Engage Digital Wrap-Up For The Week Of April 23, 2011

By On April 23, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Welcome to the Engage Digital Wrap-Up for the week of April 23, 2011. The Wrap-Up is where Engage Digital spotlights stories that we didn’t get to cover individually, but still make for interesting reading about the business of user engagement.

Avatar Reality Appoints Tetris Popularizer Henk Rogers As CEO: Blue Mars Mobile developer Avatar Reality has appointed co-founder Henk Rogers as its new CEO.
Battlefield 3 Pre-Orders Earn You Battlefield Play4Free Rewards: Customers who pre-order Battlefield 3 will get two exclusive virtual goods in Battlefield Play4Free as a bonus, the Battlefield 3 Edition 870 Combat Shotgun and the Battlefield 3 Beret.
Capcom Creates Social Smartphone Sub-Brand Beeline: Capcom has formed a new internal studio called Beeline that will focus on creating mobile social titles for smartphones and Japanese phones.
Could Augmented Reality Be Hazardous To Your Health: Kaiser Permanente neurosurgery bioengineer Eric Sabelman says that current augmented reality eyewear prototypes that display icons in a user’s peripheral vision could prove no less dangerous than earlier AR eyewear that projected icons directly onto the center of a user’s field of view. Sabelman also thinks that AR interface icons that remained in a steady position relative to a user’s field of view could lead to visual confusion in users.
DeNA, Japan’s Social Gaming Giant, Tries To Conquer The World: DeNA COO Isao Moriyasu talks up the company’s new ngCore engine, which lets developers create games for both iOS and Android from a single source code. Moriyasu also discusses DeNA’s overseas expansion plans, citing a feeling in the company that DeNA cannot expand any further inside Japan.
EA Raises $1 Million For Japan Relief Efforts: Electronic Arts raised over $1 million for Japan tsunami disaster relief across all of its online games.
Exclusive: Playfish Ending Playfish Cash, Going (Almost) All-In On Facebook Credits: Playfish is ending its Playfish Cash virtual currency in favor of game-specific currencies that can be purchased through Facebook Credits. Playfish VP of Publishing CJ Prober says it is because of the seamless purchasing experience Facebook Credits offer.
Foursquare Seeks Funds: Foursquare is looking to raise another round of funding that would value the company at $500 million. The company hopes to close the new round by early June.
Gameloft Brings NOVA Shooter Series To Facebook: Gameloft is launching a social version of its NOVA 3D FPS franchise on Facebook.
LOLapps Launches Ravenstone Mine Expansion For Facebook Game: LOLapps has launched the first expansion for Ravenwood Fair, called Ravenstone Mine. The expansion was developed by original Ravenwood Fair developer John Romero.
Mopay: Mobile Payment Interest Doubled In North America Last Year: Mopay has announced that the number of North Americans charging online merchandise to their cellphones doubled in 2010. Mopay’s data is drawn from its own international payments platform, conversion rates, transaction values, and transaction numbers gathered across 80 different countries.
Mythos Raises Open Beta Level Cap, Adds Umbral Peaks Region: Ahead of its April 28 launch, Frogster has published an update for freemium hack-and-slash MMO Mythos that raises the game’s level cap to 50.
Playmatics Secures $1 Million For ‘Real World’ Social Game: Playmatics has secured $1M in funding to develop Shadow Government, a social game where players can create, develop, and destroy virtual countries.
Report: Zynga Recruits JamLegend Team As Developer Closes: Zynga has made a talent acquisition of music game startup JamLegend, which announced its closure this week.
Resident Evil: Outbreak Survive Breaking Out On GREE Mobile Platform: Capcom is launching a social spinoff of its popular Resident Evil line of games for consoles and handhelds on Japan’s GREE mobile social network.
Rivet Games Raises Second Round For Web, Social, And Mobile Games: San Francisco-based developer Rivet Games has now raised a total of $15 million it plans to use to develop an unannounced online game project. Rivet Games was originally founded as FooMojo in 2007.
Say Media Acquires Dogster To Build Out Lifestyle; More Deals Coming Soon: Say Media, formed last year when Videoegg acquired Six Apart, has acquired the dog enthusiast social network Dogster and sister cat enthusiast network Catster. The company is also looking to launch a new women’s lifestyle network.
Sony Launches PlayStation Home 1.5 Update: The latest update to Home, the PS3′s free virtual world, contains new tools for developers creating Home social games.
This Augmented Reality App Will Make Being A Librarian A Whole Lot Cooler: Miami University has developed ShelvAR, an AR app for librarians that can recognize when books have been shelved incorrectly. The app will go into testing in Miami University’s library this December.