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?
Every wonder if your neighbor down the street is playing the same Facebook games you are? Are you more likely to encounter a Mafia Wars mafia in Memphis or Macon?
Through the power of Google Trends we've tracked down the top states for some of Facebook most popular games.
We found it fascinating to find out that Hawaii ranked the highest for both Cafe World and Mafia Wars with Utah, of all places, being the top spot for Restaurant City. Anything surprise you? Please let us know what you think of our Facebook game interest heat map in the comments.
While today's biggest news in the social network gaming world was EA's acquisition of Playfish, that news comes bittersweet to current EA employees as the video game maker started layoffs at several U.S.-based divisions. Gamasutra reports that development studios in California, Florida, Canada and Virginia had staff reductions. Later on in the day, EA CEO John Riccitiello said that the 1,500 layoffs were "essential to transforming our company" after it had reported a $391 million net loss for the quarter.
News of the layoffs didn't come as a surprise as trusted sources had discussed the rumor staff reductions for some time before today's culling. Gamasutra reports that those employees who were given noticed today were clearly from divisions at EA that create video games for consoles and PCs. There's been no word whether the divisions that are part of Playfish's new division, Los Angeles-based EAi, were affected.
As may have already heard, Playfish, the creators of social networking games including Pet Society,Restaurant City and Country Story, is now a part of video game maker Electronic Arts. You might know Electronic Arts by its best known games that run the gamut from Need for Speed, Medal of Honor, The Sims, SimCity and the Madden football series.
Now that Playfish's signature and popular gameplay is officially part of the team, we're curious as to what games you'd like to see added the social networking gaming company's list of offerings.
It's official: Electronic Arts (the video game company behind The Sims and Madden) has purchased social game maker, Playfish, for $300 million in cash and stock. Rumors that the two companies were getting together were making the rounds back on October 14.
The London-based social gaming company, best known for Restaurant City and Pet Society, runs games on several major social networks including Facebook, Bebo and MySpace.
While there's no immediate word on how either company will change, EA already has a stable of social and casual games under its Pogo.com site and EA Play brand (which includes a major deal with leading toymaker, Hasbro).
Through a press release, issued on the Playfish site, "Playfish will operate within EA Interactive, a division of EA focused on the web and on wireless." That division includes EA Mobile and casual gaming powerhouse Pogo. It's unknown if EA Play is also a part of the same group, which might be interesting for social gamers since it has a long-term deal with toy-maker Hasbro (which includes Littlest Pet Shop and Nerf).
Some say the kitchen is the most important room in a house, but Pet Societyholics know the closet is the true heart of a fashionista's home. Where else do you spend so much quality time with yourself as you ponder the question, "What will I wear today?"
Organizing a wardrobe is one of the most difficult design challenges in Pet Society, but we'll show you how to build a fabulous closet worthy of Stella McCartney.
You asked,and we listened. Pet Society players are curious about the Pet Society coins: how do they work, how much do they cost and what the heck are they for?
Coins in Pet Society are the basic unit of currency for buying clothes, food and decorating your pet's home. Playfish has been very good about not requiring people to purchase items to advance. Instead, you can play forever, accumulate coins by completing tasks and there's little pressure to spend extra cash on additional coins for big ticket items.
However, if you love the game, but don't have as much time to play and collect coins -- you can buy additional coins using real-life cash.
Buying coins in Pet Society is a snap. To buy them, click on the button on the top of the screen that says 'Add Coins.' Then you'll be able to pay using five options: Visa/Mastercard, PayPal and more.
The pricing for paying with credit card is:
26,000 coins for $39.99
12,000 for $19.99
5,000 for $9.99
And the winner for most popular game on Facebook in October is ... (drumroll, please!) ... FarmVille. The farm-simulation is still attracting players in droves, bringing in 11 million people in the past month for a whopping total of 63 million users. Zynga's restaurant simulation game, Cafe World, went from zero users to 27 million in a single month and Happy Aquarium went from zero to 22.5 million users in a month.
The other games that made the top five include Mafia Wars, and Pet Society. Even though these games have the most users, it's also important to mention that Zynga's Roller Coaster Kingdom gained 14 million users last month, Pet Society gained 3 million users, Restaurant City gained 2.3 million users and the newly redesigned Bejeweled Blitz gained 2.6 million users.
Needless to say, Facebook game are continuing to attract players in droves; we're already placing bets as to how soon Cafe World will overtake FarmVille as the top dog on the charts. Care to wager?
After a long weekend filled with enough treats to kill Willie Wonka, action games are best suited to all the Skittles, M&Ms and peanut butter cups fueled bloodstreams that are a common remnant of Halloween's yearly celebration. So take a break, sit back, grab another chocolate and read up on what happened in the world of social gaming today.
- Zynga, best known for its gaming creations FarmVille and Cafe World, is adding GoPets to its gaming zoo as the company announced on Monday that it had purchased the South Korean developer. The purchase comes as strangely ironic since free-to-play games were first established in Asia and Zynga's relatively new to the gaming world compared to the four year old GoPets. Good news for Zynga fans though, GoPets is a 3D game, which might be the reason why San Francisco-based Zynga purchased it. Terms regarding the purchase did not reveal if GoPets was purchased with Cafe Cash, Reward Points or real-world dollars. Mafia Wars 3D please! (Virtual Games News)
- MySpace totally dead? While MySpace used to be the hottest place to be, the online social networking service has since gone into its own ice age. Apparently the services former CEO, Chris DeWolfe, is coming back and instead of creating a service for musicians and celebrites to hock their goods, he's creating a company that will buy smaller social game companies in order to take on the big boys like Zynga. (CNET News)
- Michael Arrington, founder of technology site TechCrunch, BBQ-ed Zynga last week about deals that it was offering to players of the game, especially after revealing that a third of its revenue is generated through offers (Netflix, Blockbuster, etc.) that it makes available on its pay for play pages that convert offers to in-game cash. Some of those deals Arrington calls "scams." Apparently Zynga CEO Mark Pincus was listening and today wrote back... and agreed. He even got his company to remove several of the offers that Arrington question. Now that's power.
- Battleship, Connect 4 and Monopoly Classic ready to play on iPhone/iPod Touch. Yes, the gaming deal between toymaker Hasbro and video game maker EA continues to bear fruit. Now the duo are planning to launch three new games via the EA Mobile brand. Sadly, still no Risk. (Joystiq)
- Just how young is too young to allow a child to have their own Facebook account. CNN broached such an issue in a recent piece, "Social networks and kids: How young is too young?" where 38% of 12-14 year olders saying that they have at least one profile on a social network site. Since Facebook and MySpace require a user to be at least 13, that's a shocking number. It isn't all bad since they're usually communicating with their peers with poor language, just as their parents do. But with the growing concern over Internet Addiction, social network games may soon become a big target with parents of younger digital denizens. (CNN)
G'night, time to go back and redesign my Roller Coaster Kingdom.
Remember, remember the 5th of November? If that rhyme doesn't ring any bells, that a phrase spoken in remembrance of the night that Guy Fawkes and other conspirators attempted (and failed) to blow up Parliament. In honor of that night, the Brits celebrate by lighting fireworks and bonfires, eating toffee apples, jacket potatoes (and put away a few pints as well).
When you log into Pet Society this week, you'll find a handful of items in honor of this UK holiday, including a bonfire, toffee apples and -- the one item we definitely plan to buy -- a Pet Fawkes Doll.
There's slew of other Brit-inspired items as well, including a Beefeater uniform and Big Ben replica. Any items labeled "This Weeks Special" will only be available until midnight GMT November 8. See the rest of the items after the jump.
Early nominations for Best Facebook Game for Mashable's 3rd Annual Open Web Awards Social Media Edition are in and it appears that within the first minute of voting, Pet Society has taken a very early lead. While we were curious to whether the entire staff of Playfish voted during the first minute of voting, we found a different reason.
Incentive.
See, the game's team posted a new newsletter that featured one link... right to the category the developers would like to win. To sweeten the vote, the team promises a special surprise if the game takes the category when the winners are announced on Tuesday, December 15th. Of course, you don't think that the other big Facebook games are merely going to watch Pet Society win, right?
Tired of gaming friends who've sent you dozens of invites to join their favorite Facebook game and they still don't seem to get the hint that you're not interested? Well, you'll love the new changes that are coming to the popular social networking service before the end of the year.
First, application bookmarks will move to the left-hand navigation area. Games will get a new sub-area, broken down by "My Games" and "Friends' Games" section. Once clicked, a new Games area will display a user's more recent games played with game-specific categories that track all the updates and notifications that currently get mixed into several of Facebook's communications areas. So instead of receiving notifications from each player's acheivements in Cafe World, Pet Society or FarmVille, a user would go to the new Games area to find out. Sadly, there's no word on whether invites and gifts will be handed though Facebook, or if those would be managed inside each game.
Another big change will be that Facebook will allow third party game developers to ask you for your real email address (not just send info to your Facebook Inbox). As such, players will also be able to control how those companies will contact them, similar in the way that bigger web sites allow you to limit the marketing messages.
While game developers just received word about the changes, getting the new rules into bigger games before the end of the year may produce many unexpected challenges.
If your pet in Pet Society is an avid fisherman, they'll want to jump in the chance to catch 16 spooky fish that are making a brief appearance in the in-game pond for Halloween. The list of bizarre fish include the Skeleton Fish, Frankenstein Fish, the Incubus Fish and the scariest of all -- the Scary Clown Fish. Seriously, what's scarier than a scary clown in a fish form? I get the chills just thinking about it.
To collect all 16 fish, head to the Cash Shop and buy special Halloween Fish biscuits (they cost 4 Playfish Cash each) and then go to the pond and start fishing. Fishing with this special bait will ensure that you catch one of the spooky fish, just make sure you don't let the fish get away with your bait, or you will be one unhappy fisherman.
Still not convinced that social gaming will take over the world? It took nearly a 1/16th of a day to find the best social gaming blog and news that would normally keep us away from our Cafe World/Mafia Wars/Roller Coaster Kingdom schedule.
- Parks aren't fun for all. Apparently that's message that one player is sending as she says Goodbye Roller Coaster Kingdom after being fed up with the game's quirky limits on expanding one's park by adding neighbors. She'll be missed but her presence will still be felt in Cafe World, FarmVille and Pet Society. (Quirky Gaming Girl)
- "Today, I was playing FarmVille all day, and I was really into the game. I was getting phone calls all day, but I kept ignoring them cause I was making so much Farm Money. Come to find out it was my son's school. He fell off the jungle gym and broke his arm. FML" (FMyLife)
- The death of the CD-based game . As if you're shocked. The advent of games like Pet Society didn't just change the rules of Facebook, it completely upset the sales of boxed games that you might find at Best Buy, Target or Walmart. Blame it on a culture that's obsessed with labor-light thrills, but video game makers and social network game makers agree, the best future use of your CD-ROM drive might be a drink holder. (MCV)
- Rocking Facebook is hard. With scores of odd groups (yeah, so I dig the Tea Appreciataion Society), it's tough to get fans for a product that isn't blonde and scantily clad. Yet Guitar Hero 5 found new reason to gloat this week as it staked out its claim as first video game page to score one million fans. Rock on indeed. (http://dontloseyourdayjob.com/)
- We're cheap but admit that LEGO's efforts to create a LEGO MMO gamebased on the brick formula that's shaped many a childhood is something that, well, is building a personal interest in our smallest recesses. Still, a game that allows us to build anything, take part in new LEGO adventures beyond the LEGO site and Lucas offerings is hard to skip. (Eurogamer)
Social network games really have changed the economic landscape of Facebook. FarmVille, PetSociety Mafia Wars and the recent Café World are now firm fixtures in the lexicon of Facebook users. But that achievement isn't for all the right reasons. Gameplay, which on one level requires a user to interact with the game, also offers a broader game that's enabled as those users recruit new friends into the fold. Once recruited, these social games use the communications channels of Facebook to update, notify and even ask users to help improve their friend's game experience.
Not all of these notifications are welcome. As players grow their list of recruits, the game adds more and more notifications and for those who don't play the games, these messages are often viewed as "game spam." As with real spam, there's a cost. More notifications require more processing power at Facebook, more time for users to delete unwanted messages and such an experience might cause Facebook users to drop off the social networking service.
Here are a few of the changes that author Kim-Mai Cutler says are being developed by Facebook and may be shown at tomorrow's Facebook Developer Garage event.
1) Require that game companies get a player's real email address in order to deliver updates, notifications and other communications.
2) Notifications moving to a new "less intrusive" location
3) Requests function may merge into Inbox
4) A "Games" column may show up in the left nav to allow players to receive updates from games that they're playing and ignore the ones that they're not.
The changes may also have a negative side effect for game companies which rely more on free to play games with a percentile of those users paying real money to get ahead or adding virtual goods to their in-game experience. If those companies can't grow their coffers through viral messaging, game players may have to deal with a lesser free experience or a heavier dose of advertising.
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While today's biggest news in the social network gaming world was 
Not all of these notifications are welcome. As players grow their list of recruits, the game adds more and more notifications and for those who don't play the games, these messages are often viewed as "game spam." As with real spam, there's a cost. More notifications require more processing power at Facebook, more time for users to delete unwanted messages and such an experience might cause Facebook users to drop off the social networking service. 
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