Madden NFL 11 is everywhere...except on Facebook

Like clockwork, EA Sports' Madden NFL football yearly update has arrived, signaling not only the start of the football season, but also the kick-off of the video game holiday season. This year, Madden was released for six different platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii, Sony PSP, iPhone and for the first time -- on Apple iPad. After EA Sports GM Peter Moore said Madden would be 'on Facebook going forward' earlier this year, so I was fully expecting to see a fully realized version of Madden on the social network we all know and love as well. So where the heck is Madden on Facebook?

If EA went to the trouble to purchase one of the leading Facebook game developers, Playfish, for $300 million dollars, it seems like a no-brainer that a socialized Madden would be one of the first collaborations out the door. I wonder if Madden will be arriving as a surprise in the next few weeks, or if EA -- not wowed by FIFA Superstars' performance -- decided to hold off on rushing such a valuable franchise to Facebook.
On the other hand, the console version of Madden seems to be taking notes from FarmVille and other Facebook games, bringing back Madden Coins -- a virtual currency introduced in last year's game -- which can be earned as achievement rewards (people who pre-ordered the game from Gamestop got 20,000 bonus coins) and then used to buy items that will give players a leg up in the game, such as Scouting Reports and boosts for the new 3-on-3 Online Team Play. Madden Coins can also be purchased using real-life cash, and even though it sounds crazy that someone would spend $60 for a game and then additional cash for coins, it must have worked if EA brought it back for a second season.

So, if you've been looking forward to hitting the gridiron with your pals on Facebook, looks like you'll have to wait anywhere from a few days to forever.

Madden on Facebook: Would you play it?
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Restaurant City's magical new recipes: Chocolate Toads & Butternut Squash

As we told you earlier today, this week's weekly theme in Playfish's Restaurant City is "Magic, Mystery, and Mayhem." The theme is a blatant nod to the Harry Potter line of books and movies, and in a typical move for the game, the theme's menu items have hit players' menus a bit in advance of the decorative items themselves.

The two new recipes are the Chocolate Toads dessert dish, and the Butternut Squash drink item (think a squash puree). As for the Chocolate Toads, you can learn this recipe by having one Chocolate, one Milk, and one Mint ingredient. The Butternut Squash recipe, then, interestingly requires one Soda, one Ice Cream, and one Butter.

Neither of these dishes are labeled as only being available for a limited time, which, along with the fact that they are buried quite deeply within their respective sections of the menu (limited dishes tend to show up first in line), leads us to believe that they are permanent additions to the game. Still, it couldn't hurt to learn these dishes now, even if you don't master them right away, just to make sure you have them for future use in your catalog.

Cast a spell with new Restaurant City decorative items

While Playfish might have initially claimed that the new Harry Potter "Magic, Mystery & Mayhem" items would be launching in Restaurant City on Thursday, it appears that some lucky chefs are already getting their hands on the items in the theme, as the game updated just a few minutes ago to launch them in the store.

The theme contains all of the items you'll need to create both a magically themed restaurant, but also give off the feeling of walking into Hogwarts, with wooden school benches and desks, a blackboard, globe, and a school dining table, along with all sorts of decorative items, like giant spiders, potion bottles and racks, castle pillars, arches, and other architectural details. You can even purchase a Floating Car or a quartet of Floating Candles to really add the feeling of magical amazement to your restaurant.

What makes the theme so blatantly Harry Potter-oriented are the two figures available to purchase from the Decorations portion of the store - Ham-oniony and Harry Butter, who are clearly molded after Hermione and Harry from the insanely popular series. It makes sense that Playfish would go down this route, especially right now, as the newest film in the series will be released later this month in the US.

For now, if you'd like to add a magical flair to your restaurant, be sure to pick up these items while they are easily available in the game's store. Also, for a larger look at all of the available items, check out the official Restaurant City blog.

Unseating FarmVille: Have social games seen better days?

We reported earlier this week that FarmVille has been ousted as the top Facebook application, with the Phrases application coming out on top as of this week. For those of us who work with these games day after day, we know that FarmVille falling to 54 million players from 84 million players isn't the end of the world. An article posted today in PC World claims that this is a sign of general social gaming woes:

    It's like Zynga is scrambling to add more sources of air to a deflating bubble. The fact that a random quiz app could unseat Farmville from its top spot, even temporarily, shows that social games have seen better days.

    [Source: PCWorld]

We think that this article was a bit sensational and overblowing the situation. Many articles on the web talk about social games as if there is only one game (FarmVille) or only one company (Zynga) who are playing a part in the massively popular gaming trend. What these articles fail to mention is that smaller developers are now showing huge successes, and that there are many more companies out there making social games. There are currently 10 social game developers with over 10 million monthly active users across their games. Another 12 with over 5 million MAU. And over 75 other lesser-known social game developers who have games with over 1 million players combined. This is no easy feat, and nothing to sneeze at.

Social games are diversifying. The days of Zynga not only ruling the roost but also being the only major player are dead. There are up-and-coming developers such as Digital Chocolate that are pumping out high quality games at an unbelievable pace. Massive brands such as Google (who purchased Slide), EA (who purchased Playfish), and Disney (who purchased Playdom) are coming in and putting existing IP and familiar faces into new and existing games.

Social games aren't dying, by any means. The loss in numbers of FarmVille is an indicator of the game's age and lifecycle, and the vast number of new games by new companies that are being released weekly. It's never looked better for social game players, nor social game developers. Using FarmVIlle as an indicator of social game health as a whole is a rookie mistake that many journalists are making, but at Games.com - The Blog, we know better because we are completely immersed in Facebook games.

EA takes The Sims Social down, puts 'Coming Soon' sign up

It looks like the town of Littlehaven is having a power outage. Since around 2 a.m. Aug. 10, The Sims Social, EA's brand new ambitious attempt to bring its mega hit casual franchise to Facebook, has been out of commission.

When players head to the app through Facebook, they're greeted with an admittedly misleading sign that reads, "Coming Soon! Undergoing beta testing." However, The Sims Social is clearly already here, and is, according to EA, in its open beta. (Or, if you ask us, its release.)

EA and Playfish have clarified on The Sims Social forums that the game is currently down for repairs, and that it will not reset players' progress, as many fans already fear. Here's the full statement from Playfish Community Manager Lady Coconut:

"The Sims Social is currently in Open Beta, which means we're calibrating and fine-tuning to ensure you will have the best playing experience possible. Please bear with us while we fix some of the issues that some of you have been having, during which time the game may be unavailable from time-to-time. Rest assured that we will not be resetting the game during this maintenance period, so you won't lose any progress, SimCash or relationships that you have built up so far."

We're sure that The Sims Social would prove to be an impressive addition to the company's Facebook catalog, if we could just play it already. (Based on my brief, brief experience with the game, I'm actually enjoying it, mind you.) Yesterday, the game suffered a number of issues regarding performance, and our guess is that this is the result of those frequent crashes, freeze-ups and other errors players have been struggling to play the game through. No ETA has been given on The Sims Social's return, so I guess you could go play the original Sims games while you wait. Just remember to check back ...

PopCap: EA 'knows that PopCap isn't just a collection of IPs' [Interview]

When veteran games publisher EA announced that it had acquired Bejeweled Blitz creator PopCap, it was scary to think of what might happen to the Seattle-based casual and critical hit machine. Game company acquisitions have a history of killing creative direction and even axing entire game franchises, so the fear wasn't entirely unfounded.

Even Peggle franchise director Joe McDonagh might have been a little squeamish at the thought of telling his staff that everything was going to be OK. Now that the dust has settled since the buyout, we recently sat down with the Peggle head to get an idea of what things are like at PopCap HQ since EA. There isn't much of anything intense to report, but according to McDonagh, PopCap has had an interesting if profound effect on the publisher.

Now that it's been a few months since the EA acquisition, what has it been like at PopCap--specifically in the studios--since?

I can honestly tell you that nothing has really changed. EA has been incredibly respectful of what they bought. I mean, think about it: They spent $1 billion acquiring this company. They obviously value what we have. They want us to keep on doing what we've always done. So, they've been incredibly respectful, they've really allowed us to carry on doing what we do.

Well, there have been some good things--there have been some interesting things. I would say that our day-to-day hasn't changed, but what has changed is we're certainly part of this big organization. And there are certain opportunities that have opened up to explore some things that we couldn't have done before.

In fact, one of the reasons I was so excited about the deal is that EA has got some awesome teams--some of the best teams in the world. And this was a chance for us to explore working with these people. So, we've had some meetings with the folks at DICE [Ed. Note: creators of Battlefield 3], at Bioware and the folks at Playfish to see what ways that we can work together. And that's been really exciting.
PopCap Zombies letter to EA
Now, EA CEO John Riccitiello has said that the publisher will treat PopCap with a "if it's not broke" approach. Will you say that's largely been the case?

So, when we did the deal, I was really lucky and got an hour with John Riccitiello one-to-one. I asked him, "Look, John. I've got to go back and sell this deal to my teams. And they're gonna ask me, you know, the elephant in the room is what happened to these companies that you bought back in the late '90s, sort of the Bullfrog's and the Origin's and Westwood?" And I said, "I've got to be able to look these guys in the eye and say that that's not going to happen to them."

He was incredibly candid with me about his experiences with the company and said, "Look, we've learned from that. And we've learned that this is about talent, and that if you don't create an environment to keep that talent happy, it's gonna leave." So, I really believe that he was sincere about that, and I believe that EA is sincere in its belief that it's learned its lessons about the importance of talent management. And that, when it looks at PopCap, it knows that PopCap isn't just a collection of IPs [Ed. Note: intellectual properties].

It's essentially about two things: It's about the talent that's here and it's about the culture around the creation of those games. And the thing that I can say about PopCap that's very true is that the people that work here really love the company. That's reflected in the games that we make, and I think that, if you're going to spend a billion dollars on something, you know there's something special there. They have really been true to their word, and I really believe they respect what we do. I couldn't be happier with the way it's gone.

Before PopCap was acquired, it opened 4th & Battery, a label where designers could create and release whatever games they wished. But ever since, no games have been released under that label. Will any more creative outlets come from that label or PopCap proper now that EA is in the picture?

So, this week we're actually going through a thing called PopCamp, which is a thing we do we do every quarter, [and] I think it's quite unique to PopCap. It's basically like Google 20 Percent Time, which is once a quarter the whole studio downfalls all around the world. And people some to studio management and say, "I have this crazy idea and I want to work on this thing, and I got a bunch of people that want to do it, too. Can I do it?" And we're like, "Yeah, you can."

This week is PopCamp, and that has not changed since EA bought us. Further to that point, and even more excitingly, I think that idea is taking hold even within EA. A bunch of studios at EA are actually excited about doing that themselves. And I think that people like Frank Gibbeau, president at EA Games, have seen that, and think, "How can we take some of PopCap's magic and spread it wider inside EA?" Not only have they not clamped down on that creativity and freedom, I think they're sort of trying to take lessons from that and apply it to their own studios.
Peggle in action
Talking about the future, how will PopCap fit into EA's larger social/casual games strategy?

I believe I'm right in saying that EA's kind of core strategy is digital in that on one side, EA wants to grow its digital business and the recognition that the business is growing away from retail goods and more towards online and connected. And secondly that the implicit recognition that the growth, at the moment, is coming from the arrival of hundreds of millions of new gamers coming to vehicles like Facebook and smartphones. Most of those gamers are, by definition, casual gamers. I think that was the driving force behind the acquisition. So, I believe we're kind of right at the heart of what they're doing.

Will PopCap simply create go on creating PopCap games, or will it also have a working relationship with EA's other companies like Playfish or Bioware's social studio?

I personally would love to work with some of those guys. I believe it will happen where it makes sense. I mean, are we suddenly going to turn into a place that starts churning out EA-licensed games? I think you can safely say no, right? But also, where there's some really cool collaborations to work on, we'd be crazy not to. So, we retain to a larger degree our creative independence, but I think there's an opportunity to do some cool stuff with other studios.

PopCap's Blitz games have been largely successful on Facebook. Will we see more of those, and how are those games performing financially compared to the downloadable games?

Social's been tremendously successful for us. But I think, going back to the reasons EA bought us, I think that one of PopCap's core strengths is that we are one of the few publishers and developers in the world that can develop great games across different platforms. If you look at the PC, console, social and phone spaces, we're right up there in the top 10 publishers of all those businesses. Our success has really been based on that cross-platform strategy. So yeah, we will probably focus on a lot of new social games, because it's been successful for us. But we'll also stay true to our cross-platform heritage.

Kindle FirePopCap has been bullish on mobile for some time, too. What are your thoughts on tablets, especially more emergent devices like Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet?

What I can say as the franchise director for Peggle is that I'm very excited for the Kindle Fire. That's something I'm watching very closely, and the reason why is because I think the success of the iPad is really about the store as much as it is about the device. That's why some of the competitors to the iPad have not been as successful is because it's not just about the hardware itself, but it's the consumer experience.

I think the Kindle Fire is a really interesting an exciting device. I'm really excited about tablets. I don't know about you, but it's really interesting. My experience is the change in the relationship I have with my PC over the last year relative to the tablet. You're seeing huge growth in that market, and you're going to see some really interesting, exciting games coming out on that that will really focus on the touch functionality.

Generally speaking, where do you see social games going in, say, the next few years?

I think social games are at the place MMOs [Ed. Note: massively mutliplayer online games] were at before the release of World of Warcraft. I think there are lots of commonalities in the core gameplay loop. A lot of sort of grindy, character growth-driven experiences that are presented in a lot in an unpolished way.

Every game that comes out in the social space is sort of an evolution. I was just playing CastleVille a few weeks ago and really seeing that that's a jump forward from where Zynga was before with a lot of its other games. I'm actually really excited about it, because I think this is the start of something huge.

I'm really excited to start making social games, because it's a chance to get my games into more people's hands. But I also think that it's a rapid-evolving design environment and what we see today is not what we're going to see in two-three years time.

[Image Credits: PopCap, Amazon]

What do you think the EA acquisition means for PopCap? Are you excited to see what finally comes of the deal in 2012?

Games.com's 2011 Social Gaming Predictions: How did we do?

Well, not to toot our own horn, but beep-beep. As it turns out, we did pretty darn well, thank you very much. At the start of 2011, the Games.com team sounded off on what we thought would be the top trends of the year. It's been a crazy year of ups and downs, bringing about the most impressive social games to date.

Almost more importantly, 2011 also brought the most interesting developments. And we pretty much called the lot of them. Some might call it back patting, but we call it ... a retrospective. Here's how we did in our predictions for 2011:

The Mobile Explosion
Our list devoted entirely to the best mobile social games of 2011 pretty much sums this one up. Social games broke out on mobile phones in a big way this year, so much so that some traditional companies have either focused huge portions of development to the genre or simply reorganized entirely to that end. Zynga released eight mobile social games this year alone. Boom.

3D is Gonna Take Off
Hey, we never said social gamers were going to dig it. Numerous 3D games came out on Facebook this year ... and none of them did as well as we might have hoped. However, the push for 3D games on social networks hasn't slowed down. Flash Player--what almost all social games are made in--now supports 3D. Better yet, the hardcore games creation tool Unreal Engine now supports Flash, as does the Unity Player. Next year will be different, we promi--wait, never mind.
CityVille
CityVille Shall Fall
Alright, so this one didn't happen at all. But we came pretty damn close, right? We know, horseshoes and hand grenades, but at least The Sims Social threatened Zynga's stranglehold on the social game market. While EA and Playfish's social masterpiece has been on the decline for some time, it still has disrupted much of its competitor's top games.

Interactive Billboards?
We're sad to say this prediction was 100 percent on the money. Unfortunately, branding in Facebook games has only become more popular. Just look at the number of celebrities featured this year in Zynga's top games. At least we've seen some gems that make sense, like Indiana Jones's takeover of Adventure World. Farmers Insurance in FarmVille was clever, too, but an ad is an ad.
Zynga zTag Project Z
The Zynga Network
While it wasn't exactly what any of us expected, Zynga announced Zynga Direct, popularly referred to as Project Z. We figured this would be The Big Z's move to escape Facebook, but the social network appears to be baked right in. This leaves us wondering just what value zTags, similar to Xbox Live's gamertags, will add for its fans much less Zynga.

The Advent of the Advergame
Another sad-but-true prediction, advergames, or branded games as some like to call them, exploded in 2011. Almost every TV series you can think of--from Weeds to The Vampire Diaries--has launched a companion social game. In fact, Game of Thrones will soon get its second tie-in Facebook game. At least that Dexter Facebook game was pretty neat-o.
Order & Chaos Online Facebook
Facebook MMOs Go Big Time
Not quite. We've certainly seen more MMOs come to Facebook in 2011, though none of which were any good nor successful. The combination simply makes sense on paper, but perhaps it's just not a good fit for the more casually-minded social gamer. Now, if you count Facebook-connected MMOs, we were right without a doubt.

The Fat Cats Get Fatter
Zynga acquired some 17 companies since 2010. How's that for fat cats? Hell, EA bought the biggest name in casual gaming for a whopping $1 billion. Looking at the disparity between even the top two Facebook game makers and the rest of the market, according to AppData, we'd say this estimation was about accurate, wouldn't you?

Facebook Gets Friendly Again
While social game makers will never see the viral success they did in early 2010 ever again, Facebook has made strides to support its game creator community. Sure, Zynga has quite the deal with the social network, but the company has made numerous changes to how games are presented on the network for all developers. Although to the dismay of many, Facebook even championed the top games on the platform with the rest of us.

By our math, that's seven out of 10. Not too shabby, huh?

What do you think of our predictions for 2011 compared to what actually went down this year? How did your own predictions pan out?

The Sims Social: Country meets chic with Country Kitchen items

Is it just me, or is decorating our houses one of the best things to do in the Sims Social? I know I could personally spend plenty of time rearranging furniture in each room, only to ripe it all out and start over again, and to help us do that with even more themes is a new Country Kitchen theme that has launched in the game this week. These country kitchen items bring in all sorts of shades of brown and ivory, and it's one of the most complete themes we've seen released in the game yet. Here's a rundown of what to look out for in the store to make this theme complete in your own home.

Plate Collection

    * Costs: 4 SimCash
    * Value: $600


Perfecto Fruitbowl

    * Costs: 4 SimCash
    * Value $600


Vintage Wines

    * Costs: 6 SimCash
    * Value: $900


RuralU Deluxe C (Kitchen Counter Piece)

    * Costs: 10 SimCash
    * Value: $1500


RuralU Deluxe (Kitchen Counter Piece)

    * Costs: 12 SimCash
    * Value: $1750


Antiquitate Deco (Wall Sconce)

    * Costs: 3 SimCash
    * Value: $450


19th Century Lamp

    * Costs: 10 SimCash
    * Value: $1500


19th Century Pot (Flowers)

    * Costs: 19 SimCash
    * Value: $2800


Antiquitate Oil

    * Costs: 325 Social Points
    * Value: $700


Basinuate Marble (Sink)

    * Costs: 12 SimCash
    * Value: 1750
    * Clean Stat: 5



FrancoFaux Chaise (Buildable item)

    * Costs: 225 Social Points
    * Value: $500


Cereal Shelf

    * Costs: 250 Social Points
    * Value: $550


19th Century Mat

    * Costs: 19 SimCash
    * Value: $2800


Clox Fruitful

    * Costs: 350 Social Points
    * Value: $800


RuralU Trove (Wall Cabinet Piece)

    * Costs: 600 Social Points
    * Value: $1450


RuralU Charm (Wall Cabinet Piece)

    * Costs: 800 Social Points
    * Value: $2050


FrancoFaux Tableau (Buildable item)

    * Costs: 800 Social Points
    * Value: $2050


RuralU Latch (Hutch - Buildable item)

    * Costs: 1100 Social Points
    * Value: $3100


G King Counter (Center Island - Buildable item)

    * Costs: 15,000 Social Points
    * Value: $21,250
    * Happiness Stat: 3


Normanity Chair (Living Room Furniture - Buildable item)

    * Costs: 450 Social Points
    * Value: $1050


FrancoFaux Cafe (Living Room Furniture - Buildable item)

    * Costs: 650 Social Points
    * Value: $1600


Normanity Sofa (Living Room Furniture - Buildable item)

    * Costs: 700 Social Points
    * Value: $1750
    * Sleep Stat: 3



In addition to all of these items, there's also a Cooking Skill vent hood called the SuxDelux that's available to users that have reached a Cooking Skill of 40 or higher. This item has a value of $3650.

In the Build Menu, you can also find a selection of new windows in the same matching dark wood color, ranging in price from 750 coins for the RealOak 2 Pane to 6,000 coins for the RealOak 5 Pane. If you want the window in the picture above, with the quaint ivory curtains, that will set you back a whopping 39 SimCash. Along with this, there are five new wallpapers and three new floor tiles to round out the theme.

There's no listed time limit on any of these items, so if you don't have enough Social Points or SimCash available to buy them now, you should be able to save up and purchase them well into the future. Still, if you want to get your hands on these items while they're fresh, I really couldn't blame you. I just hope your kitchen is big enough to hold them all!

[Final Image Credit: Playfish/EA]

What do you think of these Country Kitchen items? Are you more of a modern fan, or do you like country / southwestern items? Sound off in the comments.

The Sims Social: Claim your free Pogo Arcade Machine

While you may already be the proud owner of one or two Arcade Machines in the Sims Social, if you're like me, you'll always be ready for one more - especially if it's free. Such is the case with this new goodie, a Pogo branded Arcade Machine, spotted by BadgeHungry. The single link to claim your reward has apparently been going around for about a week, but hasn't been heavily advertised. It does, however, still work (as of this writing).

To claim your free Pogo Arcade Machine in the Sims Social just make sure you're logged into your Facebook account and click on this link right here. This will take you to Facebook, where you'll be told whether or not your claim attempt was successful. Once in your house, the Pogo Arcade Machine will go into your storage, where you can then freely place it anywhere in your house (or even outside).

As for interactivity, the machine allows you to do two things: Play Games (no energy required), and "Redeem Tokens at Pogo." This link will let you earn 25,000 free tokens on the site, but unfortunately, doesn't come with any free Simoleons back in the Sims Social. But hey, we've walked away with a free Arcade Machine; it's that all we could really ask for?

Have you already claimed your free Pogo Arcade Machine? What other sorts of goodies do you hope come to the Sims Social? Sound off in the comments.