Mobile social games are cooler than Sunday Night Football

And that's just on the Flurry network for iPhone. According to data compiled by Nielsen and Flurry, a social network for iPhone games and applications, more people played social games on their iPhone than those who watched Sunday Night Football on NBC.

When television is competing with mobile social games for viewers, you know this industry is more than a fad. Not to mention mobile social games on the iPhone alone are only about two years old. Flurry welcomes 19 million daily players for 22 minutes on average through the 50,000 apps that support the network, which is only 4 million viewers away from the most popular TV out there, American Idol. With numbers like this, it's a no-brainer for studios like Zynga and CrowdStar to look at mobile as the next frontier.

Count in players from other mobile social gaming networks like Open Feint and Plus+, open up the device categories to include Android and Blackberry and you got yourself far more eyes than that glorified Star Search American Idol will ever reach. It's no wonder that media giants like Viacom are joining Microsoft in looking to join the fun. It looks like we're going to see plenty more ads in our games than we might like come 2011.

Crowdstar launches first-ever social mobile game, Top Girl

Facebook game maker Crowdstar launches its first mobile social game -- Top Girl -- which is based on its hit fashion-centric game It Girl on Facebook.

While Top Girl is a separate game from It Girl -- the two games are largely identical. Start the game by custom-creating an avatar and then take them shopping, dress them and then help them climb a virtual social ladder by taking on modeling jobs and hitting up popular nightspots. There's also a dating feature which require you to flirt and snag a boyfriend who will shower your avatar with gifts.

The biggest difference between the two games is that Top Girl does not directly tie-in to Facebook or Facebook Connect, and instead uses mobile social network OpenFeint. It's a bold move, considering that OpenFeint doesn't have as many users as Facebook, but Crowdstar Mobile Studio Head Blair Hamilton says they made that decision, "because we expect a different set of users to play this game."


Hamilton says, "While resource management games appear to be succeeding in mobile social gaming, we felt that a role-playing game- especially for females- would establish a new category and opportunity for CrowdStar."

Even though It Girl (and, now, Top Girl) has intellectual parity with a TV show like 'Keeping up with the Kardashians,' this type of shopping/fashion game has proven to be popular with the social gaming set. Guess everyone needs a junk food fix, whether it's keeping up with pseudo-celebs in tabloid-style TV or the newest social game.

Crowdstar launches first-ever social mobile game, Top Girl

Facebook game maker Crowdstar launches its first mobile social game -- Top Girl -- which is based on its hit fashion-centric game It Girl on Facebook.

While Top Girl is a separate game from It Girl -- the two games are largely identical. Start the game by custom-creating an avatar and then take them shopping, dress them and then help them climb a virtual social ladder by taking on modeling jobs and hitting up popular nightspots. There's also a dating feature which require you to flirt and snag a boyfriend who will shower your avatar with gifts.

The biggest difference between the two games is that Top Girl does not directly tie-in to Facebook or Facebook Connect, and instead uses mobile social network OpenFeint. It's a bold move, considering that OpenFeint doesn't have as many users as Facebook, but Crowdstar Mobile Studio Head Blair Hamilton says they made that decision, "because we expect a different set of users to play this game."


Hamilton says, "While resource management games appear to be succeeding in mobile social gaming, we felt that a role-playing game- especially for females- would establish a new category and opportunity for CrowdStar."

Even though It Girl (and, now, Top Girl) has intellectual parity with a TV show like 'Keeping up with the Kardashians,' this type of shopping/fashion game has proven to be popular with the social gaming set. Guess everyone needs a junk food fix, whether it's keeping up with pseudo-celebs in tabloid-style TV or the newest social game.

Top Girl is currently available in the AppStore and will "initially" be available for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.