Social game developer Playfish is rolling out Poker Rivals, a new app looking to "take Texas Hold 'Em Poker to a whole new level", on Facebook, setting up a Beta version of the game that you can already jump in and start playing (though I had disconnection problems when I tried it out).

The game will challenge the already established Texas HoldEm Poker from rival developer Zynga, currently the seventh most popular app on Facebook with over 19.5 million monthly active users. Zynga also has a Live Poker iPhone app that uses Facebook Connect to allow players to hook into their Texas HoldEm Poker account while playing a portable version of the game.

With Poker Rivals, players can learn about the game with a tutorial, play with their friends, step into a table with up to nine other strangers, and even enter tournaments. They can also customize their character by using their winnings (or Playfish Cash purchased with real money) to customize their look, buy accessories, or upgrade their house to a condo or yacht.

The game will be Playfish's first release since mega publisher Electronic Arts confirmed its $300 million acquisition of the UK-based developer earlier this month. Playfish's other titles on Facebook include Pet SOciety, Restaurant City, and Country Story, the last two of which Zynga also has more popular equivalents for -- FarmVille and Café World.

You can see screenshots of Poker Rivals after the break.

Continue reading "Playfish Takes On Texas HoldEm With Poker Rivals" »

MMO company Frogster announced the launch of a new Runes of Magic server with a fully localized Spanish version of the game for the U.S. and Canada, claiming this is "the first free-to-play online game in North America to launch a Spanish-language server".

The company believes the new server has the potential to attract "several million" new players to the MMORPG. It also says the server will help those learning or interested in further developing their Spanish-language skills to interact with other Spanish speakers, playing the game while also practicing real world skills.

Created by Taiwanese developer Runewalker Entertainment, the free-to-play game has players creating different classes in the fantasy world of Taborea, leveling crafting skills, completing quests, fighting enemies, exploring dungeons with groups as large as 36 players, and more. Runes of Magic has attracted over two million registered users since launching last March.

"With millions of native language Spanish speakers in North America, as well as people that want to actively practice their Spanish language skills, the market is large and untapped," says Frogster America CEO Lars Koschin. "Runes of Magic is the first free-to-play MMORPG to actively pursue the Spanish speaking audience and we hope this is just the first of many servers to support the community."

Along with the new server, Frogster is localizing the Runes of Magic's community website, and is hoping to hire Spanish speakers to act as in-game Guides and Game Masters.

Continue reading "Frogster Launches North American Spanish-Language Server For Runes of Magic" »

NCsoft has enacted what it calls a "massive" ban across North American and European servers for its Aion subscription PC MMO, removing user accounts for violations.

The violations targeted were primarily "botting" -- or modifying the client to automate play -- or illegally buying and selling in-game currency. The offending accounts -- "nearly 16,000" in total -- were closed as part of a server-wide reboot.

"Please note that if your account was closed for the use of 3rd party software (botting) or participating in RMT (gold buying/selling) the evidence for the account closure was gathered over several weeks," wrote community manager Andrew Beegle on the game's official forums.

Beegle explains that NCsoft monitors accounts for actions that modify the game client or automate in the fashion of a bot and "flags" possible violators for a closer look, gathering several instances before banning an account.

Aion saw a strong launch, selling a total of 970,000 copies in its first week in North America and Europe. The game was largely single-handedly responsible for driving NCsoft's third quarter revenues -- despite being released at the very end of the quarter -- creating an 836 percent leap in year-over-year quarterly profits on revenues that more than doubled.

Russian MMO company Nival Network closed a $5 million round of funding from an undisclosed investor, which will go toward the development of Prime World, an online strategy game with social networking elements.

The studio develops, publishes, and operates both subscription-based and free-to-play online titles for Russia and former Soviet countries. Its MMORPG portfolio includes Cabal Online, Khan Wars 2.0, Shaiya, Dragonica, and many others.

Established in September 2008, Nival has development studios in Moscow and Minsk. The company is majority owned by CEO and founder Sergey Orlovskiy, who revealed the investment round to local newspaper Vedomosti newspaper (reported by Quintara). Russian software vendor 1C Company also owns a 30 percent stake in Nival.

It's unclear what social networking features the developer plans to include with Prime World, but it's possible the MMO will hook into Nival's gaming and social networking portal Zzima.com. You can see screenshots for the title after the break.

Russia's online games market is expected to reach $238 million in 2009, with MMOs accounting for $210 million and casual games taking up $28 million of that total, according to estimates from Russian firm iKS-Consulting.

Continue reading "Russian Dev Picks Up $5 Million For Social Strategy MMO" »

Some 2 million Xbox Live users have logged into Facebook since it launched over the service on November 17, Microsoft says -- which means about 10 percent of the total userbase has tried the new feature.

Discussing early indicators of strong performance for its social networking features with CNet, Microsoft also said that Xbox Live users have created half a million Last.fm accounts in the first 24 hours.

Spokesperson David Dennis did not provide specifics on Twitter usage over the service, except to note "tweets from nearly every market where we have Xbox Live."

Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm are all available to Xbox Live Gold subscribers, as part of Microsoft's stated goal to make its console "the largest social network connected to the TV."

Hoping to entice Silver members to try out the new features, Microsoft has also announced free weekends in the month of November, during which Silver subscribers can access services normally only available to Gold users.

Every week, we'll examine the most popular Facebook applications (according to MUA, monthly active users), as well as the social network's up-and-coming apps that have picked up the most users in the past seven days.

Zynga's FishVille is at the top of the upstarts chart for the second week in a row, this time picking up 6.7 (+42 percent) million users to bring the aquarium simulator's total player count up to nearly 16 million. The company's FarmVille also popped up in the list after a week's absence, appearing at #2 after attracting 2.2 million (+3 percent).

Happy Pets, CrowdStar's newly launched pet adoption title is growing fast, boasting a 70 percent gain with 2.1 million new users. Other new games in the top ten "gainers" include Mob Science's Snowball Fight (+947,440, +74 percent), RockYou's Zoo World (+856,129, +40 percent), and LOLapps Champions Online (+723,726, +100 percent).

Continue reading "Top 10 Facebook Apps And Upstarts, Week Of November 23rd" »

The Chinese government will enact regulations requiring local game operators like Shanda, NetEase.com, and Tencent Holdings to emphasize socialist values in their games and hire specialized staff to monitor their content.

China's Ministry of Culture told operators that they must re-examine their games to limits obscene and violent content, the number of virtual marriages, and player-versus-player combat. NetEase.com CEO William Ding said that while he's unaware of all the new restrictions, his company is willing to comply.

"Over this year, China's online game industry has grown at a rapid pace," the ministry said in a statement released last Wednesday and translated by Reuters. "But the current product offerings are not up to standard, and the cultural content is lowbrow and having a negative effect on the healthy development of the industry."

Earlier this month, China's General Administration of Press and Publication in the country ordered NetEase.com to halt its local operations for World of Warcraft and stop accepting new accounts due to what the regulator described as "gross violations" of rules". The conflict seemed to stem from a power struggle between GAPP and the Ministry of Culture over control of online content.

Continue reading "Chinese Gov't Demands More Regulations, Socialist Values For Local Online Games" »

Social games developer Zynga, which today announced it reached 100 million unique users for its online titles (FarmVille, Café World), could generate a value of $1 billion dollars if the company were taken public, according to a stock analyst predicting the studio's worth.

"If the IPO were timed to price around mid-2010 or later, our expectation would be for a billion dollar or greater valuation," said Terry Schallich, head of Capital Markets at technology-focused investment bank Pacific Crest Securities, in a report posted by financial news site Bloomberg.

The FarmVille developer's CEO Mark Pincus, however, said he has no immediate plans to take Zynga public, as it would distract the company from its current goals. He added, "Our mission is to accelerate our product development and business plan."

If the company were to launch an IPO with a $1 billion valuation, that would make the two-year-old studio the third-largest U.S.-based video game publisher by market valuation, under Electronic Arts and Activision. EA also made headlines with the social gaming sector earlier this month after confirming its $300 million acquisition of Zynga rival Playfish (Pet Society, Word Challenge).

Zynga announced last week that it secured $15.18 million in a Series C round of funding, bringing its total amount of venture capital raised so far to $54.1 million. The company's recent positive financing and userbase news comes in spite of controversy around its use of scam-like lead generation offers with its games, which prompted one law firm to file a class-action suit against the developer.

Zynga, developer of mega-successful social game FarmVille, says it has reached a major user milestone, with more than 100 million unique users playing its online games every month.

A million of those players spend money on virtual goods each month. Despite that figure only representing 1 percent of users, Zynga says such spending comprises 90 percent of its revenue. The company also says it has tallied 200 million monthly active users, a figure that counts the same user across multiple games as multiple users.

FarmVille, the Facebook-based farm simulation game, launched in June and has reached a user base of 65 million -- 26 million of whom play the game on a daily basis, according to Zynga. The studio has launched a standalone website, FarmVille.com, that hosts the game and hooks into players' existing Facebook accounts.

Zynga's latest titles, Cafe World and FishVille, have grown relatively quickly, reaching 9 million daily users and 6 million daily users respectively.

"Our games continue to delight and connect players as they immerse themselves in their worlds of farming, fishing or running a restaurant," said Zynga CEO Mark Pincus. "With the popularity of virtual goods today, we are in the early stages of a new economy that could grow and shape the future of the Web."

ArenaNet co-founder Jeff Strain, who left NCsoft in August of this year, has revealed his new project: Seattle-based game development studio Undead Labs.

Strain, a key figure in the development of Guild Wars, will continue to focus on MMOs -- this time on consoles, promising to "pioneer a new development model that will create a new breed of MMO built from the ground up for console gamers."

The sole focus of Undead Labs, according to the announcement, will be a massively-multiplayer zombie MMO -- or "MMOZ," as Strain calls it -- focused on action-humor elements.

"Every time I see a good zombie movie with friends, we spend days debating our strategies for surviving the zombie apocalypse," Strain says.

Continue reading "ArenaNet's Strain Launches Undead Labs, Reveals Zombie MMO" »