Zynga, Lady Gaga Wear the Poker Face in Promotion Deal Talks

You can see it now, can't you? Zynga CEO Mark Pincus and Lady Gaga dance battling in his corner office over the final details of a promotion deal. The Wall Street Journal reports that both the FarmVille creator and the prosthetic-privy musician are in talks regarding a promotion deal for her upcoming album, Born This Way, on May 23.

The two Internet dynamos--for entirely different reasons--have collaborated before during Zynga's campaign to raise money for Japan after its horrific earthquake. Through Zynga, Gaga donated a cool $1.5 million, but now it's her turn (and Zynga's) to make some money ... lots of it.

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Playmatics Secures $1 Million For 'Real-World' Social Game

New York City-based developer Playmatics has raised $1 million from several Swiss-based angel investors to build Shadow Government, a "real world" social game.

Shadow Government is "based on the gamification of real countries, systems, and worldwide events," allowing players to build, manage, and destroy virtual nations. Playmatics has teamed up with government-modeling software developer Millennium Institute for the project, according to TechCrunch.

Along with those simulation tools, which have been used by organizations to test responses for real-world events, Playmatics is using economic and sustainability data to create Shadow Government. The Millenium Institute hopes the educational game will eventually be incorporated into school curricula.

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N.O.V.A. Elite on Facebook: a Standard-Setting Sci-Fi Shooter

Every generation of gaming has one game that sets a standard for the rest of the industry for whatever reason. Pong for the Atari put the home console movement in, well, motion. Super Mario 64 defined what a 3D game should look and play like. More recently, Crysis--a sci-fi shooter released in 2007 that took some serious hardware to run well--set the standard for what PC games are capable of. N.O.V.A. Elite by Gameloft is Facebook's Crysis. Frankly, this is the most stunning social game to date, visually speaking. Of course, some praises are in order for the Unity 3D game engine itself, but it's Gameloft who took those tools and crafted a game that looks as if it could fit in on today's handheld systems. Then again, every beauty has a few blemishes.

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