Online communities play a key role in the distribution of social games, since users go by word of mouth while picking up these apps. MySpace and Orkut have taken established games such as Scrabble, Risk, Boggle and Battleship and moved these inside their social networks.

Google's social networking platform, Orkut, claims that of the registered one million users, every user spends about 15 minutes to a couple of hours on average on social gaming applications alone. Orkut has close to 3,000 applications, and several popular social games, including Teen Patti and Galli Cricket, among others. Rahul Kulkarni, product manager of Google (India) says, "Indian audiences love the combination of cricket, Bollywood and the idea of staying in touch with friends."

Hi5, a social networking portal that boasts of 60 million unique visits every month, has taken social gaming seriously. Ramu Yalamanchi, the founder and CEO of Hi5, says that for Hi5's target audience of 15- to 24-year olds, "social gaming represents a major expenditure of time and money globally. Hi5 games engage our users, keeping them on the site longer and driving them towards new forms of monetisation for our business."

At a recent social gaming summit in San Francisco, US, Kristian Segerstrale, the CEO of leading game developer Playfish -- which has 5 out of the top 10 apps on Facebook -- said that the phenomenon of social gaming was set to draw in all gamers, even the heavy duty ones. "Instead of buying games off store shelves and playing them in solitude, hardcore gamers will prefer to play games where they can stay in touch with friends," he predicted during the summit.