Webware

As someone who spends the vast majority of his time each day on the Web, I've developed a unique love for casual online games. When I'm bored or just want to slip away from work for a while, I head over to one of my favorite online game sites and let the hours pass by.

But I should note that although there are thousands of online games out there, my favorites are relatively limited. In fact, I only play four online games regularly. These are the games I find so addicting that I can ignore the rest.

"Bowman 2"
"Bowman 2" isn't for the faint of heart, but it's a really fun game that you can play by yourself, against the computer, or with a friend.

The premise behind "Bowman 2" is simple: you wield a bow and arrow and your job is to release that arrow into the sky in the hope that you hit the opposing player. Once you do, blood spurts out from your opponent and when two lethal hits are chalked up or four non-lethal hits are made, you win. This probably isn't the kind of game you want to let your kids play without some supervision.

Simple, yet effective for Bowman 2.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET Networks)

Like the others, "Bowman 2" is designed with fun, not good looks, in mind. In essence, the game is one white screen with silhouetted characters and two patches of green or brown grass. That's it. To control your bowman, you need to click your left mouse button and decide upon the strength of your shot (up to 100) and the direction of your shot in degrees. If your first shot misses, you can adjust it next time to determine the right speed and angle to hit your target.

"Bowman 2" is one of those games that allows you to veer off from the day for a while. Like the others, it's free and will consume hours if you let it.

"The Helicopter Game"
If you're looking to spend hours playing an online game instead of working, look no further than "The Helicopter Game." Trust me, you'll spend hours trying to beat this title.

"The Helicopter Game" is just what you would expect: you fly a helicopter through a maze that features walls flanking obstructions along the route. The obstructions are green rectangles and your helicopter is a simple gray and blue figure shaped like a helicopter.

Fun and simplicity: How "The Helicopter Game" gets it done.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET Networks)

Once again, the simple design of the game makes for simple controls. To control your helicopter, you only need to click the left mouse button. As you hold it down, the helicopter goes up. When you release it, the helicopter goes down. It's as simple as that.

Playing "The Helicopter Game" is extremely fun. That said, I found this title to be the most frustrating, since you're forced to go back to the beginning each time you lose. Worse, the maze starts getting narrower as you progress through the game, which means you'll need practice to make your way through. But its scoring mechanism (you get more points the longer you stay alive) makes the game addicting and it wouldn't surprise me if you keep coming back for more after the first time you play it.

"Max Dirt Bike"
"Max Dirt Bike" is one of the most popular games on Addictinggames.com, and after playing it for the past few months, I can see why.

"Max Dirt Bike" allows you to play as, you guessed it, a dirt bike rider, who is trying desperately to traverse different obstacles through 19 levels. The game starts out easy with a few minor obstacles, but rapidly increases the difficulty throughout the rest of the levels. Much like the other games included here, the controls are extremely simple: you use the arrow keys to control the direction of the dirt bike rider. That's it.

I can spend hours playing "Max Dirt Bike."

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET Networks)

You won't be blown away by the design of "Max Dirt Bike." The rider and his dirt bike are colored in black and outlined in red, while the obstacles are basically white blocks that are outlined in a particular color. The background in each level is distracting and ugly.

Once you get over the game's simple design, you'll be blown away by the gameplay and realize that you'll need to perform certain tricks with the bike to get through each level. It may look simple, but rest assured that it's not an easy game to complete. But once you do finally beat the game, you won't want to move on to something else--each run-through is timed, so you'll constantly find yourself trying to beat your best time.

"Old Snakey"
If you use Gmail, go to your "Labs" tab and enable "Old Snakey", Google's version of the age-old classic. Once you enable it, anytime you're using Gmail, you can click Shift + 7 and the game will be brought to the forefront, over your Inbox.

"Old Snakey" put the fun back into Gmail.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET Networks)

The game couldn't be any simpler: it features a couple of obstructions, a "snake" that you control with your arrow keys, and a block that you need to run over without hitting the walls and obstructions. It starts out simple with a short snake and slow speed, but it rapidly increases speed and the size of your snake as you pick up more blocks. That's when the game gets really fun and makes it an ideal title for you when you're alone or with friends.

Is it a beautiful game? No way. But once again, the value of simple gameplay and unique fun is all it takes to make a game addicting. If you're a Gmail user, definitely try it out. If you're not, sign up for Gmail just to play it. It's that fun.

Are there games that I missed that you really enjoy? Let us know in the comments.

(Credit: Amazon)

Amazon.com on Tuesday launched its first foray into digital downloads for games. The new online store offers more than 600 casual titles without the need for physical media. Amazon says all the titles at launch are under either $6.99 or $9.99 with older titles leaning towards the lower end of the spectrum. As an added promotion, the company is giving away three free titles, which gamers have a week to scoop up before the prices return to normal.

The launch comes just a little over two months since Amazon acquired Reflexive Entertainment, a casual-game service that is still selling titles with its own DRM solution and store front. In Amazon's case, purchased games must be downloaded with a special download tool similar to what's required to grab music tracks from the company's MP3 service. The games then phone home the first time you launch them to verify the purchase information.

Each game can be played for 30 minutes as a timed trial before the need to purchase. This model directly competes with that from Yahoo Games and to a certain degree Valve's Steam service, although unlike Valve, Amazon is not yet offering a download service for larger AAA titles from major publishers.

The service is PC-only for now, which is mostly a limitation from game developers who don't offer the titles on computers running OS X or Linux. However, a Mac version of the store is likely in the works.

Kongregate is an anomaly in the casual gaming business. Where many Flash game sites feature card games and are frequented by a diverse population with a good percentage of women, Kongregate has hardly any solitaire-like games and has demographic of about 90 percent men and boys. It's where the shooter players go when they want to blow off some steam without firing up the console or the gaming rig, according to Kongregate CEO Jim Greer.

That focused demographic may be narrow, but it's also marketable. To engage this group more fully with the site -- and with sponsors -- Kongregate is launching a series of tutorials to help its users become game developers. The first series, sponsored by a youth-oriented automotive brand, walks participants through the steps of building a side-scrolling space-themed shoot-em-up in Flash.

Tutorial intro.

The tutorial itself is not revolutionary, but I respect how Kongregate is layering in the elements that its demographic can relate to. Even though Greer does not really expect any Kongregate-schooled developers to build one of the few games that makes it to the top of the site's charts, he does think that the program will bolster the site's community and help lock users into the site.

Many of the current games on Kongregate are also available elsewhere, but Kongregate gets its users to come back by tracking achievements and rewarding users badges for meeting challenges. It also has a social angle.

The strategy for the gaming site is to move beyond advertising and sponsorships, though. As Greer says, "You can make pretty good money on an ad-supported game, but it tops out at $40K to 50K." That's why Kongregate allows users to submit their own games; nobody knows which ones are going to be the $50,000 winners; most of the submissions barely get noticed. It's also why Greer's company is building a system for in-game micro-transactions (for tarting up your avatar or buying power-ups) as well as a subscription platform for developers whose games are so compelling users will pay for them on a monthly basis. Those are better avenues to big revenue.

Lee Uniacke, Kongregate's chief revenue officer (isn't that normally the CEO's role?) says the male, 18- to 24-year-old demographic is "quasi recession proof," which sounds a bit sketchy, although that group of young job-holders will like always spend a bit more of their income on discretionary expenses, than, say, 40-year-old parents. The 20-person company still has "a lot" of its $9 million of funding left.

See also: What fun: Popfly gets a game builder.

Game developer Oberon Media on Monday announced that it landed $20 million in additional funding from the Infinity I-China Fund to help it grow its mobile and casual gaming business.

Acquiring the funding is part of a global strategy by Oberon Media to expand its business overseas and establish a foothold in China--a key battleground for casual gaming services.

For its part, Infinity's investment in Oberon is just another example of companies trying to capitalize on the explosive growth in the casual gaming market. Casual gaming is a $2.25 billion business, according to research from the Casual Games Association (PDF), and much of that growth is coming from Asia, thanks to services like China's QQ.

Oberon Media will attempt to set itself apart by doing more than offering casual games to consumers, though. Instead, the company, which partners with major corporations like Microsoft, Comcast, and Sprint, will use its Game Center platform to create revenue-fetching titles that offer advertising opportunities, traffic, and gameplay optimization, digital rights management, and data mining to maximize the profitability of partner games.

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.

This morning at the Game Developer's Conference here in San Francisco, Alex St. John, the CEO of WildTangent, will announce a new version of the company's gaming software that he hopes will make people think twice about buying a video game console.

Taking a cue from the growing number of casual gamers buying consoles, St. John, who is most famous for helping create Direct X specification for Microsoft, figures that people are itching to get their hands on video games, but that they shouldn't have to buy a proprietary piece of hardware and pricey software titles, or even relegate gaming to one room in the house.

His solution is to take WildTangent's gaming marketplace software and tune it to work on the go, or in the living room on large televisions. The application, called "Orb" (not to be confused with the Orb media-sharing software) is designed to let anyone with a laptop and a gamepad navigate the various games available for play without having to use a keyboard or mouse. St. John notes that a majority of machines that have shipped out in the last year or so can more than handle the graphics capabilities of the Wii and original Xbox, and if users are looking to take part of that software ecosystem, they don't need to buy anything new.

WildTangent's Orb interface has been made friendly for large screens and aging eyes. Instead of paying, users can now opt in to play games for free after sitting through preroll commercials.

(Credit: WildTangent)

Orb has also been created from the ground up with a new advertising model that lets home users play titles for free as long as they're willing to sit through a commercial from sponsors that's inserted at the beginning of each gaming session. St. John equates WildTangent's model to that of television programming, noting that advertisers have been more than willing to get on board, whereas users aren't always into shelling out the cash up front to play a game.

Besides advertising, WildTangent runs off a micropayment system similar to what you see on Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace with packages of credits that are purchased several at a time instead of an a la cart model. With the new system users don't even have to invest in the micropayments if they're willing to opt in to the advertising in front of each gaming session.

In addition to the new software, Orb will be launching with developer support to get various titles into the marketplace. The two being announced today are Sierra Online and THQ. St. John says other developers will likely want to join up to place their games on Orb in time for software that's slated for release in April.

After being in private beta for the last three months, Playyoo is opening its doors for everyone this morning. The site is aimed at casual gamers who like playing games on their mobile phones. Like Kongregate, game developers can show off their wares and interact directly with the people playing them. Better yet, anyone without programming knowledge can use Playyoo's WYSIWYG game creator tool to create one of six game presets of simple games like pairs, tic tac toe, snake, and ping-pong. While the amount of customizations on these gaming presets is fairly limited, the titles uploaded by real game developers tend to have a little more depth. Developers with existing projects can simply port them over with a Playyoo-supplied template for Flash 8 Pro or CS3.

In terms of cost, if users find a game they like, they can download it to their mobile phones free of charge. The entire service is run by advertising, which shows up both on the site and on the games when you start them up.

What I really like about Playyoo is that it supplies each user with a customized "game stream" that can be tweaked similar to Facebook's newsfeed so that certain game genres show up more or less than others (get a peek at this after the jump). It makes it easy to discover new content as it comes in. Likewise, Playyoo users can send recommendations to one another if they come across something cool or worth playing.

Playyoo currently supports a pretty massive variety of phones. It's also nice enough to let you know how many games out of the entire library your phone can handle, along with providing a bandwidth limiter you can set to automatically cut you off of after burning through a set limit of data. While the graphics of the titles may not blow your socks off (like the upcoming Vollee service) you can't beat the price, and the potential for the game creator Web app is promising for folks like me with little to no coding skills.

More screens after the jump.

The game creator is WYSIWYG, and lets you pick out all sorts of color and texture combinations. If you want to make your game more difficult you can even ramp it up with a slider.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

"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."