Welcome to Lolapps.com

LOLapps is a large application developer, but they haven't had a breakout hit game -- yet. They're looking to change that with its new island resort management game, Critter Island. This game takes some of the best mechanics from similar games and combines them to make something that is a fresh take on an old theme.

In Critter Island, the main goal is to keep an island resort chock full of happy tourists, grow the resort population, and decorate to your heart's content. In that regard, it's similar in objective to Crowdstar's Happy Island and a few other island games out there. Read full article

The white label application builder and social gaming company LOLapps has been relatively quiet during an onslaught of game launches on Facebook from veteran and indie developers. Having achieved profitability last year, LOLapps has provided a suite of tools over the past 18 months that allow users to create quiz and gift-based apps. LOLapps is also a strong player in the social RPG space, partnering with IP companies such as EA and Modelina, which we covered here, to launch and maintain branded games. The latest to come from LOLapps is a virtual gardening game called Garden Life, their first of next generation, isometric flash games. Read full article

I’m happy to announce that our first guest is Brenda Brathwaite, the Creative Director at LOLapps, in addition to serving on the board of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), the advisory board for the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at the Strong Museum of Play and the advisory board for Game Developer Magazine. Read full article

At the Social Gaming Summit in San Francisco today, the overall consensus among many speakers and attendees was that viral growth on Facebook isn’t dead yet, but it is definitely dying slowly. Kavin Stewart of LOLapps articulated the state of development on Facebook effectively when he suggested that with the ongoing changes on the Platform, it’s necessary to “keep your chin up”, as developers have historically figured out a way to continue growing. Read full article

Fast Company also included in its list of influential women in the gaming business LOLapps's co-founder and products head Annie Chang (Diva Life), online game portal Addicting Games's vice president Kate Connally, and Serious Games Institute research director Sara de Freitas. Read full article

Inside Social Apps 2010, a one-day summit bringing together leading developers of apps and games for social networks, wrapped up yesterday in San Francisco. Panelists discussed the future of social gaming, the impact of Asian and other international markets, what the next "big hit" game might be, and of course the question on everyone's mind: how can developers continue to make money as the space evolves. Read full article

Dante’s Inferno surged today, reaching over 2 million players in its third week. It looks like within a few weeks, Dante’s Inferno is likely to become Lolapps top application. I’ve been getting into this game a little bit myself; if there is any interest, I may just put up a strategy guide. Read full article

Dante’s Inferno, Battle of the Damned is a new role-playing game that has been growing fast on Facebook. Up to nearly 1 million monthly active users in less than a week after launching, it lets you “fight through the 9 circles of hell” to rescue your murdered and damned wife. Electronic Arts has turned its Dante’s Inferno console video game into a Facebook RPG with the help of developer Lolapps. The purpose is to promote the release of Dante’s Inferno, due out in early February." Read full article

Christmas Cards! is the highest ranked holiday-themed app in the short history of Facebook applications. Launched in November 2008, it ranks 33rd with a total or 8.27 million monthly active users; it’s actually yet another gifting app made with LOLapps’ popular white-label Gift Creator app. While Christmas Cards may only be useful for one month of the year, but in that one month has a larger user base than the amount of people who bought Modern Warefare 2 in the first month a game taunted with the largest entertainment release of all time. Read full article

Social games saw a lot of growth this past week on Facebook, according to AppData, with Zynga continuing to lead, CrowdStar continuing to rise, and Lolapps’ white-label role-playing games hitting the big leagues. Zynga’s latest game, virtual aquarium simulation FishVille, has swollen by 6.72 million users over the past week to reach 16.0 million monthly actives. Behind it is the company’s FarmVille virtual farming game, which has consistently been adding new users even though it is already by far the largest third-party app on Facebook. Read full article

Lolapps, a developer of Facebook apps and games funded by Polaris Ventures, got its start building a white label quiz and gift creation platform for Facebook users. Since then, however, it started developing its own original Facebook games, which have been moving up the charts recently. Today, the company’s new strategy is being revealed: Lolapps has productized its Facebook role-playing game platform, and is partnering with large developers to bring their IP onto Facebook. Read full article

Last week was notably good for smaller games and game developers, juding by our top 20 growing apps list. The most obvious "small app" is Zynga’s FishVille, which we’ve covered separately as it grew by an impressive 8.24 million monthly active users last week to reach 9.24 million. Considering FishVille is from the largest developer on the platform — and the one with the most cross-promotional power as well as money for advertising, let’s take a look at some smaller ones. Read full article

Two other role-playing games are also growing fast, and although neither lists a developer, both appear to be made by Lolapps. While both have the same underlying interface components (more on that over on ISG), each one has surprisingly striking, unique-looking graphics. One, Asian mafia-themed Yakuza Lords, grew by 155,000 users to reach 930,000 monthly actives. It is on its way to graduating from this list. The other app, World War II RPG Band of Heroes, is smaller but growing relatively more quickly. It gained 161,000 to reach 269,000 monthly actives. Read full article

Popular white-label application developer, Lolapps had earlier this year told Inside Facebookthat it was looking to create a white label platform for games. It has previously created ways for Facebook users to create their own quiz and gift apps. So, it recently seemed to us thatYakuza Lords might be a precursor to a new game creation platform. But as it turns out, Lolapps has since explained to us that they had actually experimented with a white label game creator last year — and are now moving into making their own games. Read full article

Launched in July by white-label application developer Lolapps, Yakuza Lords at first glance looks like yet another text-based role playing game with a gangster theme. But it might be something more than just an Asian-themed version of Mafia Wars. For those not familiar, Lolapps is the creator of prominent Facebook apps Quiz Creator and Gift Creator. These have proven popular enough to get Lolapps 44 million unique visitors each month. Read full article

When we first covered white label Facebook application developer Lolapps last September, the company had just closed a $3.5 million Series A funding from from Polaris. Today, the company has disclosed for the first time that its network of applications is reaching 44 million uniques per month on the Facebook Platform. How? Rather than developing its own applications, Lolapps has developed a tool for anyone to white label their own. The company’s flagship products, Quiz Creator and Gift Creator, have been used to create “hundreds of thousands” of Facebook applications (like What Greek God Are You? and Girly Girl Gifts), Lolapps co-founder and CEO Kavin Stewart tells Inside Facebook. Collectively, those applications reach 44 million people inside Facebook per month – nearly 25% of the entire Facebook audience.. Read full article