Throughout the end of August 2011, EA and Playfish’s latest Facebook game, The Sims Social has had issues. Of course, it is a game that’s still technically in beta (open beta now) and you have to expect a few bugs, but these were beyond the occasional glitch. A large number of players just couldn’t get the game to load. I experienced this phenomena myself, as between August 26-30, 2011, I couldn’t get the game to load past 65%, even if I logged out, cleared my cache or tried a different computer as EA and Playfish suggested. Well, the problem has now not only been fixed, but every person who had that loading issue now has a full SimCash wallet…

EA and Playfish are working on a new Facebook game that could end up being a huge timesink. The Sims are getting their very own, free-to-play app. It’s called The Sims Social and it’s a rudimentary version of The Sims with some social networking elements added in. If you really want to, then think of it as a scaled down version of The Sims Online.

The Sims Social is going to be just like a normal Sims game…

The Simpsons will make its social network gaming debut this September on Facebook. According to MCV, Electronic Arts is responsible for publishing the game and Playfish is attached as the developer. EA purchased Playfish in 2009 for $300 million in cash and stock.

Fans of Poker Rivals, Gangster City and Pirates Ahoy probably won’t want to spend any more Playfish Cash on these three Facebook games. Playfish has announced these three games are going permanently offline June 7, 2011. The official company statement was that these games are no longer performing at a level that allows support for them. No Playfish Cash currently invested in these games will be refunded. The announcement encourages players of these three games to try other Playfish titles. It’s also offering 5 Monopoly Gold to players who try Monopoly Millionaires.

EA Sports already has a huge chunk of the console game market for sports games. Its 2009 acquisition of social game developer Playfish began a quest to get the same market share on Facebook. EA currently has NFL Football, PGA Golf and FIFA Soccer games in its social media stable. ESPN is reporting that EA Sports is working on a Major League Baseball Facebook game.

Electronic Arts has signed a deal with Facebook that will make Facebook Credits the exclusive currency in Electronic Arts’ Facebook games. For the next five years, all transactions made in EA games on the social network will use Facebook Credits.

EA and Playfish’s latest social gaming collaboration, Madden Superstars, is now live on Facebook.

It has a lot in common with the Madden Ultimate Team game in Madden NFL 11. You can purchase packs of cards to fill out your football team’s roster, which of course starts out pretty weak. I got a “Limited Edition” card out of a pack and was excited, until I saw it was journeyman Rex Grossman.

In February 2010, EA Sports President Peter Moore announced Madden NFL would be coming to Facebook.

He didn’t give an exact release date but a glitch in EA’s popular FIFA Superstars soccer game shows Madden Superstars may be available rather soon.

Just as EA and Playfish had hoped, World Cup Soccer has brought a lot of eyeballs to its FIFA Superstars game. The first Facebook sports game to come from the EA/Playfish partnership has gained 1.7 monthly active users according to AppData.

Electronic Arts made huge waves in the social gaming world with its 2009 acquisition of casual game developer Playfish for $400 million. The first EA/Playfish collaboration, FIFA Superstars, is now on Facebook and has picked up 30,000 users in a week’s time. With the World Cup soccer tourney right around the corner (June 11 through July 11, 2010) EA is banking on Facebook users catching some of that soccer fever with this game.

While other Facebook sports games have sent generic athletes out there, FIFA Superstars benefits from EA’s licensing power and features real players.