Step to the scope of all the world therefore

This is the new niche that stirs up more than the Net industry and that of the video game. It must be said that the figures of the "social gaming" - what do dream: these games available on social networks, Facebook especially, are today more than 400 million players worldwide! And the market already exceeds $ 1 billion... Of these games are primarily revenues through the sale of goods fully... virtual. The user can play free of charge to all of the game, but to move forward more quickly, it must buy "objects", for a few cents. Multiplied by millions of players, this ensures, for example, Zynga, American leader of the market, with revenue estimated at more than 500 million this year...

In France, on the niche companies had so far on the fingers of the hand. But some now see hexagonal market opportunities. According to a recent study by TNS, it would already in France more than 3 million social gamers ". In the wake of the success of Facebook (more than 18 million French members), the practice is spreading. Thus, Ubisoft launched a few months ago its own games on Facebook. A few "pure players" are also trying to compete with the new giants. It is the case of Weka Entertainment (ex-Boonty), just to raise 2.5 million euros at its introduction on the stock exchange ten days ago, after to be repositioned activity of classical editor of social gaming. An effective shift: thanks to this activity, the turnover of the company on the first four months of the year 2010 is already higher than in 2009. The company now wants to conquer the British, German, Italian and Turkish markets.

TF1 makes

Symbol of the growing interest in the genus: TF1 has launched his own game, Bola Football, in partnership with Playdom, a California company that appears in the Top 5 of the world publishers. The costs of development, they tend to increase with the increase in the quality of these games, remain well below those of a console game: a few tens of thousands of euros for a basic game, more than 100,000 to 150,000 euros for a high range game. With, in this case, of the levels of profitability in several hundreds of thousands of players. Step to the scope of all the world, therefore...

But what also interests TF1, it is the second source of income for this model: advertising. Bola Football, including the license already exists in the United States and Latin America (with 4.5 million registered), teams of the game can be sponsored by brands. These sponsors can then provide virtual money to players. These spaces will be marketed by the régie of TF1. Other interest, less directly quantifiable: the relationship with the user. "We ask some simple questions to the players who register, explains Claude Charpin, Director delegate to the new media at TF1." This allows us to better understand and engage a further relationship with them. "Next step for the chain: the declination of the star of the summer program,"Secret Story"(read below), in a Facebook game developed this time internally. "The idea is to resume the brands of the antenna, sometimes above their dissemination, to increase their notoriety," added Claude Charpin, which promises more Facebook games before the end of the year.