Zynga today announced the departure of Zynga’s New York office general manager Dan Porter, the former CEO and founder of OMGPOP.

Just over a year ago, Zynga acquired New York-based gaming studio OMGPOP for $180 million (with another $30 million earnout), the studio behind hit Pictionary-like mobile title Draw Something.

“Developing and launching games is a team effort, and we’re proud of the great work the Zynga New York team has done with Draw Something 2,,” said Zynga COO David Ko, in a statement. “Our follow up to the original hit is even more social and engaging, and we’re excited to get it into the hands of our players globally. We thank Dan Porter for his efforts in making the Draw Something franchise a success and wish him well in his future endeavors. We’re proud to see talent like Sean Kelly take a bigger leadership role as the Head of our New York studio and lead the team to the global launch of Draw Something 2.”

Sean Kelly, who’s been with the company since 2009, is stepping in for Porter as the head of Zynga’s New York studio. Kelly’s official title is the vice president of mobile and general manager of Zynga New York, reporting to Zynga’s senior vice president of mobile Travis Boatman. Kelly led the launch of CityVille in 2009, which grabbed 100 million players worldwide in less than 30 days, as well as the launch of Running with Friends FarmVille, Dream Zoo, Dream PetHouse, CityVille Hometown and Zynga Poker.

Zynga recently revealed Draw Something 2, the sequel to Draw Something, in a tweet from TV and radio personality Ryan Seacrest. The game has soft-launched in Sweden, but no official worldwide release date has been announced yet.

Television personality Ryan Seacrest today revealed the existence of Draw Something 2, the sequel to OMGPOP’s runaway mobile success Draw Something.

Seacrest, best known for hosting Fox’s long-running television show American Idol, Seacrest posted the following image to his Twitter account today.

Zynga VP and OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter was quick to confirm Seacret’s claim that the public was checking out some legit Draw Something 2 artwork, responding with the game’s official logo.

Zynga’s acquisition of OMGPOP made some serious headlines last year, especially since the deal was reportedly worth somewhere around $200 million. Zynga’s staying mum on exactly what kind of new features the game will contain, or even when it will release, but Porter’s comment implies Draw Something 2 will continue to leverage social networks so players have more ways to share their images (something that users have long been clamoring for).

Seacrest and Draw Something have long been associated with one another, especially following the revelation that Seacrest was producing a Draw Something-themed gameshow for CBS.

What will be interesting to see is how Zynga handles Draw Something after its sequel is launched. AppData estimates the game still has over 5 million monthly active users, and those are only the users who connect the game to their Facebook accounts.

Playdemic’s life management sim Village Life may have just launched a few months ago, but the game’s deep, original gameplay is already proving successful on the platform. Playdemic CCO Alex Rigby sat down to chat with us regarding the game’s initial success, as well as what’s in store for it in the near future.

Our review of Village Life called attention to its unique mechanics, and the game’s continuing to show strong growth. Village Life is still showing up in our weekly gainers lists, with AppData estimating the title has 4.77 million monthly active users on Facebook (showing its broader reach on the social network) and 276,725 daily active users (the best measure of a game’s core audience).

According to Rigby the major source of this success is largely due to Playdemic’s partnership with Zynga, which was announced just over a year ago at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. On Facebook,  the game is benefitting from Zynga’s cross promotion bar, pictured below, and it’s also enjoying prominent promotion on Zynga’s own web portal.

“We’re one of the top partners with Zynga, and Village Life has been getting a lot of attention through that,” he notes. “They give us different stages of traffic through the different channels they have at their disposal. They’re really pushing our metrics up there.” (more…)

Social Point’s Dragon City took the top spot on this week’s list of the fastest-growing Facebook games by monthly active users, up 2.61 million MAU for a gain of 13 percent. Since Dragon City launched in May 2012, the game’s gradually climbed the traffic charts, though it looks like the gains are slowing down to the point of plateauing in the near future.

Pretty Simple’s hidden object game Criminal Case took in 1.96 million MAU, putting the game at No. 2 with a 24 percent gain. King.com’s newest “Saga” game, Pet Rescue Saga, came in at No. 3 with a 7 percent increase of 1.46 million MAU. Zynga’s CastleVille had 1.16 million MAU this week, placing at No. 4 with a 16 percent gain. CookApps’ Pengle rounded out the top five games on this week’s list with a 14 percent increase of 647,152 MAU.

Four games on this week’s list saw traffic gains greater than 30 percent. CMUNE’s free-to-play shooter UberStrike brought in 629,941 MAU, a 33 percent gain. Qublix’s Bubble Land was the big gainer this week, up 318 percent with 502,544 MAU. PopCap’s Hidden Agenda grabbed 315,065 MAU, a 37 percent increase. Finally, GameHouse’s GameHouse Casino grew by 56 percent with 825,287 MAU.

Name MAU_ESTIMATE Gain Gain,% 1.  Dragon City 21,318,750 +2,614,031 + 13% 2.  Criminal Case 9,712,500 +1,966,406 + 24% 3.  Pet Rescue Saga 23,343,750 +1,466,802 + 7% 4.  CastleVille 8,156,250 +1,157,919 + 16% 5.  Pengle 5,087,500 +647,152 + 14% 6.  UberStrike 2,406,250 +629,941 + 33% 7.  Bubble Land 618,750 +502,544 + 318% 8.  Panda Jam 3,825,000 +470,401 + 13% 9.  Bubble Island 7,468,750 +453,498 + 6% 10.  Family Farm 3,462,500 +398,202 + 11% 11.  Pool Live Tour 12,762,500 +396,213 + 3% 12.  Diamond Dash 24,717,139 +383,187 + 1% 13.  Disney City Girl 3,050,000 +378,955 + 13% 14.  Bejeweled Blitz 8,593,750 +372,761 + 4% 15.  Bubble Saga 4,137,500 +371,362 + 9% 16.  Baseball Heroes 3,775,000 +358,488 + 10% 17.  Marketland 2,812,500 +339,678 + 12% 18.  Village Life 4,775,000 +331,145 + 7% 19.  Hidden Agenda 1,100,000 +315,065 + 37% 20.  GameHouse Casino 825,287 +311,018 + 56%

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Come back for our look at the fastest-growing Facebook games by daily active users on Wednesday and top emerging apps on Friday. You can learn more about Facebook’s new ranking system here.

Read our reviews of…

• Criminal Case
• Pet Rescue Saga
• Village Life
• Family Farm
• Disney City Girl
• Hidden Agenda
• UberStrike
• Panda Jam

What’s The Phrase is a new iOS game from Zynga — specifically, the team behind the successful With Friends series. As usual for the series, the game is available in both free and paid incarnations, with the paid version being ad-free and providing players with additional in-game currency.

Like most of the other With Friends games, What’s The Phrase is based rather closely on an existing, established game format — in this case, the TV show Wheel of Fortune. The basic aim of the game is for players to guess a phrase on a given category by guessing letters and winning points — either for correct letter guesses or completely solving the puzzle.

Players have the option of viewing a tutorial before they start playing for real, in which the basic mechanics are introduced but a few key rules — such as the “three moves per turn” limitation — are not mentioned explicitly. Players may then begin a game by either inviting their Facebook friends — if they have connected the game to the social network, obviously — or challenging a random opponent. There is no apparent means of playing a challenge game against the computer.

When starting a new game, users have the option of playing one of several categories or sending their friend a custom puzzle of their own devising. If playing from a preset category, players take it in turns to take three moves and guess letters from the phrase, scoring varying numbers of points by spinning a wheel with each guess. Players may also “buy a vowel” for a few coins at a time, though this counts as one of their three moves. Once three moves have been taken, players have the option of handing the board over to their opponent, attempting to solve the phrase — which doesn’t seem to carry any penalties if incorrect — or using a powerup. Powerups include an extra turn, automatically revealing a consonant on the board, eliminating a single letter from the player’s own selection of letters, and setting score-sapping “bomb” traps on the other player’s keyboard. At the end of three rounds, the player with most points wins — though players only get to keep their points if they solve the phrase. Earned points contribute to a meter that gradually fills with each completed round; filling the meter rewards the player with additional coins which can subsequently be spent on new powerups, categories, vowels or items that help unlock new categories. (more…)

King.com’s Pet Rescue Saga managed to dominate this week’s list of the fastest-growing Facebook games by monthly active users, bringing in nearly 3.3 million MAU for a 17 percent gain.

Playdemic’s Village Life is continuing to grow, taking the No. 2 spot with a 44 percent gain of nearly 1.5 million MAU. Pretty Simple’s Criminal Case still seems to be on a winning streak, coming in at No. 3 with 910,486 MAU for a 12 percent gain. MiniClip.com’s 8 Ball Pool snagged the No. 4 position with a 5 percent growth of 519,095 MAU. Zynga’s CastleVille rounded out the top five with 501,632 MAU, a 7 percent traffic increase.

Even though it’s early in the month, only two games on this week’s list had traffic percentage gains in the double digits. Plarium’s Total Domination was up by 39 percent with 468,902 MAU, most likely due to how the developer’s other core game Stormfall: Age of War is continuing to grow on Facebook. PopCap’s hidden object game Hidden Agenda took in 300,906 MAU, a 56 percent gain.

Name MAU_ESTIMATE Gain Gain,% 1.  Pet Rescue Saga 21,318,750 +3,228,595 + 17% 2.  Village Life 4,662,500 +1,492,150 + 44% 3.  Criminal Case 7,906,250 +910,486 + 12% 4.  8 Ball Pool 10,725,000 +519,095 + 5% 5.  CastleVille 7,050,000 +501,632 + 7% 6.  Total Domination 1,575,000 +468,902 + 39% 7.  Diamond Dash 24,331,250 +456,102 + 2% 8.  Bejeweled Blitz 9,350,000 +431,966 + 5% 9.  Bubble Witch Saga 16,712,500 +407,704 + 2% 10.  Hidden Agenda 800,000 +300,906 + 56% 11.  Pengle 4,468,750 +248,632 + 6% 12.  Royal Story 2,700,000 +220,247 + 8% 13.  Marketland 2,600,000 +206,973 + 8% 14.  Panda Jam 3,518,750 +201,471 + 6% 15.  CityVille 10,243,750 +176,461 + 2% 16.  Cafeland 3,037,500 +141,703 + 5% 17.  Dungeon Rampage 1,975,000 +140,458 + 7% 18.  Solitaire Blitz 1,961,445 +128,791 + 7% 19.  Disney City Girl 2,812,500 +121,705 + 4% 20.  UberStrike 1,800,000 +120,519 + 7%

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Come back for our look at the fastest-growing Facebook games by daily active users on Wednesday and top emerging apps on Friday. You can learn more about Facebook’s new ranking system here.

Read our reviews of…

• Criminal Case
• Pet Rescue Saga
• Village Life
• Family Farm
• Disney City Girl
• Hidden Agenda
• FarmVille 2
• UberStrike
• Panda Jam
• Royal Story
• Dungeon Rampage
• Solitaire Blitz

FunPlus Game’s Arabic-language farming sim  المزرعة السعيدة (“Happy Farm”) was the fastest-growing Facebook game by daily active users this week, taking in 705,317 DAU for a 73 percent traffic gain.

Social Point’s Dragon City took the No. 2 spot, up 9 percent with 397,696 DAU. Zynga’s CastleVille saw an unexpected surge in traffic with a 30 percent gain of 277,816. Playdemic’s Village Life is continuing to grow by leaps and bounds, surging by 259,150 for a 30 percent gain. King.com’s Candy Crush Saga ticked up 0.82 percent, courtesy of its 126,521 new DAU.

Most of the traffic gains this week stayed in the single digits, though five other titles saw traffic grow by more than 10 percent. PlayQ’s Bubble Blitz grew by 11 percent with 112,521 DAU. FunPlus Games had another game appear on the chart with the Turkish-language Bizim Çiftlik (“Our Farm”), up by 110,575 DAU for a 40 percent increase. Cie Games’ Car Town took in 102,599 DAU for a 16 percent gain. PopCap’s newly-launched Hidden Agenda continues to gain early footholds with 82,986 DAU for a 149 percent increase. Finally, Pixelfederation’s TrainStation brought in 46,564 DAU for a 35 percent gain.

Name DAU_ESTIMATE Gain Gain,% 1.  المزرعة السعيدة 1,707,363 +705,317 + 73% 2.  Dragon City 4,859,143 +397,696 + 9% 3.  CastleVille 1,157,457 +277,816 + 30% 4.  Village Life 417,897 +259,150 + 120% 5.  Candy Crush Saga 15,567,962 +126,521 + 0.82% 6.  Bubble Blitz 1,089,535 +112,026 + 11% 7.  Bizim Çiftlik 385,156 +110,575 + 40% 8.  Car Town 676,166 +102,599 + 16% 9.  Slotomania 2,031,342 +90,246 + 5% 10.  Tetris Battle 1,263,309 +90,091 + 7% 11.  Top Eleven Be a Football Manager 3,418,862 +88,653 + 3% 12.  Hidden Agenda 136,443 +82,986 + 149% 13.  Buggle 1,441,498 +80,370 + 6% 14.  Pengle 913,249 +75,519 + 9% 15.  FarmVille 2 8,417,796 +55,863 + 0.82% 16.  Texas HoldEm Poker 6,873,752 +53,932 + 0.82% 17.  TrainStation 137,065 +46,564 + 35% 18.  Words With Friends 6,021,336 +46,183 + 0.82% 19.  Social Empires 771,153 +43,169 + 6%

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned for our look at the top emerging apps on Friday.

Read our reviews of…

• Dragon City
• Hidden Agenda
• Car Town
• FarmVille 2
• Candy Crush Saga
• Village Life

Zynga’s FarmVille 2 is once again the big winner this week when it comes to the fastest-growing Facebook games by monthly active users, taking the No. 1 spot with 5.4 million MAU.

King.com’s Candy Crush Saga took No. 2 with 5 million MAU, a 12 percent gain. Playdemic’s Village Life is continuing to grow, coming in at No. 3 with 1.5 million MAU for a 75 percent increase. Playdom’s Disney City Girl is also continuing to gain, bringing in 831,340 MAU for a 41 percent growth. Pretty Simple’s Criminal Case rounds out the top five games on our list with a 9 percent gain of 592,714 MAU.

As it’s approaching the end of the month, gain percentages this week aren’t as great as they were in the past weeks. However, three games had traffic percentage increases greater than 40 percent. PopCap’s new hidden object title Hidden Agenda was up 173 percent with 345,052 MAU. Kabam’s Kingdoms of Camelot took in 148,164 MAU for a 43 percent gain. Finally, Stunt Dirt Bike grew by 60 percent with 139,718 MAU.

Name MAU_ESTIMATE Gain Gain,% 1.  FarmVille 2 40,623,485 +5,434,728 + 15% 2.  Candy Crush Saga 45,941,454 +5,031,559 + 12% 3.  Village Life 3,434,831 +1,475,132 + 75% 4.  Disney City Girl 2,853,552 +831,340 + 41% 5.  Criminal Case 7,450,941 +592,714 + 9% 6.  8 Ball Pool 10,826,323 +415,919 + 4% 7.  Hidden Agenda 544,288 +345,052 + 173% 8.  Bubble Origins 1,354,116 +309,750 + 30% 9.  Angry Birds Friends 11,031,092 +294,740 + 3% 10.  Royal Story 2,635,572 +294,063 + 13% 11.  Bubble Age 2,747,865 +266,664 + 11% 12.  Car Town 4,438,858 +261,393 + 6% 13.  Family Farm 3,467,858 +221,675 + 7% 14.  Marketland 2,543,096 +194,935 + 8% 15.  UberStrike 1,783,470 +186,987 + 12% 16.  Hoop De Loop Saga 5,046,559 +163,980 + 3% 17.  Social Wars 6,347,832 +161,458 + 3% 18.  Kingdoms of Camelot 496,729 +148,164 + 43% 19.  Stunt Dirt Bike 373,868 +139,718 + 60% 20.  GameHouse Casino 458,591 +113,879 + 33%

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Come back for our look at the fastest-growing Facebook games by daily active users on Wednesday and top emerging apps on Friday. You can learn more about Facebook’s new ranking system here.

Read our reviews of…

• Candy Crush Saga
• Criminal Case
• Pet Rescue Saga
• Village Life
• Family Farm
• Disney City Girl
• Hidden Agenda
• Angry Birds Friends
• FarmVille 2
• UberStrike

Yahoo Japan and GREE join forces, co-found new social game dev— Yahoo Japan and GREE announced this week they were launching a joint-venture company that will be focused on developing social games for smartphones. The company’s name is GxYz; GREE will hold a 51 percent stake in the company, with Yahoo owning the rest. The two parent companies committed approximately $2.2 million to the new developer, which will be focused on Japanese audiences.

Arcane Legends rolls out “Kraken Isles” update— Spacetime Studios’ Arcane Legends had its newest update, Kraken Isles, launch this week. The expansion brings pirate action to the game, with increased level caps, new pets and gear to collect and the ability to travel by ship. Arcane Legends is available for free on the App Store, Google Play or the Chrome Web Store.

Draw Something reaches 100 M downloads— Zynga announced Draw Something reached 100 million downloads this week. To celebrate the milestone, Zynga released an infographic to note several of the game’s highlights, including being played in 190 countries for a total play time of of 28,000 years. You can see the full graphic on Zynga’s blog.

[Launch] Flutter: Butterfly Sanctuary arrives on iOS — DeNA and Runaway this week released Flutter: Butterfly Sanctuary on mobile devices this week. THe game has players caring for sections of a rainforest where they raise butterflies.

[Launch] MLB: Full Deck arrives on Android—  GREE’s baseball-themed card-battling game MLB: Full Deck has proved popular for the developer on iOS, and now it’s coming over to Android. GREE says the game can be played across any mobile operating system (meaning iOS and Android users should be able to play against one another).

[Launch] Zombies & Trains lurches to Android— We get a lot of of notices about games with zombies, but this is a new one. Norwegian developer Dragonhead Games just launched Zombies & Trains! for Android, following the game’s iOS release. Players use trains to “blast through waves of zombies” and the game is available for $0.99.

Playdek launches President’s Day Weekend sale – Mobile game developer Playdek is hosting a sale for the long weekend. iOS players can pick up Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer for $2.99, and the in-app expansions Return of the Fallen and Storm of Souls for $1.99 and $2.99, respectively; Nightfall for $.99; Penny Arcade the Game: Gamers vs Evil for $2.99; and the “Everything Bundle” in-app purchase within Summoner Wars for $4.99.

Mother and son launch Facebook game SqueeDogs – Game developer Pirate Epstein, at the urging of his mother Cerise Jacobs, has launched a 3D Facebook pet sim called SqueeDogs using $10,000 in Kickstarter funds. As Wicked Local’s Brookline blog reports, the project got off the ground because Jacobs wanted a game that starred her rescue dog, Mencius.

Zynga Valentine’s Day poll reveals that With Friends players flirt with chat – An annual Zynga survey of players reveals that people sometimes flirt in social/mobile games. Highlights from the survey include: 30 percent of players flirt with their opponent through the chat feature; 23 percent try to play higher-scoring words against someone to whom they are attracted; 24 percent are more competitive when playing against somebody they have romantic feelings for; 53 percent report being more attracted to players with a good vocabulary; and 26 percent of married players play with their spouse.

Teen creates social network for cancer patients that love video games – Polygon reports that cancer survivor Steven Gonzalez is creating a social network for teens with cancer that want to play video games together. The not-for-profit network, Survivor Games, will function like a virtual arcade where players can chat, game together or spectate other games.

Why Sony couldn’t get PlayStation Portable games to work on smartphones – Two years since launching an unsuccessful campaign to bring PlayStation Portable games to Android devices like the Sony Xperia tablets and phones, Sony’s Chris Mahoney explained to the audience at the Appsworld conference in San Francisco why the company had to rejigger its approach to mobile games: “What people were saying is not that we have to fit these games into the device, but fit these games into how people use it. People are using games during these little bursts of time. So we thought, what is a console game? A console game is ten 30-60-minute levels. Mobile games are like hundreds of levels that are three to six minutes, sometimes even less. What if we take the higher quality graphics, and the narratives that everyone is asking for, and we put it on a mobile phone and fit it into these little bursts of time. We took that back to consumers, and they said ‘Yes, that’s it exactly, that’s what we want.’” Read the rest on GamesIndustry International.

[Launch] PerBlue brings Boardtastic to Android – Parallel Kingdoms developer PerBlue brings free-to-play 3D skateboarding sim Boardtastic for Android this week. The game offers a competitive multiplayer mode, a set of five tricks to master and new abilities to unlock as the player progresses and clothing customization that offers player bonuses.

[Press Release] Investment group App Fund seeking mobile game submissions – The App Fund, an investment group dedicated to supporting mobile apps across a broad range of categories is seeking mobile game submissions. Interested parties can apply here and check out the press release detailing the App Fund’s approach here.

[Press Release] EA to launch Tetris Blitz on iPhone, Android – This spring, EA will bring a new flavor of Tetris to mobile devices with Tetris Blitz. The game challenges players to reach a high score in a fixed amount of time and the touch interface offers a new control scheme.