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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.
Today is the last day you can play the original 'FarmVille'
The original 'FarmVille' shuts down today as the end of Flash support effectively ends the game.
‘FarmVille’ is shutting down for good on December 31st
FarmVille is closing its gates on December 31st.
Zynga adds Bitcoin to payment options, Bitcoin value soars
Casual games publisher Zynga is now testing the use of Bitcoin in its games, a decision that has had a drastic (if temporary) impact on the overall value of the virtual currency. "In response to Bitcoin's rise in popularity around the world, Zynga, with help from BitPay, is testing expanded payment options for players to make in-game purchases using Bitcoin," Zynga representatives wrote on Reddit. "The Bitcoin test is only available to Zynga.com players playing FarmVille 2, CastleVille, ChefVille, CoasterVille, Hidden Chronicles, Hidden Shadows and CityVille." Despite that relatively short list, the games mentioned are Zynga's most popular, flagship offerings, demonstrating that the company has quite a bit of faith in Bitcoin, an open-source, peer-to-peer substitute for real-world cash that has achieved impressive fame in the wake of numerous international economic catastrophes. Following Zynga's announcement, the value of Bitcoin immediately jumped to a high of $1,093 per Bitcoin, according to the Los Angeles Times. It has since receded to $955.60, and continues to drop, though overall Bitcoin value remains about $50 higher than it was immediately prior to Zynga's revelation. (Image: Coin Desk)
Zynga's new CEO reportedly discussed buying the company while still at Microsoft
Don Mattrick might still be arranging his desk stationery and getting his nameplate fitted on his new office door, but the former Microsoft Studios boss was apparently eyeing up Zynga for at least three years prior. According to Bloomberg, Mattrick discussed the idea of buying the company with founder Mark Pincus, bringing Zynga's social games (and hopefully some of its millions of users) to Microsoft's Xbox. People "with knowledge of the matter" say that talks eventually broke down, which is probably why you don't see Farmville taking up acres within Xbox Live. At least, not yet.
MMO Family: First Impressions of World of Trinketz
I have to begin this week's column with a disclaimer: I am not a fan of Facebook, and I'm even less a fan of Facebook games. The only one I found enjoyable was Ian Bogost's Cow Clicker because it was a giant middle finger to the bottom-feeding practices so commonly found in Facebook Villes. But when I got a Google alert in my inbox about the world's first family-friendly 3-D MMO for Facebook, I had to head back to the blue-and-white wasteland of Facebook and see it firsthand. Could it be that the era of isometric views and mindless clicking is finally over? Have we finally moved on from agriculturally themed games? I decided to check out World of Trinketz to seek some answers.
Zynga unveils Battlestone, an action RPG coming to iOS soon
Zynga's been on an interesting pivot lately. The company made a name for itself on Facebook, and most of its business is tied up in big games like Farmville and its sequel. But that audience is slowing down in growth, if not declining, which has prompted Zynga to experiment on mobile platforms like iOS. Last year, Zynga published Horn, which is a very impressive action / adventure title on iOS, and this year I expect to see more games like it as Zynga targets the "midcore" audience with nice graphics and complex gameplay. Battlestone is a great example of that. It's a newly revealed game from the House that Farmville Built, and as you can see above, it looks very impressive. It's an action RPG in the vein of Diablo, but made for mobile platforms, and with a slightly more casual look. Battlestone will let you pull one hero from multiple choices to fight through varied 3D environments, swiping and tapping across the screen to get involved in combat. It definitely sounds fun -- Battlestone should be available in the US soon, as it's already being tested in a few markets around the world. Zynga's real challenge with these will be to balance "midcore" gameplay with its preferred freemium promotional practices. The company grew very quickly thanks to its "social" gameplay, but as it has grown bigger and bigger, Zynga's depended more and more on desperately trying to make its games viral. If they can tone that down in these more complicated titles in a way that still allows them to keep things profitable, the company will be able to find a whole new audience to replace the one that's getting more and more bored with all of the "cow clicking" that Zynga originally started out with.
Brett Ratner buddies up with Zynga on Farmville animated series
If you think the the absence of Brett Ratner is the only thing holding Farmville back from becoming a truly exciting cross-platform brand, then you're probably Brett Ratner. The brash bad boy director of Rush Hour fame is adapting Zynga's game for television. Ratner will serve as executive producer on the half-hour animated series, aided by Canadian television production firm Six Eleven Media."FarmVille is one of the most exciting brands out there today and its cross-platform opportunities are endless," Ratner said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal. "I am thrilled to be expanding the brand with existing fans and also engaging a whole new audience." Zynga is no stranger to cross-promotion, having already struck up a deal with Hasbro to produce a line of board games based on its properties last year, one of which was – you guessed it – Farmville. Zynga also just reported a $209.4 million loss for 2012, subsequently shutting down three of its games, including CityVille 2.
Zynga closing three games including CityVille 2
In a conference call yesterday, Zynga revealed plans to close three titles: The Friend Game, Party Place, and CityVille 2. The closure of CityVille 2 especially stands out since the game launched a few short months ago and lead designer Brian Reynolds announced he was leaving the social game giant in January.In the company's 2012 financial statement, Zynga posted a loss of $209.4 million.On a positive note, Zynga said FarmVille 2 is exceeding expectations by 100% last quarter and generating $100 million in gross bookings since launch.Zynga admitted to analysts that FarmVille 2 may have cannibalized some of CityVille 2's attention, having launched a month before CityVille's sequel. The company said that in the future it will make sure to have fewer titles in general, and leave more space between planned game launches. Zynga is also excited about upcoming mobile and "midcore" titles (defined as "hardcore" games that can be played for only a few minutes at a time), and CEO Mark Pincus says 2013 will be a "pivotal year" for Zynga, with a goal to "make it easier and better to play across mobile and social."
Rise and Shiny: Dawn of the Dragons
There's no way for me to describe Dawn of the Dragons without it sounding a bit like the old Mafia Wars-style games that were so massively popular on Facebook years ago. The truth is that, yes, games designed around clicking a button a few times or even several hundred times (depending on your tolerance) sound like they cast some sort of spell on the playerbase. Surely these people cannot behaving any sort of fun and instead are trained animals, responding only to the bit of food that drops out of the chute. I'm the first one to admit that much of the gameplay in a game like Dawn of the Dragons by 5th Planet Games pays out the most to those who hit the buttons the most. But I'm also the first to defend the design and to say that it can be a lot of fun. Let's not pretend that even the most immersive, realistic, epic MMO in the world cannot be turned into a series of button-smashings. We've all known a player in almost any game who has reduced her electronic adventures down to an efficient science. Does a game like Dawn of the Dragons just do away with all of the mumbo-jumbo to get to the meat of the gameplay: the button mashing?
Zynga shuts down 11 apps, including PetVille and Mafia Wars 2
Zynga has announced that it's closing 11 different games and apps, presumably just because they've failed to live up to the publisher's expectations. Perhaps the most popular app of the bunch is Petville, which at one point announced that it had over a million users. But there are a few other big titles in the 11 as well: Mafia Wars 2, FishVille, Treasure Isle and Vampire Wars are all getting shut down as well. The company's CEO says this is all part of a standard restructuring, and it makes sense that Zynga, which has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years, would want to emphasize its strengths and minimize its weaker titles. But this is also a sign that the Zynga brand isn't invincible, and that clearly, the company needs hits to keep itself moving. 2013 may be a rocky year for Zynga, if it can't replicate the success it's seen in the past with FarmVille and the other games it's acquired, like Draw Something and Words with Friends.
Facebook and Zynga agree to new terms, create potential for official Facebook games
Facebook and Zynga have worked out a new set of terms in their partnership, enabling both parties to make and promote their own games. Before the alteration, Zynga was required to use Facebook's monetization platform, and Facebook couldn't create its own titles to compete with Zynga's. The latest agreement undoes both stipulations and opens up both sides for more independence.At this time, neither side has announced that it wants to change the way things work, so Zynga will likely still use Facebook's payments system, and Facebook hasn't announced plans to make any official games. A spokesperson for Facebook reiterated that "we will continue to work with Zynga, just as we do with developers of all sizes." It's not a break-up, in other words, but they are free to see other people.
Farming in Fallen Earth: An exclusive interview with the devs
Late last week, Reloaded Games and GamersFirst announced that farming was coming to the post-apocalyptic sandbox Fallen Earth. The initial dev blog gave us some information on how farming will be implemented, but not much more beyond that. We took that as an invitation to pick the dev team's collective brain, and pick we did. Read on after the cut to learn more on how farming will work in Fallen Earth and how close it will be to FarmVille -- plus you can point your eyes at two exclusive screenshots of the farms themselves.
MMO Blender: A real-time Farmville MMO minus the Zynga
Let's talk about FarmVille for a minute. Yes, I mean the Zynga-produced FarmVille, the one that helped social gaming become what it is today. There are a lot of things that have been said about the game, like "it's not even a game" or "it preys on gamer's addictive natures" and all sorts of sufficiently evil-sounding things. Say what you want about the evil monster that is Zynga and make all the jokes that you can about FarmVille and other social titles, but I want to tackle it from a different view. Let's look at it as the sandbox game that it is and use that example to invent a brand-new MMO, although I'm sure ours would not meet with even a fraction of the success that FarmVille has. FarmVille is arguably the most popular sandbox title in the world. We've defined "sandbox" a million times on this site, but it's easy to see just how open and flexible FarmVille is. Is it limited to the confines of its unique set of tools and designs? Of course, but so is every sandbox. FarmVille has successfully introduced the wonders of sandbox gaming to people who might never give a similarly described game a chance.
Blend in with the Tillers with your own farmer outfit
For as long as I've played World of Warcraft, players have been making farmer outfits. Who knows why? Maybe it's because Blizzard made it so easy, or maybe it's because every gamer subconsciously yearns to live an agrarian lifestyle -- Eh, on second thought, I'm going to go with it's because Blizzard made it so easy. I mean, look at the types of items we can get. There are overalls, a pitchfork, and lets not forget all those ugly brimmed hats. Wrath of the Lich King even gave us the chance to wear plaid flannel shirts. Flannel shirts! What fantasy world application truly requires the abomination that is flannel!? Well, whatever it is, Mists of Pandaria has finally given us a place to live out our agrarian dreams, and thus a good reason to make a farmer outfit.
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.
The Daily Grind: Is farming ruined forever?
One of my favorite things to do in games is farm. No, not the kind of farming that involves killing zillions of mobs for mats and money -- real (virtual) farming. Like when you buy seeds and plant them in the ground and wait for them to grow and then collect the literal fruits of your labor. Think I'm talking about FarmVille? Nope. Lord of the Rings Online, actually. And Ultima Online and Glitch and hopefully, someday, ArcheAge. MMOs actually implement farming so much better than the social game that seems to have redefined it. In UO, I can grow decorative plants and buff petals; in LotRO, I can mass-produce crops that are used by cooks to make food; and in Glitch, I grow flowers and herbs used by tincturers. I suppose even in Star Wars Galaxies, I was farming up corn and tubers in my oversized industrial extractors. But I have to wonder whether the FarmVille-induced stigma attached to farming as a gameplay concept has ruined it for MMO fans forever. Even when we discuss ArcheAge's amazing farming system, we can't help but crack jokes about tractors, jokes we wouldn't make about big, burly, angry Orcs practicing their fine tailoring skills in World of Warcraft. What do you think -- is farming in MMOs ruined forever? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
FarmVille 2 updates Zynga's cow-clicker (but not too much)
FarmVille. Just the name likely conjures up some vivid thoughts and opinions in the minds of gamers everywhere. As the flagship casual social game for both Facebook and Zynga, FarmVille can't help but be a lightning rod for debates about gaming's audiences, game design, and the role that video games can and do play in our daily lives. Time labeled the game one of the "fifty worst inventions" of all time, but that hasn't stopped over 80 million people from logging on and doing some cow and crop clicking.And now Zynga (which itself has attracted plenty of controversy recently) is going to try and recreate the game's success with a brand new version called, simply, FarmVille 2. Director of Design Wright Bagwell showed Joystiq what the future of FarmVille's crops and farm animals looks like, how the game will reach out (but not too far) toward a more hardcore audience, and how Zynga plans to take the world's most popular and oft-hated casual and social game and make it even more casual and social.%Gallery-164312%
FarmVille in World of Warcraft? WoW Insider's first look at The Tillers
When Mists of Pandaria was first announced at BlizzCon 2011, the developers stated that players would be able to grow cooking mats and herbs on their very own farm in the next expansion. Immediately, players began to speculate on what exactly the words "your own farm" meant in World of Warcraft. Would we be getting our own version of FarmVille in WoW? Or maybe something more like Harvest Moon? Could this mean player housing? No one knew, and the general shortage of information over the months led some of us to wonder whether we'd be seeing the new feature at launch or have to wait for it in a future patch. Now, almost a year after the original announcement for Mists of Pandaria, we can finally put a lot of our questions to rest. Over the weekend, Blizzard implemented The Tillers quests on beta servers, and with them, the new farm feature. So is it FarmVille? Let's take a look. Your adventure in farming begins in Valley of the Four Winds, where you'll be able to start a line of daily quests to gain reputation with a pandaren faction known as The Tillers. Quests revolve around an NPC named Farmer Yoon, a young pandaren who recently traveled to the valley to inherit his late grandfather's farm, Sunsong Ranch. As it turns out, though, Yoon isn't cut out for all the hard work a farm requires, so he enlists you to help him run the farm and win favor with the valley's farming guild, The Tillers.
Zynga has 22 million daily active mobile users, announces partner program
Social gaming giant Zynga is holding a press conference called Zynga Unleashed in San Francisco today, and while much of the news out of that conference is about the company's successful Facebook and social game business, Zynga has a huge interest and following in mobile games as well. The company announced that it's hit 22 million daily active users on mobile (that's users logging in daily, across iOS and Android, to Zynga mobile games), and that it has a number of new titles coming out soon. Matching with Friends will add to the growing Words with Friends brand (which Zynga acquired by picking up an iOS developer), and Draw Something, also acquired by Zynga, is just about to hit its 10 billionth drawing. Zynga has announced a partner program for other mobile developers. It says that it has acquired a massive audience on mobile, and this program will be used to share that audience with other developers (for a fair price, I'm sure). Atari is the first big named signed up to the partner program, and Dark Meadow devs Phosphor Games and former Rare devs turned indie studio Crash Lab are also on the list. Elsewhere at the conference, Zynga announced a new version of FarmVille and a new Sims-like title called simply The Ville, but there was no mention of bringing these to a mobile platform anytime soon. We'll see.