In Atari's first quarter last year, it released two moderate successes: Ghostbusters: The Video Game and The Chronicles of Riddick. However, with only one minor launch, Sandlot Sluggers, in this year's Q1, the publisher saw sales fall 65 percent to 19.3 million euros ($25 million) year over year.

The publisher has been turning to the online business as its primary revenue strategy after a long period of severe financial difficulty, debt and the notable exits of president Phil Harrison and casual studio head Paulina Bozek.

But even as its revenues have been falling, its strategy continues to bear fruit: Atari reversed a $210.3 million loss in the second half of its last fiscal year to create a profit, and now its new first quarter sees online sales up 320 percent to 8.4 million euros ($11 million) -- 43.5 percent of the total. The company says subscriptions are up for Cryptic Studios' Champions Online and Star Trek Online, accounting for the increasing shift in its revenue mix.

Atari's still counting on traditional launches for a "significant portion" of its sales to come, though, with a number of products releasing by Spring 2011. These include CD Projekt Red's anticipated PC sequel The Witcher 2, plus Test Drive Unlimited 2, Haunted House, Backyard Sport: Rookie Rush and a series of titles for console downloadable platforms.

Electronic Arts has selected Live Gamer's online monetization platform Elements to power its global microtransactions-based projects and help accelerate its online gaming strategy.

Elements offers online game developers and publishers access to payment gateways, virtual goods merchandising functionality, analytics capabilities, virtual item gifting, support for in-game currencies, item storefronts, catalog management, cash-in flows, and more.

EA plans to integrate Elements with its global IT systems to "augment its existing ecommerce capabilities" for the publisher's studios around the world. The company didn't name any specific titles that Live Gamer will support, though it's free-to-play catalog includes several existing releases such as BattleForge, FIFA Online, and Battlefield Heroes.

This marks the third major deal Live Gamer has announced in the past seven days, having announced last week a partnership with social gaming platform GameHouse Fusion and a deal with THQ that includes Company of Heroes Online and future online titles.

Live Gamer says its arrangement with EA further indicates the industry's move towards the microtransaction-based model. The company's microtransaction solutions support more than 83 million users in 23 countries through online games from publishers like SOny Online Entertainment, Funcom, and NHN USA.

"EA is synonymous with some of the most popular video games of all time," says Live Gamer president and co-founder Andrew Schneider. "EA has also embraced and innovated new business models in the game industry since its pioneering efforts in online gaming and now extending to their entrance into social gaming."

Schneider continues, "We are honored to be part of EA's efforts to further evolve the industry and offer gamers new and exciting online experiences."

Perfect World Entertainment announced that Heroes of Three Kingdoms, its free-to-play massively multiplayer online roleplaying game based on China's famous Three Kingdoms period, launches its open beta tomorrow.

Many video games based on this turbulent era have released in the West, such as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Dynasty Warriors franchises, but Heroes of Three Kingdoms takes the experience online with customizable characters, historical instances (e.g. Battle of Red Cliff), and community features.

The MMORPG features a Kingdom War system that invites players to choose from one of three factions (Wei, Shu, or Wu), create/join guilds, and battle rival kingdoms for territorial gain. They can also fight against each other through the game's Player versus Player and Battleground features.

Heroes of Three Kingdoms' title system also offers hundreds of different titles and occupations for gamers to acquire, each title providing unique benefits. Furthermore, the game's reputation system allows players to move up the ranks within the community, rewarding them with access to better equipment and stronger skill sets.

"The player response to Heroes of Three Kingdoms has been tremendous," says Perfect World Entertainment product manager AJ Potter. "We are always striving to excite our fans with new games that resonate beyond the traditional RPG experience.

He adds, "By continually looking for ways to make improvement, listening to player feedback, we are ensuring that we fulfill our commitment to deliver our players the best game possible, and we look forward to delivering this amazing piece of history to North American gamers."

Chinese online games company Changyou, a subsidiary of Sohu, saw record high revenues in the second quarter of 2010, with its MMOs generating $77.7 million for the quarter ending June 30th -- a 17 percent year-over-year increase.

That amount also represents an 8 percent growth in revenues compared to the previous quarter, and exceeded the high end of group guidance. Changyou predicts that its online gaming revenues for the third quarter of 2010 will continue to grow to $80-83 million.

The firm's titles include free-to-play MMORPGS such as its flagship release Tian Long Ba Bu (known as Dragon Oath in North America) and Zhong Hua Ying Xiong. According to Changyou, the popularity of TLBB helped drive revenues for its game operations up to $75.6 million, an increase of 8 percent quarter-over-quarter and 16 percent year-over-year.

It also attributed boosts in the company's Q2 2010 overseas licensing revenues of $2.1 million, a growth of 15 percent quarter-over-quarter and 29 percent year-over-year, to "increased momentum" of TLBB in countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia.

The total number of registered accounts across all of Changyou's games jumped up 12 percent quarter-over-quarter and 42 percent year-over-year to 98.2 million, while the amount of active paying accounts for those titles grew 17 percent quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year to around 2.79 million.

Changyou notes, though, that its average revenues per active paying account (ARPU) dropped 8 percent quarter-over-quarter and 1 percent year-over-year to RMB 184, or $24. The company says this is consistent with its "intention to have ARPU within a range that keeps the company's games affordable for the majority of Chinese game players."

"The double-digit sequential increases in the user base of our games and the record financial results achieved in the second quarter reaffirms our confidence in the future of the online games industry in China and of our company," says Changyou's CEO Mr. Tao Wang, Changyou's chief executive officer.

He adds, "We believe our current and past successes with expansion packs and our ongoing pursuit of creativity and quality in new game developments will help enhance our brand equity and deliver greater shareholder value over the long term."

Square Enix found great success with Final Fantasy XI. The title has been operating on PC and since 2002 in Japan, since 2003 in the U.S., and 2004 in Europe. Meanwhile, it's also been released and continues to operate on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 as well -- and as a subscription title with a large base, it continues to earn revenues for the publisher, which still supports it all these years later.

Now, the company is on the verge of releasing its next premium MMO to a global audience. Currently in beta on the PC, Final Fantasy XIV will be released to the public this September on PC and early next year on the PlayStation 3.

Recently, Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra had a chance to speak to Hiromichi Tanaka, who is senior vice president of software development at Square Enix, about its MMO business.

In addition to that role, Tanaka is also in directly charge of development on both of the FFXI and FFXIV projects, and has been with the company since the 1980s. He was joined for this discussion -- on the significance of the online franchise to the company and its plans -- by Square Enix's North American online producer Yasu Kurosawa.

What does Final Fantasy XIV represent for Square Enix?

Hiromichi Tanaka: As it's the latest Final Fantasy series title, we're trying to figure out what an MMORPG can bring as a game, so it's really a new challenge to us.

As it's an MMORPG, our previous title was Final Fantasy XI. That has been going on for eight years now. Of course we had as PC and PlayStation 2 as its platform [so] it's becoming quite aged now. So, we are trying to make a new MMORPG, the next generation MMORPG -- so we're really working hard for this new title.

Major video game retailer GameStop, which does a significant share of its business on the second-hand market, has long promised it will stay ahead of the curve in the industry's shift to digital. Today, the company took a step in demonstrating that, announcing it's buying social gaming and indie game community Kongregate.

Kongregate is a free-to-play site that lets indie and social game designers host their Flash games -- and even monetize them via an application platform that enables indie developers to implement a virtual transactions model. It's home to over 10 million users a month, the company says.

It also offers social features like profiles, leaderboards, achievements and communication interfaces for players, who collectively spend 23 million hours on the site. The company's even begun going mobile, recently inking a deal with Adobe to bring its Flash titles to the Android platform.

According to GameStop, this all ties very well into the company's digital strategy, its "commitment to become the gaming aggregator of choice," and serves its existing core gamer userbase.

"Combining Kongregate’s expansive catalogue of games with our well known consumer brand, powerful marketing and strong customer relationships, means that even more gamers will be able to enjoy their games anytime, anywhere and on any device," says GameStop president Tony Bartel. The company did not disclose terms of the acquisition.

Along with revealing its acquisition of Kongregate, video game retailer GameStop announced a new in-store promotion for Gangsta Zombies, its free Facebook game allowing players to take ton the role of an undead gangster in their quest to "become the top Zombie Don" in their city.

As part of the campaign, all U.S. GameStop locations are giving out game cards with codes players can key into Gangsta Zombies to receive free virtual currency, which they can then spend on digital goods.

Alongside those promotional items, the chain will sell $10 prepaid cards that come with a competition code and unlock an exclusive game avatar. GameStop is also running a companion sweepstakes through August 21st that promises a grand prize of "free video games for a year (up to $1,000).

Though GameStop waited until today to announce the launch of Gangsta Zombies, the game released early last month. Developed by the company's Jolt Online Gaming subsidiary, the zombie-fied Mafia Wars clone has so far up almost 200,000 players, according to figures from AppData.

Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling's online game company 38 Studios will leave Maynard, Massachusetts and head to Rhode Island, which agreed to sign a controversial $75 million loan guarantee.

The luring of Schilling's company, which has yet to release a game, is an initial step in Rhode Island's bid to make the state more inviting for video game development, according to a report in The Boston Globe. The Rhode Island Economic Development Corp. voted 8 to 1 in favor of the loan guarantee.

But the loan guarantee has already drawn criticism from gubernatorial candidates in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, who expressed concern that taxpayers would be left with the burden of the $75 million loan default if 38 Studios failed.

Massachusetts independent candidate Tim Cahill said the loan was "an extraordinary amount of money," adding, "I don't think as a matter of policy it's a good idea to give tax credits to individual companies betting on their success."

Former Republican U.S. senator and Rhode Island independent gubernatorial candidate Lincoln Chaffee called the unsecured loan an "unacceptable gamble to ask the taxpayers of Rhode Island to take."

If successful, the company could attract 450 jobs to Rhode Island by the end of 2012, the studio said. 38 Studios also said it would pay a penalty if it comes up short. According to The Boston Globe, the state will not directly loan the money, but act essentially as a cosigner on the loan.

As momentum builds for GDC Online (formerly GDC Austin) in Texas this October, organizers have announced key new lectures from the world's leading online game firms, including Zynga, Disney, Playdom, Tencent, and more.

The Austin, Texas-based GDC Online conference and expo -- taking place October 5-8, 2010 -- is focused on online games of all kinds -- including social network titles, free-to-play web games, kid-friendly online titles, large-scale MMOs, and more.

With a leading advisory board guiding the evaluation and choice of lectures, and the newly announced GDC Online Awards honoring the leading games in the space, the conference is a must-attend for those working in online games.

Some of the highlights from newly announced sessions -- as the August 4th alumni registration deadline for GDC Austin 2008/2009 attendees and speakers approaches -- include:

- 'AAA To Social Games -- Making the Leap' sees Playdom VP John Donham, most recently at Metaplace and a 20-year veteran of online games, discussing why "developing games for social networks is a dramatic shift from making titles for PCs, consoles, or even the Internet." The session will "provide you with a solid basis for revising your strategy as you approach social game development."

- In 'Scalability for Social Games: YoVille, Mafia Wars and Farmville', Zynga's Robert Zubek expands on his GDC 2010 Summit talk from the leading Facebook game firm to "describe architectures and proven techniques for building scalable server infrastructure, particularly for social web games, operating on the web and social networks."

Sony Online Entertainment announced EverQuest II Extended, a new free-to-play option giving the MMORPG's players access to the full game without needing to buy the game or pay for a subscription.

Scheduled for a beta launch some time in mid-August, Extended will serve as an alternative to the online game's paid subscription option, providing access to nearly all of the MMO's zones, including those introduced in expansions all the way through The Shadow Odyssey -- the most recent expansion, Sentinel's Fate, released last February.

To monetize Extended players, SOE will sell them power-up potions, armor, classes, races, weapons, mounts, and other items through its marketplace. It also intends to feature several tiers of service upgrade options designed to let users customize their experience (e.g. additional character slots, higher spell tiers, and more) to fit their needs.

Extended also introduces a new web-based download application allowing EverQuest II players to experience the game's 3D world and content without "a daunting installation or a massive download." SOE plans to debut a new starting zone for free-to-play users called New Halas with premium-designed content targeting players levels 1-20, too.

EverQuest II joins a growing list of MMORPGs that have recently switched to free-to-play or subscription-free models, such as Quest Online's Alganon, Hi-Rez's Global Agenda, and Turbine's Dungeons & Dragons Online and The Lord of the Rings Online. SOE has seen tremendous success with its other free-to-play MMO, Free Realms, which has more than 12 million registered players.

"As the digital entertainment market evolves, SOE is focused on continued innovation in content delivery that best fit the needs of the growing consumer base," says SOE presiden, John Smedley. "Our goal with Extended is to offer players an alternative to our current subscription program that gives them the option to choose a program that best fits their play style."

Confirming recent rumors of the acquisition, the Walt Disney Company announced its agreement to buy social game developer Playdom (Social City, Sorority Life) for as much as $763.2 Million.

As part of the acquisition deal, Playdom's shareholders will receive "total consideration" of $563.2 million, which is subject to certain conditions. Disney also promises a "performance-linked earn-out" of up to $200 million, though it did not outline its goals for that bonus.

The media conglomerate says that this purchase will strengthen its digital gaming portfolio, as well as enable new opportunities for fans to interact with the company and its brands on social networks. It adds that Playdom's "social gaming software tools, business intelligence and rapid innovation " will benefit its Disney Interactive Media Group.

Founded in early 2008 and headquartered in Mountain View, Playdom currently has 15 development studios, many of which it's added in the past eight months. The company has acquired or invested in nine developers since last November, including Merscom, Trippert Labs, Offbeat Creations, Three Melons, Green Patch, Argentinian firm MetroGames , Acclaim, Hive7, and most recently Metaplace.

Disney expects to complete the transaction by the end of its 2010 fiscal year (October 3rd). Playdom's CEO and Electronic Arts veteran John Pleasants will serve as general manager of the developer and join the Disney Interactive Media Group as executive vice president, reporting to that unit's president Steve Wadsworth.

"We are at the start of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the way people of all ages play games with their friends across devices, platforms and geographical boundaries," says Pleasants. "Disney is an incredibly forward-thinking company that shares our vision and is the ideal partner to further our mission to bring great entertainment to people around the world."

Chinese MMORPG company Perfect World announced that its subsidiary, Beijing Perfect World Cultural Communication, has agreed to invest a majority stake in local film and television firms Beijing Xinbaoyuan Movie & TV Investment and Shanghai Baohong Entertainment and Media.

The online games developer and operator made a cash investment of around RMB 110 million ($16.2 million) into Beijing Xinbaoyuan Movie & TV Investment and RMB 82.3 million ($12.1 million) into Shanghai Baohong Entertainment and Media.

Both of the firms have been controlled and managed by Ding Xin, a veteran in the television content distribution field; and by Zhao Baogang (Struggle, Mei Yan Fang Fei), a famous TV director in China. Xinbaoyuan also operates an entertainment agency business and currently represents more than 20 celebrities.

Perfect World's free-to-play MMORPGs include Perfect World, Legend of Martial Arts, and many other titles available Asia, Europe, and North America. It's U.S. subsidiary has published titles such as Torchlight, Jade Dynasty, and Battle of the Immortals, and most recently launched an open beta for Heroes of The Three Kingdoms.

"We are very pleased to announce our strategic investments in Xinbaoyuan and Baohong," says Perfect World CEO and chairman Mr. Michael Chi. "Making strategic acquisitions and investments in complementary fields continues to be one of our core growth strategies. We continue to see a lot of potential in the television and movie industry in China, and believe that our involvement in the broader entertainment industry will be beneficial to our core business.

Chi adds, "We believe the expertise, creativity and innovation, and strong reputation of both companies in the film and television industry will bring new, future growth opportunities to our company, while creating synergies with our core gaming business primarily through content generation and co-promotion. We are excited to work together with such a reputable team to further the development of the entertainment industry in China."

Expanding on comments made in an open letter from its CEO, Demiurge Studios' studio director Albert Reed spoke to Gamasutra about the "shocking" decision made by Curt Schilling's 38 Studios to move to Rhode Island.

"This is the town that brought you Guitar Hero, Rock Band, BioShock and Asheron's Call. 2K has a studio here [Rockstar New England] that did a bunch of work on Red Dead Redemption. And it's not a bunch of disparate companies that don't' talk to each other. There's very much a community here," said Reed, in an impassioned defense of the region.

"We have, in Boston -- I think more than anywhere else in the country -- we have this really wonderful, tight-knit, game development community where it's been very organically grown from studios that are old as stone like Irrational and Harmonix, and they've just been around making games for forever," says Reed.

Reed seems to suggest that decisions like these undermine the human part of the game development equation in favor of financial rewards. 38's decision to move was founded on the fact that the Rhode Island state government will guarantee a loan of $75 million dollars for the studio.

GameStop's acquisition of indie Flash game and social hub Kongregate represents a gain in the major brick-and-mortar retailer's strategy to stay in step with fast-evolving digital trends. And while the small-developer community ethos of Kongregate might initially seem at odds with the corporate retail change, the companies see it as a net gain for all involved.

"We've been talking for a while publicly about where we see ourselves in the future as it relates to our digital strategy," says GameStop's digital ventures GM Chris Petrovic. The retailer estimates about 500 million visitors to its physical stores and 10-15 million uniques to its online destination; combined with its longstanding retail partnerships with major publishers, the company believes it's positioned as an "aggregator of great content", and that's the same way Kongregate has always viewed itself.

"They know how to bring mass amounts of community to a destination, as well as get great games from developers and monetize that," Petrovic says. "We feel we're kindred spirits in that way, we both appeal to the core gamers primarily. This allows us to fulfill a lot of what we've talked about up until now -- to be that leading destination across internet-connected devices."

GameStop's seen strong growth thanks to its ability in recent months to outperform the software market overall on sales of new goods, and in particular its thriving used game business. But many analysts have questioned the long-term relevance of physical retail alongside the rapid growth of digital business, and the company's been aiming rapidly to catch up and leverage digital rather than fight it.

What GameStop Can Learn From Kongregate

"While we have a lot of expertise in the retailing of primarily console games for the living room, we've done a lot of hard work over the past year learning a lot about the casual and free-to-play markets we're real excited to have Jim [Greer, Kongregate founder] and his team bring a ton of expertise about that market," says Shawn Freeman, GameStop's senior VP and GM of digital business and e-commerce.

Internet/mobile services firm and online game developer Tencent has signed a multi-SKU licensing agreement with Emergent Game Technologies for the use of the company's Gamebryo and Gamebryo Lightspeed engines.

Emergent's engines allow developers to create single-player, online, and multiplayer titles in a variety of genres, providing a cross-platform toolset for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, and PC projects. They're designed for "rapid prototyping, rapid iteration, and rapid development", and allow studios to integrate both in-house and third-party tech.

Headquartered in Shenzhen, China, Tencent develops, publishers, and operates a number of MMOs and casual titles, including Dungeon & Fighter (Dungeon Fighter Online), Cross Fire, and more than 60 other games. It also runs QQ.com, one of China's largest web portals.

Tencent maintains a development studio in Boston, which is currently working on an unannounced "fantasy-based MMO". The company hasn't revealed if that project will use Emergent's engines, but it has said that Gamebryo and Lightspeed will serve as "core client side technologies" for the development of its gaming products.

"Tencent is a true global success story, continually innovating with each level of its business and we look forward to a long, integrated partnership to help them realize the next level of videogame entertainment," says Emergent CEO Scott M. Johnson. "Emergent’s products allow Tencent’s teams to focus more on game specific development and content creation, rather than core client technology development."

Disney's recent buy of Playdom may not have been a wise move, says one analyst, perplexed by the high value of the acquisition in a climate of viral slowdown for Facebook games.

The Mouse paid $563 million, plus the possibility of an additional $200 million if the Social City and Sorority Life developer achieves certain performance targets. That's a possible value of $763 million all told -- a deal that Cowen and Company's Doug Creutz says "looks very expensive."

He says it's unclear whether Disney can possibly expect that kind of return on its investment -- according to the analyst, this is the fourth large-scale acquisition since CEO Bob Iger became CEO in 2005. Among these acquisitions was the equally-massive buy of online kids' social world Club Penguin, for which Disney paid about $700 million during a period when virtual worlds were nearly as popular with investors as social gaming is now. $350 million of that price was target-based incentives that the company ultimately missed.

Not only are such big buys "potentially raising questions about how to evaluate the returns on Disney's strategic deployment of shareholder capital," according to the analyst, the Playdom acquisition seems illogical to Creutz when compared with the relatively recent $400 million Playfish purchase by EA ($300 million up-front, $100 million with performance contingencies).

According to the analyst, Playdom's user base is about 30 percent smaller than the 60 million monthly active users across all platforms that Playfish had at the time it was purchased by EA; on Facebook only, Creutz cites AppData figures to suggest Playdom's monthly actives are about 15 percent smaller -- which makes it questionable why Disney's potential purchase price for Playdom is almost twice as high as Playfish's just eight months ago.

Zynga's decision to shutter its Street Racing social game has incited frustrated players to accuse the developer of delivering the cancellation news insensitively and providing inadequate compensation.

The San Francisco-headquartered company announced the game's termination in its forums and app page with a brief note that reads, "On August 2, 2010, Street Racing will be shutting down its garage doors and will no longer be open for business. But if you liked Street Racing, try out FrontierVille by Zynga ... See ya there partner!"

Social games analyst Nicholas Lovell, who described the announcement as "asking for trouble", told trade site Develop, "Telling people to try FrontierVille from Street Racing is telling people to play a game that is completely different in terms of concept and design. A hugely apologetic email would have made more sense."

Zynga posted a similar note when announcing its cancellation of Roller Coaster Kingdom last month, inviting players to try out Vampire Wars. And while some Street Racing fans are upset over the studio's apparent indifference, even more are complaining about losing the virtual cars and modifications they've purchased in the game with real cash.

Lovell commented on the issue : “[What] they could have done is offer people credits, where every pound/[dollar] you spend in Street Racing will be used in other games. But I imagine they didn’t want to set that precedent.

Zynga didn't provide any reasons for why it's removing Street Racing from its servers, but the title has received very few updates in recent months and has a shrinking audience of around 444,000 monthly active users -- an impressive amount for smaller developers perhaps, but a fraction of what the company's top releases typically pull.

Despite Zynga's top releases attracting tens of millions of monthly active players, this isn't the first time the firm has shut down one of its social games. It's previously discontinued titles like Ponzi Inc. (after acquiring its developer Challenge Games), Dope Wars, and most recently Roller Coaster Kingdom.

Update: Zynga has since addressed these issues by offering to compensate any Street Racing players who have purchased in-game goods within the last 90 days with virtual currency they can spend in some of Zynga's most popular titles.

"As an acknowledgment of the inconvenience these changes may have caused, we have offered credits to all players who have made a purchase in the last 90 days," said a representative for the developer. "Those players will receive a credit for the exact amount of their purchases, plus an additional 100 units of premium currency, in any of Zynga’s nine most popular games."

"We thank the Street Racing community for their support and hope they enjoy a new Zynga game of their choosing."

Google is talking to "several" developers in the social gaming space about the creation of a social network that would rival the 500 million-strong Facebook, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The report cited multiple anonymous sources close to the dealings who said Google is talking to companies including Playfish parent Electronic Arts, FarmVille house Zynga and Disney's recent acquisition, Playdom.

If Google launches the reported games-friendly social network, it would find itself in direct competition with Facebook, which is home to the leading social network games. A successful Google social network could also give game developers another viable platform to reach the millions of "social" gamers who spend real-world cash on virtual items.

Google did not immediately respond to Gamasutra's inquiry about the service. The Wall Street Journal said that Google CEO Eric Schmidt this week would not confirm development of a social game-friendly networking service, rumored to be called "Google Me."

The search engine giant is keenly interested in expanding its reach into the gaming space. In April this year, Google hired longtime game industry veteran Mark DeLoura as developer advocate for games at the company.

"In this time of great disruption in the game industry, there are a huge number of opportunities for developers," he said at the time. "It can be difficult for traditional games companies to navigate the new possibilities provided by mobile platforms, social networks, and alternative business models."

Google reportedly invested around $100 million into Zynga this year as it prepares for a wide-reaching gaming initiative. Schmidt did not confirm the unannounced deal, but said, "you can expect a partnership with Zynga [in the future]."

The most recent major social gaming transaction was Disney's acquisition of Sorority Life developer Playdom for $563.2 million and up to an additional $200 million in earn-outs.

Games network IGN Entertainment has launched its beta for MyIGN, a gamer-focused social network adding game-like elements and new community features to its flagship consumer news site.

The social network, which acts as a layer over the company's site, looks to keep IGN.com's 12.7 million monthly visitors (the entire network attracts over 18 million visitors each month) entertained by offering features that allow them to track items posted on the site and compete with their friends.

MyIGN enables the site's users to follow specific releases, game developers, IGN.com editors, and other users to create and customize a personal newsfeed that provides news, reviews, videso, blog posts, and more. They can also post status updates, similar to other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

As users take advantage of these features and participate in the MyIGN community, they'll earn points and level up. The system adds a competitive element, as users' levels are displayed throughout the site, and IGN hopes this will motivate them to become more active and beat their friends' ranking.

Though IGN's parent company, News Corp., also owns MySpace, the technology for this social network was developed within IGN, according to a report from VentureBeat. Producing MyIGN in-house allowed the site to tailor its features to what it believes gamers want.

"We created it because gamers are not currently served by social networks," said IGN's SVP and publisher Peer Schneider. "If I post what I really feel about a game on Facebook, I’ll get odd comments from non-gaming friends and family. In our setting, you can feel comfortable talking about gaming. No one else has nailed it."

IGN plans to eventually introduce new features to the social network, such as the ability to join friends in games, try out instantaneous demos, and purchase digitally distributed releases. Users can currently sign up for the social features by using their existing IGN account, creating a new IGN account, or logging in with their Facebook details.

Social game developer Playdom is the latest studio to sign a five-year contract with Facebook to exclusively use the social network's universal virtual currency Credits across all its titles.

The news follows just a few days after Disney announced its agreement to acquire Playdom for up to $763 million, a purchase that puts Facebook in the position to claim that Credits, which is currently in beta, has the support of a major media conglomerate, possibly compelling other companies to follow suit.

Inside Social Games, which reported the new contract, notes that developers such as Wooga (Monster World), LOLapps (Band of Heroes), RockYou (Zoo World), and CrowdStar (Happy Aquarium) have also announced agreements to exclusively use Credits, with the latter two signing similar five-year deals with Facebook.

With Credits, players can purchase digital goods in any social games that support Facebook's in-house virtual currency. The benefit of this system to users is that it's designed to be more portable than virtual currencies that they can only spend in a specific game or a catalog of titles from a single publisher.

Playdom, which will soon join the Disney Interactive Media Group if the acquisition is completed, offers dozens of titles on Facebook and MySpace. On Facebook alone, its games (e.g. Social City, Tiki Resort) bring in a total of more than 38 million monthly active users, according to figures from AppData.

The Lego Group announce that it's selected newly opened studio Dire Wolf Digital to produce a trading card game based on its upcoming Lego Universe massively multiplayer online game.

This agreement with Dire Wolf allows the company to not only create a physical collectible card game, but also digital products for PC, Mac, and mobile devices. The studio doesn't plans to release the Lego Universe card game until 2011, while the NetDevil-developed MMO will launch on October 26, 2010.

Based in Denver, the studio is headed by Sony Online Entertainment Denver's former head Scott Martins, and is staffed by veterans from SOE and Worlds Apart Productions (acquired by SOE in 2006). Martins and his team have previously specialized in creating online trading card games like Legends of Norrath and the Free Realms TCG.

The developer says it has an "Anytime, Anyplace" approach for its technology, which is designed to enable consumers to "play from multiple types of clients (web/social, mobile, console), all connecting to a single back-end." Dire Wolf's deal with the Lego Group allows it to potentially implement this concept with its Lego Universe project.

"Creating a game with the Lego Group and NetDevil is an exciting opportunity, allowing us to work with a beloved brand and great business partners," says Martins. "The creativity and ‘build anything’ spirit of the brand and Lego Universe fit perfectly with trading card games, where players are limited only by their imaginations."

Farmville developer Zynga has teamed up with telecommunications/media corporation Softbank to create Zynga Japan, a joint venture focusing on social games and the local mobile market.

Along with announcing the Tokyo-based joint venture, Softbank revealed that it's completed a previously reported $150 million investment in Zynga, boosting the San Francisco's total amount of venture backing raised since its founding three years ago up to almost $370 million.

With the establishing of Zynga Japan, the developer is taking its first step into Japan's growing internet and mobile businesses. The joint venture looks to tap into Japan's history of gaming while leveraging Softbank's mobile and web technology to produce what the two firms hope will be "the best social games in the market".

"We're excited to partner with Softbank to bring Zynga's social games to Japan and gain insights from the Japanese market," says Zynga founder and CEO Mark Pincus. "As one of the most innovative technology companies in the world, Softbank is bringing the mobile internet to consumers making the social web more accessible to people everywhere."

Every other week, we'll examine the fastest growing Facebook games (according to monthly active users), looking at which titles and developers are having the most success attracting new players on the social network.

Though Lyore Network's QuizBone doesn't seem to really qualify as a game, the quiz-making title was still the fastest growing app listed in Facebook's "Games" category, doubling its audience to 2.9 million after gaining 1.5 million new users in the last week.

QuizBone managed to overtake Zynga's FrontierVille, which held that #1 spot almost every week since its launch in June. The pioneering sim grew by 6 percent and now has 21.9 million players, 1.1 million of which just started playing within the past seven days.

At #3, Watercooler's Kingdoms of Camelot grew its userbase as it added 970,122 new players, now up to a total of 4 million. The kingdom-building simulator spent the past month below 3 million users but experienced a 32 percent surge for its audience recently.

Playdom's offbeat game Fanglies (#4), which launched earlier this month, more than tripled its total to 1.1 million users after attracting 838,583 new players. Apparently, gamers have taken to the idea of a city-building sim starring cartoonish vampires!

Playfish/Electronic Arts' Pirates Ahoy, another early July release, shot up to #5 and enjoyed a 1,425 percent growth this week, picking up 796,939 new swashbucklers and expanding its total crew to 852,846 players. The new title invites players to sail with their friends and search for treasures.

ZipZapPlay's Baking Life hasn't budged from its #6 spot since our last tally, bringing in 787,344 (+23 percent) new users for a total of 4.3 milion. Metrogames' clothing store management game Fashion World climbed up to #7, with 779,802 new shoppers joining for a total of 3.1 million.

Two more non-games, Windows Live Messenger and Entrevista tus Amigos, popped up on our list of Facebook's fastest growing games at #8 and #9 respectively. Popcap Games Bejeweled Blitz continues to grow on the social network, as 733,654 new gem-matchers (+7 percent) helped bring its total audience size up to 11.5 million.

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

All charts and data are courtesy of Facebook application metrics and trends site AppData

Realtime Worlds, developer of APB and the original Crackdown, has announced Project: MyWorld, a PC platform that combines social media with a virtual representation of the real world.

More of a social platform than a game, Project: MyWorld uses data from GIS (geographic information system) mapping services to create a 3D render of entire countries. Users can then alter the features of cities and towns using in-game tools to make buildings and other structures more accurately mimic the real world.

Project: MyWorld uses a Wiki-like system to ensure that users do not alter the virtual world in ways that stray too far from reality. Realtime Worlds released a walkthrough video, demonstrating tools that allow users to alter the dimensions, colors, textures, and external features of buildings.

The project integrates several forms of social media, including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Google, and Loopt, though there are few details about how these services will work within the platform.

Users can also play several types of casual games within the virtual locations, including fishing, driving, farming, and flying.

“We see Project: MyWorld as the next generation of social game platforms…we see it has the intersection between virtual worlds, online gaming and social media,” explains Sean Dugan, design director of Project: MyWorld.

Realtime Worlds hopes to open the Project: MyWorld platform to users early next year.

Academic, author and game designer Ian Bogost is a little bit worried that his latest game, Cow Clicker -- a simple Facebook title simply about clicking on cows -- might receive more attention than anything he's done to date. If that turns out to be the case, it'll be an interesting turn of irony, the sort that motivates the sometimes-controversial designer: this is because Cow Clicker is a satire that asks players and developers alike to examine the explosive popularity of Facebook games.

Cow Clicker, Bogost tells Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra, was initially conceived as an alternative to a straight lecture presentation he was asked to give at an NYU event; with only ten minutes to speak, and (as usual for Bogost) "a lot to say", why not show instead of tell? Cow Clicker was intended to present the four issues that Bogost says "concern" him most about Facebook games: "enframing, compulsion, optionalism, and destroyed time," described in detail on his blog post about the title.

Gameplay in Cow Clicker is insultingly simple -- Bogost has described it as "Facebook games distilled to their essence." Users obtain a cow on which they can click every six hours, and every time they click, they earn more opportunities to click their cow or their friends' cows. Users can buy custom "premium" cows or buy their way out of the six-hour delay with the game's currency, "Mooney" (Bogost claims that the coincidence with the last name of Zynga's vice president is nothing more than sheer accident).

"It's particularly easy to be a negative critic, to talk down about something from on high," he says. "By making a game to deliver that message, I hoped it would be taken more seriously." So while Cow Clicker is, in a nutshell, a criticism of the social game industry, "that's not all it is," he adds. "It's also a social game! Which is counterintuitive, isn't it?"

Free-to-play online publisher Nexon America (Maplestory, Dungeon Fighter Online) revealed that its revenues grew 26 percent for the second quarter of 2010 ending last June.

While Nexon America, which is the Stateside arm of South Korean developer and publisher Nexon Corp., hasn't yet provided exact revenue and profit numbers for Q2 2010, it noted that in June alone, its revenues were 36 percent higher compared to the same period last year.

This announcement continues a trend of increasing revenues for the North American division -- last May, the firm enjoyed an increase in revenues to $45.5 million for 2009, a 31 percent growth over the $34.3 million it cashed the previous year

Nexon America's free-to-play titles include MapleStory, which claims more than seven million registered users in the region; Combat Arms, which has over four milion registered users; and Mabinogi with one million users. It also recently launched Dungeon Fighter Online here, and will begin a closed beta for Vindictus next month.

"Our player base and revenues continue to expand, which tells us that gamers find that our free-to-play business model fits their play needs," said Nexon America's CEO Daniel Kim, according to a report from Games Beat.

Veteran game designer and erstwhile cosmonaut Richard "Lord British" Garriott has prevailed in his legal action against former employer NCsoft, scoring $28 million in a dispute over stock options and the circumstances of his departure from the company.

A federal court yesterday ruled that NCsoft had deprived Garriott of profits on his stock options by mis-categorizing his exit. The Ultima creator, whose last project with NCsoft was the disappointing Tabula Rasa, left the company in November 2008, a month after his return from his space tourism expedition on board the International Space Station.

In his suit, Garriott had claimed he was 'forced out' of NCsoft and that he had "objected to his dismissal," yet the company claimed he left voluntarily -- a decision that meant Garriott had to quickly sell his stock options in a disadvantageous market or lose them altogether, whereas had he been categorized as terminated, he would have had 10 years to divest.

According to a report in Austin's Statesman, the trial lasted three-and-a-half days, and the jury spent three hours deliberating before making the decision to award Garriott the $28 million -- less than the $47 he had been seeking, but an amount equal to the profit he missed out on by having to sell quickly.

Garriott, whose newest venture is a Facebook gaming start-up called Portalarium, said he was "very pleased with the final award". South Korea-headquarted NCsoft said via its attorney, however, that it "will be considering all options for next steps in the legal process."

According to the report, Garriott first heard he would lose his job when he was spending time in quarantine in Russia following his space trip. Just after he returned, NCsoft announced it would soon close Tabula Rasa, an MMO launched under Garriott's stewardship a year prior that became a commercial failure, with only about a year on the market.

In a plentiful week for new job postings, Gamasutra's jobs board plays host to roles across the world and in every major discipline, including opportunities at Blizzard, Eat Sleep Play 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:

Crytek: Lead Designer
"Crytek is always looking for the best talent in the industry. If you are passionate about great games and want to work with a highly talented and creative team on cutting edge technology and tools, then look no further."

Eat Sleep Play: Game Programmer
"Eat Sleep Play, Inc. is a game development studio with immediate openings. Located in Salt Lake City, Utah, ESP is currently under contract with a major publisher to develop game product for the Playstation 3 game console. The ESP team has an experienced track record of creating hit Playstation titles such as Twisted Metal 1, 2, Black & Head-On, Jetmoto, Warhawk, Critical Depth, Downhill Domination, War of The Monsters, Calling All Cars and most recently Twisted Metal:Head-On for PS2."

Vietnam's Ministry of Information and Communications is placing restrictions on public internet access and banning ads for online games following complaints that games help lead to juvenile crime, according to the country's state-run news agency. Minister Le Doan Hop announced the decision on Tuesday.

The Vietnam News agency said citizens are concerned about online games' "negative influences on the youth." The restrictions follow public outcry that blamed increasing reports of juvenile crime and school truancy on online games and their allegedly addictive allure.

The government in effect said it would cut off internet access from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. to shops that offer public PC use. Officials will also issue a temporary stop on licensing of online games.

The restrictions are valid through the end of the year, by which time the ministry said it expects the government to approve draft online game regulations. In Vietnam, there are 22 licensed gaming companies and 93 games, according to the report.

Long-term potential solutions to the alleged negative effects of youth online gaming include electronic IDs used to manage citizen's internet usage. Director of the ministry's Electronic Information and Broadcasting Department Luu Vu Hai said the IDs could also help regulate subscribers to mobile devices.

The Ho Chi Minh City executive council is also pushing for limitations on games with violent, gambling and pornographic content.

Vietnam's restrictions come less than a month after China's Ministry of Culture said it would ban online game companies from using sex to sell their products, and also ban the promotional use of violence and gambling in advertising.

Multimedia group RealNetworks reported a 5 percent drop in revenues for its Games division during Q2 2010, and announced the promotion of chief revenue officer Matt Hulett as the new head of that unit.

The company's revenues from its Games business during Q2 2010 (ending June 30th) was $28.1 million, 5 percent less compared to the $29.6 million the department generated in the same period last year.

RealNetworks' total revenues for the quarter from all of its units came out to $88.9 million, down from $135.7 million in Q2 2009 (includes $40.5 million in revenue from Real's music business and Rhapsody joint venture, which wasn't factored into its results this time around due to a restructuring of Rhapsody).

For the third quarter of 2010, the firm expects its overall revenue to be "slightly lower" sequentially and less than its Q3 2009 amount, attributing the decline primarily to "softness" in its Games business. It also predicts that its future revenue statements will be affected by foreign currency trends.

With its quarterly results announcement, RealNetworks revealed the appointment of Matt Hulett as the new head of its Games business, as John Barbour steps down. Hulett was previously CRO of the department, and has held executive roles at Expedia and Shockwave.com

"Given the urgent need to pivot our Games business to social and online games, we think it is critical to have a leader based here in Seattle," says RealNetworks CEO and president Bob Kimball. "Matt has the right combination of leadership skills, online business experience and support from the team to refocus our Games business on the growth markets, including social games."

Hulett's promotion comes a month after the company laid off most of its internal PC casual game studio GameHouse (Super Collapse and Little Shop) as part of a wider series of layoffs and a restructuring plan designed to "reduce the spans and layers of management to create greater efficiency, teamwork, and customer focus".

RealNetworks retained its casual/social game team in the Netherlands, and said that its Seattle-based GameHouse studio will continue to operate its game portal, create titles for Facebook, and pursue second-party development contracts.

"We made strong progress transforming RealNetworks during the second quarter," adds Kimball. "Our restructuring efforts are ahead of plan. In the first six months of the year, we cut more than $30 million in annualized operating expenses from our ongoing businesses."

"Now it is time to focus on growing the business by improving our sales and marketing of existing products and building a strong pipeline of innovative products for the long term."