Mobile social games network PapayaMobile is launching its own Android app discovery program, called Android App Of The Day. The program allows Android developers to have their game featured in return for discounting the game, or giving it away for free, for PapayaMobile's users. The program is designed to help games, particularly paid downloads, find visibility on the Android app store. Most Android apps are free, which can make it difficult for paid download games to compete. 

Scoreloop launched a new game discovery app for Android this week. The new app features social networking integration that let users manage their friends, game news updates, and tabs that list Popular, New, and Friends' Games. Users can also launch Android games from within the discovery app and get information from Scoreloop's mobile social gaming platform. Scoreloop says that discovery through a friend feed is the most powerful form of game cross-promotion. 

Electronics Arts's virtual world Littlest Pet Shop Online is launching in Europe later this month. Littlest Pet Shop Online is based on Hasbro's Littlest Pet Shop toy line and targets young girls. Littlest Pet Shop Online is slated to go live in English on UK servers. The virtual world is set up as a series of themed islands that host games and activities, similar to Poptropica. Girls can create, customize, and play with Littlest Pet Shop virtual animals in the world as they network socially with other fans of the brand. 

DC-based startup EverFi has raised an million Series A round lead by New Enterprise Associates with participation from TomorrowVentures and independent investors including Michael Chasen, according to TechCrunch. EverFi is the creator of an SaaS application designed to help schools educate young adult about financial literary, preventing student loan defaults, filing taxes, and managing credit card debt. EverFi's solution incorporates a virtual world, games, social media, and videos as teaching aids. 

Virtual world Meez is partnering with Alloy Media + Marketing for a back-to-school campaign with the K-Mart chain of retail outlets. The campaign will center on a K-Mart-branded series of Web videos called "First Day" that follows a young girls' experiences as she starts going to school. The series will be available for streaming throughout Meez's virtual world as well as virtual items with the K-Mart brand. 

"We were excited to collaborate with Alloy in creating groundbreaking content that complemented our primary back-to-school digital efforts with a highly entertaining Web series in First Day," said Mark Snyder, Chief Marketing Officer for Kmart, in a press statement. "This project has strong appeal for teens and tweens, featuring a fun storyline that will resonate with our target audience and deliver through an ideal platform."

Koei announced that it would release its freemium Uncharted Waters MMO for the US in 2010 through CJ Internet's NetMarble portal. The game originally launched in Japan and other Asian territories several years ago. The MMO is based on Koei's naval-themed RPG series Uncharted Waters, which it began publishing in 1991. Players in the Uncharted Waters MMO will be able to become adventurers, traders, or explorers and engage in ship-to-ship battles with other players. 

Simutronics is developing a new text RPG for Facebook, Fantasy University, that is designed to appeal to core gamers who want a more immersive experience. Fantasy University is a comedy game that incorporates parodies of pop culture and school life into its RPG gameplay.  The game is currently in closed beta. Players move around the game's world, taking quests and defeating monsters to level up. The gameplay is meant to be largely stat-driven. 

Today Aurora Feint announced the first real-time multiplayer SDK for OpenFeint, PlayTime, which also adds voice chat to OpenFeint's suite of features. PlayTime is a cross-platform SDK which allows for real-time multiplayer gameplay between users on both the iOS and Android platforms. Aurora Feint expects to release it later this year, as part of OpenFeint 3.0.

"The most successful games have one thing in common: they bring people together. Whether a simple board game or a stunning 3D console game, games are always better when shared with family or friends," said Jason Citron, CEO of Aurora Feint, in a press statement. "Traditionally, multiplayer technology has been accessible only to top tier developers. It’s just too complicated and time consuming. So we invented PlayTime, which literally takes one day to integrate into a casual game."

Disney Consumer Products is looking to establish a set of standards for web-connected toys. Web connected toys are now the norm but companies are left to their own
devices when it comes to design and implementation, according to Kenlip (Ken) Ong,
who until recently was Head of R&D at Disney Toys and Consumer
Electronics.  Ong was championing the standards initiative inside of
Disney but is due to depart the company shortly. Armen Mkrtchyan,
Technology Manager, Toys and Consumer Electronics, Disney Consumer
Products, is carrying on the standards activities and will be speaking
on the subject and sharing Disney's perspective at the upcoming Engage Expo Santa Clara
(Sept. 22-23). The idea of establishing standards has received mixed
reviews from other major toy companies.  The conversation in Santa
Clara will be the first open discussion on the subject.  Perspectives,
verbiage/jargon, expectations vary from company-to-company and
sometimes from product-to-product. The idea is to create a set of
standards that all toy companies can follow when creating web connected
toys. The discussion will address the
benefits and issues.  A detailed overview of Mkrtchyan's session is here.

The European Union has commissioned the development of a new virtual world, Citzalia, according to the Wall Street Journal. Citzalia is meant to simulate how the EU parliament works and offer users a forum for debating EU issues. The virtual world is being developed by the European Services Network, which has received €275,000 (about 0,000) to fund the project. ESN will cover an addition 25% of the development costs and does not expect to turn a profit through Citzalia.