The largest mobile social network, OpenFeint, has seen massive growth since we were acquired by GREE last year. We managed to hit and even surpass 90m users as well as 6k games across both Android and iOS. So now the organisation is developing the next iteration of its social network, since we seek to add more social games, including Facebook ones. Moreover, as a part of the initiative, OpenFeint named Ethan Fasset as the Senior Vice President as of the product. Fasset is the former Playdom executive producer of the San Francisco studio.
More and more developers are moving to mobile platforms since they are being led by social gaming giants such as Zynga and CrowdStar. OpenFeint’s rapidly growing social network will help developers make a move to mobile.
Since Fasset is now the SVP, he will leverage his free to play gaming experience to increase player engagement through brand new communication features. Moreover, Fasset will drive player acquisition for the game developers with programs and distribution tools.
The CEO of OpenFeint, Jason Citron stated that the team at OF is very excited to bring Ethan into our family since his expertise in social communities and free to play games will drive the product strategy and even shape the network’s evolution. He added that Ethan fully understands social games, the social networks they need in order to be successful as well as the tools that the game developers need to properly monetize and engage their players.
Fassett brings a new level of social expertise to OpenFeint. While he was at Playdom, he managed to drive the product strategy for their studio in San Francisco, and his focus was on the player’s monetization and community engagement. Moreover, since he is an executive producer, he managed to successfully launch Market Street, the retail themed social game, which peaked at one million active users per day.
Fasset stated that game developers are searching for communication tools that are tailored around the one of a kind community needs of the players as well as for an engaged social graph. He added that since OpenFeint is a game-centric social network, it is uniquely positioned to be able to deliver on both and he is very excited to expedite the move of web-based social games into the mobile platforms.
Fasset’s previous workplace was Gaia Online; this was prior to Playdom. He was one of the early innovators in virtual economies and communities and helped launch Gaia’s virtual store for goods as well as the social network apps.