Hamburg-based online games publisher and developer Bigpoint announced that its relaunching its Bigpoint.com portal to focus on core gamers, creating a new BiPogames.com portal dedicated to mini and casual titles, and integrating social elements into both platforms.

Bigpoint.com, which claims more than 97 millions registered users worldwide, will shed its selection of casual titles to emphasize its free-to-play massively multiplayer online products for the core gamer audience like War of Titans, Darkorbit, Gladius II, Deepolis, Mafia 1930, and many others.

The portal now includes new social networking and community features for chatting with friends on the site, posting in-game news on their personal "walls", and coordinating clan activities and other group events through Facebook and Twitter. The studio has also edited the site to provide more information on individual titles, present sorting functions for game genre and popularity, and more.

Bigpoint's casual titles will now appear on a separate portal, BiPogames.com. The site (which doesn't look available at moment) is hosted by a mascot named Bipo and offers community features of its own such as user recommendations, ratings, and personal walls. The publisher notes, "A connection to other social networks such as Facebook or Twitter is also possible".

"As a developer and publisher, Bigpoint will continue to cover the entire game spectrum in the future," says CEO and founder says Heiko Hubertz. "With the relaunch of Bigpoint.com, we want to offer our users even more community features. In today's world, it's not just a must to offer a wide selection of exciting games to players, but a requirement to give them the opportunity to maintain a social network."

He continues, "With the removal of the casual games content, Bigpoint.com can concentrate more on the core gamers. In addition, we have observed that the demand for mini and casual games has been increasing steadily. We want to provide these players with their own portal with BiPogames.com, and in so doing, give them exactly the content they are looking for."

Publisher and developer True Games announced the release of Warrior Epic Sagas, an iPhone game based on its free-to-play, browser-based MMORPG Warrior Epic, now available for free on iPhone and soon launching on Facebook.

Developed by Good Game Productions, the recently established San Diego-based studio dedicated to bringing MMOs to Facebook and iPhone, Sagas is designed to present a small portion of the strategy, role-playing, and battles available in the online MMORPG. Players who want to experience the full title can register to join Warrior Epic's community through a button in the Warrior Epic Sagas app.

In the iPhone/Facebook version, players can complete quests and earn gold, prestige, experience, and loot with parties of up to five warriors. They can spend gold to purchase their Warrior's gear or spend prestige to buy new Warriors. Missions in Warrior Epic Sagas can take anywhere from a few minutes to a full hours. You can see screenshots of the iPhone version after the break.

"This is the perfect outlet for players who just want to get a taste of the game, or need their 'fix' while they are out and about," says True Games's director of New Business and Product Development Peter Cesario. "We think this is a great way to introduce new players to the game, while also giving our current players a fun Warrior Epic mobile experience wherever they may be."

Social advertising and analytics company Sometrics launched its in-game Shop & Earn Shopping Feed, a new product enabling consumers to earn virtual currency for participating social games and apps when they make online purchases from the company's retail partners, similar to earning airline miles or cash back when using a credit card.

The firm says the Shopping Feed includes hundreds of global shopping offers from brand-name retailers. Online game publishers can integrate it with a custom iFrame that displays shopping offers alongside their titles. Users can browse through the different products by category (e.g. automotive, clothing, electronics, flowers) or by individual retailers.

Sometrics's Shopping Feed is similar in both concept and execution to Offerpal's Online Shopping Rewards Program launched earlier this month. Both services present an alternative for both consumers wanting to earn in-game cash and social games developers/publishers to the lead generation ads that have come under fire in recent months for scam-like offers.

"This is a no-brainer for publishers who want to give their players an easy, safe and secure way to earn virtual currency and deepen their participation in and loyalty to their favorite games," says Sometrics CEO and co-founder Ian Swanson. "This is a loyalty program that taps into a method consumers are already comfortable with – earning points or virtual currency for purchases they would make anyway at their favorite stores. It’s a great way to start monetizing gamer users who don’t want to pay to play."

Indie games portal Kongregate launched Konduit, a new application platform enabling developers to integrate the site's community features, like achievements and virtual goods, into their own standalone browser-based games.

With the platform, developers can use Javascript, Actionscript, or REST APIs from their own backend to take advantage of Kongregate's social and virtual currency features features such as leaderboards, player achievements, a virtual item locker, profiles, multiplayer (with cloud hosting), user-generated levels and sharing, dedicated game forums, a site-wide leveling system, and chat.

Underserved Coe Social Gamer Market

The company admits the architecture is similar to what social game outfits work with on Facebook and other platforms, but describes its site as a social portal targeting core gamers. Kongregate believes browser-based games created for the hardcore gaming audience are often too complex to succeed on what it calls "mass-market social networks", leaving an underserved segment in the free-to-play gaming space that it hopes to capture with the Konduit platform.

A week after social games and applications developer RockYou revealed a shuffle in its executive positions, including the departure of Ad Networks vice president Mihir Shah, advertisement provider Offerpal Media announced that Shah is joining its ranks as Chief Revenue Officer.

RockYou's own former chief revenue officer, Ro Choy, also reportedly left the company last week to pursue a CEO position at an unidentified social media, as his wife Lisa Marino took over his position at the studio. The change in management follows just a month after RockYou secured $50 million in a Series D round, bringing its total funding amount to $119 million since launching in late 2005.

At Offerpal, Shah will manage the ad company's commercial activities, including revenue growth and user acquisition. He'll also oversee the firm's relationships with advertisers, developers, and publishers. He brings more than 17 years of experience growing Internet and technology companies, beginning his career as the founder, president, and CEO of LiquidLink.

"These are exciting times for the entire social advertising industry, and Mihir's extensive background in rapidly growing successful Internet advertising companies puts us in an aggressive position for 2010," says Offerpal CEO George Garrick. "As CRO of Offerpal, Mihir will maximize revenue opportunities and expand our 160 million user accounts exponentially. We're thrilled to have him on board."

Shah's departure from RockYou will mean a few less headaches for the executive, as his former company is currently dealing with security issues following a hacker's attack its servers that could have compromised as many as 32 million users emails, passwords, and social network account information. RockYou is also drawing criticism for waiting 10 days to comment on the data breach, according to a report from TechCrunch.

Chinese mobile internet company KongZhong announced that it will acquire MMORPG developer Shanghai Dacheng Network Technology Co., Ltd. with a deal worth up to $80 million in cash and stocks -- the final amount for the transaction, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2010, will scale with Dacheng's 2010 GAAP net profit.

KongZhong hopes to combine its mobile game business with Dacheng's proprietary 3D game engine and development skills to transform Dacheng into a multiplatform leader in what it believes to be the two fastest growing segments in China's game market: 3D MMORPGs and mobile titles. The company aso believes its expertise working with major Internet sites in China will help support the growth of its gaming business in the coming years.

Based in Beijing and Shanghai, Dacheng has produced multiple free-to-play 3D online titles like World of Kung Fu (operated in the U.S. by VestGame Entertainment), Kung Fu On Web, TI: Cross Fire, Crazy Party, and most recently Loong.

"We believe that the success of Loong, one of the most anticipated games in China for 2009, reflects the strength of our proprietary 3D game engine, Dazzler3D, and of our development capabilities," says Dancheng's CEO and founder Zhen Yang. "By joining forces with KongZhong, we believe we will be able to more rapidly build up a robust portfolio of 3D MMORPGs and to further extend KongZhong's leadership in the Chinese mobile game sector."

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 newly launched PetVille shot up to the top of the "gainers" list, attracting almost 10 million new users after a little over a week. Going by just these initial numbers, the virtual pet adoption game appears to be following in the footsteps of the studio's other recent hit FishVille in terms of rapid early growth.

Speaking of FishVille, the aquarium simulator dominated the chart for the past month but fell to #11 this week, though it still added 2.2 million players (+8.3 percent) to its total userbase. The other Zynga game in the Top Ten, FarmVille at #8, shows little signs of any waning popularity as it picked up 2.5 million new gamers, representing a 3.4 percent growth for the already supremely popular title.

Virtual Christmas and birthday card/gifts applications accounted for nearly half of the top ten list this week, which I suspect will remain the case for next week, too, if not more so. CrowdStar's Happy Pets, despite the popularity of its new rival PetVille, is still growing though at a slower pace compared to Zynga's product. The #4 game brought in 3.2 million new virtual pet owners (+30 percent).

RockYou!'s Zoo World, another animal adoption game (but taking place in a zoo setting), returned to the top ten after dropping out last week, as it enjoyed 2.4 million new users (+36.4). While Mob Science's Snowball Fight slipped from #7 to #10, it actually attracted significantly more new users this week (2.3 million) compared to the last (1.5 million).

Electronic Arts' free-to-play Battlefield Heroes has hit three million registered players -- with more than 50,000 joining every week, according to developer EA DICE.

The third-person shooter is free to download and play, although players buy upgrades and additional items either through earning in-game currency by playing, or by purchasing alternate currency by microtransactions. EA also generates revenue for Battlefield Heroes through ads.

"The vast majority of our players play for free, but if they want to customize their character or enhance their game with weapon upgrades or ‘widgets’ then there is a cool item for them in our store," explains the team's general manager, Ben Cousins.

In fact, EA recently changed the pricing scheme for Battlefield Heroes, making some in-game items less expensive -- but harder to earn through gameplay. Some vocal users have expressed anger at the change, claiming it's no longer possible to enjoy the level of gameplay to which they'd become accustomed without spending real money.

To celebrate its player base's collective 300 million kills, 150 million five-minute rounds played and aggregate 1,300 years worth of game time, DICE will release a new map, "Sunset Showdown," set on an island where players must battle for control of a hilltop church using a variety of vehicles.

Social game developer Zynga has raised $180 million thanks to investors who want to help the company grow. Global internet investment group Digital Sky Technologies and others provided the cash through a purchase of Zynga securities.

Zynga will put the investment toward its continuing growth, and toward liquidity for itself and its investors. DST will be a "passive" investor, meaning it won't take a seat on the board of directors or get observer rights for meetings. Existing major Zynga investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Union Square Ventures, among others.

"We are excited about our relationship with DST as they are a global player dedicated to creating services that are meaningful to consumers in the long term," says Zynga founder and CEO Mark Pincus.

Zynga, developer of titles like FarmVille, Cafe World and FishVille, recently announced it had reached 100 million unique 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, the company has said.

"The investment from DST allows us to continue delivering on the promise of social games for consumers, making fun the biggest way for people to interact," says Pincus.

DST chief executive Yuri Milner adds, "We share in Zynga’s mission of connecting people through games and believe they are in a solid position with their team, offerings and market share to succeed in a dramatic way," said Yuri Milner, chief executive of DST.

As of today, Zynga claims over 230 million monthly active users playing its games -- a figure that counts the same user across multiple games as multiple users.

"Our earlier investment in Facebook and now in Zynga underscores our premise that social networking and social entertainment will define the next generation of the web," says Milner.

Earlier this week, Final Fantasy developer and publisher Square Enix merged its Japanese SE Members and SE Account system, a move that transformed previous "Member Coins" into Crysta, which can be spent on digital goods as well as real-life products.

The new virtual currency works across several of the company's online offerings. Users can spend Crysta on clothing or accessories at newly launched avatar community Party Castle, and also buy other goods at free-to-play MMORPG Fantasy Earth Zero (published by Gamepot, released under Square Enix's PlayOnline hub).

Japanese consumers can also use Crysta to buy real products like soundtracks, books, and games from Square Enix's e-Store. It's possible the company will implement the Crysta system with its upcoming MMO Final Fantasy XIV, which is scheduled to release for PlayStation 3 and PC in all regions some time in 2010.

Square Enix members can purchase Crysta in six different amounts, with 1 Crysta equaling ¥1, according to a report from JP Button: ¥500, ¥2,000, ¥3,000, ¥5,000, and ¥10,000. The publisher hasn't yet announced plans to bring the virtual currency to its U.S. or European services.

3D content and software developer DAZ 3D has merged with Gizmoz, a company specializing in personalized and portable avatars, to combine their strengths in creating digital characters and accessories across multiple platforms, from social networks to mobile applications. The two companies also raised an undisclosed amount of funding.

3D content and software developer DAZ 3D has merged with Gizmoz, a company specializing in personalized and portable avatars, to combine their strengths in creating digital characters and accessories across multiple platforms, from social networks to mobile applications. The two companies also raised an undisclosed amount from previous investors in a new round of funding.

Based in Tel Aviv, Gizmoz offers a combination of 3D face-mapping technology, face manipulation, and automatic face detection that enable users to create 3D characters from a single photo of their face. It also provides a central service for designing, managing, and transporting digital avatars that can be dropped into virtual worlds, online games, PC/console titles, video clips, greeting cards, professional modeling and animation tools, etc.

In addition to hosting a library of digital characters and accessories, Utah-based DAZ 3D develops a line of software to support that community, including free 3D digital art creation tool DAZ Studio, lip-synching application Carrara, and 3D environment and animation package Bryce. The products are used in various professional productions such as video games, television shows, and print publications.

The two firms plan to bring their offerings together to create a "substantially more expansive virtual goods design center and marketplace" for creative professionals, gamers, and consumers. They believe the merger will enhance the distributive capabilities of custom avatars as well, allowing users to manage and transport them across any virtual environment or production pipeline.

"The combination of DAZ 3D and Gizmoz fills a true void within the industry. Now users can experience expansion into virtual worlds, cross-platform gaming, mobile applications and more, while maintaining high-quality results and endless creativity," says Dan Farr, who was president and co-founder of DAZ 3D, now serving as the merged company's CEO. Gizmoz founder and CEO Eyal Gever will take on the role of president.

Farr continues, "DAZ 3D customers have been demanding more personalized content and neighboring markets have requested we expand to meet their needs as well. With this merger our company is uniquely poised to provide extended portability, support and creativity to our ever-growing user base."

DAZ 3D and Gizmoz also raised a new round of funding led by previous investors Benchmark Capital, Highway 12 Ventures, and Columbia Capital. DOCOMO Capital and Village Ventures also participated in the round. The merged company plans to devote the new funding on what it sees as "significant market opportunity for character-centric virtual goods", and will unveil its first new products in the first quarter of 2010.

Online advertising network announced an update to its BidSystem auction marketplace that now allows advertisers to bid for leads on CPA (cost per action) offers that appear within Facebook and MySpace games and applications, promising virtual currency in exchange for users' participation.

BidSystem 3.0 was made possible by Adknowledge's July acquisition of KITN Media, the parent company of Super Rewards, one of the largest virtual currency monetization platforms for online games and social network apps. Super Rewards generates thousands of free trial leads for hundreds of advertisers each day.

Using the updated platform, companies can now bid for CPA ads that will offer consumers virtual currency, points, or virtual goods if they sign up for free products or service trials. These lead generation ads are the same offers that have caused much controversy in the past several weeks due to scam-like CPA promotions mixed in with legitimate ads.

Advertisers can integrate and manage their campaigns across web sites, email, and social networks from a single interface, which also provides reporting and conversion-tracking features. Additionally, Adknowledge offers targeting technology designed to predict future behaviors based on consumers' past responses.

"By integrating CPA bidding into BidSystem.com for leads generated from free trials or sign-ups in social media, we are providing small and mid-sized advertisers with the ability to reach millions of highly engaged consumers on Facebook and MySpace -- and only pay for results!" says Adknowledge CEO Scott Lynn. "By cross-selling our 10,000+ existing customers using BidSystem.com, we hope to bring fresh advertisers into the Super Rewards offer wall."

Organizers of next March's Game Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco have revealed keynotes and first sessions for Summits, with notables including Facebook's Gareth Davis (Social & Online Games Summit) and Spider's Randy Smith (Independent Games Summit).

Taking place March 9-10th, the GDC Summits highlight the leading edge of game development in emerging and notable areas including; iPhone Games, Social & Online Games, Game Localization, Mobile/Handheld Games, Independent Games, Artificial Intelligence and Serious Games.

Of the major Summits, Facebook's platform manager Gareth Davis will deliver a keynote at the newly formed Social & Online Games Summit titled 'How Friends Change Everything'. It will discuss Facebook's massive disruption in who plays games, as well as how games are best discovered, distributed, designed and monetized on the service.

In addition, Randy Smith, owner and game designer at Tiger Style will keynote the Independent Games Summit. Tiger Style is the developer of the critically and commercially successful iPhone game, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, named by Apple as their top-rated game of 2009. Smith, who is also a veteran of Thief creator Looking Glass, will deliver a broad keynote address, 'Increasing Our Reach: Designing to Grab and Retain Players.'

Alongside these notable announcements, all of GDC's market-leading Summits have announced initial lectures, with a large number of new speakers and topics now confirmed for the event.

Other notable featured talks at the one and two-day Summit events include:

Sony's PlayStation Home for PS3 has expanded to encompass a microtransaction-oriented action game known as Sodium, marking its second anniversary and a new step in the PlayStation 3 virtual world -- as it repositions itself as a social networking service to the hardcore.

Two months ago, we spoke to Sony's Jack Buser, director of the PlayStation Home program, who told us it had attracted 8 million users. Two months later, the service is now home to 10 million players, over 50 virtual spaces, and 2000 virtual items.

Sony has stepped up its efforts to hold holiday events in the space -- attracting users back daily. Buser claims that 85% of Home users have used the service before, and session duration averages at 60 minutes.

Most importantly, however, this first year anniversary marks the launch of an entirely new virtual space called Sodium, developed by Nottingham, UK-based Outso for SCEA, which Buser describes as "our leading developer on PlayStation Home." He also describes Sodium as "the future of the platform."

Japanese publisher Square Enix opened applications for the beta testing phase of Final Fantasy XIV, is forthcoming subscription-based MMORPG (with microtransaction elements) based on the long-running RPG franchise. Interested gamers can sign up for the beta recruitment program at the game's official site.

Final Fantasy XIV is expected to release across Europe, Japan, and the U.S. simultaneously in 2010 for both PlayStation 3 and Windows. The game will feature language support for English, Japanese, French, and German. The beta application's opening comes in the same week as Final Fantasy XIII's PS3 release in Japan and the introduction of Square Enix's Crysta virtual currency for its online services.

Taking place in "the unknown realm of Eorzea", the MMORPG is expected to include many of the races and monsters from the series's previous MMORPG Final Fantasy XI (available for PS2, Xbox 360, and PC). The development team says it also looked to rival titles for inspiration, such as World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, and Warhammer Online.

Square Enix, however, argues that Final Fantasy XIV will be able to take on currently popular titles. When asked if he believed Final Fantasy XIV was a serious rival to Activision Blizzard's World of Warcraft, the company's CEO Yoichi Wada told UK site Develop Online, "Yes, but the flipside is that they are a tough competition."

Organizers have announced that the 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards, the most prestigious honors in the world of video game development, are now open for nominations through Jan. 4, 2010.

In its tenth year of honoring the best games and developers, the Game Developers Choice Awards -- the leading awards voted on by developers, and created for developers -- has adopted a new voting methodology.

Nominations - as always - are selected by any game professional worldwide, simply by submitting ballots via the Game Developers Choice Awards website. (Submitters are required to log in with a Gamasutra.com username and password so professional developer status can subsequently be verified.)

Category finalists and Special Award winners are selected by the 20 person-strong Game Developers Choice Awards Advisory Committee, including notable industry veterans from Harmonix, Valve, PopCap, Ubisoft, BioWare, and more.

Starting this year, winners are now being selected by the Game Developers Choice Awards-specific International Choice Awards Network (ICAN), which is a new invitation-only group comprised of 500 leading game creators from all parts of the video game industry.

Choice Awards organizers believe that, in tandem with their goal of having the most focused, impartial awards in the game industry, this additional voting transparency will further boost the awards' reputation.

The 2010 award categories are open for nominations to any member of the video game community until January 4th, combining both Regular and Special Award nominations, are:

Toymaker Hasbro and game publisher Atari are clashing over a soured licensing agreement for the fantasy franchise Dungeons & Dragons, Hasbro said this week.

At issue is Hasbro and subsidiary Wizards of the Coast's allegation that Atari sub-licenced the Dungeons & Dragons digital game rights to Namco Bandai Partners without authorization. Hasbro sees Namco Bandai as a competitor, since both compete in child-focused businesses like collectible card-based games.

According to Hasbro's agreement with Atari, that kind of relationship with a competitor is restricted, so Hasbro says it's suing Atari for fraud and five different counts of breach of contract of the D&D licensing agreement. It wants to terminate the agreement and collect compensatory damages.

Namco Bandai Europe signed a deal with Atari in July this year acquiring Atari's European retail distribution business.

But Atari, also known as Infogrames, said in a statement that Hasbro's allegations are unfounded. "Atari has had a long and rich history with the Dungeons and Dragons franchise, investing millions of dollars into numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful games that have generated significant revenue for Hasbro," said an Atari statement issued Thursday.

"Hasbro has resorted to these meritless allegations, in an apparent attempt to unfairly take back rights granted to Atari. Atari has sought to resolve the matter without cooperation from Hasbro. We regret that our long-time partner has decided to pursue this action. Atari will respond appropriately through its legal counsel in court."

Atari publishes the MMORPG Dungeons & Dragons Online, developed by Turbine, in North America. In August this year, Turbine sued Atari for at least $30 million for breach of contract, fraud, and other counts, accusing the publisher of purposely pulling back support of Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach in favor of internally-developed MMOs. Atari called that suit "frivolous."

Atari is also rumored to be working -- via its Cryptic Studios subsidiary -- on a Neverwinter Nights MMO, which is based in the D&D universe. Other previous Atari-published titles include Neverwinter Nights 2 and Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics.

"While unfortunate that we had to take this action, it is crucial for us to protect the Dungeons & Dragons brand," said Greg Leeds, president of Wizards of the Coast. "We have been working for several months now to reach resolution with Atari, and they have left us with no other choice than to pursue legal action."

French MMORPG developer Ankama says Dofus 2.0 experienced a "record launch", generating more than one million unique connections per day and hosting over 200,000 players connected at the same time just a couple weeks after the new title released worldwide.

Dofus 2.0 is an overhaul of the original browser-based, free-to-play Dofus (a subscription option is also available), employing a new ActionScript 3-based graphic engine for its manga-inspired visuals and re-writing the server/client code for performance upgrades.

The updated game only supports new characters at the moment, but the studio plans to enable character migration from the first Dofus, which currently claims more than 25 million registered players. Ankama also announced its plans to release another content update introducing "Frigost, the ice continent" some time in 2010.

"We are thrilled to see how players have embraced Dofus as it further reinforces our belief that this game continues to provide quality entertainment and an amazing experience," says Ankama's international marketing manager Cedric Gerard. "The launch of Dofus 2.0 has been something we've greatly anticipated so we thank all our players for their ongoing support, and we humbly welcome new players to Dofus."

You can see screenshots from Dofus 2.0 after the post break.

MMORPGs have inherited one very basic design principle when it comes to character classes: A "holy trinity" consisting of a healer, a "Tank" who mitigates damage, and a DPS, who primarily focuses on attacks.

As designer Brian "Psychochild" Green explains in today's Gamasutra feature, the reason the trinity design has remained popular for so many years across so many different games is simple: It works.

But why? From a designer's point of view, the system is well-tested, and its prevalence means implementing it is easier than reinventing from scratch, writes Green. It's also easier to design enemy encounters, since the composition of a typical group is easy to anticipate.

Other benefits, as Green writes:

Players generally understand and identify roles easier. A majority of players will understand their roles in combat easier having played similar games. The roles are very simple to explain briefly, making writing a tutorial or manual easier. Players can represent their roles to other players easily; the phrase "I'm tank spec" gives a lot of information to another player in few words. Players still need to identify subtleties based on other cues: a Cleric healer is going to have a different healer role than a Bard who has a few emergency healing spells.

Live Gamer, which provides microtransaction services for online games, virtual worlds, and social networks, announced the implementation of its Live Gamer Exchange (LGX) product in Sony Online Entertainment's free-to-play MMO Free Realms.

Designed to facilitate a player-to-player real money trading, LGX enables Free Realms users to buy and sell virtual items and characters to each other, provided they're at least 18 years old. The service authenticates all listings and transactions without charging players an extra fee.

The company says LGX helps reduce fraud in the MMO by providing a secure platform for legitimate player-to-player transactions. Live Gamer and SOE hope to keep the marketplace transparent and safe by identifying and banning gold farmers from Free Realms.

Live Gamer also maintains LGX on SOE's EverQuest II and is already slated to operate the platform on upcoming MMO The Agency, too. The company's other partners include Acclaim, Funcom, NHN USA, and many others, supporting more than 56 million gamers in over 110 live projects across 23 countries. That wide reach enables it to assist with more than three million microtransactions each month.

"Free Realms is the first successful, large-scale MMO in the US to support a freemium model, and Live Gamer is delighted to complete their virtual economy with a sanctioned secondary market for virtual goods," says Live Gamer president and co-founder Andrew Schneider. "As publishers continue to build out increasingly robust in-game virtual item strategies, the need for trusted secondary market offerings has become essential."

Social gaming company Zynga just raised $180 million in funding, while rival Playfish was acquired by Electronic Arts for $300 million -- but third-placer Playdom is not to be outdone.

Playdom will report revenues of more $50 million this year, CEO John Pleasants said in a recent interview with investment research firm ThinkEquity, as reported by Silicon Alley Insider.

75 percent of that money comes from virtual goods, says Pleasants -- who left his chief operating officer role at EA earlier this year to head up Playdom.

15 percent of the revenues come from third-party advertisers who do "offers" marketing with users -- the advertisers buy virtual items with which to reward users for activities like filling out marketing surveys. Advertising accounts for the remaining percentage.

According to the report, Playdom has 28 million monthly active users. In comparison, Playfish has claimed 50 million, while Zynga recently touted its 200 million monthly actives. The measure of "monthly active users" counts users more than once across multiple games; Zynga says it has 100 million monthly uniques.

Playdom, which last month raised $43 million in a funding round, plans to double the number of games it offers in the coming year; currently, 60 percent of its users are on MySpace, while 40 percent access its titles via the hotter Facebook network.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe formally announced that Home, its virtual world for PlayStation 3 owners, has attracted more than 10 million registered users since launching in December 2008 with a beta test.

The online hub allows gamers to create and customize avatars, decorate personal apartments, meet and chat with friends, purchase clothing/accessories/furniture, and interact with branded spaces created by video game developers and other companies. SCEE timed the announcement of this user milestone as it releases new spaces for Uncharted 2 and Ratchet & Clank, with a third space for MotorStorm on the way.

"PlayStation Home is fast becoming the meeting place of choice between users and developers," says SCEE's European Home Business Manager Dan Hill. "Every new game space enhances the overall experience for consumers, offering more variety, more choice and more enjoyment from a PlayStation Home session."

He adds, "The more game spaces there are, the better it gets, and the number of spaces keeps on growing. For developers, there’s no better way of driving interest in their titles than giving fans a hands-on, interactive experience based around the game itself. A game space in PlayStation Home ought to be a core element of every studio’s marketing strategy for new titles."

The announcement follows just a day after PlayStation Home unveiled Sodium One, a free, microtransaction-based action game in the virtual world, developed by Nottingham, UK-based Outso. PlayStation Home director Jack Buser called the "freemium" title "the future of the platform", and Outso is already working on Sodium 2 with even more microtransaction elements.

Buser has talked about Home's evolution a lot lately -- just last week, he mentioned that Sony has created a forum where it can work with developers to create 3D social games and "mini MMOs" for the online community. Along with its 10 million players, the virtual world also hosts more than 50 virtual spaces and 2000 virtual items.

[Virtual items are the subject of much contention. Are free-to-play games devaluing retail products? Are they changing the industry? In an editorial originally published in the December 2009 issue of Game Developer magazine, editor in chief Brandon Sheffield weighs in.]

Early this month, I was having a discussion about free-to-play games and virtual items with Raigan Burns of Metanet Software. He was arguing that virtual items represent the equivalent of digital snake oil -- you’re paying for a few altered lines of code.

It’s a question of degrees, because all games are lines of code after all, whether they be many or few. And in fact Metanet’s latest game, N+, is primarily sold via digital distribution on Xbox Live Arcade. In many ways it's a larger, more involved virtual item.

But I understand his point very well. The idea of paying money for something that a designer maybe spent an hour tweaking, or which an artist only adjusted the colors on, just doesn’t sit well with me.

This is rooted in our consumer-oriented society. Ultimately all value is perceived. Why is a diamond more valuable than cubic zirconia? Mostly because we say so. As a society we’ve decided that between these two similar subjects (though the latter is synthetic), one is worth more, and the other less. Meanwhile both are worth more than food, which we actually need to survive.

Food, air, and water have intrinsic value, because we can’t live without them. Aside from those stand-out examples, our entire value system is fabricated -- so depending on one's desire to have these things, they're worth as much as or more than anything else. It’s quite relative, and in a society in which most of us actually do pay for the water we drink, this perception of value is very important to a lot of people, including, I’m dismayed to say, myself.

After working remotely for more than two years, Metaverse Mod Squad -- a company specializing in providing outsourced community management, moderation, and customer support for virtual, social, and gaming communities -- opened a new operations center in Sacramento, California.

Founded in 2007, the company currently has some 75 employees and contractors who've so far worked remotely using tools such as Skype, Basecamp, AOL Instant Messenger, and virtual world Second Life to work with clients like The CW Network, Warner Bros., U.S. Department of State, Electronic Arts, Hasbro, and many others. Those workers serve as community managers, game masters, moderators, and customer support teams for their partners.

Metaverse says it chose Sacramento over other sites due to its proximity to game developers in San Francisco and its its educated and efficient labor force. With its first brick and mortar office, the company plans to continue using its remote workers but will also hire as many as 50 new professionals for the facility. A portion of the new staff will work on an unannounced outsourcing project scheduled to launch early next year.

"Our remote mods have earned a well-deserved reputation for being the most fun and reliable group of people you’ll never meet," says Metaverse Mod Squad's CEO Amy Pritchard. "Our challenge in opening this (literally) brick-and-mortar operation is to maintain our energetic, innovative, and close-knit company culture."

She continues, "By fully and quickly integrating our new on-site team with our long-time remote workers, we intend to do just that. I don’t want our new home to feel like an office, but rather a relaxed place to collaborate and engage our virtual communities."

In our latest employment-specific round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, , including positions from Guerrilla Games, Tencent and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted this week include:

Guerrilla Games: Senior Environment Artist
"Saving the environment is easy - just hit CTRL-S. Making the environment convincing and awe-inspiring at the same time is a far more interesting challenge. As a Senior Environment Artist at Guerrilla, you'll work with the Level Designers to create cutting edge architectural designs, themes and compositions. You'll become part of a highly talented team, acting as a mentor, problem solver and source of inspiration for the people around you."

High Moon/Activision: Senior Sound Designer
"High Moon Studios is looking for a talented Senior Sound Designer to design and implement audio assets for a high-profile, action-packed title for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. The individual will frequently collaborate with the audio team, game designers and producers to push the bar for creating a sonically rich, high-quality game. The ideal candidate must be passionate about making great games, be a strong problem-solver and an effective communicator."

Nexon Europe announced today that Combat Arms, its online first-person shooter, has reached one million registered users since launching in the region in January 2009. The company attributes the free-to-play game's success to a stream of regular updates that it says is uncharacteristic for even subscription-based titles.

Combat Arms is similar to to traditional first-person shooters like Counter-Strike but offers microtransactions in the form of an item shop where players can buy virtual guns, equipment, mercenaries, and default primary/secondary weapons. Nexon Europe notes that thriftier players won't feel left out, as it doesn't offer pay-to-play-only maps or premium modes.

Some of the updates the company has released so far include new maps, modes, and weapons. It also plans to introduce a player-versus-zombie variant of the game's Fireteam mode, Fireteam: Cabin Fever, on December 23rd. Furthermore, that Combat Arms update will include gears, gift sets, and special events to celebrate the user milestone and the holiday season.

The game has enjoyed popularity in the United States, too, where it launched in July 2008. Since then, it's picked up more than three million registered users as of last September, and Nexon America said it saw a 32 percent year-over-year increase in revenue for August 2009. Combining the two player counts, Combat Arms has over four million users worldwide.