Virtual Goods News

Today the gaming company YouWeb, parent company of iPhone gaming network Aurora Feint and social games developer CrowdStar, announced a new social gaming platform technology called Sibblingz. The Sibblingz platform is designed to help new developers quickly design and build social games that can be published through Facebook, iPhone, and the Web. The Sibblingz platform contains built-in technologies for handling virtual goods, payments, and storefronts, allowing developers to focus purely on content. 

"I am really excited about offering a universal social gaming framework that will let users play the same game with their friends anytime, anywhere," said Ben Savage, co-founder of Sibblingz. "We believe this is interesting to both indie developers and large corporations who want to deploy their entertainment content once across multiple channels."

In conjunction with the announcement, Sibblingz begins a private beta of its new service today. Participation in the beta has no up-front cost. Instead YouWeb intends to monetize Sibblingz through a revenue share arrangement with developers using the platform. Sibblingz will use Facebook Connect, so users playing social games on iPhone and the Web get a true social experience. Players will also be able to play through a single profile on multiple platforms. The closed beta ends in Q1 2010, after which terms of revenue share will be made public.