Korean publisher T3 Entertainment subsidiary Redbana is officially entering the North American development and publishing scene, and its first task will be to reboot Western operations for T3's multiplayer social rhythm-dance game Audition.

This means the company, which is the original co-developer of the globally popular Audition and is probably best known in the West for claims on Flagship Studios IP by sister firm Hanbitsoft, is taking the reins back from Nexon, who previously published the PC online title in the U.S.

Although Audition has over 300 million users worldwide, Redbana global manager Eric Liu tells WorldsInMotion sister site Gamasutra that Nexon was "focused more on their own games," which include MapleStory and Kart Rider, and at the time they reclaimed the title from Nexon's stewardship, the only had about 10,000 U.S. players.

Leading social game company Zynga has sued fellow firm Playdom, alleging misleading Facebook ads for Playdom's Mobsters that mention Zynga's Mafia Wars are confusing consumers and affecting the firm's revenue.

According to a lawsuit first reported by Silicontap.com and made available by PaidContent.org, Zynga is objecting to a Facebook ad from Playdom which asks "Like Mafia Wars?" and then directs users to Mobsters, Playdom's own stat-heavy social management game.

Zynga is not claiming uniqueness over the game concept, but nonetheless claims that this ad is "designed to confuse and deceive the gaming public," and that the company is losing traffic and profits as a result, as well as "damage to its goodwill and reputation."

The company requests Playdom stop using Mafia Wars in its ads, run "corrective advertising" dispelling confusion, and pay Zynga damages -- including any of Playdom's "ill-gotten gains or profits."

Both social game firms, which are designed to make money by free-to-play games with microtransactions that live on social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, have been hiring major video game executives in recent weeks.

Notably, former EA COO John Pleasants just joined Playdom as its CEO, and EA LA's Mike Verdu recently joined Zynga alongside AddictingGames.com manager Roy Sehgal and a number of other executives.

Gamasutra has reached out to Playdom for comment on the lawsuit, and will update if any official statement is given.

Realtime Worlds' creative director Dave Jones kicked off Newcastle, UK's GameHorizon conference with a look back at the influences behind the formation of the Dundee development studio -- and the challenges involved in creating highly anticipated online shooter All Points Bulletin (APB).

He said Dark Age of Camelot was the game that "stirred his emotions" to realize the potential of persistent online games in terms of creating new experiences for players.

"It was something I wasn't expecting. Like drinking a fine wine for the first time," recalled Jones. He's currently putting the finishing touches to APB, which is due in early 2010.

"For film and music, online is a problem. We have to change the way we make games, but the benefits are the new experiences we can create for players, as well as having a direct one-to-one relationship with him," he said.

Indeed, the creator of the original Grand Theft Auto games revealed multiplayer games have always been his passion.

Announcing its initial set of lectures, the online game-focused GDC Austin 2009 event has revealed free-to-play centric lectures from Sony Online (Free Realms), Gaia Online and Rebel Monkey (CampFu) for the September conference.

The first set of lectures announced for GDC Austin span the gamut of 'connected games', from traditional high-profile subscription MMOs through free-to-play online games, social network games, and even online components to console games.

The event, to be held September 15th-18th, 2009 at the Austin Convention Center in Texas, now includes six online-centric 'tracks' for the Main Conference, which takes place Wednesday 16th to Friday 18th.

These tracks, which span design, business & marketing, social networking & community, services, programming and production, have some lectures specially focused on free-to-play, microtransaction-powered games. Initial highlights from these include:

- Craig Sherman, CEO of popular micro-transaction powered site/game Gaia Online, will be discussing this model, in which "consumers play web-based, platform agnostic games for free, while developers attain revenue through microtransactions", with examples from his own company.

- Sony Online's Rosie Rappaport and Sebastian Strzalkowski are discussing the importance of a unified art style for the hit SOE free-to-play title Free Realms, which has already racked up 3 million registered users, noting the importance of a "distinct [art] style that players will associate with the title even when viewed outside the game world."

- Former Disney and current Hangout Industries exec Mike Goslin will take examples from products that he's worked on such as Pixie Hollow, Pirates Of The Caribbean and Toontown Online to detail and describe "10 techniques for engaging teens, drawn from the state of the art of social gaming."

- Rebel Monkey CTO Jeffrey Kesselman will be discussing how the CampFu free-to-play game developer "combined open source technologies to build an industrial strength platform for unified multi-player casual game-play and social web experiences", in a talk called 'The Monkey Wrench: Design and Architecture of an Online Environment'.

Further announcements and details on 'core' subscription MMO-centric lectures for this September's GDC Austin, as well as multiple keynote addresses, will be debuting over the next few weeks.

In addition, GDC Austin will also include its long-running Game Audio and Game Writer Summits, alongside an iteration of the breakout successful Independent Games Summit and the newly introduced iPhone Game Summit, all debuting on September 15-16, 2009 at the same venue.

Full listings of announced lectures, registration information, and other specifics are now available at the official GDC Austin website (part of Think Services, as is this website.)

Free-to-play online sports game developer and publisher Quick Hit announced that it added former NFL vice president Gene Goldberg and former Massive Incorporated president Nicholas Longano to its newly former Board of Advisors, where they will guide the company on decisions regarding its online sports titles.

Previously at advertising firm Massive, Longano helped create and manage the company's in-game advertising network. Prior to that he served in several executive roles at Vivendi Universal Games, and was also the co-founder and CEO of music-themed virtual world Music Mogul.

Goldberg worked as an executive for the National Football League for 25 years, most recently as vice president in the league's Consumer Products, New Business, and Marketing and Sales divisions. He also was involved in negotiating the NFL's exclusive licensing agreement with Electronic Arts for the Madden video game franchise.

"It's a privilege for us to work with well-respected industry veterans like Gene and Nicholas," says Quick Hit founder and CEO Jeffrey Anderson. "Their collective experience is invaluable as we continue to redefine the market for sports games and prepare for the launch of Quick Hit Football later this year."

Social gaming is in a rapid phase of growth and upheaval, with a variety of platforms and companies competing for significance.

The first panel at the 2009 Social Gaming Summit in San Francisco featured several notable figures in the arena: Sebastian de Halleux, COO of developer Playfish; John Pleasants, new CEO of Playdom; and Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga; with Jeremy Liew, managing director of Lightspeed Venture Partners, moderating.

These companies all have hugely successful Facebook applications -- but Liew pointed out that newcomer Farm Town has hit the big time seemingly out of nowhere, and is approaching 10 million users: "Three months ago you guys were clearly the three biggest social gaming entities but then Farm Town came out of nowhere." The rapidity of the shift highlights the volatility of the platform for even its "biggest" players.

In many ways, Realtime Worlds' All Points Bulletin is paving brand-new territory for MMOs in terms of theme, content and gameplay. And as great as the challenge of defining a genre for itself may be, the team's vision for the project is even greater.

APB lead designer EJ Moreland tells WiM.biz sister site Gamasutra that the game's wide-ranging framework, which combines MMO and action elements with player customization, is just the beginning, and that the concept is set to grow and shift based on player feedback -- and the possibilities are endless.

"What we've done is we've said, 'We want to use this to support this great action game -- this really different online type of game -- and then, once the game releases, based on what the players' feedback is, we're going to go in every direction we can,'" says Moreland, speaking in an in-depth Gamasutra feature interview about the game.

"We're looking at much more horizontal expansion than reproducing the same content," he says. "So APB is the action district; the conflict of the city is one part that we'll continue to support after release. But we're looking at things like racing districts, fashion shows, private housing -- you know, everything in between."

"It's just which way the player base wants us to take it, and which bases we want to attract after that."

Moreland recognizes that APB lies at the junction of two very specific demographics: the MMO audience, and fans of open-world crime-spree action games. "We realize that the game has -- it's not what I would call a 'narrow' focus, but it has a very narrow initial potential. But we want to make sure people understand that there's much more to it."

Those drawn to the social and customization elements will be initial "early adopters," Moreland suggests, and then the team can adjust the scope and focus of the game even further based on what player groups are attracted to.

You can now read the full feature at Gamasutra, where Moreland discusses the challenges and opportunities in opening new roads within the MMO genre (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from other websites).

As Electronic Arts gathers both its Mythic and BioWare studios into a single group, Mythic GM and co-founder Mark Jacobs is leaving the company.

"EA is restructuring its RPG and MMO games development into a new group that includes both Mythic and BioWare," said the company in a statement.

BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka will head the new unit as Group General Manager, while fellow co-founder Greg Zeschuk will take the role of chief creative officer. The Mythic team will see co-founder and COO Rob Denton take the role of general manager.

According to the announcement, not much will change for the BioWare group as it works on Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2 and Star Wars MMO The Old Republic, and its teams will continue to maintain the same structure, reporting to Muzyka.

As for Jacobs, who co-founded the studio with Denton in 1995 and most recently led Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, his last day at EA was yesterday, June 23. He has not yet commented on his current plans, but his out-of-office message indicates he is "on sabbatical."

To find out what's required for a successful social gaming platform, the 2009 Social Gaming Summit brought together four panelists from four of the biggest social networks, including Facebook, to find out what they consider to be the key to their platforms and the success of social gaming.

The discussion took place after a panel of social game-makers, including Zynga and Playfish reps, debated making games for social networks.

It included Jason Oberfest of MySpace, Gareth Davis of Facebook, Andrew Sheppard of Hi5, and James Liu of Chinese company OPI -- which operates the Xiaonei social network. The panel was moderated by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.

The discussion was particularly relevant to game developers because, with games such as Restaurant City and Farm Town grabbing millions of unique users on social networks -- users that can then be monetized using microtransactions -- it's an increasingly fertile area for game creators to play in.

In this round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from Crystal Dynamics, Trion and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted in each market area this week include: