Future generations will probably remember year 2009 for the social gaming revolution it brought about. The fact that “casual gaming on social platforms” entered the mainstream is more evident today than ever with more than 300 million people coming online everyday to play a casual game or a social gaming application. The virtual identity in “Facebook” or similar portals is some times predominant than the real “socially” life of this internet generation.

Every where around the world Facebook and its clones cater to niche audience and we see “gaming” as a mainstream medium of entertainment. In many developed nations gaming industry is already bigger than movies; for example in US the gaming industry is roughly twice the size of Hollywood. Social gaming now reduced the entry bar for the “new gamer” and every day thousands of people are joining the gaming network.

There were many significant milestones in the evolution of gaming as an entertainment medium, but “Farmville” by Zynga would probably be the defining game for its universal acceptance. With more than 55 million registered uses, out of which around 20 million users come online daily to grow their farms, this internet savvy generation which is too impatient to show off their achievements to their friends. Social games of today are an efficient mechanism to show off one’s abilities by broadcasting their wins/achievements on their social networks.

Social gaming empowered every online user to be a part of a single gaming network, and the gamer identity is now becoming an important extra curricular achievement. Hope this social gaming network would then flourish into the ideal

2010 is quickly becoming the year that this industry started to mature. Facebook is getting more involved in the monetization ecosystem, last year’s hit games are fighting for their lives, and new developers and games are climbing the leader boards. Large players are consolidating smaller studios and teams, and large media companies and traditional game developers continue to plot their social gaming strategies.

Keep watching this space for more…