Social Networking, Social Games | featured news

Zynga is close to raising as much as $500 million from a group of investors in a round of financing that could value the maker of CityVille, FarmVille and other popular Facebook games as high as $10 billion.

This is a historic moment for social games. “FarmVille,” the hit Facebook game among all hit Facebook games, is no longer the top app on the social network. For the first time since claiming the top spot more than a year ago in August 2009, FarmVille has fallen to second place in terms of monthly active users on Facebook, according to AppData.com. Coming in at no. 1 now is the app “Phrases.”

Japanese social games company DeNA is out to take down American rivals Facebook and Zynga.

A 22-year-old mother from Jacksonville, Florida, has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for shaking her 3-month-old son to death after his crying interrupted her FarmVille game.

Facebook revealed a set of changes to its social games infrastructure at an event for game developers at the company headquarters on Tuesday night. Each change to the gaming infrastructure in the past has stirred up controversy, and this time was no different. But for all the trouble associated with games, Facebook clearly needs them.