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]

Gamasutra, reporting Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot's remarks at yesterday's BMO Capital Markets conference, said Guillemot is betting that UPlay "will allow us to get a lot closer to our customers."

To recap, UPlay is a network that lives inside an Ubisoft game, instead of on a console's dashboard. Through it people can earn free premiums, check out new media and connect with other gamers, or so Ubisoft hopes. The idea is to keep people playing so they accrue points or chits redeemable for free crap, similar to a rewards/loyalty system you see in hotels and airlines. "The more you play, the more free goods you will be able to have," Guillemot said.

I just want to know if it's pronounced "You-play" or "Oo-play."

Guillemot: UPlay Community Features Will Help Ubisoft 'Get Closer To Our Customers' [Gamasutra]

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]

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.

The games will stay the same, but the way you experience them and share them with friends while not playing will change drastically once Nexon completes the rollout for BlockParty. In the works for several years, BlockParty will wrap Nexon's stable of free-to-play online games in a robust social networking website.

Players will be able to view a play feed of in-game accomplishments, share their thoughts and moods with friends, manage contacts, show off their avatars, and establish an online identity that is closely linked to the games they play.

"BlockParty will be one part games, one part portal with a twist of social networking. Nexon America's goal for BlockParty is to create the biggest online party with great games and awesome gamers," said Min Kim, Nexon America's vice president of marketing. "BlockParty will allow Nexon to better serve our players by extending the community experience to a central web-based communication hub. BlockParty will also make it easier for players to access Nexon's growing list of games, and at the same time, allow them to share their online gaming adventures with their friends."

Nexon is currently testing and tweaking BlockParty and will continue to do so through the remainder of the year. Those interested in a preview can visit www.Nexon.net and click on the little BlockParty critters at the top of the page.

So how are these versions of the two classic arcade titles different from every other version? Once downloaded and launched, the games will ask for your Facebook login information. Choose not to provide it, and you've got relatively accurate PC versions of Pac-Man and Dig Dug. Provide it, and you've got access to Facebook leaderboards, friends chat, and nifty little Facebook messages, such as "It's on between Pinky and Michael in NAMCO ALL-STARS: PAC-MAN!"

Heh.

The two games are now available for free download, which gives you unlimited access to the first two levels of each title. Players who want to complete all 256 levels of each game will have to pony up $9.99 a piece.

Thanks, but I'll stick to Pet Society. At least then I have a chance at golden poo.

Namco All-Stars Pac-Man and Dig Dug [Facebook]

The creation of LBP fan Chris Warren, Sackbook is a place where players can keep up-to-date on the latest user-created levels, make friends, or simply search offline for stuff they'd like to poke at the next time they visit the game. It uses information from within the game gathered via a PSN user named Sackbook, from which the site updates on a regular basis. Registration is a bit convoluted, requiring you enter your PSN ID and then send a coded message to the Sackbook account, but after that you should be good to go. If anything it's a neat little site to explore when you're stuck at work without hope of a LBP fix.

Now let's just hope Sony doesn't decide to "moderate" it out of existence.

Sackbook - Social Networking for LittleBigPlanet [Official Site - Thanks Lokno]

And APB's closed beta stage is upcoming, with alpha testing completed in the middle of September, says Realtime Worlds. "Initially this will be a very core, select number of trusted friends of employees, but does mark the start of what can be considered the ‘Closed’ Beta stage of APB," said Chris Dye, community relations manager.

There were no specifics given on exactly how Facebook will be a part of this. Develop Magazine points out that APB will use social music site Last.fm for its in-game audio, Realtime Worlds has shown a willingness to use existing online services rather than create its own.

The release date is still TBA.

APB to Use Facebook as 'Major Community Tool' [Develop]

It's definitely worth checking out, and who doesn't like sitting around at work filling out quizzes instead of putting covers on their TPS reports? They've just surpassed the 500,000 quizzes taken mark,and that couldn't have all been me. Hit the jump for more information, or better yet, just go to the site.

GamerDNA, Inc. Quiz System Reveals Gaming Preferences of 500,000 Gamers

Quizzes to become a key element of company’s gamer identity and discovery platform

CAMBRIDGE, MA – September 19, 2008 – GamerDNA.com, the social platform for videogame identity and discovery, today announced a milestone 500,000 quizzes have been completed on the site by gamers looking to define their gaming preferences, interests and unique gaming identity. To celebrate the initial success of the quiz system, GamerDNA will further expand their gamer identity platform in the coming months with the addition of new quizzes, aggregation of more gameplay information, and new tools for discovering games.

“The quiz system is central to the identity defining capabilities of GamerDNA.com and we are thrilled with the positive response that it has received thus far from the community,” said Jon Radoff, CEO of GamerDNA, Inc. “Our goal was to have quizzes on the site that are fun to take and that also help us to define what we, as gamers, find interesting. The quizzes not only enhance our identity platform, but also help us to draw unique insights from the collective intelligence of people involved in the culture of gaming.”

The Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology, a quiz that classifies the personalities of massively multiplayer online game players has quickly become the most popular on GamerDNA.com. Additional quizzes on the site measure the play styles of other gaming genres, such as first-person shooters and real-time strategy games, as well as a quiz that measures which decade gamers feel have had the greatest impact on their game preferences. After completing each quiz, a “facet” system shows participants a set of personality traits that represent their unique “fingerprint” as a gamer. Gamers can participate in these quizzes, as well as view current result summaries, by visiting www.gamerdna.com/quizzes.

GamerDNA aggregates each member’s gameplay history from popular networks including Xbox Live, Xfire and Steam. When this-real time information is combined with feedback about game preferences and quiz results, it enables a member to define their unique “gamer identity,” a lens for discovering new games, showcasing experiences and exploring the experiences of others who love games.

Yesterday we had Dennis Fong's Raptr but this fine evening/afternoon/morning (delete as appropriate) we shall be looking at Vigster.

While Raptr was all about sharing your game scores and profiles from different networks (LIVE, PSN, Steam, etc.) Vigster has a more modest aim - a virtual games shelf, like a gamer's version of book lover's sites like Shelfari and WeRead.

After free signup, you can assemble a list of games that you own or play and find like-minded fellow gamers for fun and frolics. You can add reviews, videos and screengrabs of games, and submit tips and recommendations to your new pals. A discussion forum is on the way too.

Vigster.com

Enter Raptr - a new social network for gamers founded by Dennis 'Thresh' Fong (he had to do something with all that prize money) that offers a way of tracking your friends and sharing what you are in to on several popular games networks.

Once you have signed in and chosen a nick, you can enter your IDs on Xbox Live, PSN, World of Warcraft, Steam and others, then start entering the games in your collection.

Where it can, Raptr will pull data from your various networks and update your profile with a list of your current games, achievements and the like. There are plugins for displaying your data on Facebook et al too, of course.

A free client for PC or Mac will display and update data from you and your friends in real time as well as suck data from any games you play on your box — less of an issue for most Mac geeks, presumably.

Raptr [via 1UP]

Yes, game violence. On Facebook.

If you're already a Facebook user, then you already might know about SuperPoke. If you don't, it works like this: you basically send a greeting message and icon to your friends — "give flowers to," "party with," generally nice things like that. They have "pokes" that are themed around holidays or events like popular movies, too. Some of them are a little bit offensive or silly. It's game-like, in that the more pokes you send your friends, the more you unlock, and it really doesn't get much more complicated than that.

So what's to rail against?

MarketWeek reports that Urban Concepts, a group of "anti-knife" campaigners, dislike that one of the pokes that has apparently become available invites you to "shank" your friends. You know, knife 'em prison yard-style. According to MarketWeek, the group believes the app is "targeting" teenagers with violent themes.

The knife poke seems to have since been removed from the app. You can still spank, fling a thong at, or give restraining orders to your friends, though. You can also "go Chuck Norris" on them, leaving little doubt that Urban Concepts is correct about the target audience, at the very least.

Facebook slammed for "knife" game [MarketWeek via GamePolitics]

In China, it's the glitzy cities that get the attention — Shanghai in particular is the city that garners the most attention in scholarship (and frequently in the press). I was somewhat relieved to see that this is not confined merely to China specialists, but game industry watcher types as well — the most recent 'China Angle' column at Gamasutra looks at games outside of the publicized hotspots, where large portions of the user bases are found. Giant Interactive, developer of Zhengtu Online, recently purchased a stake in one of China's largest social networking sites, in an attempt to grow their market. But that's not the only way companies are trying to acquire ever greater number of players, oh no:

Giant Interactive made a significant splash in China’s online gaming industry by pushing their game Zhengtu Online into the channel of second and third tier cities the way fast moving consumer goods company pushed food and nutritional products, using sales representatives at net cafes and shopping centers.

Their strategy was not surprising since Giant Interactive started as a nutritional supplement company prior to be a gaming powerhouse.

With the investment in 51.com, Giant will now continue to grow both their games and their reach deeper into hundreds and thousands of China’s urban centers that most Americans have never heard of.

Oh, Giant — definitely one of my favorite companies to keep tabs on. I'm looking forward to seeing the directions the Chinese market takes over the next decade; maybe we'll even see WoW toppled.

The China Angle: Reaching Into The Heartland Of China [Gamasutra]

BioWare co-founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk began cultivating a fan community around Baldur's Gate on newsgroups and in chat rooms back in 1996, and its own forums launched in 2001 alongside Neverwinter Nights, which is when it began collecting registrations.

On the heels of Mass Effect, and with Dragon Age up ahead (plus the mysterious "unnanounced MMO"), Bioware said its community usership is at an all-time high.

More users, apparently, have united for social interaction around the work of a single studio than use social networking sites like Friendster and Xanga. EA recently acquired a social network of its own — makes you think, perhaps, about where they might be going with it.

Full announcement follows the jump.

BioWare’s Community Tops 4 Million Members

BioWare Fan Site Exceeds Many Social Networking Communities

EDMONTON, Alberta—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Leading video game developer BioWare®, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS), today announced that its registered fan community is now over four million user accounts strong and still growing actively. With an average of 38,000 new accounts being created every month, the fan community is thriving with active, vocal members. While sites such as Friendster and Xanga host an audience of 1MM and 2MM respectively1, the BioWare community brings together 4MM2 people to chat, exchange ideas, discuss their favorite games, provide critical feedback to the BioWare development teams and more. BioWare continues to support and nurture its enthusiastic fan base through open communication with BioWare’s development team, and by providing exclusive content to registered community members.

Established in 1996 by co-founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, BioWare began promoting the idea of creating and managing a community behind Baldur’s Gate™ on 3rd party newsgroups and chat rooms. Then in 2001, BioWare launched its own forums with the release of Neverwinter Nights™ and began formally collecting community registrations. By 2003, BioWare hit the 1 million user account mark and it has continued to support the community through meaningful communication, features and content. With the release of Mass Effect™ for the PC and Xbox 360™ videogame and entertainment system, and the highly anticipated upcoming release of Dragon Age™, an epic role-playing game in which BioWare returns to its roots to deliver a compelling Dark Heroic fantasy epic, as well as other exciting projects on the horizon such as an as-yet unannounced MMO from BioWare Austin, BioWare’s community usership has risen to over four million registered members.

The BioWare mission is to deliver the best narrative-driven, emotionally compelling games in the world and the studio family has been recognized for this achievement in award-winning games such as Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars®: Knights of the Old Republic™, Jade Empire™ and Mass Effect. With some of its fans now over a decade of community membership, the BioWare engaged community has been an integral part in achieving that goal.

“It’s great to be able to talk directly with our fans – this is a cornerstone of BioWare’s success, past, present and future,” said Ray Muzyka, BioWare CEO and co-founder, and EA General Manager and Vice President. “We are proud to have created such a comfortable environment for BioWare’s millions of fans from all over the world - and we truly value their feedback.”

For more information, visit www.bioware.com/4million. To become a BioWare community member, please visit http://forums.bioware.com.

1 As according to Nielsen Netviews as of May 2008.

2 According to internal EA tracking as of June 2008.

About BioWare

BioWare develops computer, console, handheld and online video games focused on rich stories and memorable characters. Since 1995, BioWare has created some of the world's best-selling titles including the award-winning Baldur's Gate™ and Neverwinter Nights™ series, and Star Wars®: Knights of the Old Republic™. Original BioWare-created IPs include Jade Empire™ and the 2007 Game of the Year, Mass Effect. With studios in Edmonton, Canada, and Austin, Texas, BioWare is hard at work on the epic fantasy RPG, Dragon Age and Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood for the Nintendo DS™, as well as several unannounced projects including a massively multiplayer online game. In 2008, BioWare was acquired by the world’s leading electronic entertainment publisher, Electronic Arts. For more information on BioWare, visit www.bioware.com.

About Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the Company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTS™, EA™, EA SPORTS Freestyle™ and POGO™. In fiscal 2008, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $3.67 billion and had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.

BioWare, Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Jade Empire are trademarks or registered trademarks owned by EA International (Studio and Publishing) Ltd. in the U.S. and/or other countries. EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS Freestyle and POGO are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Xbox and Xbox 360 are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. Nintendo DS is a trademark of Nintendo. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

The company's called Caffeinated Games, and its goal, said Chudecke, is to create AAA-level titles that have an online community around them. Part of the challenge for both indie and commercial developers in creating concepts and marketing their games is that it's so hard to guess what the audience wants or will like - and indie devs have fewer resources for focus testing than the big guns.

Because of that, coming up with games can be very financially risky, and so lately lots of savvy industry vets have been looking at ways they can use social networks to connect with gamers, let them try out ideas and test responses in order to better gauge what people will like and whether it will sell.

You may remember just a few weeks back we spoke to Threewave's Dan Irish, who was launching a similar strategy using Facebook. Caffeinated Games' full announcement post-jump.

SOCOM and Lord of the Rings Veteran Founds Indie Game Company and Social Networking
Site Caffeinated Games.

Randle, WA
– June 11, 2008 - Announcing the founding of Caffeinated Games

(www.caffeinatedgames.com) an independent game company and social network focused on
the creation of original AAA games. It is founded by the former Lead Tools Engineer of Zipper
Interactive (SOCOM fame) Greg Chudecke who prior to Zipper worked on Backyard
Skateboarding (Atari) and Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Black Label
Games).
Caffeinated Games Social Network allows gamers to connect directly with the creators and
create a community around the games.
"When you read postmortems about failed indie game companies you often run across a
common thread, either the publisher didn't understand the concept or didn't market the game.
We at Caffeinated Games recognize publishers have to guess what games people will buy so
it is often hard for them to sign off on new ideas. Also if your game doesn't fit into a specific
genera they may have a hard time marketing the game. Our approach to overcome this is to
make the games we want to play and then pitch those games directly to the gamers. Cut out
the middle man if you will. The gamers after all are the ones who ultimately make your game
a success."
Caffeinated Games is set to Announce their first title next week.
For more information please visit www.caffeinatedgames.com.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but earlier reports pegged the price tag at about $30 million. EA hasn't said what it plans to do with the social network - through Rupture, they gain an infrastructure to use, but not much of an existing user base.

Earlier reports had also suggested that the deal would make Fanning, as well as his co-founder Jon Baudanza, employees of EA. Mariam Sughayer of EA's corporate communications declined to comment on this or other details of the transaction, but told Kotaku that the company will announce more details in the weeks ahead.

Full press release follows the jump:

EA Acquires ThreeSF
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced it has acquired ThreeSF, Inc., a social network for gamers. Financial terms were not disclosed. More information about EA’s plans for ThreeSF will be available in the weeks ahead.

About Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the Company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTSTM, EATM, EA SPORTS Freestyle TM and POGOTM. In fiscal 2008, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $3.67 billion and had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.

EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS Freestyle and POGO are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S and/or other countries.

According to TechCrunch, the draw for EA is Rupture's technology infrastructure, not its userbase, because as to the latter there apparently ain't much to speak of yet. The service apparently stalled in beta and never launched a second version. In other words, Rupture's not good for much - except as a ground on which EA could build a social network around multiplayer online games.

From TechCrunch:

Presumably, creating social networks around massively multiplayer video games is a key component of its online strategy. The company has not yet officially announced the acquisition, but it is expected to do so soon. [Update: The closing of the deal is imminent, but there are still some papers to sign].

EA declined to comment on the report.

Shawn Fanning Finally Gets A Real Payday: Electronic Arts Buys Rupture For $30 Million [TechCrunch]

School days were a waiting game, ticking the seconds off until we could dash home and play, our bags bulging with the triple prongs of spare Nintendo 64 controllers. Lunch breaks were spent reliving past conquests and planning for future marathon sessions. Our passion for Mario Kart 64 spawned a mythology. Rules and codes developed, seemingly arcane in their source, unwritten, but loudly voiced:

"YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT!"

And it's true. I wasn't. My elation at discovering a neat glitch on the expansive Wario Stadium track quickly turned into disappointment as my less nimble-thumbed friends informed me that, as long as they couldn't use a shortcut, I wouldn't be able to.

Sociologists already look at in-game behavior and norms, and I have no doubt anthropologists will someday be looking at how people gamed and why. It's an interesting part of games in general, not just video games.

You're Not Allowed To Do That. [The Escapist]

Blueprint games will leverage the growing online communities of social networks—to use Facebook, for example, as a pipeline to consumers. Young tried something vaguely similar with 2001's Majestic, a title that connected with gamers with the title's story through e-mail, AIM, phone, online, and fax. The subscription-based game was discontinued less than a year after its launch due to limited consumer interest.

Sources say talent agency Creative Artists Agency is also participating in the efforts of Blueprint, contributing its substantial resources of talent as well as its connections with funding sources to ramp up the division's output.

I guess this means we have more crap to look forward to in Facebook news feeds and application requests. Joy! More announcements about this secretive little division will be made at a later date, but it looks like quite a lot of talent and funding are going towards a segment of the market that is getting increasing attention from both inside and outside the industry.

Stealth EA Division Creating Games—Social Net Mash-up [Gametap]

Fear the internet no more, as Koinup is here. Quoth the Koinup FAQ:

Koinup is the first social network to share virtual lives, screenshots, machinima and virtual stories. It allows users to upload, share and review content they create within games, mmorpg, virtual worlds and metaverse.

Koinup [Koinup, thanks Pierluigi]