Is FarmVille 26 x 26 Land Expansion coming tonight? Zynga's Twitter reveals a teaser

In an update made on Zynga's official Twitter page, they simply tweeted a link to an image of the FarmVille 26 x 26 Land Expansion!

Is it possible that farmers could be upgrading their farms to the latest land expansion as soon as tonight?

Here is the link that they tweeted:

zfarmville

    http://zyn.ga/PM



To follow the big Z, on Twitter, check out Zynga's Official FarmVille Twitter page here:

Zynga's Official FarmVille Twitter

This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.

FarmVille Small Can of Fuel giftable returns

FarmVille has made a minor change this evening by bringing back the Small Can of Fuel to the FarmVille Gifting Page.

However, this free giftable Small Can of Fuel is currently on available through FarmVille.com.

This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.

FarmVille Experiencing Technical Issues Tonight

Zynga's FarmVille Community Manager Lexilicious announced via the official FarmVille forum that FarmVille is experiencing technical issues.

These technical issues explain why many farmers are experiencing white, blank loading screens, out of sync errors and general difficulty accessing FarmVille. Perhaps this explains the delay in tonight's updates.

From Lexilicious:

    "Hi Folks,

    FarmVille has been experiencing some technical difficulties that have been resulting in some users experiencing white screens, loading issues and Out of Sync errors.

    We are working on resolving these issues as quickly as possible and we would like to thank you for your continued patience and understanding.

    We ask that you please refrain from creating additional threads about these issues to avoid excess spamming of the boards.

    If you have an Out Of Sync issue to report, please post here: http://forums.zynga.com/showthread.php?t=592511

    If you are experiencing white screens when playing FarmVille, please post here: http://forums.zynga.com/showthread.p...22#post6032222

    If you have a loading issue to report, please post here: http://forums.zynga.com/showthread.php?t=592521

    Thanks everyone!" (Source: FarmVille Forum)

This article originally appeared on FarmVille Freak.

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?
JobsBuild out my casinoFight in tournamentsFighting in generalRob other properties
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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