Report provides detailed look at social game invites, players

Turning a new social game into a viral hit is a complicated process and one that's worth a lot of money to developers. It's also a mysterious process that's still not that well understood. But a new paper by researchers at the University of Michigan, Brazil's University de Pelotas and developer LOLApps helps pull back the curtain into how social games spread and how players actually use them.

The paper benefits from some extremely detailed data provided by LOLApps for two of its most popular games, Yakuza Lords and Diva Life. The researchers used this data to generate a comprehensive nine-page report (PDF) looking at everything from changing player demographics as a game grows to how much time is spent in various areas of a game over time to which types of invites are most effective at generating new players.