashboard, Yahoo, and Google's iGoogle. Players on any platform, in addition to those on Mytopia's home page, can play against one another.

It sounds promising, but there are already a ton of casual-gaming start-ups out there, not to mention standalone games that have proven to be even bigger hits.

Mytopia's interoperability strategy could push it away from the pack, but let's face it: a whole lot of the people who want to be playing poker and Sudoku online already have a place to play it. This is one start-up that's going to have to rely on getting the word out to new adopters.

"I'll go on a hunger strike!"

So said one adamant Facebook user in the wake of the news that game manufacturers Hasbro and Mattel were trying to do something about the wildly popular, unquestionably addictive online game known as Scrabulous.

The game, which rose to fame when its creators turned it into an embeddable Facebook application, is a word game that's a whole lot like the classic board game Scrabble. It uses a playing board with "bonus" spots just like Scrabble. In fact, the rules are identical to Scrabble's.

The companies in charge of the "real" Scrabble, for obvious reasons, aren't happy.

Game companies Hasbro, which distributes Scrabble in North America, and Mattel, which is responsible for its overseas trademarks, have reportedly asked Facebook to remove the game from its application directory. And you can tell it's a serious legal matter because nobody's talking.

Facebook declined to confirm the report, and it said that it has not yet issued any kind of statement about Scrabulous; representatives from Hasbro did not respond to calls for comment.

The similarities between Scrabble and Scrabulous are crystal-clear, and it's a no-brainer to see why Hasbro and Mattel are miffed. To add to that, Scrabulous serves up advertisements, which means that its creators are making money off the concept. But what the game companies really ought to do is take a step back and realize that they can use Scrabulous to their advantage--without removing the viral game from Facebook.

Fans of Scrabulous, for one, aren't happy about the takedown news. On Facebook, an unofficial group called "Save Scrabulous" is growing fast, with more than 7,000 users at last count (and 5,000 hours before.) Its members, including the aforementioned "hunger striker," are livid.

"Leave Scrabulous alone!" one of them posted in the group's message board, a thinly veiled allusion to the "Leave Britney Alone" viral video.

Others were more visceral: "I've burnt my Scrabble board in protest!" one exclaimed.

A game of Scrabulous on Facebook.

(Credit: Scrabulous)

Scrabulous is the creation of two brothers in India, Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, who founded Scrabulous.com in 2006. When Facebook launched its developer platform in May, the Agarwallas soon transformed their Scrabble spin-off into an application designed for the social network, and it caught on like wildfire. More than 2 million Facebook members are active Scrabulous users, and several hundred thousand of them play the game each day.

It was a catch-22 for the Agarwallas. The "Scrabulous guys" became Facebook celebrities, but the exposure meant that they were much more visible--and so were the obvious similarities between Scrabble and Scrabulous.

"It wouldn't be an issue if Scrabulous weren't so popular, right?" observed Darren Herman, director of digital media for marketing firm The Media Kitchen. It's the sheer mass of Facebook Scrabulous users that have made it a high-profile case as well as an inevitably ugly situation, if the game is indeed taken down. "We're seeing the power of social media in its early days. Since we're still trying to figure out the rules of the game, no pun intended, these types of issues are bound to arise."

In other words, according to Herman, the debate over Scrabulous is indicative of the fact that the world--or at least certain mainstays of the game industry--still hasn't quite figured out that a traditional course of action just doesn't always work on the Web.

"I don't think they are crazy to think this way," Darren Herman said when asked if Hasbro and Mattel are totally off base. "Scrabble came out in a time when everyone guarded their (intellectual property) tightly."

In the old order, a takedown notice may have been the only route. But this is the Web, and plenty of people have pointed out that Hasbro and Mattel are sitting on a marketing gold mine with Scrabulous. They have a gleefully addicted fan base, a machine for viral buzz (Facebook's platform), and the deep pockets to offer to buy Scrabulous outright--or at least strike an innovative advertising deal.

There's also no direct competitor. Neither Hasbro nor Mattel operates a Web-based, ad-supported version of Scrabble; video game manufacturer Electronic Arts owns the rights to electronic versions of the game, and it currently sells a PC game of Scrabble for about $20. (EA was not available for comment on the Scrabulous issue.) With Scrabulous, all three companies may be sitting on a marketing treasure trove.

Hasbro and Mattel might not get it. But the members of Save Scrabulous think that they do.

"Do these greedy fools not realize that they should be paying the creators of Scrabulous for all the damn fans of the game they created?" one angry Scrabulous fan from the United Kingdom asked on the group's "wall." He brought up a further point--that this is getting people excited about the musty old board game in a way they haven't in years. "It's like the music vids put on YouTube. It makes me buy tracks I never would have done, and frankly, before this game emerged, Scrabble was just something for rainy days in my childhood."

Another member of the group put it more concisely. "Scrabulous brought Scrabble back in style. They should be thankful."

News Corp.-owned social-networking site MySpace.com announced on Tuesday that it has partnered with casual-game maker Oberon Games, part of Oberon Media, to create a "channel" of social games.

Slated to launch in January, MySpace Games will allow users of the service to play games against other MySpace members and embed game widgets in their profiles.

Additionally--as it seems that there just can't be a social-networking announcement without talk of the "D" word--developers will be able to submit ideas for new games, and Oberon will be providing a developer toolkit when the game site launches.

Currently, the games.myspace.com subdomain encourages users to "stay tuned for updates." It offers them an array of video game-related videos instead of actual games.