The fastest-moving game developer on Facebook recently has been Digital Chocolate, which has raced ahead of other mid-sized developers over the past month with a gain of over seven million new monthly active users.

The company is rapidly becoming one of Facebook’s biggest platform companies; with 24 million MAU and four million daily active users, it is poised to overtake Playdom, whose traffic has slowed since its acquisition by Disney.

Throughout its growth on Facebook, Digital Chocolate has been eager to define itself as a different sort of company, and it’s certainly not slacking off on that message now. “There are a lot of interesting companies out there, but a lot are actually products, not companies,” president Mark Metis told us yesterday. “The ones that are companies were built in a different era, when virality was easier and lightweight apps could slide.”

Digital Chocolate’s growth is coming in part from a rapid-fire series of releases, four of which are skins of platforms already in use by other games. One might assume that Digital Chocolate is pushing all the new users in via advertising, but Metis said that isn’t the case.

13 Apps By Digital Chocolate (New Games Bolded)

“Far and away our biggest source of user acquisition is virality,” Metis said. “We’ve also built significant cross-promotional scale, and that has enabled us to get exposure to our games very quickly. And then we feel like we’re bringing unique and new offerings to the market. Advertising is far and away our lowest source of user acquisition.”

Whether Digital Chocolate can power its way into the upper echelons of Facebook developers may depend on games it hasn’t yet released. The six newest titles are just the start. “We haven’t used all of our bullets, I can tell you, and you’ll be seeing some additional interesting games in coming months,” said Metis.

Digital Chocolate’s success so far may give pause to those who haven’t taken it seriously in the past, when it released several games that didn’t pan out. It’s those failed games, along with similar failures in mobile gaming, that will make Digital Chocolate stand out over all of its competitors in the future, according to Metis.

The plan is to cross-develop titles for both Facebook and smartphones. That has already been done for MMA Pro Fighter and Millionaire City, which Metis says have done well on the iPhone. Future titles will be carefully designed to provide good experiences and interoperability across both the web and mobile.

That plan isn’t unique; Zynga, CrowdStar and others have either talked about or made moves to do the same thing. Metis thinks the idea will start to get real traction next year. “I think 2011 will be an interesting year for social gaming on mobile, and we’ll start to see some significant levels of success. It won’t reach its peak, but serious traction will be gained,” he said.

Even with all its plans, Digital Chocolate is trying to stay disciplined and grow at a measured pace. “This isn’t a rollup, and we’re not trying to pile employees on quickly,” says Metis.

For more on Digital Chocolate’s plans, also check out our lengthy interview with CEO Trip Hawkins from August, done before the company hit its big growth spike.

While city-building games have become fairly common on Facebook, their mobile, social counterparts have been comparatively less so. However, games such as City Story or We City have typically been of the modern era, so Juju Play (Amplified Games appears to be the publisher) have created a title for both the iPhone and iPad by the name of Trade Nations.

A medieval city-builder that feels somewhat reminiscent of Ubisoft’s Castle & Co, Trade Nations is a recently updated application that takes basic elements and fashions them into a decently made, mobile, rendition of the popular Facebook genre. With a handful of central elements making it feel different than most of its ilk, it’s a title with minimal complaints. That said, it is a bit of a slow-burn title, so it is certainly not for the impatient.

Since the app is a sort of sandbox title, there is no real objective to be had. Like all virtual space oriented games, the idea is to build up a successful town. However, this time, it revolves more around trade; hence the name. Getting started is simple enough: In order to construct anything players must first start harvesting resources.

Done with buildings, these consist of quarries, logging camps, farms, and so on, and must be constructed where resources are available (though the outskirts of town are filled with more than enough). Additionally, these resources are infinite, so there are no worries about running out. Of course, the structures don’t just, magically, produce goods. People have to work for their keep.

In order to do this, players must construct non-player character houses and assign their denizens to a job. It’s all fairly easy, as players simply tap a citizen and tap the corresponding building they want them to work for. Typically, there will be two jobs available: One will harvest the item, and one will haul it to a building called a stockpile (that must also be built by the player). It is also worth noting that without the stockpile, goods cannot be stored or used. Also, a character is not needed to haul goods, as the player can manually collect it with a tap. Having one just automates everything.

Resources aren’t the only things needed to construct a budding town though. Gold is necessary too, and this is where things become a bit more interesting. While coin is earned periodically through taxes (collected through villager houses), players will eventually be able to construct a market.

This marketplace is actually the first window into social play as it is stated to be directly affected by players. From here, users can sell the various resources of wood, wheat, rock, wool, lumber, cloth, and cut stone. Depending on the actual supply and demand of the player base, these prices will fluctuate, making it prudent to watch the prices of goods daily.

If playing the market is not one’s strong suit, however, users can also build support structures to earn revenue. These are buildings such as a bakery that will produce coin in a more traditional social fashion. Using one of the raw resources collected, players will produce goods over a set period of time and automatically sell them once they are complete. The longer the item takes to make, the more it is worth.

As for social play, Trade Nations does a pretty good job with its integration. For starters, players can register for a network called Juju Play, which can then be linked to one’s Facebook account via Facebook Connect. Once connected, players can participate in a standard achievements system as well as begin adding friends. After some neighbors have been added, users can then zoom out to a world map of all their towns and pay any of them a visit.

This goes beyond just mere visitation to see how their town looks, but rather, users can utilize each other’s support facilities (like the bakery) to make a sort of trade contract that will also earn a little extra coin. Also, even if the player decides against signing up for Juju Play, they can always make posts of their accomplishments to either Facebook or Twitter.

With simple rules, and a cute style, there’s honestly not much to complain about with Trade Nations. It’s nothing terribly amazing, but it is certainly well above average as far as many games goes. That in mind, the only possible issue about the game itself, is that it is a bit slow moving when it comes to making money.

Of course, this is part of the monetization of the title, as it is free-to-play, so in order to speed things up, users need to use a virtual currency called “Magic Beans.” That said, the game gives new players enough to get started, and the implementation compliments the game, rather than hinders it (like when other games make almost everything cost virtual currency).

In the end, Trade Nations is a nice, free, city-builder for both the iPhone and iPad, and with it’s medieval setting, a little less common. It still isn’t ground breaking as far game design goes, but for what it is, it’s well made, clean, and decently entertaining for fans of the genre.

Following its $5.5 million funding, new social and mobile developer Zattikka has finally launched its first dedicated game on Facebook. Dubbed Wheelers and Dealers, the money and social management app gives users in a rather unique form of play, tasking them with making it big financially.

The gist is that Wheelers and Dealers is all about balancing reputations and finances. Different though this concept may be, the game could appeal to a niche audience. On the other hand, while more extensively developed than most titles, Wheelers and Dealers’ downsides could also turn away even users that enjoy business games.

Players start out in the town of Shady Acres with little to show for themselves beyond the clothes on their back and a handful of cash. The idea is to move about the world in search of deals that can be turned around to make a quick buck. The basics of this are pretty simple: players visit a non-player character to see what they have for sale. The objective is to haggle to the cheapest possible price and make a purchase. Once bought, players then turn around and locate someone else that is willing to buy the item for the highest possible price.

That’s just the basics. Each character can be broken up into one of eight categories such as dealers, crooks, friends, and so on. As players interact with specific types of characters they will earn reputation with them, which in turn comes with added benefits. Moreover, each character will have specific likes and dislikes which give clues on what they might want to buy.

While reputation building takes a significant amount of time, players can build up a sort of relationship with individual non-player characters as well. By chatting with them, users can use questions, jokes, or compliments to raise their friendship level.

The character types are where things get a bit more interesting. Amongst the items available for purchase are both legal and illegal items. The latter are purchased mostly from characters classified as criminals, and can be sold for significant profit. One of the first missions the player gets is to acquire two “Touch myPods” for a buyer. Since they are sold out everywhere, users must track down a criminal that may just have what the user needs.

However, there is also a reputation for the police, and if the user isn’t careful with these goods, they can “get into trouble.” Unfortunately, Wheelers and Dealers is a bit of a slow burn game when it comes to earning income early on, so we’ve yet to stir up any real trouble. That said, there is a “police raid” and “break-in” risk, so depending on how many illegal and legal items one has stored, there appears to be a chance to lose them, if held on to for too long.

As players get more cash, they’ll also be able to decorate a virtual, 2D flat in a Pet Society sort of way. Truth be told, however, this element feels a bit tacked on and doesn’t play any significant role other than becoming a cash sink for people feeling creative. Most of the time, social games seem to have this feature merely because it’s popular, but it does provide a moderate aesthetic reward to fiscal success.

Socially, friends can buy and trade with one another, setting prices in a sort of bazaar. Additionally, users can set what items they are looking to buy within a wish list, so it becomes beneficial to play with other active friends.

Unfortunately, it might be a bit tough to find a good number of friends to play, because while the game is well made and different, it may only appeal to those who enjoy deal-making or business. It just isn’t much fun to artificially chit-chat with NPCs and balance out a computerized relationship that isn’t exactly hard to change. This ease makes the haggling feel arbitrary (though it might get harder at higher levels), the reputations take a long time to develop, and the core play is dull enough to obscure the true depth that the game seems to have.

In the end Wheelers and Dealers earns points for trying to be different, but isn’t likely to attract a substantial audience. The title is well made, and has a lot of aspects that are interesting (new areas, bribes, complicated deals with entrepreneurs, and so one), but unless the core business aspect is sped up and made more attractive and entertaining, all that innovation may go to naught.

We’ve seen our share of animal husbandry and virtual space oriented applications, but Sony Online Entertainment is launching a new version, Wildlife Refuge, that shows the genre still has life. The new game is noble, too, seeking to educate people about endangered animals of the African savanna, and contribute certain proceeds to charities.

Reminiscent of games like Digital Chocolate’s Safari Kingdom, Wildlife Refuge takes a very new approach to virtual spaces by combining the other game concepts from titles like Treasure Isle. Long story short, players are researchers on the African savanna and it’s their job to set up a refuge for the endangered wildlife of the region. Given a virtual space, players decorate and tend to the creatures that live within the digital refuge, caring for them until they can breed and their offspring be set free. Each of these actions within the refuge consumes the typical energy, and while players might be groaning “not again” at this point, this is where the game changes.

While many animals can be purchased from the game’s store, this is hardly the fun part. Since this is Africa, players have to go exploring out on safari. Driving their off-road jeep around the savanna, players use a treasure hunting mechanic to inspect and search trees, rocks, dens, and so on. Consuming “fuel,” each search will yield coin and experience, and the occasional collectible item. From snakes to butterflies to poacher equipment, these act like standard treasure hunting collections and can be turned in for rewards when a set is complete.

As players search for these “basic” things, they will also occasionally uncover animal tracks. By following these, players could discover rare and exotic African species such as a black rhino or baboon. Depending on level, these creatures, which are “injured,” can be taken back to the refuge and nursed back to health. These exotic creatures cannot be purchased, they must be found.

This is the most gratifying element to Wildlife Refuge, because it allows players to get something truly unique for their virtual space, and something their friends may very well not have. It’s sort of like collecting cards when you were a kid; it was always gratifying to find that one rare card in a pack.

Once a rare species has been successfully caught, there’s a little bit of prep work to be done in the refuge. Animals cannot merely be placed. Exotic creatures require a certain level of “Ecosystem” to be used and in order to raise this, the player must decorate the space with ecological décor such as plants, trees, rocks, etc. For every animal placed, a certain amount of Ecosystem is removed, so players must constantly add to it in order to support more animals.

In addition to plant life, players can also construct special buildings that will provide some Ecosystem, along with something extra. For example, a water tower will produce coins on a daily basis, while a “camera trap” (a tree stump with a camera attached to it in order to take photos of animals) will produce items for one of the “treasure” collections noted earlier. However, each building must be constructed in stages, requiring more than one energy to complete and requiring the player to purchase, with in-game currency, building supplies to even start.

There are also farming elements. Players can plant crops to sustain their refuge; every couple of hours, these must be watered and will yield rewards once grown and harvested. Other plants, which yield Ecosystem, also must be watered and reward coins, but are not consumed in the process.

As for social elements, the biggest aspect of the game is visiting one another’s virtual spaces, and helping them out from time to time. Namely, this consists of getting rid of poachers and a nasty plant called the thorny acacia (which also appear while exploring the savanna). Players can help each other by gifting animals, building supplies, and a few plants. The developers claim that players can also share animal offspring with one another, but we have yet to unlock this feature. Unfortunately, while the rest of the game plays quite well, the social elements feel a bit underwhelming.

Breeding is another highlighted feature that unlocks slowly. Rescued animals have a set number of stages in which they can be cared for. Once the right stage is reached, fulfilled via a click every couple of hours to a day, breeding can start if a male and female are present.

One feature that’s front and center from the beginning is a very nice almanac of all the creatures in the game, both male and female. Part of the game’s quest, as it were, is to educate people about endangered species, it not only displays the rarity and level requirement of the species, but also its habitat, its real world threats, and its level of vulnerability in reality.

To further educate people, SOE has also incorporated two charities into its game. The first is a Cheetah Statue that provides extra fuel for exploring the African plains, but more importantly, its proceeds go directly to the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF). There are also frighteningly cute Baby Cheetah animals that not only provide significant experience and extra energy, but send proceeds to Cheetah Kids, a program dedicated to educating kids about wildlife conservation and motivating them to do their part.

Overall, there is really nothing to complain about with Wildlife Refuge. Not only does the game contribute to a good cause, it also takes the repetitive mechanics of past games and gives them a far more gratifying purpose. Everything does not revolve around just the aesthetic here, but rather the prospect of finding and collecting these animals, then utilizing animal husbandry, décor, and farming to support that. Furthermore, the game is beautifully made and very clean. Suffice to say, even if one is tired of old concepts, Wildlife Refuge is a title that makes them feel new again.

We recently checked in with Arkadium, the New York based maker of casual games, to see how the company is doing on Facebook. Since we covered its first Facebook game, Mahjongg Dimensions, in February, Arkadium has released four more, and hit a high of 2.5 million monthly active users in October.

Arkadium has remained adamant that casual games can succeed on Facebook. CEO Kenny Rosenblatt says that recreating games people may be able to access elsewhere is often a good bet. “I was always shocked that Solitaire was a steady earner when people could play it for free on their computer. It surprises me, but I think it’s a matter of going where users are and making it accessible,” he says.

The company’s latest game is Bingo Charms, a single-player Bingo game with some asynchronous competition between players. Like several of Arkadium’s other games, Charms suffers from a low stickiness — a relatively small percentage of its MAU returns as daily active users.

But some of the internal stats Rosenblatt sees are more encouraging. “We’re seeing very strong engagement loops, and we really ramped up our analytics of first user experience. We’ve been trying to optimize for 5 to 10 minutes, but we’re seeing sessions of 30, 40, 50 minutes,” he says.

For now, Arkadium is planning to launch three more games before the end of the year, making eight total. That’s a bit under the dozen the company originally anticipated, but Rosenblatt his focus is on several made-for-Facebook titles scheduled for next year, which should improve the company’s performance significantly.

This week’s AppData list of fastest-growing Facebook apps by monthly active users is once again a Digital Chocolate playground. Since we’ve had so many opportunities to note the company’s growth recently, we’ll save our words for the other games and simply note which ones are from DC: Hollywood City, Vegas City, Island God, Epic Fighters and Millionaire City. Note that these five may soon be joined in their growth by yet another new game, Ninjas Rising, which even moreso than Epic Fighters is a redesign of MMA Pro Fighter.

Here’s the full list of 20 titles:

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	Hollywood City	2,693,307	+1,307,478	+94%
2.	Vegas City	1,869,890	+1,280,241	+217%
3.	Ravenwood Fair	4,121,987	+1,043,662	+34%
4.	Crime City	5,929,264	+906,783	+18%
5.	Island God	1,095,505	+665,885	+155%
6.	Simply Hospital	2,666,279	+540,667	+25%
7.	FrontierVille	28,667,456	+440,786	+2%
8.	Bubble Island	5,465,582	+404,715	+8%
9.	JibJab	1,686,787	+368,650	+28%
10.	恐龍王國	1,460,249	+357,310	+32%
11.	THE WTF GAME	928,190	+330,471	+55%
12.	Epic Fighters	339,651	+314,538	+1,252%
13.	Car Town	7,009,271	+306,295	+5%
14.	Millionaire City	12,680,701	+253,538	+2%
15.	TRY TO PASS THIS GAME	518,354	+247,331	+91%
16.	CSI: Crime City	1,051,907	+244,970	+30%
17.	Happy Hospital	411,601	+231,914	+129%
18.	Vegas	936,195	+224,982	+32%
19.	Monster World	4,974,226	+211,229	+4%
20.	Mahjong Zen	1,488,308	+209,389	+16%

Ravenwood Fair is the first game from someone other than DC. The LOLapps title has become by far the most successful title ever from that developer, which is a good thing indeed for LOLapps, since the company’s other apps are more or less dead. The title has reached its height of four million MAU even faster than the next app, Crime City, did so.

Simply Hospital is benefiting both from a unique (to Facebook) game style and from promotion by its publisher, 6waves. However, the hospital-management game is showing a low percentage of daily players out of its MAU, which could be a problem in the future.

The other developer besides Digital Chocolate to land more than two games on the list is Wooga, which placed older games Bubble Island and Monster World as well as its newest title, Happy Hospital. We recently heard from CEO Jens Begemann that ads account for only a tiny percentage of growth, but the lack doesn’t appear to be hurting these three titles.

With the huge growth and popularity of Nightclub City in mind, many developers have attempted to emulate its success with their own iterations. The latest developer to try their hand is DNA Games with the new title Bar World.  A week into its beta phase, this game already has around 325,000 monthly active users with about 67,000 returning daily.

Bar World is about designing a successful bar, rather than a nightclub — a tack that Bar Society also took. Dancing and drinks are still included, and Bar World takes many other mechanics from Nightclub City. There’s something original for each mechanic it borrows, and a differentiated visual style.

Your bar can be in the downtown nightlife, on the beach or in the tropics. The core game-play is familiar: you mix drinks with mixers (Café World-style) and serve them on bar counters. Then an employee, or a hired friend, will serve them to incoming patrons. As in Café World, drinks are made in sets of limited quantity.

In order to get more customers, you need to create a bar with a high rating. Bar World allows you to increase the rating of your bar in two ways: décor and customer satisfaction. The décor method is identical to Nightclub City — more expensive décor items increase your rating by the amount noted on the item. The customer satisfaction method works more like Restaurant City, with your bar’s  rating increasing by a fraction of a point when a customer leaves happy.

So far, the only time we’ve seen customers get upset is when they run out of drinks. But they do sometimes talk about (in word bubbles) what they want to see in the bar. This is one of the nuances that sets Bar Room apart from Nightclub City or Cafe World. When you purchase arcade machines, juke boxes, or pool tables, the bar goers will actually make use of them, earning you periodic income to supplement alcohol sales. In other games, characters rarely interact with decor items.

As you play, the visitors to your bar are all actual friends or other players. When you click on these avatars, you can interact with them in three ways. The most basic is to buy them drinks. This doesn’t actually do anything functional, but you can buy them enough drinks to get them drunk and sick. This, in turn, allows you to post to their Facebook feed (if it is a friend) about their inability to hold their liquor.

The next way is also amusing. You can play the matchmaker and try to hook up one avatar with another. Again, this doesn’t really seem to do much functionally, but it allows for some cheesy pick-up lines and more amusing Facebook posts.

The final way is by visiting the bar of any avatar currently in your own bar (be they friend or not). Doing so will allow you to earn a daily coin bonus — though, this might change, because  it means near infinite money. Visiting the Bars of others also improves the quality of your drinks or the effectiveness of your workers.

As a nice bonus, you can choose to “Like” other players’ bars. There is also a leveling system called “Popularity” that is earned when users interact with each other using the boost function. Leveling up in popularity unlocks different bar venues in areas such as the mountains or the old west. There’s even a drinking game called “Challenge” in which players play rock, paper, scissors with a friend and get free coins for winning. If they lose, they have to take a shot.

Our only significant criticism of Bar World is that it’s a hodgepodge of other games that came before; the title could be improved by playing up its differentiating features more, like matchmaking. But Bar World does provide a different feel from the other apps in its genre, and thus should do fairly well.

Check out the top headlines and insights this week from Inside Facebook— tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, November 15th, 2010

• How to Avoid Having Your Page, Open Graph Object, or Application Unliked, Removed, Muted, or Blacklisted
• Live-Blogging Facebook’s Event in San Francisco – Email Product Is Here
• Facebook Users Send 4 Billion Private Messages a Day
• Facebook Announces Seamless Messaging Across Communication Mediums
• Facebook Fights Spam with the Authentic Social Graph
• Facebook to Replace Messages APIs Without Adding New Functionality
• Facebook Employees Get @fb.com Addresses, While Users Get @facebook.com
• New Facebook Messages Only Provides an Online Attachment Viewing Feature for Microsoft Docs
• Facebook Will Allow Email Exporting – But Only of @facebook.com Addresses
• Facebook for iPhone Update Adds Quick Links to Account, Privacy Settings
• Phrases, Badges and a New Entrevista Appear on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by MAU

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

• Chit Chat Provides a Fuller-Featured Desktop Client for Facebook Chat
• Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2011, Is Here
• In-Depth Review: Facebook’s New Message Inbox Product
• Facebook Confirms Talent Acquisition of Three Zenbe Employees
• Facebook Connect Appears as Sign-Up Option in MySpace Redesign
• Safeway, GameStop and RadioShack Also Get Facebook Credits Gift Cards
• Facebook’s Engineer-Recruiter Effort Helps Land Another Acquisition: Walletin

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

• Tags Quizzes and More on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by DAU
• Facebook Makes Change in Size of Embedded Flash Players Official
• Highlights This Week from the Inside Network Job Board: PlaySpan, Focused Labs, Playfish & More
• Facebook’s New Inbox May Siphon Social, Informal Messages From Email
• Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages: Disney, Converse, Rihanna, Usher, Harry Potter and SpongeBob
• Facebook Implements New API-Controlled Test User System for App Developers

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

• VisitBritain and Betapond Show the Top 50 UK Places by Check-Ins
• Facebook Efforts in Japan, South Korea and Russia Show New Localization Focus
• Facebook Tests “Pay Later” Option for Buying Virtual Goods
• Facebook Credits Gift Cards Now Sold in UK Tesco and Game Stores
• MySpace’s “Mashup with Facebook” Ports Likes to Populate Its Stream
• More Speakers Set for Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011 – January 25th in San Francisco

Friday, November 19th, 2010

• New Spins on Friend Quizzes in This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Apps
• Facebook Job Listings: Hong Kong Mobile Manager, Developer Advocate, University Recruiter, and More
• Pursuit Creates a Social Chain Between Job Applicants and Recruiters
• Facebook Reintroduces App Requests in Left Sidebar, Permits Open Graph Object Type Changes
• Facebook Roundup: Debt Collectors, Bugs, Free Speech, Military, Plastic Jungle, Cars and Kids

We recently launched the Inside Network Job Board – dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities in the Facebook Platform and social gaming ecosystem.

Here are this week’s highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at PlaySpan, Focused Labs, Playfish, Glu Mobile, Perfect World, Arkadium, Meteor Games, and Playdom.

• Director of Global Support (Merchant & Customer Support) (Santa Clara, CA)
• Technical Integration Manager (Santa Clara, CA)
• Engagement Manager, Professional Services (Santa Clara, CA)
• Inside Sales Representative (Santa Clara, CA)

• Backend Software Developer (Santa Monica, CA)

• Head of Integrated Marketing (San Francisco, CA)

• VP of External Development (San Francisco, CA)

• QA/Release Engineer (Foster City, CA)

• Social Game Designer (New York, NY)
  

• Director, Product Management (Beverly Hills, CA)
  
• 2d Artist w/ Flash Experience (Beverly Hills, CA)

• Lead Software Engineer – Playdom (San Francisco, CA)
  
• Software Engineer – Flash (Playdom) (San Francisco, CA)

Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Facebook and Inside Social Games through regular posts and widgets on the sites. That way, you can be sure that your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers, and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.

Big Fish Games Expands Global Reach — Earlier this week, Big Fish Games announced that it is expanding its “direct-to-consumer reach” by launching five localized game portals in Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Italian, and Swedish. Additionally, the company is now accepting payments in 16 new currencies; the Argentine peso, Australian dollar, Brazilian real, British pound, Canadian dollar, Danish krone, euro, Japanese yen, Mexican peso, New Zealand dollar, Norwegian kroner, South African rand, Singapore dollar, Swedish krona, Swiss franc, and US dollar.

EA Sports to Bring PGA Tour to Facebook — It looks like EA Sports PGA Tour will be the next Electronic Arts franchise to make its way to Facebook, according to an announcement earlier this week. Unlike the previous titles, such as Madden NFL and FIFA Superstars, PGA Tour Golf Challenge will feature skill-based, real-time game play rather than asynchronous team management.

OpenFeint Grows Despite Game Center — Though some expected OpenFeint, a mobile social games network, to decline after the release of Apple’s Game Center platform, VentureBeat reports the opposite. Since the release of Game Center, OpenFeint has actually doubled its user base to around 50 million users, with the number of OpenFeint-enabled games up 119%.

Scoreloop Breaches 3 Million New Users a Month — Along with the release of Scoreloop’s 2.0 SDK for Android, the mobile, social games platform is now gaining more than 3 million new users each month. Unlike OpenFeint, Scoreloop says that most of its growth stems from the Android and cross-platform gaming.

GameGround Raises $5.3 Million — GameGround, a developer of a “personalized gaming app” of the same name, raised $5.3 million in a Series B round this week. Among the participants were Sequoia Capital, Softbank Capital, Vodafone Ventures, and Novel TMT Ventures.

Zattikka Acquires Monty Python License — Already with $5.5 million in funding and still raising more, the UK-based social gaming company Zattikka has acquired the license for Monty Python’s Flying Circus. According to Worlds In Motion, their first release will be a Facebook title that will “pay homage” to the 1970s sketch comedy program.

Zynga to No Longer Take Cut of Charity Donations — From the Gulf spill to Haiti, Zynga has set up special virtual goods to help raise money in the past but have been heavily criticized for taking up to 50% of the revenue. Following criticism, Zynga will no longer take any cut from their charitable efforts, according to TechCrunch. Additionally, Zynga has also noted that it will begin a new campaign in December with FarmVille for the UCSF Children’s Hospital Challenge for Charity.