Inside Social Games

About a year ago, we saw the birth of MySpace’s #1 social game, the criminally addictive RPG Mobsters. Since then, Playdom released the game on Facebook as well, where it serves millions of players. Most recently, the company expanded to the iPhone with Mobsters Big Apple, which linked directly to the MySpace version. However, today the franchise is growing a bit larger as the series expands with its first sequel, Mobsters 2: Vendetta.

Though the title has been live on Facebook for a couple of weeks, Playdom is officially launching the game day. It’s similar in many respects to the original, but the graphic novel-style game comes with a handful of very nice additions to the core game play mechanic.

The first is an actual story-line. In a nutshell, your brother’s been murdered and its off to find revenge on a global scale. Global is the key word here, as unlike most other mafia RPGs, Vendetta has players traveling beyond New York City (i.e. Miami or Las Vegas) to complete themed missions. This alone adds significant depth greater than the original. So far, the company says average session length is around 45 minutes.

Along with the larger scale, the game also comes with what Playdom dubs a “dynamic territory system.” Though text-based RPG players are familiar with buying land, Vendetta allows palyers to manage an entire mob city with upgrades garnered through a rather deep technology tree.

The new scale also opens the boundaries to new class systems too. In other titles, players choose a class that earns them more money, health, or stamina (generally), but this time around they have up to 20 to unlock and choose from. Furthermore, Playdom has tried to abolish a dominant class by granting special advantages based on whichever item the player is using.

How will people compare Mobsters 2: Vendetta to the original? To be perfectly honest, the latest addition to the mob family feels a lot more fun than the others. It’s deeper, more strategic, and at a much larger scale. However, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of cross-over between the first and second games as far as player characters are concerned. Will this new game lead to players abandoning the original? Will they invest the time into two games when they are already so advanced in the first? We’ll likely see a migration over the coming months, but either way, Vendetta looks very cool.