Namco, maker of Pac-Man S and other games, announced that it is retiring its Facebook titles, sister site Inside Social Games reported Tuesday. The games will still be playable until March 19, at which point they’ll go offline. Inside Social Games noted that Namco’s Facebook games have not been popular, likely leading to their demise.
Lisa Raphael (left), the social media producer at Katie Couric's daytime talk show Katie, is one of our featured speakers in Mediabistro's upcoming Social Media Marketing Boot Camp, an online event and workshop starting June 6, 2013. Lisa will share a case study on how the hit show uses Twitter to build interest and buzz around upcoming segments. Learn more about our our twelve event speakers and register here. 
Games are an important part of the Facebook ecosystem. As the games market diversifies, with new developers entering the mix, so do the titles available on the social network. At a media event for Berlin-based developer Wooga in San Francisco Thursday, Facebook Director of Games Partnerships Sean Ryan discussed the future of social games with AllFacebook, pointing out that Facebook is working to offer a more diverse array of games to users, as well as to make it easier for gamers to have a continuous experience on desktops, phones, and tablets.
On Sunday, the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens will meet in New Orleans for Super Bowl XLVII — a topic already hugely popular on Facebook. The 49ers, led by quarterback Colin Kaepernick, are the most-talked-about team on the social network by far. However, the two fan bases have a few things in common on Facebook.
Mobile applications that have easy, one-tap Facebook login buttons have made it easier for users to sign up and interact. The social network also found that users who connect their Facebook accounts to apps are more likely to spend money. Citing numbers from top apps such as SongPop, Bingo Blitz, and Diamond Dash, Facebook wrote about how valuable that easy connect option is.
Facebook announced Monday that its app center portal for discovery of applications is now available to 100 percent of its users in the U.S., Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K.
What’s good for the Apple is good for the Android, as Facebook announced that it extended its single-sign-on and deep-linking options to Android devices, following its move in February to do the same for iOS devices like the iPad and iPhone.
Diamond Dash developer Wooga said the percentage of players of its social arcade game who choose to connect to Facebook has soared to 64 percent at the end of March, from 28 percent in December.
Facebook’s revamped mobile application platform sends more than 60 million visitors to applications and games per month.
Video games may have grown the fastest this week, but Facebook Live got a lot of new users from President Barack Obama’s livestreamed Town Hall.
