The week in gaming news: January 27, 2012

Another week has come and gone, and you know what that means: lots of news! A whole lot happened this week in gaming and you’d be forgiven if you missed a few things amidst all of the reviews, previews, and guides we publish each and every day. But Gamezebo’s here to help, and so here’s every bit of news we covered this past week, for your convenience.

Monday

• In our Monday editorial we all came together to make nine predictions for what will happen in gaming in 2012.
• There’s a new update coming for Triple Town, which will add new gameplay modes and social features.
• How much do you love Gardens of Time? Enough to pay a monthly fee? Playdom sure hopes so, as the developer has launched a new $15 subscription for the game.

Tuesday

• Temple Run is now a free-to-play game, and the change has made its developers quite a bit more money.
• Ever wonder how a game like Monster Galaxy gets made? Well wonder no more, thanks to this in-depth post-mortem.
• Bubble Witch Saga has become the latest Facebook hit to show up on Google+.
• The latest Indie Royale bundle is serious. Serious Sam serious.
• Just in case you wondered, EA has released an infographic that reveals just how often players in The Sims Social woo hoo.
• Zynga secretly slipped two new iOS games into the Canadian App Store. Turns out that one of them wasn’t so original.

Wednesday

• LEGO Minecraft: it’s real, and it’s spectacular.
• One of the developers behind Triple Town discusses the issue of plagiarism in games in this guest editorial.
• It’s the debut of a new Gamezebo column: Replay Wednesdays, where we take a look at all the games that have launched on new platforms. Watch for it every Wednesday!
• Angry Birds on Facebook finally has a launch date, and it’s Valentine’s Day.
• Speaking of Angry Birds, an executive from developer Rovio has flown over to Big Fish Games.

Thursday

• In another guest editorial, the vice president of GameHouse takes a look at whether or not we’re in a game bubble.
• When it comes to trademarks, it turns out that both Apple and Zynga are bullies.
• Zynga may soon be getting into sports games. BaseballVille, anyone?
• We get the scoop on a brand new expansion that’s coming soon to Woodland Heroes.
• Out of nowhere, Valve released a Steam app for both iOS and Android.

Friday

• Big Fish Games has launched a brand new sale, with a number of well-reviewed games selling for just $5.
• Kabam is growing with the addition of Fearless Studios.
• EA’s Origin service just became quite a bit more appealing, as 11 new publishers have signed up to the service.
• Square Enix titles have joined the ever-growing library of games on Good Old Games.

Andrew Webster