tag: social games

Zynga’s Shrek-inspired CastleVille is ‘building on the shoulders of giants’ (Q&A)

October 12, 2011 12:20 PM Matthew Lynley

Amid a host other game announcements, Zynga unveiled its newest “Ville” game, CastleVille, at the Zynga Unleashed event this week. CastleVille certainly seems more ambitious than other games — it has better graphics than Zynga’s other titles and the soundtrack …

Zynga’s Project Z connects your Facebook friends on Zynga’s own social gaming site

October 11, 2011 11:38 AM Matthew Lynley

Matthew Lynley

Social gaming giant Zynga is breaking away from Facebook and other social networking sites by building its own independent website with Project Z. The company gave press an early look at the service today, which will come out later this …

Zynga launches Mafia Wars 2 on Google+

October 11, 2011 11:12 AM Matthew Lynley

Matthew Lynley

Social gaming giant Zynga today announced it is bringing its latest online social game, Mafia Wars 2, to Google’s online social network, Google+.

Mafia Wars 2 is a deeper and more graphically appealing version of Mafia Wars, which was one …

Brands finally succeed in social games on Facebook

September 23, 2011 7:00 AM Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi

Facebook gamers are finally embracing well-known brands in their social games. That’s one of the conclusions from a panel on social games at the f8 conference for Facebook developers yesterday.

Sean Ryan (pictured left), director of game partnerships, pointed out …

Here are our 5 favorite companies from TechCrunch Disrupt

September 15, 2011 5:03 PM Matthew Lynley

Matthew Lynley

Despite that whole hooplah over former TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington leaving the company, there was still plenty of excitement over the startups presenting in TechCrunch Disrupt 2011′s Startup Battlefield.

The startups took the stage and battled it out to determine …

Emerging markets will spend billions on games this year

September 13, 2011 7:00 AM Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi

Gamers are expected to spend billions of dollars in emerging markets this year such as Brazil, Mexico and Russia, according to market researcher Newzoo, based in Amsterdam.

Newzoo’s data shows that gaming is spreading rapidly around the globe, thanks to …

Idle Games helps you find new friends in social games

September 12, 2011 6:20 PM Matthew Lynley

Matthew Lynley

Social gaming company Idle Games launched its first social game, Idle Worship, today at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 conference in San Francisco.

Idle Worship is a social game where you create little creatures called Mudlings and try to make them …

EA’s The Sims Social breezes past Zynga’s Farmville

September 12, 2011 12:18 AM Matthew Lynley

Matthew Lynley

Game publishing company Electronic Arts‘ newest social game, The Sims Social, has passed social gaming supergiant Zynga’s Farmville and now has 36 million monthly active users just under a month after its launch, according to AppData.

The Sims Social has …

Exclusive: Meet Guerillapps’ Trash Tycoon, a social game to bring out your green side

September 6, 2011 9:28 AM Matthew Lynley

Matthew Lynley

Social games maker Guerillapps today launched Trash Tycoon, a social game about recycling that’s designed to encourage “upcycling” — the process of converting old trash into usable products.

Instead of planting crops or building cities like in some of the …

China’s Perfect World game operator to invest $100M in venture capital fund

September 5, 2011 11:00 AM Matthew Lynley

Matthew Lynley

Perfect World, one of the largest online game operators in China and east Asia, announced today that it will invest $100 million in a venture capital fund.

The company will join the unnamed fund as a limited partner to invest …

Electronic Arts’ The Sims Social hits 4.6 million daily players a week after launch

August 25, 2011 11:09 AM Matthew Lynley

Matthew Lynley

Electronic Arts’ latest Facebook game, The Sims Social, has picked up more than 4.6 million daily active users after launching a week ago, according to AppData.

The Sims Social was the fastest growing social game this week, picking up 2.6 …

Claritics expands into mobile analytics for Android apps

August 23, 2011 10:05 AM Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi

Social analytics firm Claritics said today it has launched a new analytics platform for games and apps on Android mobile devices.

Back in May, Claritics raised a $1.5 million round as it talked about helping social game and app developers …

Ngmoco names TV veteran as chief operating officer

August 23, 2011 8:07 AM Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi

Mobile gaming firm Ngmoco has named a TV executive as its new chief operating officer. The move positions Ngmoco to offer broader entertainment on its mobile social gaming network.

The San Francisco company named Joanna Drake Earl, former chief strategy …

Electronic Arts’ The Sims Social is now live

August 18, 2011 10:39 AM Matthew Lynley

Matthew Lynley

The Sims Social, a social gaming version of Electronic Arts’ incredibly popular life simulation franchise The Sims, is now live on Facebook.

Electronic Arts’ newest social game looks like it will give Zynga — which hasn’t really faced any stiff …

iQU launches marketing and analytics service for online games

August 16, 2011 3:15 PM Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi

Gamer-profiling company iQU is launching an analytics and marketing platform to help online games find more users through mobile and social networks.

The Haarlem, Netherlands-based company was formerly known as MMOTraffic.com and MMO Life, but now it is expanding in …

Russia’s I-Jet Media launches new social game platform (exclusive)

August 14, 2011 9:00 PM Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi

Russian game company I-Jet Media is launching a new platform for social games today at the GDC Europe game conference in Germany.

Dubbed I-Jet Connect,the platform is designed to enable social game developers to manage their games on dozens and …