Category Archives: Social

Game designer Jane McGonigal has teamed up with Oprah Winfrey to launch a new social game based on gratitude. Nope, I’m not joking and no, I don’t get it neither. The game itself, called The Thank You Game, is simple enough: to make players show more gratitude in their daily lives.

Get it here if it’s up your street. Kotaku has a video describing the game.

Less click baiting, more fancy faction gear as Funcom tweaks The Secret War.

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If you’ve been feeling left out of the latest social gaming craze because you don’t have an Android phone or iDevice, take heart – you can now grab the game for your Kindle Fire. What, you don’t have one of those either? Son, I can’t help you. Try Pictionary. Grab Draw Something from the Amazon Marketplace for free, or for 99 cents if you prefer to play ad free.

Thanks, VentureBeat. [image]

The long-silent Rebel Entertainment has tipped its hand at last, revealing plans for an upcoming Facebook MMO.

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Tecmo Koei’s announced Ninja Gaiden will come to social platform Mobage later this year. Clans is the latest title to be brought to the service by the publisher, although no gameplay details have been released. The game is being aimed for an international release. A Japanese release for smartphones is expected to release this summer.

Andriasang has more details.

Facebook has found itself the target of a legal complaint demanding it refund all Facebook Credit purchases made by minors.

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Marvel has dropped heavy hints that some sort of game based on the Avengers will eventually surface.

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Konami’s announced that as of the end of March 2012, it had 20 million registered users playing its social titles. The most popular of the lot was the card game Dragon Collection with over 6 million registered users, followed by Sengoku Collection with over 3 million users. Other titles in Konami’s social catalog include: Star Wars Collection, Pro Baseball Dream Nine, J. League Dream Eleven, Hisho Collection, Dream Stallion, and Attack on Titan. Thanks, Siliconera.

Funcom and Facebook were caught off guard by the popularity of The Secret World’s social tie-in, which offers beta entry as a reward for participation.

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Splash Damage has unveiled its first project post-Brink this morning, a free-to-play title known as RAD Soldiers.

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Zynga has pushed out a free update to the iOS version of Draw Something which allows players to save and share their own drawings.

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European start-up King.com has close to 10 million people playing its Facebook games daily, leading it to surpass the number of users who play EA titles on the social site. The firm’s most popular title, Bubble Witch Saga, currently has more players than Zynga’s Farmville. Another Facebook game from the firm, Candy Crush Saga, has launched last week and already claims half a million daily users. Still, it has a ways to go before catching up with the juggernaut that is Zynga and its 80 games with 65 million daily users. That being said, King.com hopes to “reach Zynga” levels with its popularity and is eyeing a possible IPO next year. Via Reuters.

Australian developer 3 Blokes Studios has been closed by social firm RockYou. The studio was bought less than a year ago by the company, but decided to close it due to a refocusing of its business.

More on Inside Social Games.

Social gaming’s most beloved and derided agricultural simulator seems to be getting a sequel.

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EA has announced plans to launch The Sims Social game in China with Playfish Beijing behind the day-to-day operations and Tencent as the online host through its Qzone platform. The title was released through Facebook in August 2011 and reported 50 million MAU within a few weeks. Total monthly active users at present, according to App Data, rests at 17 million. Thanks, Develop.

Ubisoft has announced Rabbids: Invasion, a new Facebook game, as well as Rabbids Go Phone Again and Rabbids Go HD.

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Square Enix has announced its teamed with Bigpoint to release a new, unannounced title from the publisher to the latter’s games portal. The effort, which is “”already well into development,” will be social-focussed and feature heavily on UGC. The game is expected to be detailed in the next few weeks, with a release due within the next six months. It’ll launch on Bigpoint’s website in Europe and North America.

Thanks, Gamasutra.

Yasuhiro Wada believes the success of Farmville has helped grow the Harvest Moon fanbase.

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Prime World, probably most famous for its “ladies night” approach to wooing female gamers, is better revealed in the screens and trailer through the break.

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Draw Something has surpassed 50 million downloads in just 50 days. Released in February, the game quickly became a hit with iPhone and Android users with 6 million drawings created, and on launch day alone, three draws per second were recorded. That figure is now at 3,000 drawings per second. The game is now owned by Zynga which wrote OMGPoP a check for $180 million last month. Thanks, VentureBeat.