German online game company Gameforge signed a worldwide licensing agreement with CBS Consumer Products to develop and publish browser-based, free-to-play games based on classic science fiction franchise Star Trek.

Gameforge says that acquiring the series' license marks the start of its "global AAA expansion", and expects its upcoming casual online Star Trek games to expand its consumer base and market share on an international scale. The company has so far published 20 games (Metin2, Ikariam) in over 50 languages, reaching more than 100 million registered users worldwide.

The company has so far planned two Star Trek titles, a Facebook game developed by an external German studio, and a browser-based release from another external developer in California. Though GameForge typically puts out its titles in Europe first, it plans to roll out the games in the U.S. and Europe simultaneously, according to a report from GamesIndustry.

The browser-based titles -- one based on the classic Star Trek series, and the other on Deep Space Nine -- will complement if not compete against another game based on the property: Cryptic Studios and Atari's subscription-based MMORPG Star Trek Online, which released for PCs last February and requires users to buy and download/install before playing.

"The popularity of Star Trek spans decades and is a testament to the richness and depth of the universe Gene Roddenberry created – at Gameforge, we put the same level of detail and dedication into our games," says Gameforge's vice president of publishing Ralf Adam.

He adds, "Honoring the Star Trek legacy and providing the global community with excellent free-to-play browser games is something we are very dedicated to and excited about."

WorldsInMotion.biz's sister free-to-play game ad network Game Advertising Online is recruiting for two new positions as it expands its market-leading position helping developers reach new players.

The service, which was acquired by parent division the UBM Techweb Game Network in February, is a top 75 Quantcast ad network in the U.S., with 50 million unique viewers and nearly 3 billion ad impressions served monthly.

GAO is particularly popular with free-to-play web game companies such as Bigpoint, Turbine and Gameforge who are looking to acquire new users for their games. As such, the Game Network's San Francisco offices are looking to hire the following positions to expand the network:

- The 'Senior Trafficking Strategist' will take ownership of the relationships with both advertisers and the ‘publishers’ who provide sites to the GAO Network, including market-leading firms in both categories, and optimize campaigns to give maximum rewards to both parties.

- The 'Lead Developer/Architect' position will be the new lead technical resource for Game Advertising Online. This role will lead new feature development on our game ads solution for both internal and external users, ensure a continually optimized code base, and have overall responsibility for day to day maintenance and issue/bug resolution.

In addition, the UBM Techweb Game Network is hiring for additional positions such as a Sales Associate for GDC group pass sales and the GDC Vault, with all positions listed on Gamasutra's industry job postings section.

Seattle-based developer Flying Lab Software announced that Power & Prestige, its first major expansion for its popular subscription-based MMORPG Pirates of the Burning Sea, will release on August 2010.

Published by Sony Online Entertainment and launching in January 2008 (the game was in its Beta phase for more than two years; development began in 2002), Pirates of the Burning Sea is a sailing/swashbuckling themed online game set in the early 18th century and centered around three nations: England, France, and Spain.

This expansion allows players to now become or elect the governor of a port -- enabling them to set messages to greet anyone who enters the port, set the tax rate of the port, improve the port's infrastructure, boost the port's defenses, draw a salary from the port's cofferes, access an exclusive shop with governor-only items, and more.

Power & Prestige also expands on the real-time Conquest system to allow parents to capture ports on behalf of their parent nation, and adds much new content: over 60 new missions, four new Pirate Hunter factions with unique storyline missions, a "brawling" combat school, revisions to existing careers and ships, and more.

Players can apply to participate in Power & Prestige beta program by visiting Pirates of the Burning Sea's site (susbcription required).

“With nearly 2 million ships sunk on the Burning Sea over the last 2.5 years, our players have been busy,” said Russell Williams, CEO of Flying Lab software. “We have been listening to our players and incorporating their input as much as possible into this new expansion. We’re very proud of what we’ve achieved, as this expansion allows players to reach new levels of power and prestige!”

Social Gaming Network (SGN), which develops and publishes games primarily for iOS devices but also releases titles on Facebook/MySpace, has raised $2 million from Tomorrow Ventures and Xing founder Lars Hinrichs.

This new funding is the first tranche in a larger second round of funding for SGN. The company previously raised $15 million in a Series A round of funding from Greylock Ventures, Founders Fund, Columbia Partners, and Novak Biddle Venture Partners back in May 2008.

SGN's catalog of social/multiplayer mobile games include Skies of Glory, Mafia, Agency Wars, Vampires vs. Werewolves, and many others. Since the company was founded in March 2008, its games have received more than 18 million unique downloads on the iPhone and iPod touch.

While it's focus has primarily been on iOS devices (with a few titles released on Facebook/MySpace like Agency Wars and Warbook), founder and executive chairman Shervin Pishevar says SGN plans to start releasing titles for Android smartphones, according to a report from TechCrunch.

U.S. consumers spent an estimated $168 million on mobile virtual goods in the last year, according to a new study from research firm Frank N. Magid Associates and mobile social gaming network OpenFeint.

Magid says more than 70 million Americans now own smartphones, or around 23 percent of the U.S. population. The firm believes that 45 percent of those smartphone owners play mobile games, and that 16 percent of them have purchased in-game virtual goods, spending an average of $41 per year on them.

While the firm's research indicates that 75 percent of smartphone owners in the U.S. have not bought virtual goods, it says 55 percent of them have shown an interest in buying them. Magid argues that the mobile virtual goods market is "poised for strong growth" as the number of games offering virtual goods ramp up.

The group also found that smartphone gamers download an average of 14 titles per year, paying for around four of them while acquiring the other ten for free. It notes that Americans are most likely to review app store rankings to discover new games but also rely on word of mouth and friend suggestions, too.

Magid and Aurora Feint revealed this data in the the first half of its two-part study Magid Media Futures 2010 Wireless and Consumers. It plans to publish the second half of its findings later this summer.

"Everybody knows free-to-play social gaming models on PC platforms have been making a killing but mobile virtual goods aren't as well understood," says Magid Advisors president Mike Vorhaus.

He adds, "With almost 20 percent of smartphone gamers already making purchases, there's a lot of room for the market to keep taking off as smartphones continue to increase in popularity."

Social game developer Playdom raised $33 million in venture capital financing from new backers Bessemer Venture Partners, New World Ventures, and Steamboat Ventures, the last of which is The Walt Disney Company's investment fund for digital media, consumer, and technology companies in the U.S. and Asia.

This new round brings the total amount of funding raised by Playdom up to $76 million -- last November, the company picked up $43 million from New Enterprise Associates, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Norwest Venture Partners.

Since that first round of financing, Playdom has acquired and invested in more than a half-dozen studios: Merscom (The Crazies), Trippert Labs (Fighter Jets), Offbeat Creations (Super Farkle), Three Melons (Bola!), Green Patch (Lil Farm Life), Argentinian firm MetroGames (Music Challenge), and most recently Acclaim.

The Mountain View headquartered company has several popular titles across Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, and iPhone. Its titles, which include Social City, Sorority Life, Mobsters, Tiki Resort, and Treetopia, have attracted more than 36 million monthly active users on Facebook alone, according to figures from AppData.

This new funding comes just a few weeks after Playdom revealed its plans to expand its European audience by localizing games for several countries in the region, starting with arcade-style soccer game Bola. The company intends to make its top titles available in English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish.

Zynga said Tuesday that FrontierVille, its latest social network game, hit 5 million daily active users late Monday following its introduction on Facebook on June 9.

The Western-themed FrontierVille is the first game from Baltimore, Maryland-based Zynga East, led by Zynga chief designer Bryan Reynolds, whose past design efforts include Civilization II and Rise of Nations.

By comparison, Zynga's largest current game franchise, FarmVille, released in June 2009, has over 80 million monthly active users on Facebook.

Privately-held Zynga has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. Most recently, the company raised a ¥13.5 billion ($147 million) investment from Japanese telecommunications and media corporation Softbank.

Zynga is taking its properties beyond Facebook and the PC. The company is expanding its business to other platforms, as the developer announced this month that FarmVille is headed to iPhone, and domain names indicate that it is also headed to iPad and Android.

Though only 10 percent of social game players actually spend money on Facebook titles, some of those users are social gaming "whales" that spend $25 or more per month to buy virtual goods, according to a new study.

An independent report from Inside Virtual Goods, "Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience", surveyed more than 20,000 social gamers on Facebook "from around the world and across the demographic spectrum".

Despite the negative connotations of the "whale" nickname, it's a category of users that most publishers and developers likely appreciate, as the report points out that players spending $25 or more are generating the most revenue for those companies.

"It’s clear that people either spend a lot of money or spend nothing," said Justin Smith, founder of Inside Network and co-author of the report, in an interview with VentureBeat.

Notably, the study showed that of the nearly 2,000 surveyed, 84 unique respondents said they spent more than $25 on only one game. 15 unique respondents said they spent more than $25 on two Facebook titles, and six said they spent over that amount on three social games.

[In this editorial, originally printed in Game Developer magazine's June-July 2010 issue, EIC Brandon Sheffield considers 'intent' in social and console games, suggesting why he wants to start hearing "less talk of users... and a much greater focus on player enjoyment."]

The main buzz at this year’s Game Developers Conference Canada surrounded social games. That’s not too surprising when you look at where all the venture capital is going these days, and social games like FarmVille and Pet Society have done a lot to broaden the market, bringing in groups that never thought they would play video games.

I’m always in favor of broadening the market, but I worry that some of these companies are more interested in players as revenue streams than as people to entertain.

Intent is very important to me in any media product, just as important as execution. The much-discussed “No Russian” scene in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, during which the player can gun down innocent people in an airport, changes a lot depending on the intent of the developer.

If the intent is for you to have fun slaughtering innocents, the scene becomes pretty negative on a meta level. If the intent is to make you uncomfortable and question your actions as a participant in electronic slaughter, it may be more progressive.

Electronic Arts aggressively moved into the social gaming space with the $300 million acquisition of Playfish in 2009, but Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard said it's focused on expanding existing businesses rather than jumping into the Facebook arena.

"We always look at opportunities, but we are very thoughtful about our investments," explained Activision COO Thomas Tippl in a new Gamasutra feature interview when asked about opportunities in the social gaming space.

"Right now, I would say we've got about seven opportunities that we are pursuing that are massive," Tippl said. "Those are Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Battle.net, Diablo, the unannounced MMO for Blizzard as well as the Bungie relationship."

He added, "Those are huge opportunities. Any single one of them, we believe, is a bigger opportunity than whatever social gaming company you may want to look at."

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has made clear that the publisher wants to transition existing packaged franchises into online business models. Blizzard's Battle.net is currently undergoing a revamp that Activision hopes will generate more online revenues, and Kotick has hinted at a subscription-based Call of Duty more than once.

But Activision is still keenly aware of the burgeoning social market. Tippl admitted that if Activision were looking at major investments in social network gaming, the company "wouldn't be broadcasting" the news.

And Kotick said in a 2008 interview that one of the biggest challenges for his company is "figuring out how to make the game experience more fun than any one of a hundred Facebook applications." The social networking giant now boasts over 400 million users.

This year Activision also announced significant Facebook integration with Blur, a recently-released racing title developed by internal studio Bizarre Creations. The game allows players to share in-game photos, racing statistics and unlockable items with Facebook friends.

Tippl added that when Activision does see an opportunity for a new acquisition, the publisher is ready with its $3 billion in cash. "When we see great opportunities, we can add some value. We can make it happen. We only do it if it can happen at the right price. Therefore, we don't get more than one or two done a year. I don't think that that's going to change."

The full interview with Tippl is available now.

Organizers of Game Developers Conference China 2010 have announced main Online Game Business and Outsourcing tracks, plus Social and Mobile Summits and the Indie Game Summit/Fest, simultaneously calling for submissions for the December Shanghai event.

The call for submissions to present lectures, panels, and tutorials at the event is open now through Wednesday, July 21, 2010, and UBM TechWeb's third Chinese conference aims to provide a forum for local and international developers to explore business opportunities, expand their reach to a unique market, and discover the ongoing trends emerging within the region.

The two GDC China main conference tracks will focus both on global game development and outsourcing, as well as on the business and development of online games.

In addition, the conference will feature three dedicated summits, each providing a laser focus on some of the industry's top trends: the Mobile Games Summit, the Independent Games Summit, and the new Social Games Summit.

China's Ministry of Culture is asserting its stewardship of the region's burgeoning online game business, tightening restrictions with new regulations it says are aimed at protecting minors from "unwholesome" content.

The rules, which are effective August 1, don't specifically define "unwholesome", but will illegalize content related to pornography, violence, gambling, cults, superstition and any other content defined as "cruel" or "horrifying" in online games playable by those under the age of 18, according to a report from Chinese business publication Xinhua.

The regulations say only virtual currency can be used to buy and sell items and goods in online games -- transactions in which the regulations also forbid minors from participating.

Online game companies are also required to develop methods to regulate the amount of time young people spend playing, with the aim of preventing addiction.

As China's online game industry -- worth $3.9 billion in 2009, according to Pearl Research -- continues to grow, the region's government seems increasingly concerned with content regulation. After international reports of young people fainting or dying from exhaustion after gaming marathons in internet cafes, and following concerns about the appropriateness of in-game content, China has begun to treat online gaming in part as a public health issue.

Texas-based developer and publisher KingsIsle Entertainment announced that Wizard101, it's magic-themed MMORPG for kids, has reached more than 10 million users since the online game's launch in September 2008.

In Wizard101, players attend a Harry Potter-esque magic academy to learn Wizard skills, cast spells, and summon creatures. Gamers can specialize in several different schools of magic, take part in quests, and battle with a turn-based combat system styled after collectible card games.

While registered users can download Wizard101 for free and explore starter areas, they'll need a subscription ($9.95 a month, or $60 for a year-long membership) to access other areas/content, or purchase access to individual sections for around $1 to $3 each. The game also offers mounts and items through microtransactions.

To thank its players, KingsIsle Entertainment is offering a complementary in-game "Party Pack" with a decorative banner, balloons, a party hat, and a cake -- registered users can receive the item set by entering "PARTYPACK" on this promotional page.

"Over the last twenty months our domestic launch has taken us from an unheard of company with an unknown product to running one of the most successful properties in the family entertainment space," says KingsIsle Entertainment chairman and CEO Elie Akilian.

He continues, "I am profoundly grateful to the millions of extraordinary people who call Wizard City home and the talented writers, artists, designers, producers and engineers who have come together to create this magical world."

Game industry veteran France Tantiado announced the opening of Brandyl, Inc., a new studio based in Redwood City, CA and dedicated to building social games for Facebook and mobile platforms.

As a new studio, Brandyl is looking to hire more engineers, game designers, and graphic artists. The developer has been operational since 2010 and plans to release its first games by the end of summer.

"Everyone is working hard to bring the vision to life, and we can't wait to unveil what we've got," says Tantiado, founder and CEO of the new developer.

Prior to Brandyl, Tantiado spent several years as a consultant developing marketing strategies for video game companies like Electronic Arts, Sega, Sony, and Microsoft, helping build major brands like Sonic the Hedgehog.

"With my years of experience in the gaming industry, I decided that it was time to start my own company," adds Tantiado "The growth of the social online gaming sphere has just been phenomenal, and I look forward to introducing a richer, and more engaging experience into the online arena."

Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg says the social network's focus on reengagement instead of virality for apps/games, as well as its upcoming credits system, help level the playing field for smaller developers.

Though many of Facebook's most popular social games have lost millions of palyers in recent months after the site enacted changes to restrict app "notification span" -- which many titles depended on to attract new users -- Zuckerburg believes this puts the focus on creating high quality productions that reengage users.

"... You basically had apps that were growing very quickly, and their best way to get a good user count was to get new users and churn through them," explained the CEO in an interview with Inside Facebook. "That really optimizes for apps that are very viral instead of apps that are high quality and that people want to reengage."

"So we intentionally weakened the viral channels recently, and intentionally strengthened reengagement with emails, so that there will be better apps. It’s going to be a long process, but I think it’s going reasonably well."

He commented that the social network's changes to its app notification system are also designed to make it so that smaller developers "have just as good of a chance to build a good game" as bigger companies like Zynga or Electronic Arts/Playfish, which have more resources and more chances to cross-promote their titles.

"That is a long term thing, to make sure the market stays competitive around this," said Zuckerburg. "... A lot of what we’re working on is [so] a small company [can] succeed in the space."

The executive also argued that Credits, Facebook's universal virtual currency system currently under beta testing, works toward the same goal of building a level ecosystem for its social games and apps -- as opposed to some of the publisher-specific currency systems several companies have set up.

"So if Zynga or any one [publisher] can allow cross payments within their games, but that doesn’t extend to other games, then that ends up being a big barrier to entry for other startups," said Zuckerburg. "Making it so that there is one currency that people can take everywhere levels the playing field a bit, which is good."

He added that the company wants to make it as easy as possible for users to build up a liquidity of Credits, and that the social network plans to pour all the money it makes from Credits back into creating ad offers (allowing users to earn free virtual currency) and prepaid cards, potentially lubricating the economy and encouraging users to buy more virtual goods.

"Overall we think it’s better for everyone for us to be in that place," said Zuckerburg. "Now if we fail, we fail, and someone else will succeed. But I think that over the long term this will end up being a pretty valuable thing."

Microsoft has boosted the video game-related capabilities of its Bing search engine, integrating around 100 PC casual games directly into the service and hooking up search results to IGN's 35,000-strong game database.

When users search for supported casual games, including standards like Solitaire and Blackjack as well as newer games from well-known developers like PopCap (Bejeweled, Plants vs. Zombies), the search results now include the option to "Play now." That link leads directly to an instance of the game hosted on Bing's servers.

"Play now" links do not appear to be automatically bumped to the top of the search results list; a series of Gamasutra's example searches for various games turned up the links anywhere from the top of the page to the bottom.

Traditional larger-scale console and PC games have also been integrated into Bing's search results by way of a database including aggregated links to reviews, screenshots, videos, walkthroughs, and other media.

Searching for games included in the database turns up a specially-designed game info box that appears at the top of the non-sponsored search results. That functionality seems to cover most recent games as well as a great many older titles, to various extents depending on the volume of information about the game.

For example, searching for the relatively non-uniquely named Doom, which dates back to 1993, turns up a more fully-formed info box than the slightly younger but more obscure System Shock 2. Games that are both recent and well-covered, like Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Red Dead Redemption, have the most complete slates of information.

In a community blog post, Microsoft said it integrated the database because "in the gaming realm, people go to the web for a few key tasks." As for the integrated casual games, the company said the new feature provides convenience as well as the guarantee to players that the games "are actually games and not malware."

[In this Worlds in Motion analysis piece, psychologist and gamer Jamie Madigan looks at Realtime Worlds' APB and its pricing for Gamasutra, to explain why people don't usually like paying by the hour for MMOs -- or other services.]

Back in April of this year, Realtime Worlds announced the pricing model for its soon to be released MMO, All Points Bulletin, or "APB" as the cool kids say. A lot of us are looking forward to the futuristic cops vs. robbers game, but the announcement about the pricing elicited a fair number of jeers from a lot of players. Here's how the press release broke down the two payment models in US dollars:

1. Buy the game for the MSRP of $50
2. Play 50 hours for "free."
3. Buy additional game time using one of two options:
a) $6.99 for 20 hours
b) $9.99 for unlimited hours during the next 30 days (or you can also buy 60 or 90 day subscriptions)

Upon hearing this, the nerd rage was palpable on some forums. For sure, this was partially over the fact that APB was to have any monthly fee AT ALL, despite that being par for the MMO course. But there seemed to be two other targets of the virtual hand wringing.

First, the play time included with the retail product was doled out in hours (50 of them, to be precise) rather than the traditional 30 days of unlimited play. Second, the $6.99 for 20 hours of game time seemed a bitter pill to swallow, apparently because people didn't want to pay by the hour.

People seemed to willfully ignore the fact that the game DOES include traditional 30 days of unlimited play for one flat rate option, though. There was also some vague stuff in there about being able to earn game time in-game, but I'm going ignore that for now.

San Francisco-based startup Heyzap has raised $3 million in a new round of funding led by previous investor Union Square Ventures, with Hitforge's Naval Ravikant and Founder Collective's Chris Dixon also participating.

HeyZap previously raised $650,000 in a seed round from Union Square Ventures, Joshua Shachter and Ravikant in May 2009. With this new financing, Ravikant and Chris Dixon Union Square Ventures's Albert Wenger will join the company's board of directors.

The startup's platform enables publishers and developers to extend their social titles beyond Facebook, working with Facebook Connect to allow other sites to embed games on other sites without losing social graph, "viral loops", and monetization features.

With the platform, social game companies can see their games offered on HeyZap's network of more than 220,000 sites, including media portals, social networks, game portals, and more. It also offers Youtube-like functionality that lets users embed social games in their own websites with a code snippet they can copy and paste.

The featured partners in HeyZap's network include Hi5, eBaum's World, and Weebly. It's already working with more than 4,000 online game developers and publishers, too, such as Aeria Games, TheBroth, GameDuell, and BigPoint. Those companies can take advantage of the platform to add achievements, payments, and authentication features to their titles.

HeyZap's co-founder Jude Gomilla says his company is currently "targeting high-value premium games such as massively multiplayer online games and social games" with its technology, according to a report from VentureBeat. The firm also plans to soon expand its staff from 10 employees to 15-20.

A company-wide series of layoffs at Seattle-based multimedia group RealNetworks has effectively shuttered the company's first-party game division, halting internal development -- with only a Facebook team and a minimal casual PC design staff remaining.

This week, Real said it would eliminate 85 jobs in an effort to "reduce the spans and layers of management to create greater efficiency, teamwork and customer focus." The move comes just three months after a round of 60 layoffs.

A Gamasutra source affected by the most recent reorganization said that, while the layoffs hit all parts of the company, "Real has completely disbanded its first party studio," following "a batch of layoffs once every quarter since last August."

According to the source, GameHouse -- the company's consumer-facing game portal -- no longer has internal development capability for traditional PC casual games. That disbanded group was responsible for the Super Collapse and Little Shop franchises.

Real will continue to run its game portal, which sells titles developed by third parties, and it will continue to develop Facebook games as well as pursue second-party development contracts, under which Real provides design specs to be executed by external studios.

Gamasutra's source further sugested that "once we're all gone they're going to sell the [RealGames] name and IP," but stressed the speculative nature of that prediction based on past events.

In a statement, Real said it expects to incur $3 million in charges for the staff restructuring and another $7 million in losses on now-excesss office facilities, which will be reflected in this year's financial results.

Linden Lab, developer of the virtual world Second Life, said Thursday that CEO Mark Kingdon would be stepping down from his position, just weeks after the company issued a round of layoffs.

Kingdon joined San Francisco’s Linden Labs in 2008, replacing then-CEO and founder Philip Rosedale, who had left his role to become chairman of the board.

The CEO’s departure comes after the early June announcement that the privately-held developer would be restructuring, resulting in the layoffs of 30 percent of the company’s staff. The company was founded in 1999, and the Linden Lab website said the company employs over 300 workers worldwide.

Rosedale, who still serves as chairman, will now also take on the role of interim CEO, while CFO Bob Komin will undertake the additional role of COO.

Linden Lab said that since Second Life’s introduction, the game has logged over 1 billion user hours and generated over $1 billion in user-to-user transactions.

In April, the company said Second Life generated $57 million in user-to-user transactions in March, with quarterly transactions jumping 30 percent year-on-year to $160 million.

London-based online game developer/publisher Mind Candy signed a master toy licensing agreement with UK toy/gift company Vivid Imaginations to create and sell Moshi Monster-branded toys around the world.

The initial toy line will include miniature collectibles and plush soft toys based on Mind Candy's free-to-play, browser-based game, with other products in development. The developer also recently announced a partnership with Penguin to release a series of Moshi Monsters books worldwide later this year.

Vivid, which has previously worked with companies such as Disney and Crayola, will launch the toys across the UK, North America, Australia, and New Zealand starting January 2011. It plans to support the release with TV advertising, online marketing, and a promotional plan targeting Moshi Monsters' extensive fanbase.

Since its launch in April 2008, Moshi Monsters has received more than 20 million registered users across 150 countries, receiving 2 million new players each month. The game allows users to adopt a pet monster, customize their homes, play minigames, explore a virtual world, and solve educational-style puzzles.

"Vivid is very excited to be launching Moshi Monsters into toy retailers in the coming months," says Vivid CEO Paul Weston. "This is clearly one of the hottest emerging kids properties in the world and it lends itself perfectly to toys and games.

He adds, "We clearly believe Moshi Monsters has many key traits for toy success - collectability, customisation and emotional appeal. Any brand that has a 20 million player-base has a phenomenal head-start in today’s crowded toy market."

Every other week, we examine the most popular Facebook games (according to monthly active users), looking at the top titles and developers on the social network to see who's attracting or losing players.

Though many of Facebook's most popular games are continuing to shed users -- likely due to changes the social network made last March to restrict application notification spam -- their losses aren't nearly as huge as they've been in the past several months, for the most part.

The user count for Zynga's FarmVille, the most popular app on the site, continued to slide, now down to 63.9 million players from 66.6 million. The farming sim is way down from its 85 million high last March, and it still gave up 2.7 million users in the past 14 days, but that's much less than the 8.9 million that abandoned the game during the last two-week span.

The rest of the top 5, with the exception of RockYou's non-game Birthday Cards, are Zynga titles: Texas HoldEm Poker (#2), Treasure Isle (#3), and Cafe World (#4). The latter two lost 2.5 million users and 1.5 million users respectively, but Texas HoldEm Poker actually picked up around a hundred thousand new players for a total of 28.6 million.

Mindjolt Games, the only popular app to see major gains two weeks ago, has kept its streak of luck and climbed a spot to #6 as it added 1.4 million players to its 19.8 million total. Zynga's Mafia Wars Game, though, dropped slightly to #7 as it relinquished nearly 1.3 million monthly active users, now down to 18.9 million.

Zynga's PetVille and its rival, Electronic Arts/Playfish's Pet Society, both stayed at #8 and #9 respectively. PetVille, though, lost nearly a million users in the past two weeks, bringing its total to 15.3 million, while Pet Society only lost 561,531 users and is now at 14.8 million.

At #10, FishVille, another Zynga title (seven of the top ten most popular titles are from the San Francisco-headquartered developer), parted with 724,891 million aquarium simulation players for a current total of 13.6 million monthly active users.

You can see the full list of the top 20 Facebook games along with exact monthly active user counts after the break:

Just a few days after the company announced its raising of another $33 million in venture capital financing, Playdom has revealed that it acquired social game developer Hive7 previously based in Palo Alto.

Though terms for the purchase were not disclosed, Hive7 says it has already moved its studio into Playdom's Mountain View headquarters and is already working on its next title. Founded in 2005, the developer has released titles like Knighthood, Youtopia, Kick-Off, and Sindicate across social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo.

Playdom has acquired and invested in over a half-dozen studios since it secured $76 million in a round of financing last November, including Merscom (The Crazies), Trippert Labs (Fighter Jets), Offbeat Creations (Super Farkle), Three Melons (Bola!), Green Patch (Lil Farm Life), Argentinian firm MetroGames (Music Challenge), and most recently Acclaim.

Thanks to its rapid expansion, the company now has studios in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Eugene (Oregon), Boulder (Colorado), Chapel Hill (North Carolina), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and in South Asia. On Facebook alone, Playdom's titles have attracted more than 36 million monthly active users, according to figures from AppData.

"We welcome Hive7's employees and contractors to our family," says Playdom CEO John Pleasants. "Our studio structure enables us to add stand-alone development start-ups like Hive7 to our portfolio without disrupting the cohesion and collegiality that made it such a special place to work.

He adds, "By integrating with our innovative central services and business intelligence functions, Hive7 will be positioned to develop deeper and more compelling games."

Organizers of the Game Developers Choice Online Awards at GDC Online in Austin this October are reminding that nominations for the awards -- honoring the best MMOs and social games -- are only open until June 30th.

The first-ever awards ceremony, being held at GDC Online (formerly GDC Austin), will honor the accomplishments of the sometimes overlooked creators and operators of persistent online video games -- from large-scale MMOs through free-to-play titles to social network games. The awards span excellence in live services, technology, game updates, online game design, and more.

In addition, two special awards will honor outstanding individuals and games in the space, with the Online Game Legend Award being given to a person who’s changed the world of online games forever, and one particular all-time classic online game being inducted into the GDC Online Awards’ Hall Of Fame.

After award finalists are announced, the worldwide community of online game players will also have the opportunity to designate their favorite online game in the Audience Award category.

Nominations are now open, and game professionals with free Gamasutra.com user accounts can put forward their favorite online games for the awards. The GDC Online Awards are a sister event to the Game Developers Choice Awards which take place at GDC San Francisco every year.

The award categories and this year’s Special Award winners will be determined by the GDC Online Advisory Board. This group includes notables like BioWare Austin’s Gordon Walton, Metaplace’s Raph Koster, Playfish’s Sebastien De Halleux, and Nexon’s Min Kim.

Winners for the Game Developers Choice Online Awards will be selected by a specially selected subset of the International Choice Awards Network (ICAN). This is the same group of over 500 handpicked leading industry creators that pick the Game Developers Choice Awards winners at GDC in San Francisco every year.

The full list of categories for the first annual Game Developers Choice Online Awards (part of the UBM Techweb Game Network, as is this website) include:

In a notable week for new job postings, Gamasutra's jobs board plays host to roles across the world and in every major discipline, including opportunities at 38 Studios, BioWare Austin, 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:

38 Studios: Audio Engineer
"38 Studios, a media and entertainment company founded in 2006 by Curt Schilling, is in pre-production on an original fantasy IP driven by the creative and artistic visions of pop-culture icons R. A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane.

Entertainment products will include an immersive online entertainment experience that transcends the traditional MMO genre, novels, comics, toys, movies, TV, and more. Based in Maynard, Massachusetts, the studio is a fun, energetic place to work, where the company mantra, "How cool would it be if . . . ?" infuses the team with a commitment to passion, integrity, and innovation."

BioWare Austin: Director of Studio Operations
"BioWare’s games have continually achieved critical and commercial success. All of our published titles are in the top 5% highest rated at www.gamerankings.com; in fact we have 6 games in the top 1% highest rated games of all time! Today BioWare has more than 400 staff at its two locations and continues to grow. We have sold over 20 million games (including engine licenses) in the past ten years!

BioWare Austin is located in the vibrant city of Austin, Texas. What better balance can a city offer than being both the 'Best Place for Business and Careers' and the 'Live Music Capital of the World'? Austin pleases all in rankings ranging from 'Best City for Relocating Families' to 'Best Cities for Singles'. Other assessments consistently recognize the region as among the most inventive, creative, wired, rockin', educated, fit and loved."

Sony Online Entertainment says its free-to-play MMO Free Realms has attracted 12 million registered users -- a number sure to grow if the company's plans to license the game in China pan out.

The publisher notes that its game reached this milestone just after it launched a virtual Summer Camp with various seasonal activities and content (e.g. beach chairs, volleyball nets) added to Free Realms. It's also hosting a free trial membership this weekend, giving players access to content usually reserved for paying subscribers.

"Our players wanted a summer of fun in Free Realms, so that's what we've provided. With new items, jobs and quests being added to the virtual world, there are more ways than ever to explore Free Realms," says SOE president John Smedley. "Our continued innovation and consistent player engagement have built an incredible forward momentum to take Free Realms into its second year, and beyond."

Free Realms reached the 12-million users mark in less than 14 months after the PC game's launch (a PlayStation 3 edition is forthcoming) in North America and Europe, and just two months after it hit 10 million users. SOE is looking to boost that numbers even more by licensing the game to operators outside the West.

The San Diego-based firm is currently in talks to license the game in China, according to an interview Smedley conducted with local MMO portal/news site 17173.com, which was reported on by China-focused research firm JLM Pacific Epoch. So far, SOE has met with Tencent, Shanda Interactive, and The9 to discuss bringing Free Realms to China.

Following in the footsteps of other online games like that have cut their monthly fees (e.g. The Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online), Hi-Rez Studios no longer requires subscriptions for its MMOFPS Global Agenda across all regions.

The game isn't completely gone free-to-play, though, as consumers will still need to purchase the game, a strategy also adopted recently by Quest Online for Alganon. Hi-Rez also plans to sell future optional expansions to users (Global Agenda's first major expansion, Sandstorm, is available for free to players).

To convince gamers to pick up the MMO first-person shooter, Hi-Rez has cut Global Agenda's price by 33 percent on digital distribution platform Steam as part of a sale that will last until July 5th. Purchasers will be able to access all current Player-vs-Player combat, Player-vs-Environment solo and co-op content, and Agency-vs- Agency seasons without a subscription.

Furthermore, Hi-Rez allows gamers to try out Global Agenda before buying the game until they reach level 15. The publisher also plans to add options for players to purchase account-related services (e.g. name changes) and token/XP boosts for earning experience and in-game currency faster. At the moment, it does not intend to sell the tokens themselves or in-game items.

"Hi-Rez Studios is committed to delivering the best value in PC gaming," says Global Agenda executive producer Todd Harris. "In addition to including all of the game’s initial launch content for free inside the single-purchase price, we are bundling nearly 6 months worth of post-release content and features and including that within the single-purchase game."

He adds, "One purchase of Global Agenda lets you experience all of this content forever with no subscription."