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Counters are coming as a replacement to the much-abused Notifications API – how will developers use them? Zynga gives us a first clue.

Now that Mafia Wars by Zynga is charging close to $6 for the new Thailand expansion pack, does this new wrinkle in the freemium model for social games signal an inevitable emulation of MMORPGs?

Facebook started enforcing a slew of application policies over the last week, forcing game developers to revamp their viral marketing. Here are three of the top changes and how top developers are revamping their viral marketing tactics.

The top games on Facebok are down 11% from their highs this month. While it looks like it might be due to the holidays, the successive declines in the peaks of the latest Zynga releases might suggest the life cycle for social games is changing.

After being fairly quiet since early August’s launch of (Lil) Farm Life, Playdom launched two games in the last two weeks: TikiFarm (a South Pacific themed farm sim) and Wild Ones (an artillery/strategy game with pets – still in alpha).
CrowdStar and Zynga have been greatly accelerating the deployment of games and it’s possible [...]