Gibraltar-based online gambling network 888 announced an agreement to acquire the assets of Real Dice Inc's mobile/social game development studio Mytopia in a deal valued up to $18 million.

Those assets included in the deal include the development studio, its social and smartphone games (e.g. Bingo Island 2, Pacific Poker), its technology platform for hosting real-time social games on social networks and mobiles, and a software license for cross-platform add development framework Particle Code.

The agreement also includes Mytopia's mobile poker application, which is available across iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and J2ME handsets. So far, more than one million users around the world have installed the application.

888 will pay $12 million upon completion of the acquisition, and an additional $6 million provided the studio meets certain milestones for its mobile and social games before December 31st, December 2011.

The online gambling network has laid out additional earn-out payments that will be calculated based on profits for 2011, with the total maximum payout by 888 to Real Rice capped at $48 million. 888 says its purchase of Mytopia will form the cornerstone of its social gaming and mobile strategy.

"This is a very exciting deal for 888, and builds on our aim of providing a variety of entertainment destinations where people can enjoy a truly interactive experience on a multitude of platforms," says 888 Holdings CEO Gigi Levy.

He continued, "Mytopia is one of the leading publishers of cross-platform social-games and this acquisition gives us an immediate footprint in the fast-growing social gaming arena, complementing our core offering and giving us access to millions of customers."

"The acquisition extends 888’s reach and market share in the fast growing social networks and smart mobile devices, such as iPhone and Android powered handsets, and leaves us well positioned to take advantage of this growth.”

Austin-based social game studio Sneaky Games received a "six-figure investment" from local VC firm Liahona Ventures and other angel investors to fund its development of Fantasy Kingdoms.

Founded seven years ago as a web game developer, Sneaky Games has around 17 full-time employees and part-time workers. It's currently hiring for three or four new positions, and has plans to produce at least four to six new games in the future, according to a report from Austin American-Statesman.

The firm says it's the only Austin-based studio creating independent social titles other than Challenge Games, which was recently purchased by FarmVille developer Zynga and now operates as Zynga Austin.

Sneaky Games has released two titles on Facebook so far, Strife of Sevens and Fantasy Kingdoms, the latter of which launched last April and has nearly 300,000 monthly active users.

With the Battlestar Galactica MMO set to beta by the end of 2010, Bigpoint CEO Heiko Hubertz explains to WorldsInMotion sister site Gamasutra at E3 why the U.S. market is "the biggest focus of the entire company".

The game, which Bigpoint demoed a "very early build" of to Gamasutra, uses Unity technology to deliver detailed 3D visuals in a browser. It's under development by German studio Art Plant, though Hubertz says "we do the game design and producing really close together with [rights holder] Universal."

The Latest Word on Bigpoint U.S.

Hubertz says that development of a newer, unannounced game has begun at the company's new San Francisco offices, which have been operational since this March. In fact, the company has hired 18 staffers in San Francisco so far, says Hubertz, describing these staffers as a mix of general staff and "the first team" of developers.

"By the end of the year we think we will be at least 25. Everything depends on the successful first game we're developing. As soon as we see the business is successful we will hire more people, of course." Details of the San Francisco development team's project have not been announced, but Hubertz says "we also hope we can launch this at the end of the year in a beta."

The U.S. is "the biggest focus of the entire company, including Germany," says Hubertz, and of the U.S. office he says "the goal was to build a complete, independent infrastructure from Germany. Not to be a European company but more to be a U.S. company, so we only hire U.S. people. I'm the only German who works in the U.S. entity."

Continuing its recent series of major deals in both Asia and the States, social game developer Zynga has raised a ¥13.5 billion ($147 million) investment from Japanese telecommunications and media corporation Softbank.

With this new financing, the FarmVille firm has brought its total amount of venture backing up to some $366 million since it set up shop three years ago in San Francisco.

The funding follows just a month after Zynga made what it described its first step into Asia's social gaming market with its acquisition of Beijing-based studio XPD Media. Earlier this year, the company also set up its first international office relatively closeby in Bangalore, India.

Softbank and Zynga are in talks to distribute and jointly promote social games through Softbank's mobile services in Japan and other countries, according to a report from Bloomberg.

The Tokyo-based corporation has showed a recent interest in backing social game developers, investing $10 million in Redwood City's RockYou (Zoo World, Birthday Cards) earlier this month. Softbank also contributed to a $50 million round of funding for the developer last November to help grow RockYou's expansion to Asia.

Tokyo-based mobile social network operator DeNA and a number of other private Japan-based backers have set up a $27.5 million fund dedicated to investing in social game companies.

The Incubate Fund No. 1 Limited Partnership seeks to find and invest in social gaming projects or startups that are at the seed level or higher stages, according to a report from VentureBeat. DeNA, which has an 83.3 percent stake in the fund, also plans to back game developers that can work on Mobage-Town (or MobaMingle, as its known in the West), its mobile gaming platform.

While not so popular yet in North America, Mobage-Town has more than 18 million registered members in Japan. DeNA is working to expand its international reach, developing games for Facebook, preparing to launch a social gaming platform in several English-speaking countries, and building on MiniNation, its recently launched mini-games social network app released for iPhone.

DeNA also announced a business partnership with Yahoo! Japan two months ago to create and operate a PC-based social gaming platform called Yahoo! Mobage, which will combine with Mobage-Town so users can play games and take advantage of other services across both platforms.

While the majority of Facebook's most popular games have lost millions of users in the past few months, Electronic Arts says its recently acquired PlayFish studio has managed to grow its userbase.

Since Facebook enacted changes to its application notification system four months ago to curtail the amount of "app spam" many users have complained about, the social network's most popular titles that depended on notifications for their viral growth lost a significant amount of monthly active users.

The most popular app on Facebook, Zynga's FarmVille, alone has lost more than 20 million users since last March. According to EA, the social network's top applications have lost an average of around 22 percent of their userbases in recent months.

Despite that, the publisher says PlayFish, the London-based social gaming studio it purchase last year for $300 million, has grown its business by 5 percent -- partly due to the recent launch of two popular titles: FIFA Superstars and My Empire.

"We've been very pleased with the PlayFish acquisition," said EA Interactive's Barry Cottle in an investor briefing earlier today. "PlayFish is right now the number two player in the marketplace and the only one that's been growing in the past four months."

Though its legal battle against Bethesda Softworks over the game's production continues, Interplay has launched a teaser site for Fallout Online and is now accepting registrations for the MMO.

Previously known by its code name Project V13, Fallout Online is under development by Bulgarian outfit Masthead Studios. The developer is best known for its work on another post-apocalyptic MMORPG, Earthrise, which is due to release this fall.

The new Fallout Online site invites fans to sign up for a mailing list to receive updates, concept art, and special invitations for the game. Subscribers will be eligible for an early entry beta program that will allow gamers to try out Fallout Online when its open beta launches.

Interplay, which published the first two Fallout games, said earlier this year that it expects to bring Fallout Online into its public beta some time in 2012. The project has been under development since 2007.

Bethesda Softworks, publisher of Fallout 3 and current owner of the post-apocalyptic RPG franchise, is still pursuing its lawsuit against Interplay for trademark infringement over the sale of previous Fallout games.

Interplay previously purchased the rights to a Fallout MMORPG several years ago, but Bethesda argues that the rights should revert back due to the firm's alleged breach of contract. It also claims that the project did not raise enough funding ($30 milion) to ramp up to "full scale" development by an agreed-upon time.

Social media/gaming ad company Offerpal Media published a new white paper finding that developers who took advantage of in-game promotional campaigns saw their offer-based advertising revenues more than triple compared to their normal daily revenue.

Offerpal describes in-game promotions as advertising offers presented at certain points of a social game to engage users more than traditional "offerwalls" -- a selection of ads that allow players to earn free virtual currency by participating in different offers like trial subscriptions, surveys, and more.

Some examples of in-game promotions include display banners, special notifications, in-game flash integrations, branded virtual goods and more. According to the firm, 93 percent of users who complete offer ads through an in-game promotions are new users who've never taken part in an offer for that particular game before.

Furthermore, after completing an in-game promotional offer, 10 percent of "newly monetized users" return to participate in another offer or make a direct payment for virtual currency in that game. Offerpal adds that the effective CPM rate for the newly monetized users in its study was $2.03, compared to typical CPM rates in the range of $0.10 to $1.00.

Offerpal gathered its data from its publishing partners in May 2010 and has included it in its report titled "Beyond the Offerwall: Monetizing virtual currency through in-game promotions". You can download it for free on the offer-based ad company's site.

"Traditional 'offerwalls' remain the most effective foundation for developers to monetize their virtual currency, but only about 10 percent of a game's audience tends to find them," says Offerpal's chief revenue officer Mihir Shah.

He adds, "In-game promotional campaigns allow our game developers to reach a broader audience, do much more interesting user and demographic targeting, and get best-in-industry payouts based on higher volumes and contextual relevance from major advertisers. We uniquely understand that this is a direct response business first and foremost, not only a payments business."

Worlize launched the private beta for its "user-created social gaming and chat platform" for social networking services like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and OpenSocial.

The Los Angeles-based startup revealed that it also raised initial funding (amount unspecified) from private individuals across the gaming and technology industry, such as Worlize's newly named CFO Greg Diller -- previously a project consultant for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and financial reporting manager at Cannon Pictures.

Worlize's user-created gaming platform is designed to give users point-and-click access to customizable plug-and-play games, such as "puzzles, time management and strategy casual games, card and board games, as well as MMORPGs."

More advanced users and game developers will be able to tinker with the Worlize API later this summer, which will allow them to create "highly interactive areas and games within the platform. Worlize is expected to move into its public beta phase in early fall.

"We feel users are tired of the restrictive and formulaic approach that social and gaming platforms have adopted," says Worlize CEO and founder Brian McKelvey."As with web pages or blogs, it is time users have the ability to define their casual gaming and social experiences.

He adds, "Worlize breaks down the walls currently in place, redefining and enhancing online social experiences for users."

BBC Worldwide is making its first foray into the pay-to-play space with an online game based on its show The Weakest Link, which charges players but also rewards them with a jackpot if they win.

BBC Worldwide already offers a free online game based on The Weakest Link, but this pay-to-play edition charges an entry fee starting at £1 ($1.48) to play. As in the TV program, a group of players answer rounds trivia questions, then vote to eject poor performing participants until only two remain to answer five Final Round questions.

The pay-to-play game features a jackpot that players can win if they're declared the winner at the end of the Final Round. The jackpot amount is deterined by the number of players and their skill level, increasing during the game for every question answered correctly but decreasing when incorrect answers are given.

The British Broadcasting Corporation subsidiary partnered with Amuso.com, an online gaming/bingo/casino site, for the pay-to-play version of The Weakest Link. Amuso.com enlisted the help of the show's co-founder and comedy writer Fintan Coyle as a strategic advisor for the project.

BBC Worldwide says it has online protection systems (e.g. entering birth date on registration) in place to prevent children aged under 18 from signing up and gambling. It also asks gamers to verify their identity with a scanned copy of their driver's license or passport if they make a deposit higher than £50 ($73.93).

The company intends to promote the online game with an advertisement at the end of its TV broadcast for The Weakest Link.

"BBC Worldwide is always keen to extend a brand beyond the traditional use, and social gaming is one of great interest to us," said BBC Worldwide's Digital Entertainment executive vice president Robert Nashak, according to a report from The Guardian.