zynga

Online games phenom Zynga and Japanese Internet and telecom giant SoftBank have announced a joint venture to develop and distribute social games across Japan.

The new Tokyo-based service will be called Zynga Japan and is Zynga's first foray into that country.

The companies also said SoftBank had completed a $150 million investment in Zynga, which has been previously reported.

It's Zynga's second major move into Asia. In May, the start-up acquired China-based social gaming developer XPD Media.

San Francisco-based Zynga, of course, has been on a tear of late too, striking deals with Yahoo and Google, as … Read more

If the Internet breaks, the Tribe of Seven's secret library cards will re-start it. Also: Running your fingers through Princess Leia's hair... mmmm. And: Toss your zombie cookies now! Special guest: Dr. Kiki!

Ten years ago, or even five years ago, most people would have reacted with disbelief if told that shortly some of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley and Hollywood would be in a madcap race to get a piece of companies that facilitate the purchasing of virtual pink tractors.

But that's exactly what's happening in the world of social gaming. The companies that make games with names like Sorority Life, FarmVille, and Pet Society have become some of the most sought-after in the digital-media industry, and now huge companies are starting to take sides. We already knew that … Read more

There's a silly but enduring bit of apocrypha about the alleged rural pastime of "cow tipping"--in which, supposedly, there are so few ways for mischievous young people in the boondocks to amuse themselves that they resort to knocking over cows standing in slumber. (Actually, cows don't sleep upright. Should you try to "tip" a standing cow, be forewarned: it isn't asleep.)

Fittingly, a recently launched Facebook-based game designed to make a statement about the supposed inanity of other Facebook games--like the now-antiquated "sheep throwing" of Slide's SuperPoke and the … Read more

Consumer Reports says it can't recommend the iPhone 4 because the antenna issue can be replicated and is, in fact, serious. Fanboy response: suck it up and buy a case. Molly response: epic rant. Also, the RIAA's wildly inflated file-sharing damages are smacked down once again, and Reddit begs for money.

Update, July 7: This post has been updated to include additional games.

It's time to add a new selection of entries to our list of PC games well-suited for Netbooks. Especially as we expect to see many of these low-cost, low-power laptops in the hands of students during the back-to-school season, it's important to have a little action/RPG/adventure/puzzle break handy when one gets tired of taking lecture notes.

As usual, many of these entries are re-releases of classic games, originally available when even high-end computer hardware was at best comparable with today's entry-level systems. Online services such as Good Old Games and Steam are great resources for these.

One important exception is the new online gaming service OnLive, which takes current high-end PC games, renders the 3D graphics remotely, then streams you the video as you play. It sounds like a crazy idea, but it actually works pretty well, even on Netbooks. Check out our extensive hands-on look at OnLive here.

… Read more

The most popular game in the Facebook world is coming to the iPhone.

Gamemaker Zynga announced on Thursday the launch of FarmVille for iPhone--the same day that Apple begins selling its next-generation smartphone. Players can now tend their farms from wherever they find themselves and can get status updates regarding their farms via push notifications.

"Mobile devices are an extension of people's daily social lives everywhere in the world and the Apple iPhone is the most innovative breakthrough in this area," Mark Pincus, founder and chief executive officer of Zynga, said in a statement. "We are … Read more

The massive amounts of data being created on the Web and the rise of cloud computing together make an ideal environment for alternative database technologies to thrive. And the Web is often proving to be just an entry point for bleeding-edge technology to be tested out before it starts heading into the enterprise.

NoSQL databases and associated operational-data technologies based on nonrelational approaches to data management and manipulation continue to be top of mind for big Web shops and are slowly starting to make their way into enterprise IT infrastructure.

I've spoken with a number of vendors roaming the NoSQL space over the last few months and there seems to be one common thread that they push: traditional relational databases are expensive, bulky, and simply not ideal for this new era of Web technology.

On Wednesday, a new NoSQL database joins the fray: Membase. Launched as an open-source project under the Apache 2.0 license and co-sponsored by NorthScale, Zynga, and NHN (Korea's top online gaming portal), Membase is optimized for storing the data behind interactive Web applications.

Membase says it is 100 percent compatible with Memcached, the de facto standard for distributed object caching behind Web applications. Basically, Membase is as easy to use as Memcached but also stores data.

According to James Phillips, NorthScale co-founder and senior vice president of products, the thousands of organizations that use Memcached (18 of the top 20 most visited Web sites including Twitter, Facebook, and Google) have a demand for a solution that looks like Memcached but acts like a distributed, highly available, high-performance, elastic database technology. … Read more

FarmVille creator Zynga has a new social game launching today on Facebook, called FrontierVille. With 60 million active players (although the number can vary widely month to month), FarmVille is the unstoppable juggernaut of social games (a relatively new category, which includes games played on Facebook and other social networking platforms), and Zynga is hoping lightning strikes twice.

The new game takes the action in an even more rural direction than FarmVille, setting up shop in a far-flung frontier town. Game designer Brian Reynolds describes it as, "Oregon Trail meets Little House on the Prairie meets FarmVille." And … Read more