In a real-life blending of new and traditional media, The New York Times‘ globe-trotting columnist Nicholas Kristof is working on a Facebook game to draw attention to the human rights issues he covers in his column.

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Despite its 800 million-plus members, Facebook is not the only game in town when it comes to social gaming, especially when venturing outside the confines of North America.

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The company behind the fastest growing application on Facebook, The Sims Social, is launching a new game marketing platform that might result in a serious challenge to Zynga’s spot as top social gamer.

Developer Electronic Arts is following up its recent social gaming success with the rollout of EA Legend, which promises to provide game marketers with audience insights for mobile, social, online and console games.

EA Legend aims to aggregate demographic, psychographic and social data  from internal and third-party sources for game titles, in order to provide marketers with a complete view into how their campaigns are driving engagement with consumers.

By offering these metrics, EA Legend hopes that marketers can create social buzz and increase the effectiveness of ad campaigns.

The launch of the new platform seems like likely to intensify the competition between EA and the number one game developer on Facebook, Zynga.

It’s an interesting question to consider, since The Sims Social continues to grow like crazy, with 10 million daily active users a little over a month after launching.

EA has increased its worldwide audience reach by 30 percent this year across all four of its major platforms.

Zynga currently has three games among the list of top apps on Facebook. Words With Friends leads the pack, followed by Texas HoldEm Poker and FarmVille.

EA plans to formally introduce EA Legend at Advertising Week in New York City on October 4.

About 1.5 million active users are already creating mischief and mayhem with the Facebook debut of Electronic Arts‘ award-winning, life simulating game “The Sims Social” on Facebook.

EA has a deep history in Facebook gaming, and “The Sims Social” joins the powerful Sims brand, which has sold 140 million units since its launch 10 years ago,with translations into 22 different languages in 60 different countries.

Sims games allow players to create and live a virtual, simulated life on a computer.

Players create their Sims, or computer personalities, in any likeness they choose and experience every aspect of their Sims’ social lives, including building a variety of relationships with their real Facebook friends.

With “The Sims Social,” the fun begins when players are presented with challenges, such as forming romantic attachments, flirting, joking or getting married.

They can build dream homes, take showers together, or play pranks on each other.

The challenges are designed to create embarrassing, funny or tension-filled interactions between you and your Facebook friends through news feed updates or wall posts.

The game has been available in five languages and recently won the 2011 Best Browser Game Award from Gamescom.

“The Sims Social” app is free and available from the brand’s Facebook page.  The game also has a fan page that boasts more than 7 million likes to date.

EA’s Play Label teamed up with Playfish, its social games division, to develop the game marking the first collaboration between the two groups.

John Earner, general manager of Playfish’s London Studio, said in a press release that the collaboration paid off with unique new features.

When we created “The Sims Social,” it was important for us to incorporate the deep gameplay nuances The Sims Studio has perfected and leverage what Playfish does best –- develop compelling, cutting-edge social-gaming experiences,Our deep knowledge of the Facebook gaming platform enables us to continue to enable dynamic new features, quests and game updates on a regular basis so “The Sims Social” remains fresh and fun.

Readers, what do you think of “The Sims Social?”

A delicate dance of moves and counter moves between Facebook, Google Plus and app developers has broken out — evidenced by the changes in social games both companies announced on Thursday —  and is leaving some wondering if the competition is getting to the social networking site.
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Facebook Credits, the popular digital currency used within social gaming on the Facebook Platform, can now be purchased in-person at retailers in the UK, a move that has much broader implications.
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wooga, the company behind the popular Brain Buddies application, announced today that they have secured $7.5 million from Balderton Capital as a follow-up to the first round of funding from Holtzbrink Ventures we covered earlier this year. Since August, Brain Buddies has surpassed Playfish’s popular “Who Has The Biggest Brain?” application. With Playfish’s $400 million sale to Electronic Arts earlier this week, it’s not surprising to see additional signs of investor confidence in the social gaming space.
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This week two of the largest social gaming developers, Playfish and Playdom, announced that they are opening offices in San Francisco. Is this part of the massive Silicon Valley “revival” that the BBC described yesterday? I doubt it but it’s clear that no matter where the social gaming companies are hiring from, San Francisco and the bay area in general, are important for any growing internet startup.
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Yesterday night while I was upgrading AllFacebook I noticed an interesting trend among some of the top gaming applications: they’ve been plateauing. While many of the applications have been able to pull off remarkable growth (Farm Town for example), a lot of the large gaming applications have appeared to experience a slow down in what was previously phenomenal growth.
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