Playdom localizing games for four European languages

In my limited experience traveling around Europe, I've found most everyone knew at least some English. Then again, I've mostly stuck to the tourist areas of Barcelona and Paris thus far, so the preference for English as an international lingua franca is perhaps not that surprising.

Anyway, social gaming mega-publisher Playdom is no longer content shutting out the billions of potential non-English-speaking players that I assume exist outside the touristy parts of Europe. Today, the company behind Social City, Tiki Resort and Wild Ones announced they'll be translating their "top social games" into French, Italian, German and Spanish.

The first game to get the translation treatment will be soccer management sim Bola, which is already finding some success in its English-only Facebook beta test. This seems like a no-brainer with interest in the World Cup reaching a fever pitch around the world -- even the parts that don't speak English... wherever they are.

Market Street becomes the seventh Playdom game to shut down

Players who attempt to log into Playdom's game Market Street right now will be greeted with a message stating that the game has been removed for good. This colorful and lively simulation game puts the player in charge of running their own virtual store. While the game was polished and relatively fun, it didn't bring anything new to the crowded world of Facebook sim games. Players could decorate their isometric shop and send away for shipments so that they could please the customers that come inside to purchase wares. Market Street launched approximately one year ago.

At its peak, Market Street hit over 9 million monthly active users and over 1 million daily players, however that was in 2010 and the Facebook game landscape has grown much more crowded since its heyday. Playdom has a history of closing down games that aren't faring so well, such as Treetopia, Tiki Farm, Tiki Resort, Verdonia, Fanglies, and Lil' Farm Life. In fact, Playdom have closed more games than most developers will ever launch. With the release of Gnome Town, it is clear that Playdom are now focusing on richer and more innovative titles to set them apart from the competition.

The sad thing about games closing down is that the players not only lose any progress, coins, or hard currency that they purchased, but they also lose all their hard work decorating their space. Many players become quite attached to these spaces and it is quite sad to have to say goodbye to something you worked so hard on. It's too bad that Playdom and other developers cannot keep the games up but cease to update them. Unfortunately, the operating costs are too high to keep a game running that isn't showing much traction.