Ngmoco: rising budgets will kill cloning
GM Ben Cousins says recent spate of clones is "a blip" that will be eradicated as production values increase.
GM Ben Cousins says recent spate of clones is "a blip" that will be eradicated as production values increase.
6waves Lolapps has denied Spry Fox's allegation that it breached the terms of an NDA in development of Yeti Town. Earlier this week Spry Fox began legal proceedings against 6waves, claiming that it used information given to it while in negotiations to publish Triple Town on Facebook to essentially clone it with Yeti Town. Speaking to VentureBeat, however, 6waves Lolapps chief executive Rex Ng insisted that wasn't the case. More >
Zynga brought in $445 million (£280.7 million), or 12 per cent, of Facebook's total revenue last year, the social network's IPO filing reveals. The filing, from which Facebook seeks to raise $5 billion and could see the company valued at up to $100 billion, shows that total 2011 revenue was $3.7 billion - of which a billion was profit. More >
Why US copyright law can give you a chance to take cloners to court.
Capcom has announced a social game based on its massively popular action series Monster Hunter. Andriasang reports that the game, Minna To Monhan Card Master (Monster Hunter With Everyone Card Master) is a card battle game, developed by Gloops, and will be released on February 21 on the Mobage network. More >
6waves Lolapps under fire over "virtual duplicate" Yeti Town; fear of cloning will "stop people making original games," CEO tells us.
Zynga has again been accused of cloning the work of smaller developers, with Buffalo Studios following Nimbebit's lead in detailing the similarities between its own Bingo Blitz and Zynga's upcoming Zynga Bingo. In an infographic sent to VentureBeat, Buffalo points out the apparent visual and mechanical similarities between the two games. Nimblebit did the same last week when it accused Zynga of cloning Tiny Tower with upcoming mobile game Dream Heights. More >
We chart Zynga's track record of copying the works of others.
3Zynga is in "active conversations with potential partners" regarding online gambling opportunities. "Zynga Poker is the world's largest online poker game with more than seven million people playing every day and over 30 million each month," a Zynga spokesman said in a statement to All Things Digital. "We know from listening to our players that there's an interest in the real money gambling market. We're in active conversations with potential partners to better understand and explore this new opportunity." More >
PopCap has confirmed that developer ZipZapPlay's Facebook game Baking Life - which has 760,000 monthly active users - is to be axed. The game will be taken offline on January 31 and customers have been told to spend their remaining virtual currency ahead of that date as it will not be transferable to other games. This includes real money already spent on in-game items. More >
1Facebook gaming titan Zynga is apparently taking a loss of $150 on every new customer it acquires. The claim comes from Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia, who in an interview with Benzinga explained that Zynga spent $120 million on marketing in the first nine months of last year. More >
5Cloud gaming service Gaikai is ready to launch on Facebook, founder David Perry has confirmed. Perry revealed the news at yesterday's Cloud Gaming Europe conference in London, reported by gamesindustry.biz, and showed World Of Warcraft running on the social network. More >
PopCap's Giordano Bruno Contestabile on how today's huge audience of gamers is shaping the future of videogames.
Playdom is to publish Spry Fox's Triple Town on Facebook, the developer has announced. In a blog post, Spry Fox CEO David Edery says the studio chose Playdom because the Disney-owned company "treated us with respect," and that the deal means Spry Fox can concentrate on making games. More >
Social game developer Doubledown Interactive has been acquired by International Game Technology (IGT) in a deal worth $500 million (£326 million). IGT, predominantly a designer and manafacturer of slot machines, says the deal "propels [it] into a leadership position within social gaming." Double Down's most popular social game, Double Down Casino, ended 2011 with 1.4 million daily users and placed fourth in Facebook's list of the year's most popular games. More >
Facebook has relented on its insistence that developers use its standard virtual currency, Facebook Credits, in in-app offers. The move, announced in a blog post, means developers can offer their own virtual currencies as rewards to users for completing advertiser offers, such as signing up for a subscription service or buying from an online store. Developers can now use either their own currency, Credits, or both at once. More >
Greg Borrud, co-founder of Mercenaries and Full Spectrum Warrior developer Pandemic Studios, has unveiled his new venture, social game developer Seismic Games. Speaking to TechCrunch, Borrud, who is co-founder along with fellow Pandemic staffer Eric Gerwitz and ex-Vivendi VP Chris Miller, said Seismic would not be working to the accepted social gaming model on Facebook. More >
Microsoft Studios has announced a multi-year, mult-game strategic partnership with Arkadium, a New York-based developer of social and casual games. In a press release, Arkadium described the deal as "an evolution of the relationship the two companies have been developing over the previous two years." More >
Facebook has renamed its chart of the top 10 games of last year and explained its methodology after its naming of Gardens Of Time as the year's most popular game was met with widespread confusion. The company painted a markedly different picture of gaming on its network , overlooking monthly and daily active users (MAU and DAU), the accepted standard for gauging a Facebook game's popularity. It means Zynga's CityVille, named the biggest-ever game on the platform after amassing 88.4 million users within a month of launch, is restricted to third place on the chart, behind EA's The Sims Social. More >
Yu Suzuki's Ys Net studio has ceased support of Shenmue City, a social game extension of his beloved Dreamcast series for mobile phones. Andriasang reports that the developer posted a brief note on its official website on December 26, notifying users that the service had come to an end and thanking them for their support. More >