myYearbook Finds Success in Casual Gaming

myYearbook has been steadily climbing the charts as a social network for the younger set for the last couple of years. We’ve talked about the company on Mashable a few times as it has grown, gotten funding and reached other milestones. The latest in its steps to being a real contender against MySpace and other social networks has been the addition of casual gaming.

Partnering with casual games developer Arkadium, myYearbook recently added casual games to its site. myYearbook expected to get about a million game plays per month. Instead, they find themselves looking at heavy usage and a successful feature launch leading to as many as 1 million game plays per day in the first month.

The closest comparison that comes to mind for the myYearbook game interface is Pogo. I am a huge fan of Pogo, and many of the games on myYearbook have a similar look, feel and interface. That made it easy for me to get going right away, immediately getting sucked into Solitaire. There was a bit of a time lag, but that could have also been due to the fact that I was straining the limits of my RAM with some other applications at the same time and have nothing to do with myYearbook.

The game system on myYearbook integrates with its existing “lunch money” credit system. This means that you can use the credit you have accumulated in the games area, and also use the credit you get in the game area elsewhere on the site. There are even ways to earn bonuses for your lunch money coffers from playing games repeatedly and other incentives.

In keeping with the social aspect of myYearbook, you can challenge people to some of the games and play against others in a few as well. You can view who else is playing the game you have chosen, and receive messages from them in real time while you are playing.

Overall, I think I am the wrong demographic for the site as a whole, and will probably slink back off to my Pogo cave for future game play. But if you are the right age (read: under 30) you might find the site and all of its new bells and whistles right up your alley. The members are certainly not shy about interacting with you, so you will definitely make new friends in the games area while you play.

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