SlashSlasher writes "A friend of mine started up a Facebook MMORTG game called Realm of Empires with his buddies as a personal project. Over the last couple of years, I've seen it grow up from an idea into a thriving community. A lot of money and effort has been sunk into constant improvement. As a result, it has become one of the most polished and substantial applications I've seen on Facebook. It's been quite interesting seeing the action behind the scenes without being directly entangled. Normal gameplay is free but certain premium features do exist. Recently, after allowing an open beta of premium features, the users complained vehemently that they would have to pay to keep these special features. They went so far as to start a petition to stop them from charging for premium features. People are getting up in arms about features that can be bought for less than $3 a month. I know the project hasn't broken even yet, and more money is put into it every day. I had always assumed that developers would receive a chunk of the ad revenue they attract to Facebook; apparently I was wrong. Facebook only gives the developer a very small (and shrinking) piece of real estate to try and make money with. How are these people supposed to break even, let alone profit? What working business models exist for the small game developer? Are people just too spoiled by free, throw-away games to be a target market for anything significant? Are developers who want to make any money for their work forced to move to restrictive platforms like the iPhone or the console market? More details of their story are available at their blog."

With the success of the Grand Theft Auto franchise responsible for the majority of publisher Take Two Interactive's earnings in the past year, the company's executives are looking more and more at expanding their M-rated products onto the typically family-friendly Wii. Take Two's CEO said, "Even though we think M-rated content is much more appropriate for the PS3 or 360, we have to look at the Wii as a viable platform across all our labels. We have to, because we can't ignore the installed base. You just can't." They're already planning to release GTA: Chinatown Wars for the DS to test the waters on a Nintendo platform, hoping for a better result than the controversy over Manhunt 2 last year.