• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, August 12, 2011

Google+ gave its more than 25 million users another reason to stick around -- and perhaps lure some of Facebook's 750 million members to jump on board. The social network, launched in June, introduced a casual game platform the same day rival Facebook moved to update its casual game and developers support.

Google said Thursday it would offer 16 games from third-party developers including Zynga, supporting games such as "Poker" and "Angry Birds." Google, which made an unspecified investment in Zynga, said it plans to gradually roll out games such as "Dragon Age Legends," Electronic Arts' popular dark fantasy "Play4Free RPG," "Zombie Lane," "Sudoku," and "Bejeweled Blitz."

For casual games publishers, the opportunities for financial growth reside in social networks. U.S. social gaming revenue from advertising, lead generation, offers and virtual goods will reach $1.32 billion in 2012 -- up from $1.09 billion this year, according to an eMarketer forecast. The research firm estimates that next year, advertising will contribute $271 million, and virtual goods, $792 million.

During the past decade, social networks have emerged as platforms that enable the connection between friends to share information, content and experiences. Market research firm IDC estimates approximately 1.1 billion social network users globally in 2011, reaching 1.6 billion by 2014, according to Zynga's Form S-1 Registration amendment filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Thursday.

In the SEC filing the company explains: "We have achieved significant growth in our business in a short period of time. From 2008 to 2010, our revenue increased from $19.4 million to $597.5 million, our bookings increased from $35.9 million to $838.9 million, we went from a net loss of $22.1 million to net income of $90.6 million and our adjusted EBITDA increased from $4.5 million to $392.7 million. For the three months ended March 31, 2010 and 2011, our revenue increased from $100.9 million to $242.9 million, our bookings increased from $178.3 million to $286.6 million, our net income increased from $6.4 million to $16.8 million and our adjusted EBITDA increased from $93.6 million to $112.3 million."

For Zynga, net income should continue to increase now that Google+ will also support the casual maker's games. The Google+ game button appears at the top of the stream, allowing social site users to hide the games when not in use. The free-to-play games will likely not have ads in the short term, but you can bet they will once Google gets enough feedback from the interface and user experience.

Facebook also hosted 100 game developers at an event in Palo Alto, Calif. Thursday, releasing information on several new features to improve the gaming experience on its social network. It also introduced a new policy that relaxes restrictions on how developers can market their games on the site.

On Thursday, Facebook also announced a set of changes to the main Web page. Some of the enhancements include the ability to show the bookmarks for top applications and games to quickly return to what's important; bigger apps to give developers have the option to expand the size of the application to the full height and width of the user's Web browser; and new Graph APIs for game achievements and scores that allow members to publish stories for achievements, passing friends' scores, or leaderboard movement to make game play more competitive, social and exciting.