This prediction comes from the analysts of Russian-Lithuanian company Realore Studios, one of the leaders in casual gaming industry. The estimate is based on the statistics gathered by company’s partners.

"The total revenue generated by gaming apps in Russian social networks in the first six months of 2010 is about $65m," says Natalia Matveeva, the co-founder of Realore Studios. "Thus, $130m per annum is realistic, even conservative scenario. We don’t see any reasons for sharp changes in market dynamics."

According to Matveeva, social network Vkontakte (Russian clone of Facebook) collected about two thirds of total social gaming revenues in Russia in the first half of 2010. However, by the end of 2010 the other players are expected to strengthen their positions.

"The social network Moy Mir, a part of Mail.ru holding, is aiming to aggressive growth, which would allow them to reach 35% market share to by the end of the year," comments Natalia Matveeva. "The other popular social network, Odnoklassniki, has just launched the apps on their website. We estimate that they could reach 15% market share. Therefore, because of the rivals’ activity, the market share of Vkontakte is expected to drop to 50%."

While the owners of social networks consider the gaming apps as a new and attractive way to monetize their audiences, the game developers are preparing not to miss the opportunity to make a mint. Matveeva’s eight year old company Realore Studios, which already became a notable player in the casual gaming market, now has a separate business unit focused entirely on social gaming. The new company Realore Social, which was established in early 2010, is aiming to bring the best from Realore Studios products to the audiences of social networks. With existing strong gaming brands and the experience of multi-platform game development, the company is set to become one of the leaders in its segment within six months, and then has another audacious goal: to be the largest developer in CIS providing the products not just for Russian, but also for global social networks.

"The market for social gaming is still evolving, and, from my perspective, the deficit of quality products is quite obvious," says Matveeva. "Within two or three years we will build the unified platform which would combine casual, mobile and social games. We will pay an extra attention to the mobile sector and make all of our games playable on mobile devices. The players should have an opportunity to stay in a game whenever they are."

The first project of Realore Social is the game titled Farm Mania. Beta version of this game will soon be available for the users of social network Moy Mir. At the same time the company works on three more titles, based on best-selling games from Realore Studios portfolio. Natalia Matveeva expects that once the new company leaves the startup stage, it will produce at least 12 new titles per year.

Apart from an office in Kaliningrad, Russia (where the main development unit of Realore Social is located), the company is opening the offices in Ukraine, Lithuania and St. Petersburg, Russia in order to attract the programmers and designers from these locations to work on new social games.

Official site: www.realore.com