February 8 – 9, 2012 | San Francisco         Inside Social Apps 2012, is coming back to San Francisco on February 8-9, 2012, and we hope you’ll be able to join us. What do industry leaders view as today’s most formidable challenges affecting social and mobile apps and games? How are top developers of all sizes overcoming obstacles to growth, and what can the industry expect in...

Hidden-object games are nothing new, and they're not even new to Facebook. When Zynga announced Hidden Chronicles late last year, it was tough not to assume it was simply the company's echo of that trend. While it might not necessarily be a bad thing for super fans of the genre, that's exactly what Hidden Chronicles is, save for a few interesting enhancements. After a first look at the game, courtesy...

Zynga’s newest game, Hidden Chronicles, today joins the sparsely populated hidden object genre on Facebook. This is the developer’s first game launch since its November IPO. The game was developed in San Francisco by a team of established video game industry veterans hired by Zynga for the project. This includes Gabriel Knight creator Jane Jensen, ex-EA art director Margaret Foley-Mouvais and longtime hidden object developer Cara Ely. as we’ve previously...

Watch out CityVille, there's another contender coming for your title as top Facebook game! Luckily, this new kid on the block is in the same staple, as Zynga can lay claim to both CityVille and rising star CastleVille. According to the latest stats on AppData, CastleVille has rocketed to 37 million monthly active players, passing FarmVille with its almost 34 million players to become the second most played game (currently)...

It's time to ring in the new year in CastleVille, and to help you do just that, a new series of five quests has been released called "Castleberry Punch." Just what is that drink? Well, according to Duke, it's the most delicious drink in any kingdom, but it requires quite a bit of work to actually finish a batch. That's where we come in! Castleberry Punch Have 20 Wood Logs...

Want to differentiate your strategy social game from the rest of them? Then get involved. Chinese developer Barbily plans to do just that with its Facebook version of browser-based, sci-fi strategy MMO (massively multiplayer online game), Star Supremacy. The game launches today on Facebook, and already the Barbily team plans to engage its players by bringing the fight to them. For starters, three Barbily GMs (game masters) will actively play...

Now that the lot of social and casual games makers are bound to hop on the imminent online gambling bandwagon in the U.S., it was safe to assume that Zynga would be in on the action. Apparently, that's not so, according to what nameless sources close to the multi-billion-dollar game maker told Business Insider. One source told the website that Zynga hasn't even tried to make online gambling games in...

Zynga has had a rocky road when it comes to player feedback across its mighty catalog of Facebook games. Sure, the vast majority of players enjoy games like FarmVille and Pioneer Trail, but what about those vocal users that have legitimate concerns about games and are more than willing to offer their feedback? Does Zynga actually listen to them? Perhaps. According to the Economic Times, Zynga's Bill Jackson (creative director...

You can almost say U.S. casino giant Caesars and Slotomania maker Playtika were engaged before, and now they've just had their wedding day. (Dawww!) The Israeli social games company is now 100 percent owned by Caesars, which had previously acquired 51 percent of the developer earlier this year in May for between $ 80 and $ 90 million, according to Globes. The majority of social gaming acquisitions this writer has...

2011 saw a growing diversity in social games with new genre and gameplay types emerging on Facebook, such as hidden object games, racing games, and strategy combat titles with real time multiplayer modes. Based on data collected from AppData, our data tracking service, here are the most popular genres for successful Facebook games this year. Note: For the purposes of this report, “successful” is defined by games with over 100,000...