Social City update keeps City Bucks items from newbies, adds three new buildings

    Pillar Rock     Hot Springs Resort
What better day to update your favorite city planner game than Wednesday? With hopefully just enough content to hold players over until the weekend, Playdom updated Social City with three new buildings. First up is the Pillar Rock, a decoration item that will add 25,000 Happiness and grant you 785 XP for 25 City Bucks, or $4.99. Next in line is the Hot Springs Resort, which for 45 City Bucks (about $9) will reward players with 50,000 Happiness and 2,305 XP on top of 3,000 coins every day and a half. Lastly is the Louvre Square. Based on the world famous art museum in Paris, France, this building costs a whopping 59 City Bucks (slightly over $10), but will provide you with 5,000 coins every 12 hours and 3,845 XP--not to mention 66,000 Happiness.

While these flashy new buildings are certainly a treat, what's even more interesting is that Playdom has barred players below Level 3 from buying items that cost City Bucks. While there was no official explanation for the change, we imagine the developer wants to keep new players from making purchases before they've become invested in the game world. Not to mention players of such a low level--or what the kids these days call "noobs"--have no real use for an item that costs $10. So, for the--ahem--noobs out there: get a better feel for the game before you run around spending your hard-earned cash.

Update: Players can now "Like" each others' city layouts. These "Likes" will post to your friends' News Feeds just like normal.

Zynga, Playdom, EA and Bioware vets cause a Rumble with new freemium studio

While many a story has come to light recently, detailing high-level game designers jumping ship to Zynga, here's one where a fairly big gun under the big Z's umbrella has left for new pastures. To be specific, John Yoo, lead designer on CityVille, is one of a few industry veterans that have joined with Greg Richardson [pictured], of former BioWare/Pandemic fame, in the creation of a new freemium (free-to-play) game studio by the name of Rumble.

After speaking with Rick Thompson, the founder of another major social games company - Playdom - the two partnered to form Rumble. Rounding out this new package are former EA employees Mark Spenner and David O'Connor. With these big names in their camp, Richardson's goal with Rumble is to create games that are free to play (supported with paid add-ons), but lie somewhere in between the expensive world of high-end PC games and the extremely casual games represented by many Facebook titles.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Richardson has faith that this middle ground holds a lot of merit. "We saw this third hill, and we think it's the biggest of the three hills," he says. This isn't to say, though, that Facebook games are out of the picture, as Richardson confirmed that they will use the social service, but will also focus on mobile devices and PCs through the browser.

In addition to developing its own games, Rumble will publish other developer's titles. While no specific details were announced about any of Rumble's specific games (we can expect the first sometime early next year), Richardson did list many of the company's areas of inspiration, which lie anywhere from Zelda and Super Smash Bros. to Diablo and Civilization. Regardless of the game in question, he says that Rumble looks to avoid overly complex gameplay. With this many areas of inspiration, we're definitely interested in seeing what Rumble comes up with, but for now - the possibilities are endless.

Are you excited in trying out this apparent middle-ground of freemium games that aren't too challenging, but aren't too basic either? Sound off in the comments.

Zynga Mobile steals away Disney Interactive exec Adam Sussman

Just despicable: When Zynga isn't buying out companies, it's downright hiring buying out people. According to paidContent, Disney Games SVP Adam Sussman has left the company to join Zynga Mobile, which Disney confirmed to paidContent's Staci D. Kramer. Sussman joined Disney Interactive Media Group (DIMG) in January of this year, coming from EA's mobile division.

The former SVP was responsible for global publishing at Disney's games department, but paidContent believes Sussman will focus solely on mobile games while with Zynga Mobile, working under David Ko. In his move to Zynga Mobile, Sussman joins former Playdom VP of global distribution Paul LaFontaine as the second Disney Games executive to leave this week alone.

Companies like Disney, EA and similar major gaming companies have suffered several losses of high-level executives--including EA COO John Schappert (which has since been confirmed)--to Zynga and other competitors this year. Even a delayed IPO (initial public offering) can't scare high-level games industry execs away from the big red dog.

The continuous string of bad news already had analysts questioning whether Disney and Playdom could hang with its competitors months ago, and the fact that the company is having trouble holding onto its key players doesn't help today. Despite its losses, games like Gardens of Times do consistently well for Disney Playdom.

So, perhaps there is still hope for the company that it can squeeze out another hit and continue to hang with the top five Facebook game developers. You know, another hit like ... a Facebook game actually revolving around Disney characters? (Um ... duh?)

[Image Credit: Disney]

Do you think Disney Playdom can still compete with Zynga, EA and Wooga despite its losses and worried analysts? Why do you think the developer has yet to make a Facebook game using Disney characters? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment