Zynga teams up with Wildlife Conservation Society — Zynga.org announced it is partnering with the Wildlife Conservation Society. The company is offering exclusive starter packs for Bubble Safari players, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the WCS.
Mark Pincus doesn’t plan to change Zynga’s operating strategy — Zynga Founder and CEO Mark Pincus sat down to chat with GamesIndustry.biz. When asked about whether or not recent stockholder reactions would affect the company’s business strategy, he said,”It’s OK to be a little misunderstood; but what’s not OK is to change your strategy or your execution because you’re worried about what your industry or investors are going to think of you in the short term.”
Marvel: Avengers Alliance getting new characters — Disney Playdom’s Marvel: Avengers Alliance is getting an upgrade in the form of new playable characters. The new characters are from on the current Avengers vs. X-Men storyline and include Emma Frost, Rogue, Beast, Quicksilver, Gambit, Havok, Tigra and Valkyrie.
Tencent may bring some Chinese games to Western markets — Speaking at last week’s GamesBeat conference, Tencent Senior Executive Vice President David Wallerstein said the company is building up its Western presence, but still isn’t sure about importing games from China in order to do so: “We thought about it. We’ve looked at certain titles internally, and it’s been really tough. For us to bring a game over, it has to be the right game.”
Pangalore announces Knightly Adventure — Developer Pangalore announced it’s working on Knightly Adventure, a cross-platform social RPG. The game is scheduled to launch on mobile devices and Facebook sometime in August.
Zynga appoints Ellen Siminoff to board of directors — Ellen Siminoff, a founding executive at Yahoo and CEO of Shmoop University, Inc., joined Zynga’s board of directors this week. Siminoff is the first woman to join the company’s board and will also join the company’s audit committee.
Source: Inside Social Games
William Hill CEO wants social games regulated — William Hill PLC CEO Ralph Topping took to his personal blog to say he believes social gaming needs to be regulated. Addressing the issue of hard currency, he said it, “sounds like virtual money to me, which some unscrupulous operators might, just might, be tempted to use to make social gaming a form of real-money gaming with no regulation – even available to children.”
Bingo Blitz comes to mobile as Bingo Rush [Launch] — Buffalo Studios is bringing its popular Facebook game Bingo Blitz to iOS under a new name: Bingo Rush. Bingo Rush provides a single-player experience, as well as new twists like the ability to play more Bingo cards and new power-ups.
Hotel Casino launches on Facebook [Launch] — Facebook players who want to enter the world of Bugsy Siegal and rule Las Vegas can test their mettle in Hotel Casino, developed by Merrywind, Inc. The game combines social gambling mechanics and city-building gameplay.
iLogos opens European headquarters — Ukrane-based indie game and outsourcing studio iLogos has established its European headquarters in Hamburg, Germany. Co-founder and CEO of iLogos Europe Alexander Goldybin says the new headquarters will allow the company to expand its presence throughout the European continent.
Eruptive Games gets $ 1M in funding — Vancouver-based Eruptive Games just snagged $ 1 million in funding from investors including Kevin Colleran (one of Facebook’s original ten employees), Kai Huang (famous for creating Guitar Hero) and Russian developer Plarium. TechCrunch reports Eruptive is targeting more hard-core players with its zombie-killing game Citizen Grim.
Facebook game named in PAX 10 —The folks over at Penny Arcade are gearing up for PAX Prime and have revealed the PAX 10, “the ten best indie games in regard to gameplay and overall fun-factor.” Developer Mango Down!’s Catch 22, an arcade game for both iOS and Facebook is included on the list.
Joe Monastiero is Ludei’s new president — Ludei, creator of HTML5 mobile gaming platform CocoonJS, announced this week that it’s appointed Joe Monastiero as its first president. Monastiero co-founded appMobie.
Call of Duty invading China with Tencent — Activision and Tencent are teaming up to bring an online version of Call of Duty to China. Call of Duty Online doesn’t have a release date yet, but it will monetize through the sale of virtual goods.
Mango Games launching games for Indian users — Social game developer Mango Games is launching two new games for Facebook users in India. Details on the games, Rummy and Don, are vague, but they’re launching in July.
SimCity Social officially launches on Facebook — Less than two weeks after the open beta went live on Facebook, SimCity Social is now “officially” launched on the social network. You can read our review here.
Tom Hanks and Yahoo team up for new social animation series — Tom Hanks’s Playtone production company is working with Yahoo for a new animated series called Electric City that will have viewers exploring mysteries via social media and games on iOS and Android devices. Electric City launches July 17.
iGaming announces date for iGaming Meetup — iGaming Business announced its first “iGaming Meetup” will be July 17 in London. iGaming Meetups are conferences for social game developers, social media experts and investors.
No “clear-cut good and evil” in Game of Thrones Ascent — Jon Radoff of developer Disruptor Beam opened up to Strategy Informer about his company’s upcoming Facebook game, Game of Thrones Ascent. According to Radoff, there aren’t any “good or evil” forces for players to choose from, as such a mechanic wouldn’t work in the game’s universe.
Restaurant City getting fan-made successor — Fans of the defunct Restaurant City have decided to make a spiritual successor to the game, Restaurant World. The game already has an app page, blog, forums and almost 2,000 fans.
Facebook now offers developers an easy way to allow users to follow other users’ activity within Open Graph applications, even if those users are not friends.
