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It’s the M&A deal of the century: FluffFriends got bought!

The virtual-pet application built on Facebook’s platform, which once permitted me to display a penguin named Bill Gates on my profile and invite friends to give him a nice hug, has officially been acquired by the Social Gaming Network. A price was not disclosed.

I named him Bill Gates.

(Credit: FluffFriends)

FluffFriends makes money through a virtual currency that translates to real cash, with which members purchase items to spruce up their pets. A release from the Social Gaming Network said that since January, the game makes an average of 192 percent more revenue per paid player, and members spend an average of 143 percent more per transaction.

Of note: FluffFriends was actually created by a Google engineer, Mike Sego.

Last month, the Social Gaming Network announced funding from Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos’ investment firm. It was already backed by $15 million in a round led by Greylock Partners.

More here:
Social Gaming Network acquires virtual-pet app

Facebook has blocked access to Scrabulous, the faux-Scrabble game that quickly became one of the most popular applications on its developer platform.

The ban applies to U.S. and Canadian users of Facebook, in the wake of a lawsuit filed last week by Hasbro, the game manufacturer that owns the rights to Scrabble in those two countries. In the suit, Hasbro named as defendants the creators of Scrabulous–Kolkata, India-based brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, and their company, RJ Softwares.

Outside the U.S. and Canada, the rights to Scrabble are owned by rival game company Mattel, so Hasbro doesn’t have jurisdiction there. Meanwhile, the Scrabulous.com site, which existed before the Facebook application, is working just fine.

Accessing the Scrabulous application on Facebook now leads to a message that states, “Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice,” and allows members to submit their e-mail addresses to the Scrabulous creators to receive further updates.

Both Hasbro and Mattel have released official Scrabble games for the Facebook platform.

More to come…

Read more here:
Scrabulous disappears from Facebook after Hasbro complaint

Electronic Arts, the video game giant that owns the rights to digital versions of the board game Scrabble, has announced that later this month it will launch a Facebook-app version of the game in conjunction with Hasbro. Unlike the last time we saw an announcement like this, it actually extends to the U.S. (Remember, rights to Scrabble are owned by different companies in the U.S. and abroad–here, it’s Hasbro, there, it’s Mattel.)

“Scrabble is one of the best social game brands in existence and we’ve worked diligently with the Hasbro team to ensure that regardless of the platform you’re playing, you’ll be able to enjoy a world class version of SCRABBLE with friends or family,” Chip Lange, general manager of EA Hasbro Games, said in a release Monday. “We’re delighted to be bringing communities everywhere access to one of their favorite games.”

Unfortunately for EA and Hasbro, the story is much more complicated than that.

There was, famously, all that fallout early this year over Scrabulous, a Facebook application that bears a suspicious resemblance to Scrabble. It’s ad-supported, which means that the India-based brothers who created it are making money off the game. And perhaps because there was no “real” Scrabble on the social network, Scrabulous became wildly popular.

Scrabble’s manufacturers weren’t thrilled, and served a handful of takedown notices. But Scrabulous is still alive and kicking months later, and the millions of Facebook users who have been playing it are unlikely to make the switch–who says they’ll even notice the presence of the new game? The “official” Scrabulous app licensed by Mattel for Facebook users outside the U.S. has fewer than 4,000 daily users on a social network of over 80 million, and Scrabulous is about 100 times more popular.

But EA’s official version might gain traction elsewhere. The company will also be launching a version of the game on Pogo, an EA-owned casual gaming site. If that’s the start of a distribution effort across other gaming hubs, the “real” Scrabble could get some attention.

On Facebook, though, unless Hasbro re-ignites its dormant legal efforts to remove Scrabulous from the system, the game probably doesn’t stand much of a chance.

Excerpt from:
Scrabble on Facebook: too little, too late

Electronic Arts, the video game giant that owns the rights to digital versions of the board game Scrabble, has announced that later this month, it will launch a Facebook application version of the game in conjunction with Hasbro.

Unlike the last time we saw an announcement like this, it actually extends to the United States. (Remember, rights to Scrabble are owned by different companies in the U.S. and abroad–here, it’s Hasbro, there, it’s Mattel.)

“Scrabble is one of the best social-game brands in existence, and we’ve worked diligently with the Hasbro team to ensure that regardless of the platform you’re playing, you’ll be able to enjoy a world-class version of Scrabble with friends or family,” Chip Lange, general manager of EA Hasbro Games, said in a release Monday. “We’re delighted to be bringing communities everywhere access to one of their favorite games.”

Unfortunately for EA and Hasbro, the story is much more complicated than that.

A game of Scrabulous on Facebook.

(Credit: Scrabulous)

There was, famously, all that fallout early this year over Scrabulous, a Facebook application that bears a suspicious resemblance to Scrabble. It’s ad-supported, which means that the India-based brothers who created it are making money off the game. And perhaps because there was no “real” Scrabble on the social network, Scrabulous became wildly popular.

Scrabble’s manufacturers weren’t thrilled, and they served a handful of takedown notices. But months later, Scrabulous is still alive and kicking, and the millions of Facebook users who have been playing it are unlikely to make the switch–who says they’ll even notice the presence of the new game?

The “official” Scrabble application, licensed by Mattel for Facebook users outside the States, has fewer than 4,000 daily users on a social network of more than 80 million, and Scrabulous is about 100 times more popular.

But EA’s official version might gain traction elsewhere. The company will also be launching a version of the game on Pogo, an EA-owned casual-game site. If that’s the start of a distribution effort across other game hubs, the “real” Scrabble could get some attention.

On Facebook, though, unless Hasbro reignites its dormant legal efforts to remove Scrabulous from the system, the game probably doesn’t stand much of a chance.

Read the original here:
‘Scrabble’ on Facebook: Too little, too late

LogMeIn has always been a personal favorite of mine for starting a big download or accessing certain files while away from my home machine, but let’s face it–playing Crysis would be a little more fun. The folks at StreamMyGame have the same idea and have a wonderful solution that lets you stream your games over the web. This morning the company announced support for a breadth of UMPCs like the ASUS EeePC and HP mini-note, the kind of computers designed with minimal computing in mind.

The app works by having users install a small server on their machine that ties into the start-up files for your favorite games and apps. A specialized player app on the remote machine will let you access any of these at high frame rates up to various resolutions depending on what plan you’re on. The premium plans let you play games at even higher resolutions–which are effectively only limited by your broadband connection.

The StreamMyGame team has put together a demo video of an ASUS EeePC playing Crysis and Quake 4. Keep in mind that the 701 model being used only has a maximum resolution of 800×480, which isn’t nearly big enough to make detail-heavy real time strategy titles or first person shooters easy on the eyes. See the entire list of compatible laptops here.

See more here:
Stream big games to little computers with StreamMyGame