Photo via Flickr / Pop Culture Geek

The worlds of Temple Run: Oz, Monsters, Inc. Run, and Where’s My Water? have expanded this month, as Disney Interactive has released new updates to its games on iOS and Android, the company said in a statement.

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Marvel: Avengers Alliance, developed by Playdom, has launched on iOS. The game has been available to play on Facebook since February 2012, is now available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices.

The game is a combat RPG where users take control of a junior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. They are then put up with the task of gathering the world’s super heroes to protect the city.

The game is free to play, but requires recruiting friends or in-game purchases to accrue “S.H.I.E.L.D” points to level up users Marvel heroes or purchase new equipment.

The game, originally announced for Facebook in January 2012, is Disney’s first branded Facebook game.  According to AppData, the game is currently estimated at 4.7 million monthly active users and over a million daily users. An Android version of the game is in the works and due out soon.

Read ISG’s review of the Facebook version of the game here.

Mobile-social games company SGN has acquired independent studio Mob Science as reported by AllThingsD.

SGN, best known for its puzzle game Panda Jam has an estimated 11,184,018 monthly active users across all of its games according to AppData. With the acquisition, SGN claims Mob Science’s entire portfolio including Facebook RPG, Legends: Rise of a Hero, its most popular game. Mob Science currently has a monthly active user estimate of 303,321 according to AppData.

SGN, formerly MindJolt, was founded by MySpace Cofounder Chris DeWolfe. Zynga has previously invested in Mob Science through its partners program and published Legends: Rise of a Hero. The monetary terms of the deal were not disclosed.

It looks as if SGN is looking at expanding its offerings to work with the studio on improving its existing offerings. By acquiring its Mob Science’s entire portfolio, SGN will be able to offer the independent studio greater capacity at developing future titles.

Read the ISG review for Legends: Rise of a Hero here.

Zynga has released Solstice Arena, a mobile multiplayer online battle arena game for iOS devices today. The game’s was developed by A Bit Lucky, creators of Lucky Train and Lucky Space. A Bit Lucky acquired by Zynga in 2012.

Announced as one of Zynga’s newest core titles back in early May, the multiplayer online battle arena genre (or MOBA) is more prominent on PC than mobile devices. While the MOBA genre is usually more applicable to the hardcore audience, Solstice Arena looks to provide gamers with shorter session times usually associated with mobile gaming compared to the more deluging experience on PC.

While it is free to play, A Bit Lucky emphasizes that the game will still be fair and not give purchase-based advantages. Players cannot buy in-game powers. It looks as if the studio has taken precautions to ensure that the game is not pay to win as upgrades must be earned, not bought.

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Irish developer and publisher KamaGames has announced its new KamaGames Publishing Program.  The new unit of the company will focus on working with developers to release titles on iOS and Google Play. Games accepted into this program will be allocated a minimum marketing budget of $100,000 to assist in the launch of the title. KamaGames considers this amount to be the minimum required in order to attract a necessary number of users, perform game analysis, and specify necessary improvements for the title. (more…)

When Electronic Arts purchased Playfish in late 2009 for $400 million, the social game startup was riding high with millions of monthly active users across Facebook games like Restaurant City, Pet Society, and Country Story. Just three and a half years later, the company is all but nonexistent, as its final original game, Pet Society, will be shut down on June 14.

Facebook game closures are nothing new, but typically, developers release new games as they shutter underperforming titles. With Playfish, and in fact most of EA’s social division, it seems as though the Facebook platform is being abandoned entirely (The Sims Social and SimCity Social are also being closed this month, as we reported earlier). What does this mean for Playfish’s future? (more…)

(Image from Alan Avidan, Bees and Pollen, showing LIft delivered by Bees and Pollen compared to competitors)

[Editor's Note: This story was a recap of an interview InsideSocialGames.com had with Alan Avidan, Executive Director of Business Development at Bees and Pollen occurred on June 6,2013, during Day 1 of the Inside Social Apps Conference in San Francisco.]

Alan Avidan of Bees and Pollen is working on a new type of game play: predictive personalization. The idea stems from the fact that many players get frustrated when they get stuck. For beginners this might mean not clearing level one, where as for more experienced players, the breaking point might occur when they can no longer unlock certain features without using the virtual store.

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Zynga today held its annual stockholders meeting in San Francisco, which heavily focused on the game company’s real-money gaming efforts, an anonymous shareholder told PandoDaily.

Zynga’s shareholder meeting comes one day after the company just laid off 18 percent of its staff (520 employees) and shut down three of its offices — Los Angeles, Dallas, and New York — including Omgpop‘s office. (more…)

Game developer 5th Planet Games today launched Dawn of the Dragons for Android in North America (and worldwide later this week). The social MMO has come along way for the indie developer who first launched the title on Facebook back in May 2010, and later released for Kongregate and Armor Games.

We first heard about Dawn of Dragons flying its way to mobile for iOS in January, and then the game hit the Apple App Store weeks later in February (review). Chief mobile officer Rob Carroll told us that there’s no differences between the iOS and Android versions, but users can play simultaneously with other players on either platform. As for cross-platform play between the mobile offerings and the web-based versions, 5th Planet Games decided to not let the mobile and web versions talk to each other due to the game being developed in Adobe Air and to allow the mobile version to have its own exclusive content. Carroll also adds the Android port was published in partnership with 5th Planet Games by an unnamed publisher (the studio will announce details about the publisher soon). (more…)

Zynga today let go 18 percent of its employees (approximately 520 people) after shutting down its Los Angeles, Dallas and New York City studios. The studios that were shut down was first reported by AllThingsD. A small portion of the 18 percent were let go from Zynga’s Los Angeles office, which saw 55 employees losing their jobs, according to a tweet from an artist at the Los Angeles studio. Empires & Allies, the first game for Facebook from the Los Angeles studio, will be shut down on June 17.The layoffs and cost cuts will be completed by August.

According to a release from Zynga, the move will result in an estimated $70 million to $80 million in pre-tax annualized cash expense savings.

In February, Zynga closed it’s Baltimore studio as well as relocated its Mckinney, Texas and downtown Austin offices to its Dallas and North Austin Offices. The New York City offices saw consolidation as well, with the staff moving to the New York City mobile studio before being completely shut down today. In October 2012, Zynga laid off more than 100 employees, axing employees from its Chicago office, while completely closing down its Boston office. (more…)