How I long for the days when I could wander into a video game store and be surprised by the release of a new Final Fantasy game. It hasn't happened since number VII came out on the original PlayStation, but I will remember that day for the rest of my life. Sure, I'm now part of the problem, but I prefer to think of it as sharing my pain with a large group of people.

Square Enix isn't helping, either. Instead of just quietly going back to work on the localization and letting us think about other things, they've now got an official Final Fantasy XIII Facebook page and Twitter account, ensuring that fans never forget that the game is still painfully far away.

Major Nelson announced that this afternoon Microsoft rolled an update that enables access to those three services by minors, provided they have parental approval. Minors in the U.S. will get access - again, assuming parental approval - on Dec. 15.

The Major reminds: Be sure to set Automatically log in or Remember me when setting up the application for the first time, otherwise you will be prompted for parental permission every time you launch the application

Twitter, Facebook and Last.FM updates for those <18 [Major Nelson]

Help out a sick Santa by maneuvering your yeti through town, avoiding police and delivering as many gifts as you can within the time limit. An advent calendar tells the back story of the game on a daily basis, while leaderboards help you keep track of what a good yeti you've been.

"Gift of the Yeti is BioWare's digital holiday card to its fans. We use social networking as a powerful tool to connect meaningfully with our tremendous fan community," said Dr. Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare and the Group General Manager of the RPG/MMO Group at EA. "Gift of the Yeti is a fun, engaging holiday present from BioWare to our fans, the first in a series of compelling social experiences from BioWare Labs."

The game is cute, but it's goal is what's more important; each play of The Gift of the Yeti raises 1 penny for gamer children's charity Child's Play, to a maximum of $10,000 dollars. I've already played three times, so that means you folks have only got 999,997 plays to go before they reach their goal.

"Child's Play draws the bulk of our support from video gamers and the games industry, and we are honored to be part of BioWare's Gift of the Yeti campaign," said Kristin Lindsay, Program Coordinator, Child's Play. "Now gamers can help support pediatric hospitals in the US, Canada and worldwide simply by playing the game and having fun! When gamers give back, it makes a big difference."

As an added bonus, folks visiting the Gift of the Yeti game are entitled to 10% off the purchase of Dragon Age: Origins from the EA Store.

Charity, discounts, and yetis. What else could a gamer want for Christmas?

Integrating a community website with Dragon Age: Origins and the upcoming Mass Effect 2 has paid off in spades for BioWare, bringing players online in droves to show off their Dragon Age prowess and prepare for the bragging that will come once the second entry in the epic space opera arrives. Between the existing BioWare community, more than 500K sign-ups at Social.BioWare.com, and the fans that will be flocking to the redesigned MassEffect.com, BioWare's community is only getting larger.

"We want to thank our fans for their enthusiasm and ongoing support. The passion within the community is not only helping drive momentum for Dragon Age referrals but our actively engaged fan base is eager for future content releases, which we are committed to deliver," said Dr. Ray Muzyka, co-founder, BioWare and Group General Manager of the RPG/MMO Group of EA. "We could not be more excited about the outstanding community growth. The connection we are fostering with our fans is direct and personal. This tremendous community will help set the stage for an incredible Mass Effect 2 launch on January 26th."

On top of the traditional web presence, the Dragon Age Facebook fan page has more than 30,000 fans, making it the fastest-growing EA property on Facebook.

So what makes BioWare's community so attractive? Is it the games? The people? You tell us.

According to Microsoft's first week figures, at least 2 million LIVE users logged into Facebook, and a half a million accounts were created in the first 24 hours. The company did not reveal numbers for Twitter via LIVE.

Millions using social media on Xbox Live | Geek Gestalt [CENT via VG247]

Not only can you send your friends to one of the nine circles of hell in the Facebook Go To Hell app, you can also vote to punish or absolve them, or simply torment them with lovely activities like beast massage or succubus castration. Oh those kids these days, with their succubus castration.

"This app is awesome! Not only will it be a blast to see who the world sends to hell, but it's also a great opportunity to take Dante's notion of the 9 circles of hell and make it current and relevant for people who may not be familiar with the poem," said executive producer Jonathan Knight. "Let the damning begin."

Now in the interest of fair play and science or something, I went ahead and sent Crecente to hell. I am not saying you should click on this link and go torment him, but I am certainly not going to stand in your way.

Speaking to Fast Company, Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten revealed the launch date for the eagerly anticipated dashboard update, which brings console-tailored versions of Facebook, Twitter, and Last.FM to Xbox 360 users. With the release day announcement, Whitten stresses that these aren't merely PC ports of the popular social networking sites, but entirely new entertainment experiences.

"We look at things like Facebook and Twitter as amazing social experiences, but also entertainment. We didn't want to copy and paste from the PC."

So who's excited? I'm actually looking forward to seeing how many of my Facebook friends get converted into Xbox Live contacts. I'll probably fiddle around with Facebook for a bit, and then turn on Last.FM and leave it running until the end of time.

Facebook and Twitter Come to Xbox Live This Tuesday [Fast Company]

Bejeweled Blitz is the Facebook version of PopCap's popular jewel-twisting puzzle game, which gives players a minute to rack up the highest score humanly possible in order to brag to their friends. Now PopCap brings that functionality to the iPhone version of the game, allowing players to try and beat their Facebook friends anywhere in the bathroom world.

"Ultimately, social gaming is about being able to play games with and against your friends, and the new Blitz update for Bejeweled 2 on iPhone lets you play against your friends anywhere," explained John Vechey, co-founder and director of PopCap's social gaming initiative. "This is a natural next stage in our multi-platform and social strategies. Blending the Facebook and iPhone Bejeweled communities should prove very compelling for players."

For those of you who've never played Bejeweled, it's basically Puzzle Quest without the RPG elements. Captain Backwards Description strikes again!

With more than 60 million active player across all of its Facebook, MySpace, Google, and iPhone games every month, social network game developer Playfish was ripe for the picking. Now they've been picked. As rumored previously, EA has acquired the company for $275 million in cash and $25 million in equity retention agreements, with up to an additional $100 million in variable cash consideration, pending the achievement of certain performance milestones through December 31st of 2011.

Playfish will now operate as a part of EA Interactive, a division of the company dedicated to web and wireless games. More than 150 million Playfish titles are installed and played around the world, with titles like Pet Society, of which I am a big fan, generating more than 1 billion play sessions a month.

"Social gaming, with its emphasis on friends and community, is seeing tremendous growth and this is the right time to invest to strengthen our participation in this space," said Barry Cottle, Senior Vice President and General Manager of EA Interactive. "EAi has been successfully leading the charge for EA, and with the addition of proven expertise from Playfish, their broad consumer base and strong game brands, we're moving ahead aggressively in our plans to lead in the category of cross-platform social entertainment."

If there was any doubt that EA was completely serious about the social networking games space, this should get rid of it. This is an aggressive move into the growing industry segment that could only be topped by the acquisition of Mafia Wars creators Zynga, which I am fully expecting some major game company to announce any day now.

"I find the in-game uses, OK, may be interesting, the out-of-game, hey, it's a camera, use it to connect to Facebook or whatever - I don't find that at all interesting," says Neustadter. "Don't we all have phones that do that? Why do we need our gaming device to do that?"

Yeah. Good question. Why would anyone integrate Facebook with a gaming platform, anyway?

To be fair, maybe Neustadter meant just a gaming handhheld, not a console. To be more fair, hey, at least he's being an honest gamer. And earlier, Neustadter and security boss Stephen Toulouse said they were gaming more on their phones than their DSi, which is where one might also be more likely to use a Facebook mobile app.

But I think I did detect a semipregnant pause from The Major after e piped up (31:30 of the podcast). Like "Oh man, someone's gonna stick this on a blog." And, I guess someone just did.

Show #337: DJ Hero, MUA2, Lego Rock Band and MW2 [Major Nelson, thanks elektrixxx]

Over at the official website for the creators of this week's Ratchet & Clank: A Crack In Time (aka the place I go to watch my Ratchet scores slide down the chart), the man running things admitted to only recently signing up for Facebook. And he still isn't ready to Tweet.

Here he is, explaining himself on his company's website:

Recently I've been feeling like a big hypocrite. Since Resistance: Fall of Man I've been extolling the virtues of the community features in our games. And a few weeks ago I mentioned in an interview that I think that community represents a hidden arms race in our industry.

But I have to come clean. I haven't actually been part of the community. I haven't been on Facebook until lately. I don't Tweet. I don't have a MySpace account. And I only post on forums occasionally. What's wrong with me? Haven't I heard that being part of the "community" is freaking awesome? How can I promote community if I'm an outsider?

Some might consider posting on Internet forums plenty of community right there. But Price runs a company that is releasing a game this week that has the word "Community" as one of its main menu options. And, hey, developers, gamers, reporters, PR people are on these networks. Is it essential to be connected in this way? Would there be something archaic about a person professionally involved in gaming shunning social networks, as if it was as essential to keeping up with things as, I don't know, reading a book, using a phone or trying Guitar Hero at least once?

I've seen developers join Twitter and then leave it. I've had gamers ask to be my friend on Facebook or argue with me on an Internet forum. Public relations folks and game creators alike use social networking tools to get the word out and sometimes to make gaffes in whole new ways.

In Price's case, the question is whether the head of a development studio has anything to be sorry for if he's not part of Internet "community." Do you demand the people making the games you play indulge in such things?

Social Media & Me: A Confession [InsomnicaGames.com]

If you had any doubts about the ever-growing importance of Facebook to the game industry, look no further than today's Activision announcement, heralding the impressive number of fans the Guitar Hero Facebook page has gathered. It's not about sales. It's not about review scores. It's about people clicking on a little button, and one million (1,084,288 as of this writing) people clicking a button is certainly impressive.

The page is used mainly to request feedback from the Guitar Hero community, asking the community which songs are the hardest to play, what bands they'd like to see, and generally gathering data that could be used to make future updates and versions of the game more tailored to community tastes.

That, or they could just be generating random conversations, though I'd like to think it was the gathering data thing.

So, are you one of the million fans?

For the rest of you, check your Xboxes, update your dashboards—if you can—then Tweet and Facebook your little heads off. Then, tell us if you're liking the new additions, or if you think that Twitter is the devil and steals your soul 140 characters at a time.

Civilization Network will allow you and your friends to band together to create the most powerful, wealthy, or most intelligent civilization. Think Mafia Wars, only with shifty Romans instead of shifty Italians. I suppose that's pretty much the same thing these days. Toss giant plumed helmets on the mobsters and off you go.

Sid Meier himself announced the upcoming app in the CivFanatics forums.

I wanted to let you know we'll soon be looking for beta testers to help us develop a unique new way to play Civilization. Ever since we finished Civilization® Revolution™ last year, I've been looking at ways of expanding the Civ gameplay experience to include solo, competitive and cooperative play to take advantage of the uniqueness of social networks. We're calling this project Civilization® Network™ and the full game will be available next year on Facebook. Civilization Network will allow you to join together with your friends to create the world's most powerful, richest, smartest, or just plain coolest civilization. You can coordinate your strategy to win great battles, share your technology to jump ahead of your rivals, lobby your family and friends to form your own government and win vital elections, manage and grow your cities to maximize production and happiness, spy on your enemies, and work with your friends to create the great Wonders of the World. The game will offer everything you enjoy in Civ in a fully persistent environment - you can play as much as you like, whenever you like, and it'll be free to play.

Thanks a lot, Sid. I still had a little free time left, and that was bugging the hell out of me.

As the man says, they'll be looking for beta testers soon. Your best bet? Head over the the Civilization Network Facebook page and become a fan. Might as well get it over with now.

Announcing Civilization Network! [Civilization Fanatics Center - Thanks Mike!]

Photo Sauce, developed by the Atari London Studio, is a free Facebook app that allows users to plaster retro stickers, stamps, and speech bubbles all over their photos, creating images and comic strips they can share with their friends, or people who added them because they felt it was rude not to. As you can see from the image above, I am already an expert at using this application.

So why a Facebook app, Atari?

"Atari introduced the world to computer entertainment with simple and fun games for everyone," said Paulina Bozek, Development Director, Atari London Studio. "Atari Photo Sauce builds on that heritage with a social application that is universally appealing and instantly fun, allowing social networkers, who share billions of photos online, a new way to be creative with photos and share them instantly with friends everywhere."

See? Atari is building on its heritage. Soon its heritage will be littered with "Totally Rad" stickers and rainbows. This pleases me. Go forth and Photo Sauce, I suppose.

Xbox 360 Update Hands-On: Facebook And Twitter
Microsoft provided Kotaku with an early version of the November Xbox 360 dashboard update. I just tested Twitter and Facebook on my 360. Watch.

Xbox 360 Update Hands-On: The Stuff That Didn't Work, For Me
Instant streaming in 1080p? Microsoft did warn that its new Zune video marketplace might not allow for streaming for people with slower (slow-ish?) connections. This is my low-point in my three-part preview of the 360's new November dashboard.

Xbox 360 Update Hands-on: Last.FM In Action
The final part of our Xbox 360 November dashboard update saves the best for last, without intending the pun. Here's Last.FM in action on my 360, injecting a bit of Zelda and MF Doom into my system.

Both Xbox versions of the social-networking services are available only to paying Xbox Live Gold users.

Apologies for the low volume. Turn it up before you start watching/listening.

The Facebook video is up top. The Twitter video is below:

Check out Part 2 of our Xbox 360 Dashboard update preview, as I try the new Zune video marketplace and the Instant Streaming in 1080p service.

Check out part 3 of this November Xbox 360 Dashboard Update preview, which shows Last.FM on my 360.

Since Microsoft expressly said we're not forbidden from discussing this, why not? U.S. Xbox Live users in the closed preview will see a "News and More" tab in the "Inside Xbox" channel, and it will deliver "a regularly-updated stream of content from MSNBC.com, MSN Autos, The New Yorker and Dilbert,

For rhythm and music gamers, the update will also set up dedicated music stores for Lips, Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

But wait, there's more! "Surprise! - Keep an eye out in the weeks after the preview launches...you never know what might pop up," says the email.

Inside Social Games reports that EA may have secretly snapped up Playfish weeks ago, adding its popular social games Pet Society, Restaurant City and others to the mega-publisher's portfolio. The site expects a formal announcement soon, but neither parties appear to be commenting.

Silicon Alley Insider says it too has a source that confirms EA's purchase of Playfish, but wouldn't put a price tag on the buy out.

Is EA Going to Buy Zynga or Playfish in Social Gaming Bid? [Inside Social Games]
Rumor: EA Acquires Playfish For $250 Million (ERTS) [Silicon Alley Insider]

It's the triumphant return of the Xbox Live Preview Program, and everybody is invited! Invited to apply that is, but Major Nelson says they are searching for multiple thousands of participants to test out the latest Xbox Live features, and you're just a brief application away from being considered. You can visit the Xbox Live Update Preview page right now to apply, but make sure you've got your Xbox 360 serial number handy, because they're gonna ask for it. I told you to keep it on a card in your wallet, but did you listen?

Xbox LIVE Preview Program: Zune, Facebook and Twitter [Major Nelson]