Rovio announced Angry Birds on Facebook, which officially launches today.  A few days back, Rovio published a sneak peek as to what Angry Bird on Facebook offers, and gamers were very pleased.  The entry into social network gaming is a new direction for Rovio, and that means new marketing angles as well.  Rovio’s known for its unique spin on marketing, transcending the virtual and physical realms.  On Facebook, Rovio’s made social gaming into a rivalry or a coop, spurring activity through leaderboards or gifting power-ups.

If you’re the competitive type, you can now challenge your Facebook friends to see who’s the King of Angry Birds.  But if you’re the type who just plays for fun, giving mystery gifts and power-ups to your friends will surely make your day.

Angry Birds on Facebook offers exclussive special power-ups that you can earn by playing the game, receive as a mystery gift from friends, or by purchasing them.  The four special power-ups are:

• Sling Scope — Looking for the perfect shot? Use Sling Scope laser targeting for pinpoint precision!
• King Sling — Fling your birds with style AND speed. Upgrade to the almighty King Sling for maximum power and velocity!
• Super Seeds — Supersize your bird! Super Seeds turn any bird into a pig-popping giant.
• Birdquake — Rattle the battle! Use the Birdquake to bring pigs’ defenses crashing to the ground!

Join their Facebook event to access special launch day goodies.

Hidden Haunts On Facebook

News Corp. is also turning an eye to Facebook’s platform for social gaming.  Making Fun, the social gaming division of News Corp., released Hidden Haunts on Facebook as well.  Hidden Haunts’ photorealistic scenery differentiates it from other hidden object games available on Facebook, as a young team turns to creative solutions to stand out in Facebook’s extremely crowded gaming market.

This genre of social gaming on Facebook was pioneered by Game Insight by developing Mystery Manor, published by 6waves Lolapps in the spring of 2011. It was followed by Disney-Playdom’s Gardens of Time and just last week, Zynga officially released Hidden Chronicles.  Making Fun chief executive John Welch thought they had to work fast if they wanted to make their mark on social gaming.

“These games have been successful and confirmed our thesis,” Welch said in an interview with VentureBeat. “We knew we had to get to market quickly or else there would be 20 of these games out there.”

Welch described how they made the photo-realistic scenery of the game, they took photos of real locations, but some of the objects were added by photo editing.  They are still newbies when it comes to social gaming and they don’t want to make the same games others already made, striving for diversity in their products.

The Sims Head To China

And for the ultimate move in social gaming this week, Electronic Arts announced that The Sims is heading to China’s leading social networking platform, Tencent Open Platform.

The Sims Social is in development at Playfish in Beijing, an EA studio, and will be available to Chinese players on Tencent’s social gaming network QZone. The Chinese name of the game is Mo Ni Shi Guang.

“The new offering from EA and Tencent now brings the fun and humor of playing with life and interacting with friends to Chinese players,” EA’s post stated.

“Mo Ni Shi Guang combines the best of The Sims gameplay from its creators at The Sims Studio with innovative social gaming features developed by Playfish for Tencent’s social game platform. Mo Ni Shi Guang expands the award winning Sims universe to China, and leverages the techniques and service resources from Tencent’s open platform to localize the game both in its art and game design.”

appMobi’s Bet on Monetizing HTML5 Gaming

appMobi, a vendor of cloud-based cross platform mobile development and deployment tools and services, sees the potential in cross-platform gaming, as well as its ability to be monetized.  The company announced playMobi this week, a cross-platform HTML5-based game development, deployment and monetization software developer kit.  playMobi’s all-in-one approach facilitates in-app purchasing, analytics and social constructs for game developers. playMobi is a JavaScript API solution for authentication, payments, social and gamification layers within an app.