facebook posts (Subscribe to this feed)

You've known it was coming. Like Lon Chaney Jr. watching the full moon rise, you've known you were on the very precipice of becoming a monster. Now, thanks to a post on the PopCap Facebook page, you have a better idea of when you can say goodbye to friends and loved ones: Plants vs. Zombies will arrive on iPhone and iPod Touch in late January.

So in conjunction, we'd like to announce the "Late January Buy All of Joystiq's Material Possessions Fire Sale." Come, buy all our stuff, we won't need it, just so long as you leave us a bed roll and our feeding tube.

[Via Slide to Play]

Game-related startup companies raised $600 million throughout 2009, according to GamesBeat's analysis. And while $600 million is a lot of money if you're, say, trying to sell a shooter based on the art of modern warfare, it's not quite that much when you're an up-and-coming game developer. Total investments in the field were actually down by 36% since last year. That's not a bubble bursting, but it does mean that startup investors might be a little more careful with their money in the year to come.

The biggest winners in the scene include Zynga, makers of Mafia Wars and a few other popular Facebook titles, who nabbed a big $180 million investment from a Russian technology company, and Playdom. You may not have played Sorority Life, the company's MySpace hit, but Lightspeed Venture Partners must have, because it invested $43 million in the company. If there's a theme here, it's social networking and online games: PopCap is probably the highest traditional game developer on the list, but even its $22.5 million investment was marked for putting its games on the web, mobile platforms, and social networks. Of course, that pull doesn't include the buck we gave them for Peggle.

Square Enix sees you over there, browser-based social games. President Yoichi Wada sees you working that lower barrier to entry and typically lower development costs. He sees and ... well, to put it to you straight: He likey. In fact, he's been talking to his boys over at Develop about you, stuff like "I believe that these types of games are going to be spreading and growing dramatically" and "the potential size of the market is enormous." You don't need a dictionary to know he is down.

In fact, he's already got a team in Tokyo developing some games to help him break into you. That's a little aggressive for our style, but you gotta hand it to our boy: Wada is hungry like the wolf.

The man known as Major Nelson has been so kind as to remind us all that child accounts for Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm have now been enabled for US Xbox 360 users. Once granted parental permission, Xbox Live child account holders over the age of 13 will be able to access these applications. The Major reminds everyone to make sure to select automatic logins for all the applications, otherwise you will be prompted for parental permission every time an app is launched. We'd have to agree with his advice. After all, Mom coming in to give you and your friends Tang and lemon squares: Cool. Mom coming in to log you into Facebook: Not cool.

When Microsoft rolled out Twitter, Facebook, and Last.fm support for the Xbox 360, a number of users were less than impressed. Specifically, those with child Xbox Live accounts were not allowed to use any of the new applications. Outside the US, Microsoft has now released an update that allows child accounts to access these features, so long as parental permission is given. Major Nelson advises users to set each application to log in automatically upon first activation. Otherwise, those with child accounts will be prompted for parental permission every time the application is launched.

Fear not, US gamers, the update will hit American shores on December 15.

Last month, we wrote about Facebook-based advocacy group Gamers' Voice, British Labor MP Tom Watson's initiative to combat the wave of negative press garnered by violent video games and gaming culture as a whole. At the time that story was published, the group had a few hundred members. Just two weeks after the story was published, the group had over 15,000 members.

According to a recent interview with IndustryGamers, Watson is inviting the group's ranks to join him at the British House of Commons tomorrow to discuss the future of the group. However, he's already seen results in Parliament, where his fellow politicians have shown interest in learning about the issues that pertain to games and have asked about connecting with gamers. Watson's personal goals are fairly reasonable: To stop the media's attacks on the entire industry "because one scene in one game is unpleasant to one journalist," and to "get a balanced view about what games really are."

According to Microsoft, nearly two million Xbox Live users logged into Facebook through the console's new built-in social media applications. Based on a vague estimate provided by Microsoft, it appears that around ten percent of all Xbox Live Gold accounts used the application within its first week of availability; however, it's possible many of those users only logged in to see the new feature in action.

Microsoft also stated the addition of Last.fm -- a music streaming service currently only available for US and UK gamers -- prompted nearly one million new profile activations. In its first week, Last.fm users streamed "more than 120 million minutes" of music to their Xbox 360 consoles. If we've learned one thing from these numbers, it's that people love to click on shiny new boxes.

Speaking to VentureBeat, Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten discussed the recent round of Xbox Live bans. According to Whitten, banning users from Xbox Live is "a cat and mouse game." Said Whitten, "These were people that were pirating software." He added that Microsoft looks at banning users "from a safety and anti-cheating perspective" and that the company looks out for its partners. Responding to the widely reported story that Microsoft banned over a million Xbox Live users, Whitten said that the figure is inaccurate. "I cannot explain to you why people would think it was a million people," said Whitten, then adding quite succinctly, "It wasn't a million people."

Whitten went on to state his belief that Microsoft does "a really good job" of monitoring the activity on Xbox Live, specifically in terms of piracy and online harassment. He concluded that the company is "committed to making [Xbox Live] better and better."

The interview also covers the recent integration of Facebook on Xbox, the effect Modern Warfare 2 had on Live activity (hint: a big one) and whether or not we'll be playing Facebook games on our consoles anytime soon. Don't expect a straight answer on that last one though, as the closes Whitten gets is, "In the future, they will move much closer together."

Sony announced that the next iteration of the PlayStation 3's firmware will be available for download starting today. Version 3.10 adds Facebook functionality to the PS3, including automatic Trophy and purchase updates. It also allows developers to include "trigger points" for Facebook integration in their PS3 games. Sony calls this Facebook service "the first phase of a variety of new features to further connect and enhance the online social experiences of PlayStation®3 (PS3™) computer entertainment system owner."

Other, less marquee features, include a new grid layout for photos and an updated friends list with the ability for users to change the background color of profiles. You can see the update in action on video here.

Details? They're so early 2009.

Xbox owners: You have five days to start thinking of your lives and the lives of others in trivial, 140-character chunks. Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten has told Fast Company that the Dashboard update containing Twitter and Facebook integration will officially arrive on November 17.

If the date seems familiar, you're not losing your marbles: The specific timing for the update was revealed and reneged last month. Now, you'd better hurry up and beat the Chatpad rush at the store.

As a number of "industry sources" reported last month, Electronic Arts has elected to add a new studio to its already expansive roster: Playfish, a prolific developer of free-to-play casual games on social networking sites like Facebook. The studio was bought out for about $275 million with an additional $25 million set aside for equity retention arrangements. Playfish is also set to receive another $100 million, should it manage to reach unspecified "performance milestones" before 2012.

Not only is that sum of money much higher than the $250 million total teased by the aforementioned analysts in October, it's ... well, it just seems like a lot of money to spend on a studio which actually developed a game called Bowling Buddies. However, considering Playfish's ten titles register 60 million active users and one billion play sessions every month, we suppose EA's making a sound investment. The times, dear friends -- they are a-changin'.