Electronic Arts (EA) Presents "The Sims Social" on Facebook

Electronic Arts
(EA) has opened up access to its Facebook version of “The Sims,” meaning that
anyone can now play “The
Sims Social.”

The game, which was announced
back in June, lets you interact with Sims belonging to your
Facebook friends as you guide your Sim through their life. You can share
your activity within the game with your Facebook friends and keep
everyone up to date on what is happening with your Sim. The game is free
to play, but you can pay for virtual goods such as clothes and items to
decorate your home.

“The Sims Social” underlines the fact that EA is focusing more on
social gaming. Indeed, the company has acquired PopCap Games, one of the
biggest social gaming developers around, for a sum
that could rise to $1.3 billion.



I would guess that “The Sims Social” will prove to be hugely popular
among Facebook users as “The Sims” is one of the biggest gaming
franchises in history. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a home to build.

You can check out “The Sims Social” for yourself by installing
the Facebook app.

Mattel To Launch Worldwide UNO Tournament On Facebook, $40,000 Sweepstakes

UNO, the classic card game by Mattel, is celebrating its 40th
anniversary. In honor of the anniversary, Mattel is launching a
worldwide UNO tournament on Facebook.


The tournament, called the “40 Days of UNO Tournament,” will begin on
August 15. You can compete with players from around the world for the
title of “UNO World Champion.” The tournament will last a whopping 40
days and run on the UNO Facebook Page, which at the time of this writing
has over 3.5 million fans — that’s a lot of competition!




The competition is run in 3 stages and you will be able to earn
points by participating in the different stages. The more games you
play, the more points you receive. If you’re one of the top players,
you’ll be able to move onto the next round. During the tournament you’ll
be able to track your progress by viewing 3 leaderboards — one for your
country, one for your friends and one for all global players — leading
up to the last round on Sept 24, where the top 4 users will compete for
the championship title.


In addition to the tournament, which is open to users worldwide, UNO
is launching a sweepstakes called the “UNO Play, Enter, Win
Sweepstakes.” The game makers are giving away over $40,000 in the form
of hundreds of prizes. Unfortunately, the sweepstakes is only open to
U.S. residents.


Check out UNO’s
Facebook Page and get some practice before the competition starts.
You can sign up for the tournament on the UNO
Facebook app.

This Weekend Only: EA offers many of its iPhone/iPad games for up to 80% off!

As part of its Back to school campaign, EA is running one of those weekend only promotions, offering many of its popular iOS games for less. When it comes to the iPhone games, the following titles are now on sale:

TETRIS, SCRABBLE, FIFA 11, Fight Night Champion, TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON, BATTLEFIELD: BAD COMPANY 2, RISK, MADDEN NFL, and NCAA Football. As for the iPad, the list of discount games includes BATTLESHIP, MONOPOLY, The GAME OF LIFE, NBA JAM, Flight Contol HD, RISK, Max and the Magic Marker, YAHTZEE Adventures, SimCity Deluxe, PICTUREKA!, TETRIS, TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON, MONOPOLY: Here and Now, Reckless Racing, SCRABBLE, and SNOOD.
In a nutshell, if you’ve been thinking to grab some of the games listed above, now’s the time the act. Hit this link and then pick the game(s) you wanted.

Electronic Arts to acquire PopCap Games

PopCap Games, the maker of such popular titles like Plants vs Zombies, Peggle and Bejeweled, is rumored ripe for acquisition by games juggernaut Electronic Arts for a cool one billion dollars.



Electronic Arts has been entering the casual games industry lately, and the acquisition would only solidify that trend. It is mostly known for big budget titles, rather than casual mobile gaming, so there would be good reasoning behind that acquisition, since time-wasting on your mobile is exploding in popularity.

Zynga, which was also rumored to express interest in PopCap Games, might have very well given up the race, considering the hefty price tag mentioned. PopCap makes $100 to $150 million in revenue a year, so the billion seems a little steep, but it's all just speculation for now anyway.