PapayaMobile has raised $4 million towards the launch of its new mobile social networking platform, which will be available on Android mobile devices. The move is smart for the Beijing-based company, as it already has over 3 million users, and is well-positioned to take on a global market. By opening up to third-party developers, their games and social tools can be further integrated into other games.
From VentureBeat:
The platform can add features such as leaderboards, achievements, and friends lists to games, allowing them to spread in a more viral fashion through cross promotion. It also helps game developers monetize their apps more easily. It lets users create their own mobile phone avatars and it app notifications. In short, it has everything a social network platform needs.
The timing seems ripe for PapayaMobile, as its presence in Asian populations has given the company a head start for Western countries now adopting higher performance mobile devices. The incorporation of social mechanisms comes from an internally leveraged system that PapayaMobile has established, not relying on open social networking platforms or readily provided networking tools from the device platform, as it now is with Apple.
Given the official launch of Flash for Android 2.2, PapayaMobile and its participating developers can look to take advantage of the rising standards of mobile devices. Though the waters around Flash on mobile devices, particularly as the array of Android choices seems to grow wider every day, it’s still a necessary feature for a serious game platform to consider.
Taking advantage of Android’s maturing platform with a platform of its own is a tactic that other game platforms have undertaken, on the iPhone and Android. Zynga is one such gaming platform that gained early traction with their iPhone games. Companies like EA have gone mobile for both the iPhone and Android platform early, with EA even taking the next step towards reaching users directly with pre-installed games on Android devices.
It’s the lucrative nature of mobile games that drives companies like PapayaMobile to position themselves as a leading platform. There’s room still on Android, whereas the more established iPhone platform is currently undergoing price wars with new generations of games emerging this week. As the Android platform itself stabilizes, the more influential additional gaming platforms will be within its Market.
[...] isn't the only one making waves on Android, and a cross-platform presence. Papaya Mobile, funded earlier this year, has released a major platform update this week, while Playspan is heading up its [...]