Free-to-play MMO publisher Outspark will launch a Western adaptation of Debut, a "casual online rhythm and dancing game" developed by Electronic Arts' Korean J2M studio.

The game, which offers customizable avatars in a social dance environment, is the first offering from EA's Korean arm to make it Westward, says Outspark. The company will customize the game for North American audiences with interface and design enhancements, targeted social networking features and other market-specific adaptations.

Outspark will assume responsibility for operating Debut's Western edition, including monetizing the game, marketing it, and supporting its user base through community management and customer service support.

"Debut has been operating in Korea since 2008, and we're looking forward to bringing its adaptation to a broad North American audience," said EA Korea's Savannah Hahn in a statement. "This is a fun, immersive music rhythm game, and with Outspark's expertise in creating rich, social online gaming experiences, we think it will bring a new type of gaming environment to entertainment seekers online."

Gamasutra also got the opportunity to quiz Outspark CEO Susan Choe on the partnership:

Norwegian developer and publisher Funcom, which focuses heavily on massively multiplayer online games, will be opening a new studio in Montreal, Quebec, assisted by Investisseement Quebec, the company announced today.

Funcom develops and operates the MMOs Age of Conan and Anarchy Online, and is responsible for The Longest Journey series. Its next project is the modern-day conspiracy-themed MMO The Secret World.

The studio will be headed up by Ole Schreiner, previously Funcom's VP of operations. "We are excited about the opportunity that Montreal represents to our company, not only because of the great incentives offered by Quebec, but also the authorities' strong commitment to training qualified video games personnel and building a video games cluster in Montreal and Quebec," said Schreiner in a statement.

Film studio Summit Entertainment and Sulake announced an exclusive partnership and licensing agreement to offer a Twilight-themed in-game campaign and branded virtual goods in teen-targeted virtual world Habbo.

Coinciding with the debut of The Twilight Saga: New Moon in theaters this Fall, Habbo will receive a New Moon-themed space within its 31 communities worldwide. The virtual world's users will also be able to decorate their personal rooms with furniture and accessories inspired by the Twilight films.

Over 13 million unique users visit Habbo and have created more than 142 million characters, according to Quantcast. 90 percent of those users are age 13, to 18 years old, and the gender split is around 56 percent boys, 44 percent girls. On average, Habbo users spend some 43 minutes on the site per visit.

"Habbo is an established promotional platform for entertainment properties," says Teemu Huuhtanen, executive vice president, Sulake Corporation's Marketing and Business Development EVP and Sulake Inc. North America's president.

"We are extending Twilight’s brand presence online and creating innovative interactions between the biggest, most successful movie franchise for teens and its primary audience. The campaigns within Habbo will allow us to link fans of the Twilight film series to their favorite movie series in a multitude of meaningful ways.”

Just a quick note that the Gamasutra Network of sites, which includes a number of weblogs on specific game industry areas -- including this very one -- has added Twitter feeds and formalized RSS feeds to make for easier reading.

The Gamasutra feeds page has a complete list of RSS feeds, but both Twitter and RSS information for our suite of sites are now available.

The full set of syndication info is as follows:

- Gamasutra (the art and business of games) - News RSS, Features RSS, Jobs RSS; Main Twitter, Jobs Twitter.
- GameCareerGuide (for student game developers) - News RSS, Features RSS; Twitter.
- WorldsInMotion (the business of online worlds) - RSS; Twitter.
- FingerGaming (gaming on the iPhone and iPod Touch) - RSS; Twitter.
- GameSetWatch (an alt.video game weblog) - RSS; Twitter.
- IndieGames (for independent game players and developers) - RSS; Twitter.
- GamerBytes (the latest console digital download game news) - RSS; Twitter.
- Serious Games Source (games for health, training, military and other users) - RSS, Twitter.
- GamesOnDeck (all about the mobile game industry) - RSS, Twitter.

Zynga's social game FarmVille doubled the amount of monthly active users month-on-month, attracting 33.4 million monthly active users on Facebook, far exceeding any other title during the period, according to a new chart published on Inside Social Games.

Social game developer Zynga released the virtual farming title on June 19, and last month claimed the game is currently the "largest and fastest growing social game."

The next-closest game from a monthly active user standpoint during the period was another Zynga game, Mafia Wars, which attracted 18.7 million monthly active users on Facebook, up from 15.22 million the prior month.

UK-based Codemasters is backing out as MMO game Archlord's operator in the U.S. and Europe starting October 2nd, leaving the game's South Korean publisher Webzen to take over operating servers for those territories as of October 3rd.

"Our licence for ArchLord is due to expire shortly and unfortunately, after several weeks of negotiations with NHN, the Korean developers of the title, we have not been able to reach an agreement to renew the contract, therefore the service will be transitioning across to Webzen," explained Codemasters in an email sent out to U.S. and European users, and posted on The Bit Bag.

Codemasters will transfer character data, game server data, usernames, and transition keys to Webzen, though it will not transfer credit balances. Players are invited to spend all their credits before Codemasters discontinues it service, with all items in the shop temporarily discounted by 50 percent until the transition.

The UK company launched Archlord, its first MMO, in October 2006 to mixed reviews. The game failed to attract a significant userbase, forcing Archlord to adopt a free-to-play model the following year. Codemasters' other two MMOs, The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online, have had better success attracting players, though the latter will also become free-to-play in North America next week.

Atari has issued an official response to a $30 million Turbine-filed lawsuit related to Dungeons & Dragons MMOs.

Atari called the lawsuit "frivolous," claiming it "can ultimately do a great disservice to D&D fans and to the MMO community at large."

Turbine's suit, filed late last month, accuses publisher Atari of decreasing its support for Turbine's Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach by way of "choking off sales in Europe" and inadequately marketing the game, to make room for an internally-developed Atari D&D MMO.

The publisher is now seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed, alleging in turn that Turbine is using the legal action in part as a smokescreen to obscure its own financial obligations to Atari.

The full statement, delivered to various media outlets including Gamasutra, is as follows:

"Last week, with no warning, Turbine filed what can only be viewed as a frivolous lawsuit against Atari. This action can ultimately do a great disservice to D&D fans and to the MMO community at large. Turbine's actions also appear intended to divert attention from the contractual obligations that Turbine owes to Atari.

"In response, today Atari served a motion to dismiss the entirety of Turbine's lawsuit. Atari also filed a separate complaint to recover monies owed to Atari resulting from an independent third party audit of Turbine.

"While Atari hopes for a quick and fair resolution, it remains fully committed to the D&D communities worldwide and will vigorously protect the franchise and its own integrity in this matter."

In our latest employment-tastic 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 WB Games, Treyarch 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 this week include: