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. )

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.

It's Greek Week in Facebook game Restaurant City. We're naturally referring to a slew of brand new decorations that have peppered the game stores, including everything from Togas (toga! toga!) to a huge Pegasus statue that will welcome visitors before they enter your cookery. See a complete list of brand new items below:




New Clothing:

Goddess Top
1100 coins

Goddess Skirt
700 coins

Toga
1100 coins

Toga Bottom
700 coins

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).

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?

[Via Inside Social Games]

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.

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.

Last week, I first talked about these issues in "Will Facebook Redesign End Game Spam?" and today, Venture Beat uncovered a more detailed piece called "Facebook tinkering with big changes that may weaken app virality" that talks about how the social networking giant is experimenting with several alterations that should help minimize unwanted game spam.

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.

Restaurant City fans -- it's time to get creepy, kooky and altogether ooky with 11 new Limited Edition Halloween items that can be used to decorate the inside and outside of your restaurant. Some of the highlights include a new Spooky Roof, Spooky Street Lights (with skulls!) and a special Halloween stove. (See our decked out restaurant in the pic below). Better move fast, though, these items will only stick around for one week.



Playfish is also holding a Halloween competition -- enter cafe or other Restaurant City related media and be in the running to win 1,000 in Playfish cash and more. See the details for the contest on the official Facebook site.

In the meantime: here's the complete list of Restaurant City's Limited Edition Halloween Items. Remember: You've got seven days to snag these or they'll be gone forever!

Inside Decor

Halloween Stove
3,000 coins

Evil Pumpkin Decor
1,500 coins

Gravestone
1,300 coins

Tentacle Jar
500 coins

Monster Clock
2,300

Deer Wall Decor
1,900

Outside Decor:

Spooky Roof
8,000 coins

Michelle O'Lantern
1,200 coins

Vital O'Lantern
950 coins

Will O'Lantern
900 coins

Spooky street Lamp
1,000 coins

Related:
Restaurant City Update: Give Friends Free Food
Restaurant City Dream Menu: Roasted Lamb and More
Cafe World vs. Restaurant City: Which Foodie Facebook Games Should I Play?

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