As virtual farms crop up,gamers have a field day

Heiko Hubertz,CEO of browser-based games portal Bigpoint.com which is home to over 100 million gamers,said online game experiences were very solitary in the past. “Now through social network gaming and browser-based games portals,gamers of all types can share their experiences and compete against each other in original experiences like ‘Poisonville,’ as well as licensed content like the upcoming ‘Battlestar Galactica Online,’” said Hubertz.

Once-small companies like Zynga,Bigpoint,Playdom,and Playfish,which Electronic Arts bought for $400 million last year,are finding exponential growth by creating free-to-play casual games that encourage players to get their friends involved.

“The 800 pound gorilla in social games is Zynga’s ‘FarmVille,’ which has over 82 million people worldwide playing at least once a month and over 32 million people playing daily,” said Justin Davis,founder and editor of SocialGameCentral.com. FarmVille,which has been available as an application on Facebook since June last year,involves managing a virtual farm by planting,growing and harvesting crops and raising livestock.

Zynga,which has created five of the 10 most popular social games,also attracts an audience of 30 million monthly and 9 million daily with “Cafe World,” its second most popular game. Davis said overall Zynga has over 230 million active players across multiple social networks.

Even MySpace,which announced a new MySpace Games experience at this month’s conference aiming to encourage game makers to cater to its online audience,can attract over 10 million players with games like Playdom’s “Mobsters” and Zynga’s “Mafia Wars.” About one-third of MySpace users currently play games.

Michael Pachter,videogame analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities,said social gaming has grown from around $600 million in total revenue in 2008 to $1 billion in 2009 and expects social gaming to bring in around $1.6 billion this year.