Announced late last week, social gaming ecosystem provider OpenFeint has officially announced their new OFX 2.0 freemium platform for iOS developers in a partnership with Adknowledge.

In a nutshell, this new freemium platform offers developers a pay-per-installation distribution service, thus allowing for more downloads, as well as monetization tools for both paying and non-paying customers. The method works like so: Game developers can increase their own applications downloads via purchasing inventory in said developers’ other various titles. These virtual purchases are designed to then in turn generate and increase installations of other titles. Players may earn virtual currency in these free-to-play games through “regular” channels, but with the addition of OFX 2.0 enabled titles, make take an alternative route, and earn currency through downloading (and presumably installing) the developers’ new app. Additionally, OFX 2.0 is targeted at non-paying players with the ultimate goal of converting them to a paying customer. Players may earn free virtual currency through the completion of simple actions – such as downloading an app. Once a users completes this action, game publishers cash in on a revenue share from OpenFeint. One of the beauties of this new platform is bypassing of any server work needed to be done by game developers.

Using the OFX 2.0 virtual goods economy, devs can manage an entire inventory of virtual goods over the air with no updates needed to the core game itself. Essentially, OpenFeint is bypassing the tedious structure of building a scalable server infrastructure to power virtual goods sales. OpenFeint is also providing a host of analytics tools to provide developers with actionable insights into what consumers are purchasing, what they’re not, and can adjust pricing levels accordingly, on the fly. “Mobile is an increasingly important part of our strategy and we’re excited to establish a footprint there using OpenFeint’s vast reach and Adknowledge’s proven games monetization solution,” said Suren Markosian, founder of CrowdStar, in a statement. Adknowledge general manager Chris Smutny adds, “The free-to-play phenomenon that became popular on Facebook is about to explode on mobile. OpenFeint is the perfect partner because they’re the leader in social game engagement technology on mobile platforms, and they have the critical mass of 4,800 games and 66 million players which creates an unparalleled opportunity to transform how mobile games are developed and monetized.” Editors Note: If any of this has vague overtones of Offerpal … well, you heard it here first. Let’s see how this one develops.

It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from Los Angeles based avatar creation platform Big Stage, with their last appearance here in April of 2009 when they received an additional $2.7 million in funding. Apparently they’ve been plugging away at the system, and late last week the news arrived that 3D facial animation firm Image Metrics has acquired Big Stage.

Honored in 2009 by Forbes magazine as one of American’s top 20 Most Promising Companies, Big Stage allows users to seamlessly convert a variety of photographs into 3D realistic animated avatars of themselves. If you’ve played a round or two of Tiger Woods’ golf with the “Create your own avatar” option, you’re familiar with the technology.

Big Stage’s primary service, the “Portable You” avatar, will be used by Image Metrics in combination with the firms’ already existing real-time, video-driven animation technology, culminating in a new product suite available (projected) in Q3 of 2011. The thinking here is that this new suite of tools will allow online and mobile content creators, social network and communication companies an easy solution whereby they can then in turn offer their customers a simple, easy-to-use method of creating photorealistic avatars. Staying true to Big Stages’ original mission, Image Metrics will also offer a direct-to-consumer Portable You package that will allow them to customize their digital self and use it across a myriad of digital properties across the internet.

“We are extremely pleased with the talent and technology coming from Big Stage,” said Image Metrics CEO Robert Gehorsam. “Their advanced yet easy-to-use avatar creation technology is the perfect platform to package with our facial animation technology for a complete life-like digital solution for both consumers and developers alike.”
With the addition of the Big Stage team and technology to Image Metrics’ current offerings, this also marks the first consumer market entry for Image Metrics. Previously, they’ve applied their technology to a number of offerings from Activision-Blizzard, Double Negative, Microsoft, Moving Picture Company, Rockstar, and many others.
While the technology seems sound in concept, the question that remains is, will the consumer market jump on the uptake? As we’ve seen over the past few years, virtual worlds have been on the decline, and with a product that’s aimed at this market, is there anyone there to utilize it? Perhaps this move is targeted directly to combat this, as again, the technology is ground breaking, but to what end? If Image Metrics can shift the primary usage to a true “take my avatar with me wherever I go,” they’ve still got the steep hill of adoption to climb.

East Carolina University has recently released the findings of their year long study of casual video games, finding that the genre is likely to reduce depression and anxiety in randomized, controlled clinical study patients. East Carolina University’s Psychology Lab and Biofeedback Clinic studied nearly 60 subjects, all meeting the criteria of clinical depression, and recorded their actions, reactions, and conditions while playing three non-violent PopCap games: Bejeweled 2, Peggle, and Bookworm Adventures. In a move to further test the effectiveness of the study, nearly half those monitored served as control subjects.

Those not singled out as control subjects were exposed to the aforementioned games, and were monitored with psycho-physiological, biochemical, and psychological techniques. On average, those that were playing the PopCap games saw a 57% drop in depression symptoms. Additionally, the study found that these same subjects had a drop in anxiety, as well as improvements in their overall mood (a 65% improvement on average). Digging deeper, the test results found that after being exposed to the casual games, all 7 subjects classified as “severely depressed,” could be downgraded to “minor or minimal depression.” Likewise, those previously classified as “minor depression” dropped from 9 subjects to 4.

“The results of this study clearly demonstrate the intrinsic value of certain casual games in terms of significant, positive effects on the moods and anxiety levels of people suffering from any level of depression,” stated Dr. Carmen Russoniello, Director of the Psychophysiology Lab and Biofeedback Clinic at ECU and the professor who oversaw the study (as well as previous studies involving the same games’ effects on stress levels). “In my opinion the findings support the possibility of using prescribed casual video games for treating depression and anxiety as an adjunct to, or perhaps even a replacement for, standard therapies including medication.”

Adding to this statement, Dr. Russoniello comments that subjects had both short term (30 minutes after gameplay) and long term (one month or more) improvements when compared to their control group counterparts. “Equally important, the data supports the hypothesis that casual video games contain intrinsic qualities that, when played, provoke physiological and biochemical changes consistent with positive changes in mood and anxiety.”

Further details of the study indicate a marked difference between male and female subjects, as well as >25 and <25 years of age. Complete study results can be downloaded directly from East Carolina University at http://www.ecu.edu/biofeedback/