Words with Friends
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Take-Two is acquiring mobile game giant Zynga for $12.7 billion
PC gaming Giant Take-Two has announced that it's making a big move into mobile gaming with the acquisition of Zynga for a total price of $12.7 billion.
‘Words with Friends’ spin-off ‘Word Pop’ pits you against Alexa
Zynga's new word game is voice-based.
Oculus-only platformer coming from Words with Friends co-creator
Words With Friends co-creator Paul Bettner's new development company Playful Corp will show off its introductory game at E3, Lucky's Tale. The game is a third-person platformer with an intriguing twist: It is exclusive to the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Along with his brother David, Bettner left Zynga in October 2012, nearly two years after the publisher purchased their former studio, NewToy. Lucky's Tale is one of two games in development at Playful Corp, the other being an open-world sandbox game known as Creativerse. Playful expects to bring Creativerse to the Oculus Rift following its launch on Steam "later this year." Oculus VR also announced the hire of former Valve employee Jason Holtman today, the "driving force" behind Steam. [Image: Playful Corp]
MMObility: What needs to happen to make the mobile market shine
I've recently written about what the MMO future might look like, but in case you haven't read that piece yet, I can sum it up for you. Essentially I see the new generation being so used to gaming and communicating on portable yet powerful devices that the sit-down keyboard and mouse setup might very well be doomed. Even major PC manufacturers and sellers are noticing the trend. Take a visit to your local Gamestop or equivalent game shop and you will notice that the chains have started to sell tablets as well. All of this tablet gaming might wound the current style of MMOs. I suspect that within the next decade or two it will all come full circle back to massive three-dimensional worlds on tech that becomes even more powerful and common, so we have to look at what the mobile market can do currently to keep MMOs in the lineup.
Holiday iOS game sales: Sega, Square Enix and plenty more
We told you to expect more holiday sales, and here they are. First up, Sega is hosting a round of holiday drops, including Jet Set Radio for just US$1.99, Crazy Taxi for the same price, and the new Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing for just 99 cents. Great prices on those great games, so don't pass those up. Taito's got a sale up, too, with Gardening Mama for $3.99, Space Invaders Infinity Gene for $1.99 and a few more deals on too. Square Enix has the original Chaos Rings on sale for just $4.99 on iPad. Final Fantasy Tactics is only $8.99, too, which I'm pretty sure is discounted from the usual price. djay for iPad is just $9.99, so that should make it fun to play some tunes at the holiday parties this weekend. Words with Friends HD is now just 99 cents, if you haven't already bought it. The great Dungeon Raid is only 99 cents as well. This is a classic, as far as I'm concerned. Capcom's got some deals on as well, including Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Street Fighter 4 Volt. Bastion is only 99 cents, which makes it a must-buy. Apple's choice for iPhone game of the year, Rayman Jungle Run, is also only 99 cents. Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto Chinatown are both only 99 cents, which is kind of insane, and Rockstar's also got Max Payne Mobile selling for the same price. Holy moly! Here's the deal: If there's been an iOS game you've been waiting to buy, odds are it's on sale now, or will be so in the next 24 hours or so. Developers are getting nuts with these prices, trying to claw their way into the charts over the holiday break. Go grab some new apps!
Zynga with Friends' Paul and David Bettner leave Zynga
Brothers Paul and David Bettner, best known for coming up with Words with Friends, have left Zynga. The duo are the latest high-profile departures from Zynga following vacancies left by CCO Mike Verdu and COO John Schappert."We are still very excited about the future and feel like we are at the beginning," Paul Bettner told Gamesbeat during a phone interview. Neither would comment on why they chose to leave Zynga nor would they comment on their time at the company.The duo originally came on board with Zynga when the company purchased their Texas-based studio Newtoy, effectively rebranding it Zynga With Friends. Before the Zynga acquisition, the Bettners had previously helped ship Halo Wars at developer Ensemble Studios before its closure.
Hasbro's Zynga board games now available, paradoxical
Lest you hadn't heard, Hasbro and Zynga recently teamed up to create board game versions of its popular video games. That includes a CityVille-themed version of Monopoly, a weird mash-up of FarmVille and Hungry Hungry Hippos, and Draw Something (the board game mechanics of which should be self-explanatory).Bizarrely, the collection also includes a board game version of Words with Friends. Words with Friends is often cited as being very similar – practically to the point of infringement – to Scrabble, the classic word game published by ... Hasbro. Just to reiterate: this is the board game version of a video game version of a different board game published by a company that should be, in theory, a competitor.Try not to let your head explode.
Words with Friends charity game pits Edward Norton vs Snoop Lion
Edward Norton, Snoop Lion (formerly Dogg), Kristen Bell and five other really popular people are taking part in the Words with Friends Celebrity Challenge, which will give $500,000 to a charity chosen by the winning celebrity. The Celebrity Challenge begins tomorrow at 2 p.m. ET with a Words with Friends match between Snoop Lion and Jonah Hill, streaming live with commentary.Participating famous people are Kristen Bell, Sophia Bush, Jonah Hill, John Legend, Snoop Lion, Eva Longoria, Edward Norton and Paul Pierce. Anyone can join any of these "teams" and be entered for a chance to play a game against that celebrity.For what it's worth, Edward Norton is supremely confident that he'll win for his charity, the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Fund. His first round is against Paul Pierce, captain of the Boston Celtics, who is playing for his own charity, The Truth Fund."I think it's great that he has a cause he supports, and I hope the amount he gets from just the first round is going to make him happy because I don't think it's going to go past there," Norton tells The AP. Norton is most concerned about playing against Snoop Lion, citing his experience with wordplay. Norton also lived and worked in Osaka, Japan, after graduating Yale University in 1991, since you seem interested.
Zynga and Hasbro make CityVille Monopoly, more, for when you're board
Pretty soon your mom won't need the computer to get her Words with Friends fix. The Zynga and Hasbro partnership will bear its first fruit this fall, when board game adaptations of CityVille, Words with Friends, Farmville and Draw Something hit retail, ABC reports.CityVille Monopoly will be available in October for $24.99. It's a version of the Hasbro classic where players are tasked with building skycrapers instead of houses and hotels, and the first player to build four skyscrapers wins. Hungry Hungry Herd also releases in October, for $22.99, and is Hasbro's interpretation of FarmVille – it's just Hungry Hungry Hippos without the hippos.Words with Friends will be available in two flavors this October and will play exactly the same as the online game, in the standard, $19.99 edition and a deluxe $39.99 edition with a rotating board. Not much is known on the fourth and final game, an adaptation of OMGPOP's Draw Something, which Zynga acquired for $200 million back in March. The board game adaptation of Draw Something is planned for late October/early November and will likely play a lot like Pictionary.
Mobile Miscellany: week of July 9th, 2012
Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you're like us and really want to know what's going on, then you've come to the right place. This past week, Motorola debuted the RAZR V in Canada and the Sony Xperia Ion was spotted at Rogers -- curiously, the phone has yet to be formally announced for the carrier. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the "best of the rest" for this week of July 9th, 2012.
Merriam-Webster announces Dictionary API for developers, coming to a word game near you
Merriam-Webster just announced its new Dictionary API, which gives developers access to the full dictionary and thesaurus, along with more specialized content like medical, Spanish, ESL and student-targeted vocabulary lists. The API will let app makers integrate word definitions, etymologies, audio pronunciations and more. While this content will no doubt make it into a slew of educational apps, Merriam-Webster says it will also enhance word games, so maybe Scramble and Words with Friends will finally start accepting those obscure three-letter words you have up your sleeve.
Zynga CEO Mark Pincus says 'no thanks' to console gaming, isn't worried about a life detached from Facebook
Zynga CEO and founder Mark Pincus just took the stage here at D10, and in a wide-ranging interview with Kara Swisher, he sidestepped conversation about Words With Friends and Farmville long enough to touch on the murky world of console gaming. In a bid to quell any potential surprises at E3 next month, Mark said outrightly that his company is not interested in getting into the console world. "We're aiming for you," he said while pointing at Swisher. "We're going after the mainstream market. There's too much friction [in the console world]." He also made clear that he tries to not look too far ahead of where the world really is. When talking about the undeniable shift to mobile, he made clear that there's still a huge amount of desktop traffic on Zynga's games -- "lots of people play while bored on conference calls at work," he quipped. It's an interesting viewpoint in a world where PSN and Xbox Live Arcade has given independent developers all new distribution platforms to reach users, but it also highlights the outfit's intrinsic attachment to Facebook in particular.
Zynga Platform launches in open beta
Well, that was fast. Just days after announcing its Zynga Platform, the casual and social games giant has revealed Zynga Platform is now available in open beta form. Like, you can go to Zynga.com right now and play some games. As of writing this post, 1.6 million people are currently doing just that.Some functionality isn't live right now, but if you're a seasoned player, you'll find your progress there waiting for you on Zynga Platform. You can set up a Zynga profile, add some zFriends (ugh) and chat, and play any of the five games available: CastleVille, Words with Friends, CityVille, Hidden Chronicles and Zynga Poker.
Hasbro and Zynga make a deal, toys and games incoming
Hasbro has struck a deal with Zynga to produce toys and games based on the social developer's catalogue of rich, nuanced IPs, which is great news if you've ever found yourself wishing you could somehow continue to give Zynga all of your money, even when you're away from your computer and smartphone.Now, Hasbro's definition of "games" is more board-oriented than Zynga's, and while the licensing arrangement allows for "co-branded merchandise," it doesn't allow Zynga to make games based on Hasbro brands. The first products will hit store shelves sometime this fall, and while no specifics toys or board games have been announced we've got a feeling that My Little Ponyville and Ouija With Friends aren't that unlikely.
Apple removes dozens of clone games from App Store
Apple has removed 59 copycat games from its App Store, including Temple Run lookalike Temple Jump, Words with Friends contender Numbers with Friends, Angry Birds clones Tiny Birds and Angry Ninja Birds, and the self explanatory Plant vs. Zombie. All of the offending clones were developed by Anton Sinelnikov.Temple Jump, specifically, had achieved incredible success on the App Store, surpassing its source material to reach the number 1 spot on the paid Apps list. "This was really upsetting to us and damaging to our brand, because we work really hard to put out very high quality polished games and win the love of our fans," said Natalia Luckyanova, co-founder of Temple Run dev Imangi, during an interview with Gamasutra. "We don't want them to think that we would put out crap to steal a dollar from them."This App Store raid comes roughly one week after Triple Town developer Spry Fox sued 6Waves LOLAPPS over Yeti Town, another aggressively similar iOS title. We like to imagine Apple Store employees rappelling from the ceiling of a dank, filthy warehouse, shooting iPod Nanos out of high-powered slingshots with extreme prejudice.
iPhone and Words with Friends save a life
The widely-played word game Words with Friends has a built-in chat feature that lets players talk to each other, and that may well have saved a man's life. According to KCTV, a player in Missouri named Beth Legler was chatting with a fellow player from Australia named Georgie Fletcher who claimed her husband was feeling ill. Legler's husband Larry, a doctor, asked Fletcher to describe her husband's symptoms. Upon hearing the description, Dr. Legler insisted that Georgie take her husband to the hospital immediately. At the hospital, it was discovered that Fletcher's husband had a 99 percent blockage in an artery near his heart. His doctors said that if he had not been taken to the hospital that day, there's a very real chance he could have died. From my secret lair in the South Pacific, I have an opportunity to see for myself just how interconnected the world has become every time I use FaceTime to chat with my dad in Saudi Arabia, Skype with the rest of my family scattered across the US, or bounce stories back and forth with TUAW colleagues all over the world. Moments like the one described in KCTV's story are where the real magic of all this great technology lies, though; someone who might otherwise have died is instead walking around alive and well thanks to the unlikeliest of tools and circumstances. [via The Mac Observer]
TUAW Best of 2011: Vote for the best iPad game
The nominations are in, and the poll is ready to go! The TUAW Best of 2011 awards are all about you -- the readers -- and what you think is the cream of the crop of Apple or third-party products and software. To vote, select one entry from the top nominations made by readers. We'll be announcing the winner in just a few days. Vote early and often! TUAW is asking for your votes for the best iPad game of 2011. This was a tough call, as we had a wide spectrum of nominations, all of which are excellent and top-rated games for iPad. There are six nominees in this category: Osmos for iPad (US$4.99), Words With Friends HD ($0.99), Carcassonne ($9.99), The Bard's Tale ($4.99), Army of Darkness Defense HD (free), and Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer ($4.99). And now, let the voting begin! The results will be announced on December 31, 2011. %Poll-72371%
Zynga reports record quarterly revenue, profits still down year-over-year
Never underestimate the addictive power of microtransaction infused farms, apparently, as Zynga has disclosed a record quarter for the period between July 1 and September 30: Over $306 million, an 80 percent increase in revenue over that same period in 2010. The social megalith attributes the increase in revenue to the successful launches of Adventure World and the Facebook version of Words with Friends, which took place during this quarter. Revenue is a very different beast than profit, however, where Zynga continues to decline. Following a 95 percent year-over-year profit decrease in Q2, the SEC filing shows a 54 percent decrease year-over-year in Q3 after a total of $12.5 million in net profits. Hey Zynga, want a tip? It's on the house: Monetize letter tiles in Words with Friends. We'll pay you fifteen dollars to get rid of "MXLCZDL."
Words with Friends now a Facebook game
When Facebook gaming giant Zynga bought Newtoy and rebranded it as Zynga with Friends, it was only a matter of time until games from the "with Friends" franchise started popping up on Facebook. Sure enough, Words with Friends is now playable on Facebook as of a couple weeks ago. The game's interface is basically identical to the iOS games, so if you're already familiar with those, you won't need to adapt much to the Facebook game. The coolest feature by far is the game's integration with the mobile versions. Playing the browser-based version will sync game progress to Words with Friends on iPhone and iPad pretty much instantaneously if you have the app synced up with your Facebook account. You can start a game on Facebook, then pick it up later in the iPad app. It's all very easy to set up. Words with Friends on iPad has almost exactly the same interface Unlike many other Facebook games, Words with Friends does not appear to require Flash, which is a definite bonus if you're playing the game on a MacBook. My wife is a Zuma addict, and I can always tell when she's playing because it sounds like she's got a jet engine in her lap. Words with Friends doesn't spin up the fans at all, and it runs quite smoothly on her Mac. Words with Friends is free to play on Facebook, and there are free versions the iOS apps, including the HD version for the iPad. So if you've been curious to try the game, now's your chance to get in on the fun.
Words with Friends coming to Facebook
What's the pleasure in absolutely humiliating your friends and family in a battle of verbal wits if you have no way of flaunting your spelling superiority to your other friends and family? Zynga has announced a perfect new channel for you to broadcast your Words with Friends victories: Facebook, which will receive its own version of the Scrabble-like application, complete with the social networking features you've come to expect from the platform. No release date has been announced for the wildly popular mobile title's port, though Kotaku reports that when it does launch, it will be completely compatible with Words with Friends players on iOS and Android smartphones. Personally, we think Facebook players would have a distinct advantage in this scenario, considering they can have the Scrabulizer open with a single, dishonest click.
