Game of the Day: Jumble Solitaire

Edging into the weekend and the game of the day stays strong. What will you be doing this weekend? Are you a Wild One or more of a Sorority Lifer?

The Game of the Day is Jumble Solitaire. In Jumble Solitaire, two of the all-time great games are combined. On one side you have the classic newspaper word jumble and on the other tri-peaks solitaire. It's your job to solve the jumble and clear three pyramids - can you do it?

Important side note: Just by playing The Game of the Day you will be entered into a monthly drawing to win a FlipCam HD. You don't need to do anything else, just play! The more you play, the more chances you have to win. For more information on the Game of Day check out the official New Game of the Day hub.

Play Jumble Solitaire now -->

Ponzi, Inc. is now permanently closed for business

This hasn't been a good week for Facebook games staying open, and Ponzi, Inc. is the next one to be closed for good. Ponzi is the creation of Challenge Games, an Austin-based studio that was recently acquired by social gaming giant Zynga. Ponzi has been slowly trailing off in activity over the past few months, and as of yesterday had around 221,000 monthly players. The staff who worked on Ponzi had the following to say on the game's Facebook page:

    Dear Ponzi Players,

    In October 2009, Challenge Games launched Ponzi, Inc., a fast paced tycoon game that pokes fun at corporate life.

    Earlier this month, in real world corporate news, Challenge Games became part of the Zynga Game Network. We're thrilled to have the opportunity to bring our games to a wider audience, but we have had to make hard choices about where to focus our energies. As of June 29th, Ponzi, Inc. will lock the office doors for the final time and close up shop.

    During its peak over one million people logged in to play Ponzi, Inc., and built their home offices into global corporate empires complete with Unicorn Palaces and Death Rays.

    Players who have made purchases in Ponzi, Inc. within the past two months will have an equivalent value credited to them in FrontierVille, on or by July 31, 2010.

    We'd like to extend a special thanks to our community - players and friends - from all of us on the Ponzi, Inc. team. Your passion and commitment helped make the game great fun. We look forward to seeing you playing our other games.

    Sincerely,
    The Ponzi Inc. Team


Earlier this month, we wrote up an article claiming that the best thing about Zynga's acquisition of Challenge Games was Ponzi. Unfortunately, the revenue must not have been high enough on the game to continue supporting it. What is even more scary is the fact that Challenge Games' other title, Warstorm, is doing equally as poor. It has been in a downward slide as well, and only has about 250,000 monthly actives. Will Warstorm weather the storm?

Happy Aquarium embraces the Twilight craze

Happy Aquarium Twilight Twilit
Did you think social games were safe from the teenage craze of Hollywood sensation, Twilight? Guess again, because Happy Aquarium is now allowing you to turn your fish tank into a Jacob vs. Edward showdown, and the poor fish are caught right in the middle of it. Of course, trademark requires Crowdstar to refer to their theme as "Twilit" but we all know exactly what they're talking about. We're no fools when it comes to vampires and werewolves!

Available for a limited time in the Happy Aquarium store is a new background ambiance titled "Twilit Forest Scape". This forest scene costs either 36 Pearls or 30 Facebook Credits, and will really set the scene for your Twilit experience. Also, there is a new Tank Mate called "Werewolf" that looks like a young Jacob, and when clicked will become a werewolf. He does cost 48 Facebook Credits or 58 Pearls, so he isn't cheap. So far, we don't see an Edward yet, but we're sure that's coming soon. They wouldn't want to make all the Edward fans angry, would they?

Log in to Happy Aquarium now to show your Twilit excitement.

Mafia Wars Vegas fun facts: 100 million robberies, 250 million fights

Mafia Wars Vegas has arrived (as if you didn't know already), and as far as I'm concerned, this is the best expansion yet. The jobs have been broken down into new energy and fighting paths, which does a good job catering to different types of players. Properties have been replaced with a Casino that you can build out with help from friends, new boss battles are tough and requires you to think more strategically, and the new Fight Club Tournaments aren't so bad either (except for the fact that I keep getting KO'd in the first round). Sure, it's annoying that I never seem to have enough cash to buy items required for jobs, and that I keep getting killed by bosses -- but no one ever said running a mafia would be easy. And who wants it to be?

But, I digress. Zynga released some numbers for Mafia Wars Vegas, while pimping out the fact that they plan to blow up an armored truck once 10 million people visit the next expansion. The game still has a ways to go, but it looks like the 3 million or so players trying to take over Sin City have been very busy:

- 3 million people have visited Mafia Wars: Las Vegas since launch

- 7 million Vegas gifts are been sent every day

- 8.5 million casino properties have been upgraded

- 1.5 billion jobs have been done in Vegas:

- 250 million fights haven taken place in Vegas

- 100 million buildings have been robbed

- 80 million tournament fights have taken place

Mafia Wars Vegas: What do you do the most?
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Amazon an unlikely winner in social gaming's growth

When you think of the companies that have benefited the most from the explosive growth of social games, a few names probably spring to mind. Facebook, of course, and definitely Farmville-maker Zynga. Playfish and Playdom, surely, in the wake of their lucrative buyouts. Well, one name that probably doesn't come to mind, but probably should, is Amazon.

As VentureBeat notes, Amazon's Web Services (AWS) division provides the hosting that powers six to eight of the top ten Facebook games, according to AWS' Jeff Barr. This means companies like Zynga, Playfish and Playdom pay Amazon substantial sums of money so they don't have to worry about things like server maintenance, bandwidth, backups and security for their growing game. Those substantial sums have helped make AWS into a $500 million a year business for Amazon, according to some estimates,

Of course the relationship isn't perfect -- problems with AWS scaling are likely behind some of the outages that occasionally plague many growing games. Still, Amazon has positioned itself well to benefit both from online sales of disc-based games and from the growth of web-based games.

Rexona's Nature Nurture brings real virtual gardening to Facebook

Tired of controlling virtual characters in your Facebook games? Why not try controlling a real gardener?

Rexona's Nature Nurture is pretty unique, as far as Facebook promotions go. The "game," such as it is, is simply a live video feed (containing four selectable angles) of a gardener among dozens of plants. You "play" using on-screen buttons to command the gardener to perform basic plant maintenance tasks like fertilizing, watering, trimming, misting and even adding earthworms. Then you simply watch as the gardener works through the queue of commands. It's a lot like Farmville, except instead of gaining levels and coins, you gain the satisfaction of helping maintain real plants.

You also get the satisfaction of watching this lone gardener as he goes slowly crazy working among the plants. As I played, I managed to get my gardener, Carlos, to do a set of manic jumping jacks (pictured), play some smooth jazz music and sing along to a medley of Beatles songs. It's like improv theater mixed with gardening mixed with gaming mixed with understated advertising, and the combination is totally great. Try it out.

Quote of the Moment: 'Popular' does not mean 'good'

"I think a great many social game developers are mistaking the success of their games for positive contributions to humanity. ... If you talk to just about any social game developer, but particularly those who used to work in 'traditional' development, you'll hear them talk about how their niece or mother or uncle or whomever plays their games now. As if that fact justifies the nature of the games themselves. It's as if there's been this huge vacuum of professional isolation that's finally being released, and some developers are using that release as an excuse to justify the construction of profoundly dastardly works."

"When I hear so many developers use the market as a primary justification for design choices or professional choices, it makes me feel wretched. Many people like saturated fats and simple sugars and The View and a great many other things, but that does not automatically make those things righteous or good."

-Author, critic and Cow Clicker developer Ian Bogost explains why millions of users don't prove a game is good in an interview with GameSetWatch