MySpace wants users to stay and play
23-10-2007
by Stephen Errity
Social networking site MySpace has teamed up with Oberon Media to launch a new gaming channel for its users.
The News Corporation-owned network said in a statement that users would be able to choose from hundreds of games to add to their personal pages, in addition to the site's existing music and video features. The gaming channel, MySpace Games, is expected to go live sometime in January 2008.
The terms of the deal with Oberon Media were not disclosed. Founded in 2003, the privately-owned company is based in New York and has already produced casual gaming platforms for Microsoft's MSN service and Electronic Arts. Recently, it completed a string of acquisitions, including mobile games company I-Play and interactive TV game firm PixelPlay. Oberon has also recently completed a major round of financing involving institutions such as Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Oak Investment Partners, among others.
In launching the gaming channel MySpace will be hoping to tap into the rapidly growing market for casual online games. Recently-released figures from research firm Research and Markerts show that the year-over-year growth in the number of frequent online gamers was 79 percent, significantly higher than that for social network users (46 percent).
MySpace will also be hoping to get its 100 million users to spend more time on its site. A recent report by research firm Parks Associates revealed that huge numbers of MySpace users were 'cheating' on the site with other social networks -- 40 percent of them maintained profiles on rival networks such as Facebook. Current figures are showing a huge jump in the popularity of these rival sites.
Since January of this year, Facebook has seen the addition of 125,000 users from Ireland alone. It is also the most popular social network in the UK, with over 6 million users registered. Games involving pirates, zombies, vampires and werewolves are among the most popular 'widgets' on the Facebook network, while a version of Scrabble called 'Scrabulous' currently has over 200,000 active users.
