Pet Society Oversized Week: Supersize it with giant cereal bowls, light bulbs

No one can say that Playfish isn't creative when it comes to new themes, as this week we see a creative new theme containing items that will make your pet feel as though they've shrunk! Oversized items are now available in several of the games stores, and come in the form of basic, everyday items that have been blown up to extraordinary sizes.

The theme starts off in the Living Room section of the Furniture Store, where you'll find spools of thread, candles, dice and even a teacup that are entirely oversized. The items seem fairly affordable here, ranging from 350 coins for the Dice Seat to 600 coins for the Teacup Table.


Also in the Furniture Store, but this time under the Kitchen and Bathroom section, you'll find a polka-dotted cereal bowl filled with what appear to be Fruit Loops. This item is called the Cereal Bathtub, and it will allow your pet to take a bath in its cereal, for the cost of 3,000 coins to add it to your home.

Finally, in the Bedroom section of the Furniture Store, you'll find a bed made from a book, and a nightstand made from matchboxes, costing 2,000 and 800 coins, respectively.

Over in the game's Market, you'll also find a few interesting items. Under Toys and Collectibles, you'll find an Oversized Mayor Stamp for 500 coins, while under Party & Gifts you'll see a new "community building" object in the form of a giant roller skate turned into a car. You'll need the help of your friends in order to construct the car, as you'll need 20 parts in order to build it. Each friend that helps will receive some coins as a reward, or if you'd rather simply purchase the car outright, you can do so for 25 Playfish Cash.
In the clothing store, rather than offering themed clothing items for your pets, the items here are accessory items, with an Overgrown Strawberry Hat and a Pet Soda Cap Hat being available for 700 coins each.
Over in the D.I.Y. Shop, under the Windows & Doors section, you'll find a Safetypin Window for 1,200 coins, while under Fixtures & Fittings, you'll see a massive lightbulb called the Giant Ceiling Light, which is available for 600 coins. It glows in the dark, if that helps in your decision as to whether or not to purchase it.
Finally, in the game's Food Store, you can find three oversized pieces of food in the form of a Pink Giant Candy for 100 coins, a Giant Chocolate Block for 250 coins, and a Giant Minicake for 160 coins.
With some of these items being available just for one week, you'll want to make sure to head over to the game's page on Facebook to start shopping for all that you're interested in as soon as possible.

This article originally appeared on Frisky Mongoose.

Former Playdom exec joins OpenFeint to help in Japanese Invasion

And another falls. Yet another executive from one of social gaming's biggest companies, Playdom, has left for a competitor. This time it's Ethan Fassett, an executive producer for Playdom who is now headed to OpenFeint, a mobile games network that enjoys 90 million players, as SVP of Product, VentureBeat reports.

The Burlingham, Calif.-based mobile games platform hired Fassett to help its clients create free-to-play games using the OpenFeint network--purchased by Japanese network Gree earlier this year--on both Android and iOS devices. He'll do this by leading development on new social networking features and distribution channels to support the freebie games, according to VentureBeat.

"We're very excited to bring on Ethan, whose expertise in free-to-play games and social communities will drive product strategy and shape the evolution of the network," OpenFeint CEO Jason Citron said. "Ethan truly understands social games, the social networks they need to be successful, and the tools game developers need to properly engage and monetize their players."

Executives from major gaming companies like Playdom and EA have been leaving for potentially more lucrative ventures in the social and mobile gaming arenas. And as these two companies appear to be in a lull (though, Playdom did just launch a new ESPN-branded game), publishers from the Far East encroach on the globe, throwing around millions. DeNA and its Mobage network are competing with both Zynga and Gree for dominance in the mobile games market, and the latter just got another shot in the arm.

The Sims Social explodes, the third most played Facebook game daily

Wait, so this is where my mom was during this weekend's mess? The Sims Social, the ambitious social version of EA's massive franchise by Playfish London, has grown into the third most played social game on Facebook. Better yet, that measure is through daily players, which is far more telling of a game's success early on than monthly players. As of now, according to AppData, The Sims Social enjoys over 7.2 million daily players.

More importantly, that beats out two more of Zynga's most popular games, Empires & Allies and Zynga Poker. The game already surpassed Pioneer Trail last week, and now EA as a little over a million daily players to go to become the first Facebook game to trump FarmVille in a very, very long time, if ever. (The game begins to flinch a bit at 8.4 million daily players.)

Of course, The Sims Social is a far cry from the behemoth that is CityVille, but hot diggity is it gaining fast. Yes, use of the word "diggity" is deemed appropriate in such impressive circumstances. Remember, this is especially significant considering the game got off to a rocky start, with outages and performance issues aplenty upon its release. If anything, it speaks volumes to the fact that this brand may have found new life on Facebook, and everyone else better watch out.

Should FarmVille maker Zynga watch out for Richard Garriott?

The legendary creator of Ultima known to many fans as Lord British has founded a social game development company called Portalarium and is after Zynga's runaway success in the industry. Richard Garriott, who was right in the middle of the MMO movement back in the early 1990s with Ultima Online, hopes to catch up with the rest of the social gaming world through Portalarium, according to VentureBeat. In fact, Garriott has a detailed plan on how to do just that, which he teases in the video above.

It's interesting and entirely expected that Garriott would have his eyes fixated on Zynga immediately out the gate. If his previous endeavors in both game creation and space travel (yes, it's true) say anything, it's that Lord British aims astronomically high. In his talk with VentureBeat, the Ultima mastermind chronicles three major eras in video gaming: the single-player age, the massively multiplayer age and the social gaming age. According to Garriott, social games will take another three years to mature into something similar to MMO or single-player games.

Of course, this is a gamble just like his previous launch, Tabula Rasa, was. Not even Playfish, a studio backed by the ubiquitous EA, has been able to topple Zynga and its 250 million plus players. But if anyone can come into the game during the third quarter and come out on top, it's someone who has helped spurred two of gaming's major eras. Portalarium will launch its first game within a month's time, which according to Garriott will not be an act of "plagiarism"--an allusion to Zynga's oft-criticized practices.

After that, he plans to return the studio to his roots and release a Facebook game that is "Lord British's brave new world, or a spiritual successor to my previous work," VentureBeat reports. "This is a particularly exciting period for the game industry," he said. "We are about to begin a new time of invention."

Are you excited to see what Lord British can produce for social games? What do you think "Lord British's brave new world" will look like on Facebook?

The Sims Social lures players into a Winter Wonderland this week

Unfortunately, not everyone (including this writer) can fly to Sweden on a whim and stay in a gorgeous ice hotel. Well, at least EA and Playfish look to provide the next best thing in this week's update to The Sims Social. Fittingly titled "Winter Wonderland," this update (coming Thursday) will allow you to build your very own ice house, complete with frozen furniture and ice sculptures.

The Sims Social Eskimo KissOf course, a number of these items will likely cost SimCash, but hopefully a few of the cool ones go for at least Social Points. Take the Pola-Ice Igloo, for instance. This interactive decoration has several uses: Players can use the Pola-Ice as a toilet for their Sims, throw rotten fish in their friends' igloos and make frozen WooHoo with other Sims inside--the igloo even shakes. We're ... not exactly sure how to feel about that last point.

Players can also pick up special Santa outfits for him and her that allow Sims to Eskimo Kiss during visits. Of course, the Thursday update comes with a quest, "Revenge of the Simch," which will reward players with a Rocking Reindeer decoration should they complete it in time.

The festivities continue throughout the weekend, with Saturday and Sunday seeing the release of the Ice Ring, an interactive decoration that lets Sims do pirouette spins. Finally, players will gain access to an Ice Block on Monday that, when used, will increase Sims' sculpting skill and eventually result in an Ice Wolf Statue. We're calling next week's theme: "The Simch Strikes Back."
The Sims Social Ice Block
What do you think of the winter celebrations in The Sims Social so far? Are you still digging the game since its release this summer?