In what has to be the first move in a trend that is sure to grow, Nvinium Games and Strategy First have announced a partnership that will bring Space Empires and Jagged Alliance to various social network platforms. The initial plans have these games being deployed as Facebook Applications.

“We are delighted to team up with Nvinium to bring our flagship franchises into the new and exciting world of social network games.  There has been a dramatic shift in the industry toward the online free to play micro transaction model and we believe that with this alliance we will be at the forefront of this new movement.  Nvinium’s success in the space makes them an ideal partner to bring our award winning games to a much broader international audience,” said Emanuel Wall, President of Strategy First.

For more information, go to www.strategyfirst.com or check out information on Space Empires and Jagged Alliance after the jump.

Monte Cristo has today announced the release of a Christmas content pack for their city-building title, Cities XL. The new pack brings season decorations and new lightnings at night, both to solo and online cities. In addition to these changes, gamers can expect to see several interface changes, decorations, and graphical changes.

You can check out the full list of fixes and additions after the jump or head to www.citiesxl.com for more information.

Bonfire Studios, made up entirely of former Ensemble Studios employees, announced the addition of Dave Pottinger to their team. Dave will serve as the company's director of technology. While no announcements have been made of their  unannounced projects, Dave's hiring continues the growth process for Bonfire into 2010.

“As director of technology and lead designer on Halo Wars, Dave really delivered on AAA quality and that’s been the goal of Bonfire from day one,” said David Rippy, president and CEO of Bonfire Studios. “We know he’ll be a perfect fit with our company culture and be a great asset as we position the company for growth in 2010 and beyond.”

“Bonfire is a team full of old friends that I am looking forward to working with again,” said Dave Pottinger. “I think we’re going to blow people away once they see what we’re doing.”

Dave started with in Ensemble Studios in 1996 after graduating from the University of Arizona with a degree in Computer Engineering. His work eventually placed him as the engine lead and director of technology at Ensemble where he was the key architect on their Age of Empires series and the recently released Halo Wars.

For more information, head to www.bonfire-studios.com.

The game that was once a Game Informer cover story and at the time under the EA label has moved to another publisher. The game will now be published under Bestheda Softworks as announced by ZeniMax Media Inc a parent company of id Software announced today.

First announced in E3 2008, the game was originally going to be published under the sccessful line of EA's Partner's program which had titles like Left4Dead2, Rock Band and Brutal Legend. RAGE will be published by Bethesda Softworks, another ZeniMax subsidiary. As a result, Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) will not be involved in the sales and marketing of RAGE. The ongoing development of RAGE is unaffected by this development.

The game will be releasing multiplatform for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 PC and Mac, the release is TBA.

Let's catch up with the news of the day for today. A couple of announcements today including a new DLC content pack as well as a collectors edition for Splinter Cell.

• - Splinter Cell Collectors Edition Announced for the rest of the world
• - Army of Two 40th Day Demo Details Revealed
  
• - Evan Longoria Gets Cover Boy Honors for MLB 2k10 thanks to "Fan Voting"
• - New Crackedown trailer invites you to blow everything up
• - Left4Dead 2 Gets "The Passing" DLC Campaign

Check out details for these stories below.....