Social City's Gala Raffle: Win past decor and Limited Edition buildings

Players who click the "Build" menu can now participate in Social City's new Gala Raffle to win buildings and decorations that are no longer available in gifts or up for sale at the store. This new feature seemed to have quietly rolled out last week and the response among fans is pretty positive.
Social City's Gala Raffle in the Build icon menu
One excited player described the raffle as "kinda fun, but also kinda dangerous." How? Well, the raffle is divided into three categories. The first category offers Limited Edition attractions and discontinued giftables. The second offers Limited Edition residential buildings. Both of these require City Bucks, or Social City's form of premium cash, to make your spin. The first one requires 8 City Bucks, while the second needs 5. For $4.99 USD, you can get 55 City Bucks. So this is going to cost real world money, and what you get is luck of the draw.

But the third category uses virtual coins to work. Even at 50,000 Coins per spin, it's as good as free. Right now, that raffle's offerings include premium-level Japanese style buildings and the discontinued giftable Sakura Paths.

Social City celebrates GDC Best Social Game Award with 10 free City Bucks for fans

Social City wins Games Developers Choice Online Awards
In case you haven't heard, Playdom's Social City won the Best Social Network Game award at the Game Developers Choice Online Awards last week, and to spread the love, Playdom is giving away 10 free City Bucks to all their players!
Social City Best Social Game
There's only one catch though -- to qualify for the free premium cash, you'll need to have 15 buildings in your city. If you've already got 15 or more buildings, then you'll need to build one more building for the offer to go into effect.

>>Click here to play Social City

Social City North Pole expansion comes with homey winter buildings

North Pole Expansion
It looks like the snow is coming in early for Playdom as the company just expanded the North Pole district in Social City to its max size for everyone at absolutely no cost. Though, we doubt it had much to do with snow and rather more to do with the bunch of new buildings that were added in a recent update.

To start, players can gift one another the new Snowy Log Hut, which will provide 75 citizens every six hours, for free. To accompany the log hut are a few more log buildings (and some that are extra sweet) including:

    Gingerbread House 1 (9,000 coins): 100 Population every 4 hours
    Gingerbread House 2 (12 City Bucks): 100 Population every 4 hours
    Gingerbread House 3 (9,000 coins): 400 Population every 4 hours
    Snowy Log Cabin (10,000 coins): 125 Population every 6 hours
    Snowy Log Home (15,000 coins): 175 Population every 6 hours
    Snowy A-Frame 1 (20,000 coins): 500 Population every 2 days
    Snowy A-Frame 2 (50,000 coins): 800 Population every 2 days
    Snowy A-Frame 3 (10 City Bucks): 1,200 Population every 2 days
    Snowy Underhill Home 1, 2 and 3 (25,000 coins each): 250 Population every 6 hours
    Snowy Underhill Home 5 (16 City Bucks): 250 Population every 6 hours


In addition to more log cabins than anyone will probably ever need, Playdom also updated the game with an interesting change. According to the forum post, Facebook users who do not play Social City will now be able to see "Likes" referring to Districts in Social City. Considering this type of publishing was shut down a little while back, we'll see how long this feature lasts. Also included in the update were new holiday-themed attractions like the Snowy Clock Tower, which will give players 42,000 Happiness and 500 coins every four hours for 39 City Bucks. Other animated items include Santa's Toy Emporium, an item that for 29 City Bucks will grant your people 32,000 Happiness and 12,000 coins every five days. A good amount of these items are limited edition, so act quick if you want your city to fit the winter look.

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.