Social gaming startup makes games ripped from the headlines

We've finally seemed to have moved past 'Ville' stage of social games, and into an era where games seem be more diverse. Some of the biggest game launches in the past few months have been casino games, hidden object games and addictive puzzlers that are already hits on other platforms, e.g. Angry Birds.

fiveonenine Games, a new studio that opened its doors this week, is looking to a new source for gaming inspiration (or maybe we should call it a news source), creating games that are ripped from the headlines. The company's debut game, Political Rampage, is a tongue-in-cheek match-3 puzzle game starring President Obama and Sarah Palin. That will be followed by other topical games, Campaign Story (iOS, Nook, Kindle Fire) and Real Politics (Facebook, IOs) in mid-April and another called Real Mystery (Facebook, iOS, Kindle Fire) in July 2012.

In a statement, fiveonenine CEO Lloyd Melnick says creating topical games is "the key to building a large, dedicated community of casual and social gamers." That may be true, but experience shows us that games also need to be well made and fun to play.
We'll see if this startup can live up to the brag on its website: "We will be one of the top five social gaming companies (both social web and social mobile) by the end of 2012."