Hardcore social game firm Kabam moves its headquarters to San Francisco

Social gaming firm Kabam said today it has signed a multi-year lease on a “spectacular” new office in downtown San Francisco. The move shows that the city is ground zero for the social game industry.

Kabam‘s 450 employees will now …

6waves Lolapps chief denies violating NDA in copyright dispute with Spry Fox (exclusive)

Rex Ng, chief executive of 6waves Lolapps, denied allegations that his company violated a non-disclosure agreement in a case related to allegations of copying Spry Fox’s social game on Facebook.

Spry Fox, a small game developer in Seattle, said last …

The DeanBeat: Billionaire Mark Pincus breaks out of quiet period (exclusive interview)

Mark Pincus is the newest billionaire in Silicon Valley, thanks to the December initial public offering of Zynga, the social game giant he founded in 2007.

For much of last year, Zynga was in a quiet period leading up to …

Spil Games has 170M monthly visitors who spend as much as $60 a month

Spil Games said today that it has 170 million monthly active visitors to its various teen-girl-focused game sites.

People who play the free-to-play social games, where users can play for free and pay real money for virtual goods, spend as …

King.com launches first game on Google+

King.com has more than 150 games on the web. In the past year, it successfully moved five of the games to Facebook, garnering 23.8 million monthly active users on the social network. And today, the company is launching its first …

The DeanBeat: Should Zynga move into online gambling?

Do gambling and Facebook games go together?

Slot machine maker International Game Technology answered that question with a resounding “Yes!” when it bought Double Down Interactive, a 70-person Facebook casino game studio, for $500 million on Jan. 13. Zynga’s shares …

DeanBeat: Game companies went on a $2.8B buying spree in 2011

The social and mobile games gold rush inspired lots of investments in 2011, as venture capitalists tried to find the next Zynga. But the year was also a big one for acquisitions, particularly as big companies such as Electronic Arts …

Slot machine maker International Game Technology pays $500M for Facebook casino game maker Double Down Interactive

Slot machine maker International Game Technology said Thursday it will buy Double Down Interactive for $500 million in cash. Double Down, based in Seattle, makes Facebook games such as the DoubleDown Casino.

Publicly-traded IGT is branching out into new types …

Zynga hires away EA’s top mobile and social executive Barry Cottle

Social gaming giant Zynga has hired Electronic Arts’ top mobile and social executive Barry Cottle as Zynga’s new executive vice president of corporate and business development.

The hire is a big development in the war for talent between the two …

Google creating its own social game using Google Maps

Watch out, Facebook. Google is making its own game for Google+ … and it involves maps.

Yesterday, the company released a video of the new game, which takes advantage of its Google Maps product. The video shows a cube …

People who cheat at social games are three times more likely to cheat in real life

People who cheat at social games are cheaters in real life too. So says a survey by casual game maker PopCap Games.

The survey looked at the habits of more than 1,200 adult consumers. Of those who admit cheating, the …

With $2M in funding, social game studio Seismic comes out of stealth

Hardcore game veterans who worked at the now-defunct Pandemic Studios have started a new social game studio called Seismic Games. Unveiled for the first time today, Seismic plans to create games that are social, but at the same time it …

Facebook rejiggers platform to increase game usage

Facebook announced Thursday evening that it has made updates to its platform to improve game usage and discovery of new apps.

The social network said it made changes to the platform based on tests that showed it could drive re-engagement …

Veteran Wall Street analyst rates Zynga an “outperform”

Zynga has taken a beating in its first two days of trading as a public company, with the stock closing at $9.05 a share today, down almost 10 percent from its initial public offering price of $10 a share on …

Why did Zynga’s stock fizzle on day one? Analyst cites red flags

Zynga’s stock sank 5 percent yesterday, from $10 to $9.50, on its first day of trading. Some investors might feel like the stock will bounce back on Monday or in the weeks ahead. But at least one analyst is staying …

Zynga closes at $9.50 a share, down 5 percent in IPO debut

Zynga’s initial public offering wasn’t as popular as the company hoped, with the stock closing at $9.50 a share, down 5 percent from its offering price of $10 a share.

The weak performance came after a considerable mix of hype …

The9′s Game Zone enables mobile game discovery in China (exclusive)

The9, an online gaming company with a long history in China, said it has scored good results making games more discoverable in the China Apple App Store.

Working with OpenFeint, The9 has created its Game Zone social gaming platform to …

Mark Pincus rings Nasdaq’s opening bell; Zynga stock trades begin

Zynga chief executive Mark Pincus rang the opening bell — in a virtual way, from Zynga’s headquarters in San Francisco — as trading began for Zynga’s initial public offering today.

Zynga’s opening trades for its offering of $1 billion at …

Zynga’s rivals welcome the social gaming IPO

With the IPOs of Zynga and Nexon this week, the social and online game industries have their first billion-dollar public offerings. May many more follow.

That’s the spirit among social gaming rivals, including those that have been fierce competitors to …