Facebook has been very good to the city-building genre. Every day millions of people wake up, log in and click away the day placing buildings, upgrading facilities and incessantly bugging their friends for help in titles like Zynga's CityVille or Game Insight's My Country. Now the legendary franchise that inspired…

EA's designated Zynga-killer, The Sims Social just toppled FarmVille from its No. 2 perch in "daily active users," the key stat describing a Facebook app's popularity, according to app-watching site AppData.

I'm not much for Facebook games; I've played FarmVille a bit, but it's never quite gotten its hooks into me. Part of the reason for is that most of my friends don't play either, and so I've never felt the social pressure that contributes to the game's addictiveness. You know: "Dang, David's barn is so sweet. I wish I…

SimCity is a series beloved by millions, and one that's sadly been neglected of late while the Sims franchise went supernova. Now, according to MCV, it's coming back.

Madden NFL Superstars, a Facebook card-and-management game anticipated for several months, went live to the public earlier today. The free-to-play game resembles June's FIFA Superstars in structure while borrowing elements from the popular Madden Ultimate Team of the console game.

When EA bought casual games developer Playfish, people thought it would mean EA games based on fluffy animals. Nope. Turns out the "well-known brand" the studio has been working on is a Facebook version of football series FIFA.

The billion dollar business of selling virtual goods in free-to-play games is more than just a financial windfall for companies like Playfish. A controlled economy with millions of active participants gives economists an entirely new way to model consumer behavior.

Playfish president Kristian Segerstrale, flush with cash after his casual gaming company was bought out by Electronic Arts last year, has told the Wall Street Journal of his plans for the year ahead.

And you thought you spent a lot of money on Pet Society. EA just spent $300 million on leading social network game creator Playfish, the team behind Pet Society, Restaurant City, and Country Story.

Electronic Arts may be expanding its empire with a big buyout of social games developer Playfish, the UK-headquartered company that makes games for Facebook, MySpace, iPhone and Android. Cost to EA is rumored to be a quarter billion bucks.