Pixwoo, a 'Facebook for gamers', wooes in big game publishers

The easiest way to explain Pixwoo is to describe it as a 'Facebook for gamers'. But that's only partly accurate when you realize that Facebook is a social network and a major gaming platform, while Pixwoo isn't aspiring to be anything more than a glorified sounding board for publishers and a hangout for gamers. But for the publishers, this seems to be enough.

Pascal Vielhescaze, the creator of Pixwoo, and CEO of a "digital lifestyle agency" called Spiderdreams, has gotten a lot of noteworthy publishers to sign up as partners since the site's launch in February. Codemasters, Capcom, Namco Bandai Partners and Rising Star have joined in on what could be "a potentially fantastic promotional tool for the industry."
Pixwoo: Your video gamers social network
As for the gamers, Vielhescaze has chosen to pitch Pixwoo this way:

    Generic social networking platforms are fantastic for keeping in touch with friends and family, but it's not ideal for sharing the minutiae of hobbies and passions. Gamers deserve to feel comfortable boasting they have reached level 85 in Guild Wars, for example. And that's why big isn't necessarily better when it comes to social networking. Knowing you share a common interest with everyone else on there is much more important, as is the ability to speak passionately without prejudice.

So far, what we have here is a lot of self-generated hype that Pixwoo is the place-to-be to get community feel-goodness. In an age of social networks, it's really hard for anyone to be wowed by that. Ultimately, Pixwoo and the game companies it's partnered with, will need to offer something unique to generate real buzz.

Five million Facebook users are under age 11, how many play games?

Consumer Reports estimates that 5 million Facebook users are under 11, but how many of them are Facebook gamers? The news comes from the magazine's June issue, and echoes a Liberty Mutual study that reports 7.5 million of those on the social network are below the required minimum age of 13 years old. This means that either parents are making profiles for their kids or the little ones are going rogue, making their own profiles.

Facebook has age limits for a reason: it's the law. And while one third of parents claim to monitor their kids' activity on Facebook, 17 percent of them have no qualms with their kids using the service underage. In fact, All Facebook reports that many respondents seemed to have no problem with the fact that their kids might have posted fake registration information in order to get in.

And Facebook is working against them, banning an estimated 20 thousands daily that it suspects are underage. That amounts to about 7.3 million Facebook minors a year. As a gamer, one can't help but wonder how many of these 7.5 million kids are toiling away in FarmVille. As Capcom and Smurfs Village displayed effectively, kids and virtual goods can be a deadly combination. Not to mention that this could shift the average Facebook gamer demographic considerably. The horror!

[Image Credit: Fooyoh]

Do you allow your preteens to play around on Facebook, or are you a minor Facebooker yourself? What are your thoughts on kids playing Facebook games, and if your kids are on Facebook, how do you monitor their activity/purchases?

Capcom CEO: Social games had 'earth-shattering' effect on industry

But the guy means more than, "Holy moley, these things are money machines!" During an interview with Bloomberg Japan, Capcom CEO Kenzo Tsujimoto likened the rise of social gaming to when pinball machines were overrun in arcades by game cabinets, according to Serkan Toto. If there's one company to make that point, it's certainly Capcom.

The company behind horror and action franchises like Resident Evil and Street Fighter has enjoyed more international success in mobile social games than even Japanese giants like DeNA and Gree. Of course, that's thanks to its Beeline Interactive subsidiary, which is responsible for the wildly successful Smurfs Village (and Smurfs Grabber, sort of) on U.S. iPhones. In fact, the game was so ... compelling to consumers that Capcom had to rework how it handled in-game purchases.

Speaking with Bloomberg Japan, Tsujimoto said that social games make up about 6.6 percent of Capcom's profits, but he expects that to explode to about 30 percent "in a few years." But despite the wild profits Capcom expects to make from social games, Tsujimoto said to Bloomberg Japan that he's still excited about Nintendo's upcoming console, the Wii U. Well, here's to hoping the console has some sort of social gaming support, but we're sure the company has wised up by now.

Is it fair to compare social games' effect on the game industry to that of arcade games on pinball machines in the late '70s and early '80s? What company will get into social gaming next?