With more than 60 million active player across all of its Facebook, MySpace, Google, and iPhone games every month, social network game developer Playfish was ripe for the picking. Now they’ve been picked. EA has acquired the company for $US275 million in cash and $US25 million in equity retention agreements, with up to an additional $US100 million in variable cash consideration, pending the achievement of certain performance milestones through December 31st of 2011.

Playfish will now operate as a part of EA Interactive, a division of the company dedicated to web and wireless games. More than 150 million Playfish titles are installed and played around the world, with titles like Pet Society, of which I am a big fan, generating more than 1 billion play sessions a month.

“Social gaming, with its emphasis on friends and community, is seeing tremendous growth and this is the right time to invest to strengthen our participation in this space,” said Barry Cottle, Senior Vice President and General Manager of EA Interactive. “EAi has been successfully leading the charge for EA, and with the addition of proven expertise from Playfish, their broad consumer base and strong game brands, we’re moving ahead aggressively in our plans to lead in the category of cross-platform social entertainment.”

If there was any doubt that EA was completely serious about the social networking games space, this should get rid of it. This is an aggressive move into the growing industry segment that could only be topped by the acquisition of Mafia Wars creators Zynga, which I am fully expecting some major game company to announce any day now.

Mafia Wars is an addictive little Facebook game that involves building up a Mafia, pulling jobs, shaking down rackets, and taking down rival mobsters in order to achieve fame, fortune and far less free time than you had when you first started out. Last month the first two episodes of Mafia Wars: Moscow went live, giving players level 70 and above some new people to kill, business to rob, and equipment to acquire, and now episodes 3 and 4 are just around the corner.

According to Games.com, Episode 3 has players taking on the Moscow Financial System as they make their way towards a confrontation with bank president Gregor Belikov. New items in episode 3 include a Taiga Combat Shotgun and an Ex-KGB Bodyguard. Episode 4 pits you against the Russian military led by corrupt General Osipov, with the Orel Armed Helicopter and Razoritel Grenade Launcher at your disposal.

I arrived a bit late to the Mafia Wars game, but I have now tasted power and will not stop until I devour everything you ever loved. See you on Facebook!

Mafia Wars Moscow: Exclusive Sneak Peek at Episodes 3 & 4 [Games.com Blog]

“It was certainly bad judgment for me to play a computer game even for just a few minutes during the final House session on the budget,” Rep. Jack Hennessey, of Bridgeport, wrote. “I am embarrassed, and I apologise to each and every person in the North End and to people across the state.”

The Associated Press photo, taken Aug. 31, caused a category three foofaraw because, naturally, few things convey such disrespect as to play goddamn Solitaire when the opposition’s talking about the budget. Hennessey could have at least played Bejeweled or Peggle or something. Not only that, he’s playing the unwinnable Canfield. His colleague to the left, Rep. Barbara Lambert, was absorbed in either Freecell, Forty Thieves or Montana. Hard to tell. Guy back and to the right is reading about Andy Pettite on ESPN.com. What in the hell is the matter with you people!

Rep. Larry Cafero, the dissed House Minority Leader in question, faced off with the state House Speaker on a local public affairs program. “This has made international news because it captures the frustration of the public. While Rome is burning, they’re playing solitaire.”

Yes. How dare someone fool around with games, the Internet, whatever, during a super important speech.

Rep. Jack Hennessy Apologizes For Playing Solitaire at State Capitol During Late-Night Budget Debate [Hartford Courant via GamePolitics]

In the game, you’re given a series of recent status updates and asked to identify, by multiple choice, who wrote them. Fast answering is key, otherwise a “bomb” goes off. At the end of the game, you get to send “bombs” to others – basically invitations to play – from the stockpile you earn by guessing correctly. “Lifelines” extend the time you have to answer, in case you just have no idea whose status update reads: “Just christened the commode in my new apartment.”

Laurent Detoc, the president of Ubisoft North America, said TickTock will be “the first of many applications that we’re building for our UbiFriends portal.”

It’s not on the cliché level of pirates, ninjas, zombies, vampires or throwing sheep at one another. Yet. But its spread still depends on the “so-and-so did something, don’t you want to do it, too?” model, and for many, the answer will still be “no.”

Ubi to Launch New Games on Facebook [Eurogamer]

Which means, yes, there’s some horrible titles in there. But there are also many games that aren’t horrible. The opposite of horrible. Excellent titles.

Games like Peggle. And Plants vs Zombies. And some other games, many of which have been discounted (some by up to 50%) to celebrate the section’s opening.

[Family Games @ Steam]

According to TouchArcade, the mission of the ‘micro-studio’ is a departure from Electronic Arts’ previous mobile M.O. – which offered mobile adaptations of major IPs, with prices to match. 8 Lb. Gorilla will instead be focused on delivering games at a 99-cent price point, with a fun-to-complexity ratio you’d expect for casual fare.

In other words, something like Zombies & Me (above) – which 8lb Gorilla said play testers could understand in less than 10 seconds. They’re hoping simple controls and a zany premise – in which you save grandma’s house by herding swarming zombies under falling munitions – will translate to success. Zombies & Me will be released “soon.”

Going forward, they’re hoping to roll out these kind of popcorn games one-a-month, assuming no delays in the App Store approval process. I’m wondering if, because of EA connections and relationships, that will go smoother for them than for the indie developers whose turf they’re pinching.

Exclusive: Introducing EA’s Micro-Studio, 8lb Gorilla and ‘Zombies & Me’ [TouchArcade via Joystiq]

Inside Social Games tracks the most popular games on social networks including Facebook. They’ve just published the top 25 Facebook games for July 2, based on the total number of active users over the past month.

Unsurprisingly it’s casual games specialists Zynga who lead the way, with four apps in the top ten, such as the ubiquitous Texas Hold ‘Em and Mafia Wars, and another two apps in the top 25.

As someone who doesn’t play Facebook games, however, I’m baffled by the presence of two farming games in the top ten. At $5 is Farm Town and at #8 is Farmville, totalling just over a staggering 15 million players between them. Why farming?

Do you play Facebook games? What are your favourites?

The ISG Top 25 Facebook Games for July 2009 [Inside Social Games]

Alexey Pajitnov developed the puzzle game while working at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1985. In 1991, he and Henk Rogers founded the Tetris Company to prolong the life of the casual classic.

“I expected it to be a good game, not worse than anything else,” Pajitnov told Kotaku recently. “I never expected this.”

His hand in creating not just Tetris but the casual games market has earned him, of not money, than at least a sort of fame.

“People ask me, ‘Are you still alive? I think you are a legend,’” Pajitnov said about his experience wandering the halls of E3 this year.

While Pajitnov remains a lifelong Tetris player, he did once try his hand at creating a game that wasn’t a puzzler. Ice and Fire was a first-person shooter released in 1994. It was also, as Pajitnov says, a complete failure.

Pajitinov returned to puzzle creations with games like Pandora’s Box and Hexic HD, but his greatest success still remains Tetris.

“We don’t look at Tetris as being a retro game,” said Rogers. “It did more last year than any year it its history. We don’t have to market it. Tetris is ten percent of all games sold on mobile phones.”

While the classic remains popular, Rogers and Pajitnov continue to iterate Tetris. Their latest version features six people gaming together online using the familiar pieces and also new attack and defence items. It is currently being tested in Korea.

“That’s an interesting evolution of Tetris,” Rogers said. “The future is a country that has 48 million people living in it and the biggest casual gaming site in the country has 24 million registered users. That country is Korea. That’s what’s going to happen in the rest of the world.”

The next evolution for the game, Rogers hopes, will be turning it into a competitive sport.

“We are going to turn Tetris into the first real virtual sport,” Rogers said. “Sports like baseball and football were created at a time when our future was a lifetime of physical activities and physical fitness. But now that’s not as important, it’s more about mental fitness today.”

“Tetris is a virtual sport that exercises the mind. That is the definition of a virtual sport.”

With Tetris available on so many things, from phones to consoles, t-shirts to jewelry, I asked Pajitnov what his favourite Tetris spotting was.

“On a sky scraper,” he said. “I heard about it and saw the pictures and thought, ‘Wow, that’s great, that’s something.’ I would like to have a real competition on that.”

The player population of Free Realms continues to grow at a ridiculous rate, hitting the two million player milestone within a month of the game’s official launch. According to SOE, the game is a big hit with its target audience, with 75% of its registrants under age 17 and 46% under 13. Female gamers are particularly taken with the title, representing a third of the population. Once again, SOE president John Smedley is beside himself with excitement.

“In less than a month, Free Realms has captivated a core player base of tween and teen gamers, while also strongly resonating with MMO gamers. We wanted to create a game to play with our families and are excited to have hit the mark with our intended audience.”

SOE will be distributing a “party pack” of items so players can help the company celebrate this latest achievement. Hopefully it includes a little more Station Cash, as I could really use a ghost kitten to accompany me while I mine for silver. *sigh*

Square Enix sinks to the very depths of casual gaming with the launch of Dive II Hunt: Sorbet’s Great Adventure, a java-based game on the company’s MySpace page.

The game follows the adventures of adorable Sorbet, the brother of prolific Final Fantasy XII Moogle Montblanc, as he embarks on a quest to catch a whole mess of fish. Accept missions to dive under the ocean to collect fish and earn gil to upgrade your equipment, but watch out for that pesky air meter. Get caught without air too deep and you’ll wind up in bed for several days, and with only 30 game days to become the Hunter Dive Master, you’ll need all the time you have. It’s a nifty little game, actually, with leaderboards to show you how much you suck at fishing with a Moogle.

MySpace is a rather odd place for a Square Enix game to show up, but Dive II Hunt makes it almost worth digging up your login information and having to deal with that bastard Tom.

Dive II Hunt [MySpace via 1UP]