Back in January, RockYou formed a partnership with Ryzing, the Philadelphia-based game developer behind the popular Facebook bingo title Bingo by Ryzing. This partnership apparently went so well that RockYou has purchased Ryzing entirely for an undisclosed sum.Bingo by Ryzing offers rewards-based gameplay, which is new for RockYou, as players are given a chance to enter free tournaments and sweepstakes with the possibility of winning real-world prizes.
"RockYou is a media company at heart, focused on driving the highest value per engagement in social games. With this acquisition we become a unique social media company that combines a rewards-based gaming platform with our existing robust ad monetization solutions," said Lisa Marino, CEO of RockYou, in a company press release. "Not only is real-money gaming superior in monetization to other types of game genres, it is also an accelerator for our ad monetization solutions, and ports well to mobile and other platforms. These solutions can be used not only for our own titles, but for those of our publishing partners."
It's clear that RockYou's acquisition of Ryzing wasn't just for the successful Bingo by Ryzing Facebook game (which has around 75,000 daily active players), but a move towards the future. It's unclear how this focus on gameplay rewards will come into play in RockYou's other titles, but if it means players will have a chance at receiving something for nothing (who wouldn't want that?), then it's definitely something to get excited about.
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