Yoo-Mee Crumbles Social Gaming Barriers
ADOTAS – With Yoo-Mee, any game can be a social game. Even solitaire.
Through the new cross-platform social gaming tech — which connects users wherever they’re playing games, be it Facebook or their iPhone — a player can see other people that our playing solitaire, challenge friends, chat about the game (“Where is that damn ace of spades?!?”), post stats on a Facebook page or enter a tournament with a jackpot.
In other words, Yoo-Mee takes existing casual games, breaks down platform barriers and turns them social just through adding a layer of tech.
“All the social features taking place in a game like Farmville — competition, gathering badges, gifting — can now be applied to solitaire” or any other online game, said Prita Uppal, CEO and founder of Hooked Media, which introduced Yoo-Mee on Tuesday. “And that can be solitaire on Facebook, solitaire on your iPhone or solitaire on the web.”
In essence, she said, Yoo-Mee is providing additional monetization for game developers — akin to a power-up or a growth mushroom from Super Mario Bros. — while improving engagement and stickiness. All publishers have to do is sign up and insert Yoo-Mee’s embed code to get with the system and use it to drive traffic to their sites.
In addition, Yoo-Mee serves ads in free-to-play versions via both direct relationships with advertisers as well as ad networks. The platform also offers targeting by demographics and channel.
There are two types of currency on the platform: loyalty currency that users earn through playing games and inviting friends, which they can use to enter into tournaments or redeem for virtual goods; and paid currency for skill games to participate in cash tournaments with real jackpots. However, barriers to entry are low and rise in 50-cent increments.
Though Hooked is currently working with offer companies such as SuperRewards, offer deals have not yet gone live with Yoo-Me. Part of the reason Hooked has held off on employing offer marketing is because of the brouhaha that erupted last year in the virtual goods and currency space.
“It amazing how that whole segment has come to a halt,” Uppal said. She noted that while in the past the offer people were some of the biggest sponsors and participants at gaming conferences she attended, but even at the one that Hooked Media sponsored last week in Germany, there was nary an offer presence — no sponsors or panelists.
With a strong engineering background Uppal earned an MBA from Harvard and developed a yearning to do something entrepreneurial, particularly in a field she could get excited about such as entertainment. After building a startup DVD gaming company focused on Bollywood trivia, online initiatives caught her interest and she soon immersed herself in the world of gaming.
Uppal set up shop in San Francisco, center of entreprenurial energy and a haven for gaming, and brought Hooked into being with funding by U.S. Venture Partners and Altos Ventures — which are both literally down the street from Hooked’s offices. With a staff of 21, Hooked has thrust Yoo-Mee upon the gaming world within 14 months of the company’s creation.
At this stage in the game, user feedback is cherished and Hooked has devoted a lot of time to analyzing the mounds of data from Yoo-Mee’s internal feedback engine. Hooked’s product pipeline is chock full, including time-sensitive tournaments and more personalized offerings that take advantage of a user’s social graph.
“We’ve got a roadmap that will take us well to the summertime.” Uppal said. “We have a lot of features done and ready but we’re going to release them in stages to increase the user excitement, show them that these things will continuously be added — the Easter eggs.”
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