Director Brett Ratner has signed on to produce a half-hour animated TV series based on the hit Facebook-based virtual farming game.

According to reports, he’s signed on to work with a Canadian production company called Six Eleven Media.

Brett Ratner is best known for directing the Rush Hour films, as well as Red Dragon, X-Men: The Last Stand. Ratner has over 30 film and TV producing credits under his belt.

“FarmVille is one of the most exciting brands out there today and its cross-platform opportunities are endless. I am thrilled to be expanding the brand with existing fans and also engaging a whole new audience,” said Ratner in a statement.

Earlier this week, Zynga posted Q4 revenues of $1.28 billion, a 12% increase year-over-year – but a quarterly loss. They also reported that Daily and Monthly active users were down since Q3, six and four percent respectively.

They also reported that they would be shuttering some of their games in order to cut costs including CityVille 2. FarmVille 2, the sequel, has been a success for Zynga however.

Today, the results are in and it’s not good news for the iron. According to your votes, it was a close race for the bottom spot between the iron, the wheelbarrow, and the boot. But in the end the iron is the piece that will be “locked up forever.”

Part of this Facebook promotion also involved the selection of a new piece to replace the old one (a robot, diamond ring, cat, helicopter, and guitar). Monopoly has revealed that the new piece will be the cat.

Monopoly wants to retire one of their classic game pieces, and they want to replace it with a new piece. They want your help with both.

On February 5th, one of the classic piece will be “locked up forever”: the car, the thimble, the boot, the scottie dog, the battleship, the hat, the iron, or the wheelbarrow. In its place, Monopoly will introduce either a robot, a diamond ring, and cat, a helicopter, or a guitar.

Monopoly16 hours ago

It’s the trial of the century! The fate of every classic MONOPOLY token rests in your hands. Vote daily to save your favorite token from a life sentence off the board. Click here: http://bit.ly/saveyourtoken

Powered by socialditto  1,000+ likes ·  840 comments

The Monopoly Facebook page has created a dedicated Facebook app for the vote, and you can access it here. Inside the app you can view the “case file” for each existing piece before you decide which one gets the boot (maybe the boot?). For instance, the prosecution’s case against the Battleship is that it doesn’t actually float. The defense claims that it’s still a better ship than the Titanic.

The app also sports a leaderboard, which shows which of the current pieces are “safe,” “neutral,” or “in trouble” based on the vote. As of now, the Scottie dog is safe with 34% of the vote. The hat and the wheelbarrow are the pieces that are currently in the most trouble.

My vote: Out with the Iron, in with the Robot.

[via Mashable]

Facebook’s App Center, their giant hub for apps and games that connect via Facebook, officially launched in the U.S. on June 8th. About a month later, they began the global rollout to English-speaking countries. By the beginning of August, the App Center was available to every user worldwide.

The App Center compiles and categorizes thousands of Facebook-using apps, allowing quick play of web apps and direction to where users can download mobile apps – either iTunes or Google Play. Facebook ranks the apps and decides which ones to show based on user feedback, and recommends apps based on the activities of a user’s friends.

Here’s what you’ll see at the top of your news feed. There’s a direct link to the App Center, as well as links to individual games.

Last month, Facebook touted the early success of the App Center. According to a developers blog post, the App Center is the second largest source of installs on Facebook. In one month, over 150 million peoples used the App Center and it apparently drives 2.4 times more installs that Facebook’s previous apps dashboard.

But Facebook has been accused of using the App Center’s interface to be a little sneakier when it comes to grabbing user data. The new App Center permissions request design isn’t as forthcoming with information about giving up data, according to some. In fact, the App Center is actually under fire in Germany, where consumer groups claim that the way it gathers personal information violates the law.

But here’s what you can do. You can help Zuckerberg hold on to his gold with a new Flash game entitled “Zuck Runner.”

The game, available at OneMoreLevel.com, runs on a simple premise – you have to collect as many coins as you can to save Facebook’s falling stock. Whiel doing that, you have to also avoid falling into crevices, stepping in lava, and various other impediments. Zuck is self-propelled across the screen, all you have to do is click your mouse to jump (holding it down longer makes Zuck jump higher).

You can joke all you want about Facebook’s epic stock plunge, but as it currently sits, some analysts say it’s finally worth a buy. As for Zuckerberg, he’s been more active on his site than usual of of late. Between pitching grilling apps and promoting the brand new, lightning-fast Facebook for iOS app, he’s keeping himself busy

[via All Facebook]

The social game lets you complete missions, meet characters from the show, and recruit your Facebook friends to “defend your camp from walkers.” If your friends die, they may come back as walkers, by the way.

AMC says the game has an array of missions that will test your survival skills, and that the only way to survive is with a team of allies. So social is indeed a key.

When you’re not online, “anything can happen,” the game’s page notes, so you’ll want to play with some friends who are as dedicated to survival as you. Someone has to stay on guard.

Of course, there are plenty of weapons to use in the game, but you have to unlock them.

While you’re at it, you might as well check out this deleted scene from season 2.

Facebook has always suggested games to users via the “Games you may like” box that you may notice from time to time while browsing the site. It’s housed over on the right, near the ads and the “People you may know” box. It’s just Facebook’s way to suggest things to you based on your previous activity and your friends’ activity.

But now, Facebook is testing taking a more direct approach to the “Game you may like” suggestions by sending them to you as a notification. And these notifications are definitely from Facebook. They are different from the app request notifications that you commonly receive from friends.

Here’s what an app request from a user looks like:

And courtesy of Inside Facebook, here’s Facebook’s test message that is going out to some users. “Play Now!”

Facebook has confirmed this test, saying, “We are testing this feature as part of ongoing tests to help people discover and reengage with apps and games and drive meaningful traffic to developers.”

As of right now, this is only a test and is only being seen in a small number of users. It will be interesting to see the reaction from users if this spreads to a larger audience. It’s possible that they could be less-than-thrilled about the admittedly spammy possibilities of these “app suggestion” notifications. Then again, if they are used sparingly enough, it might be nice for some users to see a game or app that five of their friends have been playing. In that instance, it actually could help discovery.

“With feed gaming, you can include a short sample of your game in the stories people share from your game that friends can play in line with just a click,” says Facebook’s Gareth Morris in a post on the Facebook Developers Blog. “Because the game is just a sample, people can try out the game without needing to authorize it first. However, you won’t receive any personal information from the user.”

Games currently taking advantage of the functionality include: Idle Worship, Angry Birds and Bubble Witch Saga. Feed gaming, as Facebook is referring to it as, enables friends to compete with one another, and encourage engagement.

The documentation lists the following example use cases:

• Post a high score on a particular level and challenge friends to beat it.
• Enable a replay of interesting user activity so friends can see how to complete a level for example.
• Create a mini-game that users can play in-line to get them excited to play the game.

“At the end of feed game sessions, many games prompt players to install the app, converting trial players into new installs,” notes Morris.

Developers can also track the performance of the gaming stories. According to Morris, Facebook will begin tracking the story type in insights for your app.

Documentation is here.

Speaking at the Game Developers Conference this morning, Facebook’s games product manager Matt Wyndowe revealed that the company has paid over $1.4 billion to the developers of games and other apps for Facebook. He also said that since 2010 Facebook has created a team that focuses full-time on games. The team, which consists of 40 people, meets weekly with Facebook’s Chief Technology Officer Brett Seyler and with Mark Zuckerberg.

Gaming on Facebook has gone from a neat gimmick to a major site feature in a relatively short span of time. Games like FarmVille, Mafia Wars, Words With Friends, and more draw the attention of huge numbers of Facebook’s users. Recent data has shown that Facebook gaming is even eating into the playing time of console gamers. While the Facebook gaming trend is not without its problems, it has generated massive amounts of revenue for developers and for Facebook. In fact, one of the biggest developers of Facebook games – Zynga – reported last month that their earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011 were up a staggering 91% over the fourth quarter of 2010. The company’s total revenue for the quarter was $1.14 billion. Gaming revenue made up the vast majority of that money, generating $1.07 billion.

All in all, games on Facebook are good for developers and Facebook alike. Considering the amount of money Facebook has invested in game developers, it doesn’t look like that will be changing any time soon.

I sent Facebook a request for comment, but had not received a reply by the time the story ran. This afternoon, a Facebook spokesperson sent me the following statement:

We have fixed a bug in the “discover new games” module which had resulted in a small percentage of users seeing recommendations for games friends may not have played recently. The issue has been resolved and is rolling out to all users now, so that the feature shows recommendations based on games friends are currently playing.

So it looks like the problem is in the process of being fixed. So if you’re still seeing this issue (which doesn’t appear to have affected a whole lot of people anyway), it should be resolved for you soon.

Have you noticed this problem? Is the fix in place for you yet? Let us know in the comments.