Spymaster is a location-based game that has taken off in a viral way on Facebook, Twitter, and the iPhone. To ensure that it monetizes its popularity, the company that makes the game, Irata Labs, has teamed up with Adknowledge‘s Super Rewards division to tie the games on the different platforms together.
It isn’t a huge deal by any means, but it’s a sign that there are ways to make money via social games on Twitter and other newfangled platforms.
With the “persistent play” feature, players will now be able to play the game with the same character across the different platforms. You could start playing at home, running your virtual spy ring, on Facebook and then pick up where you left off on the iPhone. You can go to a specific location and “assassinate” a rival character, using your iPhone. You can also play in real-time with your established friends, whether they are on Facebook, Twitter or the iPhone.
“You get the same experience from platform to platform, and take advantage of the same character and assets that you’ve built up,” said Chris Abad, chief executive of Irata Labs, in an interview.
Burlingame, Calif.-based Super Rewards has a virtual currency engine for online games and social networks. To earn points to buy virtual goods in a game, you have to participate in special ad offers such as coupon ads or signing up for services provided by Super Rewards’ monetization platform.
Abad said that Super Rewards was the logical choice to let his company deliver persistent play, largely because Super Rewards was the first monetization engine to embrace the microblogging service Twitter and turn it into a money-making social games channel.
The Spymaster game has been out for about four months and it saw an explosion in users. Abad said his three-person team didn’t have time to dilly dally with monetization engines. They just needed something that worked. So after about a month, they implemented Super Rewards and have been making money for the past few months.
Irata Labs has $1.5 million in funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and other angel investors. Super Rewards, which has more than 1,000 publishers using its monetization engine, was acquired by AdKnowledge in July.