Meez Gaming Platform Launches

Meez™ announced today the gold launch of its distributed gaming service and related API platform, which has already been used to enhance more than 50 third party casual games now available on Meez.com and other popular social networks. The games range from well known casual brands such as Cake Mania, Jewel Quest and Virtual Villagers, to recent flash hits like Bloons and Star Shine.

Meez will be launching another 50+ games later this quarter as it expands its catalog. For game publishers, the Meez Games Service provides direct access to the tens of millions of users on key social media networks, including Facebook, Friendster, Perfspot and Meez, with additional networks launching each month. The Meez Games API enables game publishers to easily add functionality that delivers a more compelling and differentiated gaming experience, such as enabling users to import their personal Meez avatars into a game.

“Meez is giving game publishers access to some of the largest social networking communities on the Internet,” said Sean Ryan, Meez CEO. “More importantly, we’re providing unique hooks into the social fabric of these communities, so that game publishers can form long-term, monetizable relationships with users, driving revenue through the Meez advertising engine and through virtual item commerce.”

The Meez Games API enables game publishers to quickly add functionality that aligns their games with common user activities on social networking communities. Key functionality includes:

• In-Game Avatars (“Meez Inside”) – Users can import their avatars into a game and use it to represent them as they play, creating a highly personalized gaming experience, which was formerly available only in high-end console gaming.
• Emoticon Avatars (“Meez Enhanced”) - For games without human characters, the user’s individual Meez sits next to the game, reacting with a wide range of emotions as the user plays, such as falling “dead” when the game ends, or giving the thumbs up when the player gets a high score.
• Virtual Economy Engine – Game players can earn the Meez currency Coinz by finishing levels or winning awards. Coinz can be used to purchase virtual items such as avatar clothing, animations and furniture, driving users to play even more games.
• Competition and Community Enablers – Users can compete with their friends for high scores that yield badges and awards, sending challenges back and forth using a social media site’s viral functionality to create personalized competitions.

“Meez has proven to be an exciting and explosive new opportunity for us as a distribution channel,” said Arthur Humphrey, CEO of Last Day of Work, the developer behind massive hits Fish Tycoon, Virtual Villagers and Plant Tycoon. “Integration of our games has been very easy, and they’re giving us access to tools, revenue and customers that wasn’t available to the casual sector previously.”

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