Catching up with Cellufun: A mobile mall and Facebook news

I had a chance yesterday to catch up with my friends at Cellufun whom I last saw at CTIA when they announced their deal with AOL.

The chaps at Cellufun have been busy since their big score of landing their massively addictive casual games on AOL. Whenever I speak to anyone in the game industry they nod with sage looked whenever the topic of ‘addicted casual gaming’ is mentioned. Obviously Grand Theft Auto is a big deal for the planet’s hardcore games — but casual gaming affords consistent and continual revenues all day, every day. So whilst Cellufun have been busy with gaming, they’ve not been resting.

Oh no. Just last week, they introduced the CelluMall, which — come on, take a guess..? Aye! It’s a virtual mobile mall where users can buy gifts for each other. Here’s the twist, though: Among the stores in the CelluMall is the real life online bakery Geoff & Drew’s. On top of their traditional mobile advertising campaign (banners and the like) Geoff & Drew’s actually has product placement as a shop within the CelluMall! Brilliant! Two croissants and a loaf, please. As a result, Cellufun have stumbled upon another play at mobile advertising (David Radd of GameDaily wrote an excellent piece on the CelluMall in his AdWatch column last week.)

I really like the concept. I’ve always liked hooking the virtual into reality in one form or another.

But wait.. there’s more! As of today, Cellufun is making all of their games available on the Facebook platform with their Cellufun app. Since their games are highly communal and social, the move to Facebook is a logical one for Cellufun, and it is integrated with the mobile channel, so you can start a game at home on Facebook and finish it on the train on your mobile. That rocks.

Nice work, chaps! We’ll be following Cellufun’s next moves…