Virtual Goods News

Sequels drive traditional console gaming, where fans want to know they've spent their hard-earned money on a sure bet. In the much younger social gaming market, sequels are relatively rare. When it comes to the booming mafia text RPG genre, Playdom has launched one of the very first sequels today with Mobsters 2: Vendetta. The game monetizes along the usual lines for a mafia game, selling players virtual currency and items, but introduces a variety of new features.

Mobsters 2 contains twice the content of the original Mobsters (which is still available for play) and a more sophisticated approach to graphics than your average text RPG. Among the "new features" Playdom claims the game introduces are a full narrative storyline, a new system for managing territories that lets users build "mob cities," ability to travel to multiple locations spanning the globe, and an expanded class system that allows users to build their character into one of twenty different mobsters.

Right now Mobsters 2 is available for play exclusively on the Facebook platform. The original Mobsters is the #1 social game on the MySpace platform, with a synchronizing version called Mobsters: Big Apple recently released to the iPhone.  The original Mobsters was also released recently on Facebook, where it's enjoying rapid growth. Playdom claims that Mobsters 2 has an identical rate of engagement and session time than the original, which does beg the question of why the company decided to essentially compete against itself by launching a sequel.

While an ad campaign for the original Mobsters is currently the subject of a suit filed against Playdom by rival Mafia Wars publisher Zynga, the suit is unlikely to threaten the game's existence. It's possible Playdom is testing the wat