Yes, the American holiday of Thanksgiving has already arrived in Mafia Wars. While it may not be a four-course meal at your parent's house with all the fixings, players of the Facebook game can now give Thanksgiving gifts to their mafia. From weapons (Turkey Silencers, Potato Masher or Tomahawk) to a defensive Pigskin Helmet to a Parade Balloon in the shape of a smoking mob boss, there's something that will fit the tastes of everyone in your mafia.



Of course, if they don't like it, you can put them on the hitlist.

Play Mafia Wars on Facebook >>

Beating iPhone seemed impossible but phones based on Google's Android platform, especially the new Droid on the Verizon Wireless cellular network in the U.S.. But Gameloft, a well known game developer and early supporter of the platform says that it and other Android developers are starting to trim back their future game efforts.

As reported in Reuters, Alexandre de Rochefort Gameloft's finance director told a group of investors that the reasons for the disenchantment with Google's Android comes from "weakness of Android's appliacaion store" and "nobody is making significant revenue [on Android]."

Where might Gameloft focus on for future development? Rochefort's company made 13% of its revenue last quarter on iPhone/iPod Touch.

Source: Reuters

Wish that you could monitor your Mafia Wars mafia all day without ditching work or school? Well the makers of the game have just introduced a new official toolbar for Internet Explorer and Firefox that lets players check out their Health Energy, Stamina and the time remaining until they can use an Energy Pack. It's pretty simple but installers of the beta version of the toolbar will receive an in-game advantage, a Limited Edition Utility Belt that comes with 30 Attack/30 Defense.




While the Mafia Wars Toolbar adds yet another search field to the growing list of search options along with links back to Cafe World, FishVille and Roller Coaster Kingdom, it does add another level of scrutiny. Created with tools from Conduit.com, players can add apps to their toolbar that look a lot like the deals that Zynga has been getting a lot of flak for lately.

Install the Mafia Wars Toolbar >>

As rumored several days ago, Zynga has expanded the FarmVille world by launching a version of the game on the company's FarmVille.com web page. While it still uses Facebook Connect, which allows Facebook players to continue to maintain and grow their previously created farms, moving the game from the popular networking service is a first for the company and speculation is high that Zynga may break out its other games from Facebook.



Currently labelled "Beta," the game seems nearly identical to the Facebook version. Although the game seems to run faster and the game's visuals seem must sharper. More information to come as we find out whether players should ditch the Facebook version of the game for this one.

In a field of many such game developers, Zynga has stood out ahead of the pack with massive growth in games like FarmVille, Mafia Wars and the recent rise of Cafe World. Now the company's games have hit a new collective milestone, 200 million users currently play one or more Zynga games.

To give users an idea of just how big that is, Facebook surpassed the 200 million user mark just this April (and that took five years to accomplish).

Source: AllFacebook

Growing fish and selling them for the most coins in Happy Aquarium is fun for millions but why should pay so many coins for fish eggs when you can add new baby fish to the tank the natural way? Mating is how most creatures reproduce in the real world and while your fish appreciate when you hit the Give Love button, sometimes they're looking to get love too.

To mate, there are a few conditions that you'll need to meet.


Of course, waiting for your fish to get to adulthood may take some time. Once an adult, make sure they're well fed, the tank is clean and make sure you have half the coins it usually costs to buy an egg from that fish (example: Auriga eggs normally cost 14 coins, so mating costs 7 coins). If you miss any of those conditions, you'll get the "Almost There!" screen until you figure out what condition's not being met. As you can see below, we had to wait for our male Auriga, Rascal, to mature enough to mate. Once ready, use the pointer to select either fish and click the Mate button.

Management games like FishVille and Restaurant City follow a basic set of rules. Make things, maintain things, sell things and add new friends in order to grow your in-game virtual fortunes. It's an easy set to apply to nearly everything. Already there are farm games (FarmVille, Country Story), aquarium games (Happy Aquarium, FishVille, My Fishbowl), mafia games (Mobsters 2, Mafia Wars) , pet games (Pet Society) and foodie games (Restaurant City and Cafe World). But there are all sorts of other real-life concepts that could easily be applied to the "management game" model. Here are just a few ideas that we thought were so good, we even checked to see if the trademarks were available:

ZooVille (Trademark available!)


Players might start out with a zoo animal of their choice. From there, they could choose to have a cage style zoo or even create a massive wildlife reserve where the people drive around in cages for protection. Of course, players make money per exhibit, zoo-themed food, new attractions like penquin exhibits and more.

ChurchVille (Trademark available!)
Looking to start your own church or even your own religion? Gather your flock and their tax-free donations as you create a small church with simple pews, wall hangings and ceremonial items. Then as the flock turns into a herd, players will build bigger churchs and eventually a faith-based network of churches.

BandVille (Trademark available)
Build a band from the best players, book shows, manage roadies and merchandise for an early band of your creation. Choose friends who master skills for guitar, drum, bass, vocals or other instruments as you eventually booking tours, album releases, fans, rehab and more.

SimsVille (Trademark abandoned in 2002)
While EA owns The Sims and it did work on a game called SimsVille that never released (FYI: the associate producer for the defunct game, Virginia McArthur now works at Zynga). Now that the trademark is available, players of the game might hone the skills of their on-screen selves as they interact with friends, neighbors, pets and the occasional police raid. Experience points would also come from the strength of your friend network. Imagine a virtual game about your real life social networking skills... I smell a paradox!

BarVille (Trademark available)
Finally, you could manage your very own house of libations. Stock the bar with top and bottom shelf liquors, add staff to manage tables and orders, create nightly specials, book cover bands, laugh at comedians and occasionally escort out those who may have stayed too long. From Irish pubs to trendy joints to Coyote Ugly, BarVille would offer accessories and options that would cater to anyone's tastes, as long as they have the money.

Give Us Credit
If you use any of the ideas, make sure you tell us first! We'd love to hear about how we might create the next social game. of course, what Villes would you like to see?

As players swim to the waters of FishVille, the team behind the wet and soothing Facebook game are adding several enhancements that it hopes will improve your gameplay.



For those who are managing multiple tanks, simply click on the MyTanks button will add a red glow to any tank that needs immediate attention. Friendly-types will appreciate that they can now gift up to 60 items a day, a great way to show your love and appreciation for any neighbor. Finally, the team has brought back the pointer tool after users asked for its return. While the team is still evaluating other options, the pointer tool that the team posted on its official Facebook page has Fish Love hearts on it... could a new pointer replace the Fish Love button?

Play FishVille on Facebook >>


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With three hours remaining in the Cafe World's Super Slider event, fans were already wondering about the Thanksgiving menu items that Games.com confirmed were coming soon after the event. Last night, the team behind the Facebook social networking game gave fans a glimpse of two items: a turkey and a cornucopia.

No other details were given about when the two items (or additional menu items) may show up. Historically, new Cafe World items do tend to show up on Thursday so players may see them later on today today.



Play Cafe World on Facebook >>


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Zynga, the makers of FarmVille, are ready to break the 65 million plus player game out of the confines of Facebook by making a full version of the game available on FarmVille.com. First word of Zynga's intent to build the site broke on TechCrunch. The game will still use Facebook Connect as a way to log into the game (which means that your farm will be saved) but by breaking outside of the social networking site's confines, Zynga may allow other logins as well.

Given Facebook's recent rules around viral marketing that many on the services consider spam, Zynga may have decided to go it alone due to some of those restrictions. But with the company's admission that it has had deals to offer "scammy ads" to players, early comments about the move were mixed.

When will the game launch on FarmVille.com? Maybe as soon as today.

Americans will celebrate their most confusing of holidays next week with Thanksgiving. While nearly every aspect of the loosely historical day causes outrage by one or several groups, this year's rebranding has been boiled down to two things: giving thanks for something special and turkeys.

Last night, two new rides and two eateries appeared in Roller Coaster Kingdom that all feature turkeys. Ensuring less outrage, Tofu Turkey is bound to make the vegetarians happy and for those who don't like turkey at all, there's always the turkey-free Cranberry Jelly shop.

If you've got the park space and $4,000,000 coins, the Turkey Escape might finally add less confusion and more action back into the holiday.

Play Roller Coaster Kingdom on Facebook >>

Moscow and Cuba might sound more interesting but the push to finish all the jobs in Mafia Wars' first stomping grounds, New York went into high gear this week for Big Apple Week. Offering double the loot and double the mastery, there's little reason not to play. Yet the event's biggest action is with the Raid the Docks job - a special job that gives players double the experience for the energy they'd put into it. The first day of the event, Sunday, allowed players to master a portion of the job every 24 hours.





Yesterday, the Mafia Wars team shortened that span of time to a mere 8-hours. Yes, you'll still need lots of energy to complete the event in a day or two but it can be done. We'll speculate that the reason for the change of frequency might also indicate that players are using their energy points to complete tiered jobs before special job and given that the event ends on November 22, Zynga's making it easier for dedicated players to complete both.




Play Mafia Wars on Facebook >>

Once the Super Sliders event in Cafe World finishes by tomorrow, cafe owners will get four new decoration options for their joints. While the four new options seem to lack an all-enveloping theme, covering nature-themes with a volcano or a waterfall; classic restaurant ambiance with rustic fireplace and ending with Chinese-themed dragon column, there something for nearly everyone.



Play Cafe World on Facebook



Related Articles:
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As of today, PlayStation 3 owners will finally get access to Facebook. Just a day after its Xbox 360 competitors received access to the popular social network, gamers on the Blu-ray enabled console will now be able to show off their Trophies, purchase information and specific game events on their Facebook page.



Meeting with representatives of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) yesterday in Washington, DC, Facebook integration, the system's future and the system's three year anniversary were all discussed. But we asked if there was any hope of getting popular Facebook games like FarmVille, Restaurant World or other games on the PlayStation 3? A company representative said that while the choice to bring a Facebook game to PlayStation 3 would be up to the game's publisher, be it Zynga, Playdom or other company, Sony wouldn't be against it. The rep felt that the PSP may ultimately be a better platform any such effort.

Given the recent "it does everything" marketing campaign by Sony, the PlayStation 3's stake in the gaming race has only been dwarfed by its success with capturing 60% of the Blu-ray player market. With hardware units installed in that many homes and Facebook games looking to capture a large chunk of the non-gamer audience, discussions to bring those games to the family TV seems like a no-brainer. For now, we'll wait.

Today's PlayStation 3 Update
To get a taste of what Facebook is like on PlayStation 3 as of the 3.10 update that released today, owners need to merely select System Update from the XMB navigation bar. Once done, they'll be able to push their Trophy achievements to Facebook by comparing Trophies to a friend or by checking their PlayStation 3's Trophy Collection. Purchases and demo downloads can also be posted to Facebook but the user does get the option to not post, thus evading any awkward conversations about one's spending habits. The option should make it eaiser to decide on which games to purchase based on the ones that a friend is playing.

The last part of the update today is the option for developers to add specific events into their future games (or via updates). So those could run from posting information that you've completed a level, found a special item, beaten a friend in competition or quantitative results ("Micheal killed 1,000 foes!").

(As of 11:40am ET, the 3.10 update had not yet arrived. )

In the world of burgers, there's only one measure of success. One billion. Today Cafe World chefs have cooked over one billion Super Sliders. The new menu option is part of a special event where players get to serve burgers that take 5 minutes to cook and never spoil. But Super Sliders, a reward for the one millionth fan of the Cafe World page on Facebook, is only available for 48 hours.



Unlike the first billion burger maker, McDonald's, Cafe World got to that sacred number in about 16 hours. With just under 30 hours remaining in the Super Sliders event, it's time to serve a few billion more.

Play Cafe World on Facebook >>