French startup MXP4 has refocused around social music games in the last year, with a number of artists using its Pump It game on their Facebook pages. Now the company has gone D2C with something called Bopler Games. At launch, four games are available, plus a library of licensed tracks that don’t just play in the background – they sync in with the gameplay itself. The business model is standard for social gaming but new for the music industry: virtual item sales and gifting. Players can play 60-second clips of songs in Bopler games up to three times a day for free, but must then pay to play full tracks. Artists whose tracks are available include KT Tunstall, Lily Allen, Norah Jones, Afrika Bambaataa and Culture Club. Oh, and the Jonas Brothers. “We believe Bopler will for the first time enable artists to share in social gaming revenues, which are expected to grow to $5 billion by 2015,” says MXP4 CEO Albin Serviant.
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