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2K-Games and Fireaxis just released (7th of July) the latest installment to Sid Meier’s Civilization franchise and it turned out to be a Facebook game! Wonder o Wonder! Well not really, the turn-based gameplay of the original Civilization games should be easy to transfer to the social gaming concept and this is exactly what they did. The game turned out great as well, but there is one major problem; you can’t really join it. Every time I join it turns out the server is very stressed out and I at least have to try for a few minutes. Not really worth it for a game that’s supposed to be played in a few minutes.

When I did get in the game turned out interesting! The mini-games are quite fun, although they will bore you when you’ve played them a few times, and the building of your city is easy. Some things are still a little bit unclear, like how to get the highest values in production and the various ways to fight towards victory. As it is right now, growth is most important, where in regular Civ games you could also go for different routes.

Anyhow, I can’t imagine this not to work out, so once they fix the connection troubles we’ll be good to go and I think a lot of people will enjoy it!

While I was away for the weekend, and a full week next week, some people made the best of the situation by kicking me off the hard-earned #6 spot on the Netherlands wealth ranking. That means I’m still at number seven so I’m not doing too bad, but I switched from actively flipping people to long hold strategies, so I hope this pays off in the long run!

Nice post on VentureBeat today about the once quite succesful MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies and the recently announced termination.

Star Wars Galaxies was successful because it was unlike other MMO games at the time. Players could master several classes at once and create characters who suited themselves. You could create a doctor who was a deadly sniper, or a fighting monk who could also build starships. It was also extremely difficult to unlock the Jedi class, but very rewarding.

Full article here

The takeover of PopCap by an unnamed party (at first rumored to be Yahoo) has taken the next step with TechCrunch saying they have two seperate people saying that the unnamed party is in fact EA (Electronic Arts).

The high price of the deal ($1+ billion) means that this would be a huge bet for EA — we’re talking over 13% of the company’s market cap. But we’re hearing that this is a Hail Mary pass from EA to break into mobile and social gaming — areas where the company hasn’t done nearly as well as it has in the console arena.

Read the full article here.

By participating in the [X]pendapalooza I managed to kick around about 100.000 eaves and invest in a lot of different people. It was great to make the connections, but after two weeks nearly all the shareholders I had gained in it have left again.

My share price is still fluctuating around 40, with a peak somewhere high over 43, but for some reason and while my dividend was actually climbing, people started selling. I’m at 77% outstanding shares, which is not bad, but with a ROI div yield of about 1,13% I should be quite attractive to invest in. This turns out to be the hardest part of being active on EAv, getting people to buy shares and just stick around. As you can see the game part (acquiring wealth) is something I’m pretty good at, the social aspect (people buying your shares) is harder.

I always buy shares in people that invest in me, and I don’t understand why other people don’t do the same. Ah well, I’m currently aiming for the #6 spot in the wealth ranking, should get back to investing!

Great interview with Take-Two Interactive COO Karl Slatoff on his games and general coordination of releases. This is one of the biggest and best companies in gaming and well worth the read.

Every time that we come out with a new release, we think it’s for a AAA title, the highest quality. We are trying to break new ground every time we come up with something. It’s really hard to do that every single year. And I do believe you can have success for a period of time. But as far as what is the best way to manage a brand franchise so you’ve got longevity? As you move from generation to generation, that remains to be seen. We don’t subscribe to the philosophy of bringing a franchise out every single year. We think it takes a little bit more time to do something that is notably and meaningfully different each time you come out with a new title within a franchise. And for us it is about creating long-term value by creating franchises. It’s not just about getting excited about one franchise and beating it to death until it dies and going on to the next. We really think so much goes into doing this that we act like we are managing a long-term brand. That’s how we approach it.

Full article

A good post to keep up with the online casual gaming sphere is done by VentureBeat on Zynga’s latest release; Empires & Allies.

Zynga’s Empires & Allies social game has grown to more than 30 million users in just 17 days. The combat social strategy game added about 2 million users today, according to market analyst AppData.

Read the article here.