Zynga today announced the departure of Zynga’s New York office general manager Dan Porter, the former CEO and founder of OMGPOP.

Just over a year ago, Zynga acquired New York-based gaming studio OMGPOP for $180 million (with another $30 million earnout), the studio behind hit Pictionary-like mobile title Draw Something.

“Developing and launching games is a team effort, and we’re proud of the great work the Zynga New York team has done with Draw Something 2,,” said Zynga COO David Ko, in a statement. “Our follow up to the original hit is even more social and engaging, and we’re excited to get it into the hands of our players globally. We thank Dan Porter for his efforts in making the Draw Something franchise a success and wish him well in his future endeavors. We’re proud to see talent like Sean Kelly take a bigger leadership role as the Head of our New York studio and lead the team to the global launch of Draw Something 2.”

Sean Kelly, who’s been with the company since 2009, is stepping in for Porter as the head of Zynga’s New York studio. Kelly’s official title is the vice president of mobile and general manager of Zynga New York, reporting to Zynga’s senior vice president of mobile Travis Boatman. Kelly led the launch of CityVille in 2009, which grabbed 100 million players worldwide in less than 30 days, as well as the launch of Running with Friends FarmVille, Dream Zoo, Dream PetHouse, CityVille Hometown and Zynga Poker.

Zynga recently revealed Draw Something 2, the sequel to Draw Something, in a tweet from TV and radio personality Ryan Seacrest. The game has soft-launched in Sweden, but no official worldwide release date has been announced yet.

Television personality Ryan Seacrest today revealed the existence of Draw Something 2, the sequel to OMGPOP’s runaway mobile success Draw Something.

Seacrest, best known for hosting Fox’s long-running television show American Idol, Seacrest posted the following image to his Twitter account today.

Zynga VP and OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter was quick to confirm Seacret’s claim that the public was checking out some legit Draw Something 2 artwork, responding with the game’s official logo.

Zynga’s acquisition of OMGPOP made some serious headlines last year, especially since the deal was reportedly worth somewhere around $200 million. Zynga’s staying mum on exactly what kind of new features the game will contain, or even when it will release, but Porter’s comment implies Draw Something 2 will continue to leverage social networks so players have more ways to share their images (something that users have long been clamoring for).

Seacrest and Draw Something have long been associated with one another, especially following the revelation that Seacrest was producing a Draw Something-themed gameshow for CBS.

What will be interesting to see is how Zynga handles Draw Something after its sequel is launched. AppData estimates the game still has over 5 million monthly active users, and those are only the users who connect the game to their Facebook accounts.

Zynga launches What’s the Phrase – Social games giant Zynga announced the launch of What’s the Phrase on iOS. As its title suggests, What’s the Phrase is a word game which invites players to guess and complete well-known phrases. Phrases are pulled from different categories geared towards different ages and interests like Internet Memes and TV Shows. You can download the game for free here.

Google Maps 1.1 adds better local search, contacts – Google’s Maps app for iPhone updated to version 1.1, allowing users to find directions to people in their Google contacts. Users can now also search for businesses that are near them like bars, theaters and more. You can get Google Maps for iPhone here.

Sony sells its shares of DeNA – Sony announced it has entered into a contract to sell all its shares (17,722,500) of Japanese mobile games company DeNA. The sale will  net Sony $437 million in profits. Sony says that the sale is meant to “strengthen its corporate structure.”

Sega announces Sonic Dash – Games publisher and developer Sega announced Sonic Dash, a new endless runner game featuring its iconic mascot Sonic the Hedgehog. Players will be able to choose Sonic or one of his friends as they run down Seaside Hill, collecting rings and unlocking power-ups. Players can also compare their best time with friends with the game’s leaderboards. The game is available to download from the iTunes App Store for $1.99 here. Look forward to our review on Inside Social Games.

Glu launches Samurai vs. Zombies Defense 2 – Mobile game developer and publisher Glu announced the launch of Samurai vs. Zombies Defense 2, the sequel to Glu’s hit strategy defense game. Samurai vs. Zombies Defense 2 adds new weapons, defenses, and magical abilities for each unit. You can download the game for free from Google Play or the iTunes App Store.

Telly launches version 2.0 – Video discovery app for iPhone Telly updated to version 2.0. Among the new features is group video sharing, which allows users to share discovered or created videos with specific friends and engage in conversation via chat or reply videos. Telly claims that 36 percent of those who have downloaded Telly’s iOS app return to it monthly, with 55 percent returning on Android each month. You can download and discover more of Telly’s new features here.

Hothead Games launches Rivals at War — Game developer Hothead announced the launch of Rivals at War, or RAW, a turn-based tactical game. Players choose from six unit types, equip them with special gear, and then deploy them in one of four different battle scenarios, each with a unique look rendered in 3D. The game is available to download for free from the iTunes App Store and Google Play.

MyPermissions secures $1M in funding – MyPermissions, a tool which helps users control and secure personal information on their mobile device, announced it has raised $1 million in a round of funding. The round was led by lool Ventures, 500 Startups and 2B Angels, with participation by Plus Ventures and Robby Hilkowitz. The Israeli company will use the investment to expand its product offering and accelerate the growth of its user base worldwide.

Programming-related fields practically invented the terms “crunch time” and “non-traditional work hours”, but a new infographic from Wix argues that the new app economy is a kinder, gentler tech field with room for growth.

It says the average app developer gets $90,000 annual and puts in between 37 and 40 hours a week. App developers have created 466,000 jobs since apps became mainstream five years ago.

We’re assuming that the data here leans towards developers within an established or corporate company. It may be another sign that the era of the lone programmer sitting in her proverbial garage is closing.

Wix also provides argument for the five primary app markets: Android, Chrome, Facebook, iOS and, of course, Wix. For Android, it argues that Google is on track to have one-million active apps faster than Apple, and Google’s Chrome has more than a third of the web browser market. Facebook has its billion users, still making it worth exploring despite the many hiccups of one-time leaders like Zynga.

The interesting nuggets here are in the analysis of both iOS and of Wix itself. Starting right now, the iPad app market is expected to grow 35 percent annually, adding serious room for growth. As far as the productivity-focused Wix App Market, it argues that it has the best of both worlds: an audience of 30 million SMBs with less competition than other platforms.

The full infographic is after the jump.

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Japan’s top grossing free-to-play mobile game Puzzle & Dragons for iOS and Android reached seven million registered users.

From game company GungHo Online, most famously known for Ragnorok Online, Puzzle & Dragons reached the user milestone on Jan. 18. Industry watcher Dr. Serkan Toto noted that TV ad spots contributed to helping the puzzle and RPG hybrid title acquire users.

Puzzle & Dragons, which released in Japan for iPhone in February 2012 and for Android in September 2012, launched in the U.S. for iPhone in November 2012 and for Android in December 2012.

GungHo’s market cap stands at 207.1 billion yen, translating to $2.3 billion. In comparison, Zynga’s market cap, as of writing this story, stands at $2.1 billion.

Almost a year since release in Japan, Puzzle & Dragons is still pulling in a lot of money. According to our traffic tracking service AppData, in Japan, Puzzle & Dragons is the No. 1 app on both the top grossing iPhone and iPad charts.

Barcelona-based Digital Legends Entertainment is the latest developer to join the Zynga Partners for Mobile program. The studio, which has worked on a number of licensed mobile titles like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Icebreaker Hockey, is teaming up with Zynga to lanch its new iOS game The Respawnables.

The Respawnables is a third-person shooter game that will include real-time multiplayer modes. As you can see in the trailer, its cartoony visuals are similar to Valve’s popular shooter Team Fortress 2, albeit without any of the bloodshed featured in that game. As opposed to several of Digital Legends’ previous titles, which appealed to hardcore games, CEO Xavier Carrillo Costas tells us the studio decided on the third-person perspective, simplified controls and humorous tones to appeal to a wider audience.

Although the game will contain a single player campaign that lasts approximately ten hours, it’s the real-time multiplayer Costas is especially proud of. He tells us his studio has servers all over the world to provide seamless, quick multiplayer matches; Costas tells us these are also highly snackable experiences, with some matches lasting less than three minutes.  The Respawnables will monetize via in-app purchases of both vanity items (like zombie costumes and electric guitar machine guns), as well as buffs with effects like earning experience points at an accelerated rate. (more…)

In an effort to bring new and exclusive gaming and social features to T-Mobile customers, the telecom company has partnered with Zynga to create a widget that links to Zynga games available for T-Mobile customers starting today.

The Zynga Games widget is said to make it easier for customers to find games and friends to play with. The widget features three different tabs. The first tab is a catalog of Zynga games compatible with the widget. Second is the profile tab that shows games the user has played and other friends playing the same games. Lastly, a mashup of the games and profile tabs that displays what friends are playing and the multiple games that they are playing. From there, users can challenge friends in any of those Zynga games.

The widget is pre-loaded on the LG Optimus L9, which launches this Wednesday, and the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, which launched on Oct. 24. The widget is also available to all T-Mobile customers through T-Mobile’s Bonus Apps Program, which is a widget where the company can virtually pre-load apps to a phone that come from Google Play or apps hosted on its own servers.

T-Mobile has previously partnered with game developer Rovio when the telecom company added the ability to purchase the “Mighty Eagle” (a gameplay mechanic that initiates a Mighty Eagle coming in to help users stuck on a particular level) for $1 in Angry Birds. It was the first time carrier billing had been implemented into a Rovio game. T-Mobile also partnered with game network WildTangent to bring a game rental service to T-Mobile customers.

The Zynga games featured in the widget include Dream Zoo, Zombie Smash, Words with Friends, Hanging with Friends, Zynga Poker and Scramble with Friends.

T-Mobile has also partnered with video game giant Electronic Arts and gaming accessory manufacturer PowerA. With EA, T-Mobile is bringing Need for Speed Most Wanted to its customers the same day as the console release tomorrow. The game will be pre-loaded on the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and LG Optimus L9, which features four free exclusive events for T-Mobile customers. With PowerA, T-Mobile will be selling the Moga game controller online and in-store.

Our review of the Moga can be found here.

iPad gamers more likely to convert than iPhone gamers — Mobile cross promotion network Chartboost reports iPad users are twice as likely as iPhone users to download an app after seeing an interstitial ad for it. iPad gamers also play 10 percent more daily sessions than iPhone gamers.

Mobile now 20 percent of Zynga bookings — Zynga’s social gaming business may be struggling, but mobile is growing fast. During this week’s earnings call, CEO Mark Pincus revealed mobile is now responsible for 20 percent of the company’s business.

92 percent of Gogobot users on Facebook — Social travel service Gogobot has revealed 92 percent of its users connect to the service using Facebook. According to our traffic tracking service AppData, the app has 940,000 MAU and 60,000 DAU logging in with Facebook Connect, meaning in total, the service now has somewhere north of 1 million registered users.

MoPub cuts fees for publishers – Real-time mobile advertising bidding service MoPub no longer charges developers a fee when they use the service to broker deals with ad networks, according to TechCrunch. The service, which delivered 18 billion impressions last month, still charges developers that use its service to sell their ads directly.

Red Ronin debuts with Amazing Flying Machines — Former King.com and Atari executive Owais Farooqui has taken the wraps of his new company, bootstrapped mobile developer Red Ronin. The company’s first game is Amazing Flying Machines. The free-to-play game is exclusive to iOS.

Whale Trail devs reveal game is making £250 a day — UK developer ustwo’s quirky indie title Whale Trail has been downloaded more than 1 million times and is making £250 ($402) a day reports The AppSide. That’s roughly $12,000 a month — not a chart topping amount, but nothing to sniff at either.

More currencies supported in the iTunes App Store — Apple has added support for eight new currencies to the iTunes App Store. Developers can now take payments in Rubles, Lire, Rupees, Rupiahs, Israeli New Shekels, the Rial, the Dirham and the Rand.

HTC profits fall 70 percent year-over-year — Taiwanese OEM HTC has posted its Q3 2012 results. The company saw revenues of $70.2 New Taiwan dollars ($2.4 billion) and a net income of NT$3.9 billion ($133 million) — down 79 percent year-over-year. The company predicts its Q4 revenues will be approximately NT$60 billion.

GREE grabs two Square Enix titles — Dr. Serkan Toto reports Square Enix announced two new mobile social games for GREE based on its Final Fantasy and The World Ends With You franchises. Previously the only Final Fantasy branded mobile-social game was the popular Final Fantasy Brigade, an exclusive title on DeNA’s rival Mobage platform.

Toca Boca’s children’s apps hit 16 million downloads – Swedish studio Toca Boca’s line of child-friendly games have been downloaded more than 16 million times, according to The AppSide.

DeNA partners with Yahoo!Kimo to hit Taiwanese market – DeNA announced this week it has signed a partnership with Yahoo!Kimo to create a dedicated mobile games portal where Yahoo!Kimo users will be able to download Mobage games for iOS and Android devices.

[Launch] DeNA gets into the chat market – DeNA is broadening its portfolio. The company has launched a voice and chat application called Comm, available on both iOS and Android. The app is similar to NHN’s popular utility Line, which just passed 90 million users.

[Launch] Square Enix debuts Wizardlings – Square Enix’ newest mobile game is the free-to-play exploration title Wizardlings. The game was developed for Square Enix by Liv Games.

[Launch] Ngmoco’s Quests & Sorcery goes live — DeNA subsidiary Ngmoco has released its latest game, the fantasy-adventure title Quests & Sorcery. The game is free-to-play and available on both iOS and Android.

[Funding] iZettle expands Series B round for American Express — European mobile payments provider iZettle has added an undisclosed amount of funding from American Express to its Series B round, reports TechCrunch. iZettle has raised more than €42.6 in venture capital.

Ayakashi: Ghost Guild is a new mobile card-battling game from Zynga, available now as a free download from the App Store and Google Play.

Zynga’s typical pattern in both the mobile and Web-based social game scene is to carefully observe established patterns and conventions in popular types of game, then release their own offering that often features a significantly higher degree of polish than many of its rivals — if not necessarily an improvement to the actual gameplay. This is certainly true for Ayakashi: Ghost Guild, which is a fairly conventional, predictable card-battling game at its core — but one which is very well-presented, with excellent visuals and atmospheric audio.

In Ayakashi: Ghost Guild, players are cast in the role of a rookie ghost hunter and tasked with tracking down rogue spirits. Unusually for the genre, it seems that a degree of effort has been made with the storytelling, with lengthy visual novel-style dialog sequences unfolding and advancing the plot rather than simply requiring the player work their way through a linear series of interaction-free quests. While the player is still essentially just tapping the same button over and over again until they either level up or their energy runs out, the addition of a certain degree of “character” to the game immediately gives a lot more incentive to progress than normally seen in the genre. The story isn’t a throwaway affair, either — the writers have obviously taken the time to ensure they are very familiar with Asian supernatural and spiritual mythology and have incorporated a variety of recognizable figures into the experience, both as collectible cards and characters in the narrative.

As the player progresses through the story quests, they will collect cards and sealstones. Cards may be immediately added to the player’s deck to use in battle against bosses and other players; sealstones must be collected in a complete set to unlock a more powerful card. Sealstones may either be acquired as treasures in story quests or, more frequently, as rewards for player-vs-player battles. As usual, the latter option is little more than a numbers game, with no direct interaction during combat possible, but the fact that certain cards have specific “skills” that trigger during combat as well as simply using their attack power against their opponents’ defense adds a little variety and interest.

The player is encouraged to check in on the game regularly in a variety of ways. The usual daily bonus system provides players with increasingly-large rewards for logging in regularly, while free cards are awarded at least once per day, while additional freebies can be acquired for logging in in specific, limited time windows such as at lunchtime. Various forms of in-game currency are also awarded at regular intervals, and these can often be exchanged for valuable items.

The game’s monetization stems primarily from the purchase of hard currency, which allows for the acquisition of more powerful, rarer cards, which will subsequently allow for easier victory in story boss battles and PvP combat. Socialization, on the other hand, is encouraged by providing players with additional ability points to strengthen their character for every “crewmate” added — though the maximum number of crewmates is limited by the player’s experience level, meaning it’s necessary to work through the story in order to build up one’s personal entourage. Crewmates may be interacted with by “poking” or leaving a comment on their profile, both of which earn the player Summon Points, which can be used to acquire additional “free” cards.

Ayakashi: Ghost Guild doesn’t fix many of the fundamental flaws that are endemic to the card-battling genre — it’s still heavy on the data use, slow to load and disappointingly free of player interaction when it comes to the actual combat side of things. However, the highly polished presentation and interesting story go a long way to making it a significantly more satisfying experience than the current genre leaders such as Rage of Bahamut, many of which are very rough around the edges. While it’s still not a particularly “good” game at its core, it’s a step in the right direction, certainly.

Ayakashi: Ghost Guild is a new release so is not yet listed on the App Store leaderboards. Check back shortly to follow its progress with AppData, our tracking service for mobile and social apps and developers.

Update: Zynga tells us they’ve reached an amicable resolution in their lawsuit against Kobojo over PyramidVille and PyramidVille Adventures. Details of the settlement are confidential, but Zynga confirmed that neither group made any payments as part of the settlement. The original article is below.

BulkyPix and Kobojo this morning announced that the popular iOS title PyramidVille Adventure has received both a major content update and a name change. The game is now known as PyramidValley Adventure.

The update includes an expansion allowing players who reach Level 18 to start constructing new cities in Ancient Greece.

The name change is what’s really of note here, though, since Zynga filed a lawsuit against Kobojo over the PyramidVille’s title back in May. This wasn’t exactly surprising, since Zynga has a habit of going after developers who add the “Ville” suffix to their games, but it did raise some eyebrows because the game had already been out for 15 months.

As we noted then, Zynga may have finally decided to go after Kobojo in court because of how quickly Kobojo had been able to expand the brand — particularly in Arabic-language territories. We’ve reached out to Zynga to ask if the name change will have any effect on the lawsuit and will update the story if we receive a response.

While our traffic-tracking service AppData shows PyramidValley Adventure has fallen off the iOS charts, PyramidValley is still going strong on Facebook with 430,000 monthly active users and 110,000 daily active users. While this is a far cry from the game’s peak traffic levels of 2.85 million MAU and 517,000 DAU, PyramidValley’s DAU/MAU ratio is at a little over 25 percent (anything above 20 percent is considered a healthy game).