Zynga brings Mafia Wars to webOS 19
If you are a Facebook gamer and simply cannot wait for your Flash-enabled webOS 2.0 update to play some Mafia Wars on the go, Zynga has begun making games available to you in the mobile web browser you have right now.
Zynga, makers of the shockingly popular Facebook games Farmville and Mafia Wars, recently released their first mobile web game, Mafia Wars Atlantic City. This iteration of the mostly text based game runs on HTML5, not Flash, so it will run in your webOS web browser and that of any other smartphone. You can find it at http://M.MafiaWars.com or on Getjar.com. You may not necessarily be able to jump right in and play this game however, since you will need to be on at least level 18 in Mafia Wars on Facebook in order to play this new release.
Considering that Zynga recently acquired Dextrose AG, a company that created an HTML5 based development platform, it seems this will be only the first of many mobile games from the social gaming giant. The company has several games in its library already and this year acquired mobile app developer Newtoy, so there should be a lot more to come.
It is worth noting that this is not the only way to play Facebook games on webOS currently. There is an app for Social City, a city building game from Playdom, that lets you manage your game on webOS. The ever popular Word Ace and the Card Ace series from developer Self Aware Games can be played on webOS or Facebook, against friends playing on Facebook or their smartphone. In a few months Self Aware Games plans to launch yet another cross platform Facebook and mobile game called Fleck. More on that to come
Source: Tech Crunch; thanks to superdog87
19 Comments
nice I can't wait for farm ville for webos if they ever do it
Who isn't level 18 on Mafia Wars? Come on, Nathan, what kind of gamers do you take us for?
LOL good point. I actually don't play Mafia Wars myself. Those text based games bore me to tears. I played a racing one that was text based like that and after a while it started to feel like a Choose Your Own Adventure book that just kept looping back to the same pages over and over. I didn't really see the point. I do play some Facebook games but mostly the ones that are more interactive. Even then I keep asking myself why I bother wit Frontierville, City of Wonder and Social City. The only Facebook games I play that I feel resemble real games at all are Backyard Monsters, Qrank, Word Ace and Warstorm. Oh and Scrabble. If you play any of those games, feel free to add me, I can always use more allies. www.facebook.com/natemylott. Just make sure to tell me who you are and what game you're adding me for so I know you're not a bot.
works good enough. i like it
Yawn.. Both those games are garbage..
Even lets say with flash enabled it will be a pain the butt to try to do the GUI on unzoomed screen of current devices with those games. Doing facebook games native with flash will need the larger screen of that PalmPad :)
The title of the article is misleading. The game wasn't really brought to webOS. It was released in a format that is pretty much available on any device with a web browser. This would fall more into the category of a web app, such as the ones originally built for the iPhone before they had an appstore. Most of these also work in the Pre browser.
It's like saying they opened the Domino's Pizza the street so they could deliver me pizza. I highly doubt that webOS was a big factor in the HTML5 conversion decision. It is just a smart business decision as they no longer need to create and maintain separate native apps for each operating system or version. If an obscure OS like webOS benefits then it is a happy side effect.
Does it really matter what their personal motivation was for doing it? It works on webOS, that's the point.
I understand what you're saying about the headline but you don't know that webOS support was an accidental side effect. They may very well have intended it to reach every mobile platform. The more potential users, the more potential money they make.
Besides, you only have just so much room in a headline. You have to summarize in the best way you can. Can you imagine what it would look like if the headline was:
Zynga games creates mobile web version of Mafia Wars that runs in HTML5, which means it will work on your webOS browser!
Mafia Wars of my hometown...Funny!
I want to see Mafia Wars: Mayberry!
Lol, that'd be cool. Have Andy on the cover with two machine guns!
Just want to say goodbye to all precentral users and to Palm as a whole. I have never in my life been frustrated with a phone as much as i was with the Pre. I could sit here and brag about how great of a phone my new Evo is but it would be an understatement. I was loyal to palm since the 700p and i was excited to move on to the Pre and WebOS but let's be honest they dropped the ball. And i dropped them, indefinitely.
Will ever a day pass when there will not be a comment on a post or a forum thread where somebody makes a big announcement about dumping their Palm phone? Is this just a Palm phenomenon or does it happen on the Android and iOS blogs too?
This game is annoying. I hate it when my friends spam my news feed with this ****
There's a Firefox add on called Feed Filter that blocks all that crap out. I couldn't get it to work myself but I've talked to a couple people who swear by it.
Just hide the application from your feed.
@KoH, http://betterfacebook.net solved this for me
This Mafia Wars moble works really well on the Pre even without a dedicated app. Thanks for the heads up. I had saw the announcment on Mafia Wars but had no idea it would work this well on my Pre.
Cheers Everyone
And Merry Christmas
I created an anti-Zynga profile a few months ago so I will be giving this a wide berth. Time consuming spam generators do not interest me. For those that are 'excited' I am sorry to tell you that your battery will leave you sorely disappointed!