Interest in social gaming is jumping to new heights. One of the players in the space, Playdom Inc., just raised a giant-sized $43 million round from Lightspeed Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Norwest Venture Partners and Rick Thompson, one of the co-founders and an existing angel investor in the company.

That funding comes just a day after news that competitor Playfish Inc. has agreed to be acquired by Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS) for $300 million plus $100 million in potential earn-outs. A third company, Zynga Inc., which also makes games played on social networking sites, has raised nearly $40 million from venture investors and is currently locked in litigation with Playdom over theft of trade secrets.

We caught up with Tim Chang, principal at Norwest, to talk about Playdom’s latest funding. Here’s an edited excerpt of our interview:

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Google Inc.’s (GOOG) announcement that it will buy AdMob Inc. for $750 million brought a media spotlight on Accel Partners, an investor in both AdMob and Playfish Inc., which said today it will sell to Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS) for at least $275 million. Several blogs, including this one, hailed Accel Partners for its impressive and quick investment returns at a time when deals like these are hard to come by.

But AdMob’s founder and CEO, Omar Hamoui, really deserves the attention for building a company that in three years became the largest player of mobile Web ads and ultimately, a coveted jewel for the largest Internet company.

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Videogame publishers, pushing to expand their businesses, are making games that target girls and women a new industry battleground.

This holiday season, more games than ever are being geared toward female players. Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS) is releasing the latest installment of its “Littlest Pet Shop” game for young girls and introducing a series of fashion-themed games called “Charm Girls Club” for older girls later this month. Sony Corp. (SNE) in August packaged a lilac version of its PlayStation Portable device with a “Hannah Montana” game, based on the popular television show about a girl and her secret pop career.

Publishers also will target women with workout games. Ubisoft Entertainment SA is introducing “Your Shape,” a personal-training game, and “Just Dance,” a dancing game, in November. Nintendo Co. hit the market with “Wii Fit Plus,” a sequel to its popular fitness game, in September.

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Fantasy video games and heavy metal music seem like a perfect marriage, given that both often rely on Tolkien-esque imagery and create elaborate, male-centric alternate worlds.

But while games use metal songs in their trailers, during play the soundtrack usually transitions into orchestral music. “Brutal Legend” on the other hand, a game for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 that’s being released tomorrow by Electronic Arts (ERTS), is all metal, all the time.

The game’s creators, Double Fine Productions, have assembled what may be the most extensive metal soundtrack anywhere–108 songs by 75 different bands covering a range of sub-genres.

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How does Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello see the videogame industry shaping up in the recession? He provided a glimpse of his viewpoint in an email to EA employees Wednesday that was obtained by The Wall Street Journal. EA has a strong product lineup for this holiday season, with the Need for Speed Shift racing game, FIFA 10 soccer game and The Beatles: Rock Band music game, so Riccitiello’s tone was positive overall.

But he also indicated that the industry continued to have a tough time in August as demand has slowed dramatically. “This week, market research for August will show that year over year, the industry was down in North America — and that August sales of Madden NFL 10 are down with that trend,” Riccitiello wrote.

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Last November, the Wall Street Journal ran a Heard on the Street column that proposed that Disney (DIS) ought to buy Electronic Arts (ERTS). The following month, they revisited the idea.

This morning, Janney Montgomery Scott analyst Tony Wible dusted off the concept in a report in which he launched coverage of Disney with a Buy rating. The logic isn’t that hard to figure out. Disney owns ESPN, the television, radio and Web sports programming juggernaut. Electronic Arts is a huge player in sports video games with its EA Sports line, including the Madden football franchise, Tiger Woods golf games and FIFA soccer games, among many others.

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Metacafe, seeking to reach more “media-snacking” consumers, is launching a section of its video site devoted to short clips from “Nurse Jackie,” “Weeds,” “Big Brother” and other television shows.

The Palo Alto, Calif., company, which is funded by Highland Capital Partners and DAG Ventures, focuses on what it sees as a middle ground between YouTube and Hulu–short-form videos that are professionally produced or poised to go viral–said its chief executive, Erick Hachenburg, a former Electronics Arts (ERTS) executive.

YouTube has a high percentage of personal or response videos, he said, while Hulu is where consumers go to watch an entire TV episode. Metacafe.com, in contrast, is pared down to channels for movie trailers, sports clips and music videos. It had about 7.3 million unique video viewers in April, according to comScore (SCOR), compared with Hulu’s 40.1 million uniques.

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Videogame creator Will Wright’s employment at Electronic Arts (ERTS) is toast–the very breakfast food that’s helped to inspire the next stage of his career.

On Wednesday, the man behind games such as Spore and Sim City resigned from the Redwood City, Calif.-based company to concentrate on his eight-year-old think tank, Stupid Fun Club, which aims to bring games to a host of new platforms.

Potentially among them: Toasters.

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The morning after top U.S. videogame maker Electronic Arts (ERTS) missed sales and profit estimates for its fiscal third quarter, cut its forecast for next year, and said it will cut 1,100 jobs, or 11 percent of its workforce, the stock is up $1.75, or 11 percent, at $17.25. Perhaps reduced expectations have convinced some the stock has bottomed. After all, the shares were down 72 percent from their 12-month high of $54.81 at yesterday’s close.

However, the analyst community still finds much to fret over.

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The troubles are mounting for Electronic Arts (ERTS).

The videogame company today reported disappointing results for its fiscal third quarter ended December, cut its full year guidance, and announced plans to chop its workforce by 11 percent, or 1,100 people, while closing 12 facilities.

For the quarter, the company reported revenue of $1.74 billion, about flat with a year earlier at $1.73 billion, and below the Street consensus at $1.9 billion. EA reported a GAAP loss for the quarter of $641 million or $2 a share; on a non-GAAP basis, the company earned 56 cents a share, well below the Street outlook at 88 cents.

For the March 2009 fiscal year, the company now sees non-GAAP revenue of $4.1 billion and a loss of 35 cents a share; the Street consensus had been $4.66 billion and a profit of 60 cents.

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Last year Electronic Arts (ERTS) CEO John Riccitiello told The Wall Street Journal that his company was “boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play.” Prophetic words, though no one was listening at EA. In early December, EA said that it was going to miss its revenue target of between $5-to-$5.3 billion for 2008.

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Electronic Arts (ERTS) shares are being pounded today following the company’s guide-down for its March 2009 fiscal year. The stock was downgraded by, well, almost every analyst who follows it, which of course doesn’t help anyone who owned the stock as of yesterday’s close. The general consensus is that EA has simply been producing games that not many people want to buy; there is a fair amount of cheering from the sidelines about how this is not an industry problem, and demand for videogames overall remains just fine. But the skeptics think this is not entirely right, that however bad the current EA lineup is, there are additional pressures coming from the weakening economy, with retailers cutting inventory in the face of tighter credit conditions.

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Electronic Arts (ERTS) this afternoon warned that its revenue and earnings for the March 2009 fiscal year would be below the guidance it provided on Oct. 30. The old forecast was for non-GAAP revenue of $5 billion to $5.3 billion, and non-GAAP EPS of $1 to $1.40 a share. The company said it will not provide any updated guidance for FY ‘09 before it reports FY Q3 results in February.

The videogame company said that the revised expectations are primarily the result of lower than expected sales in North America and Europe.

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The news for videogame stocks is decidedly mixed this morning. The raw numbers look good: According to NPD Group, videogame software sales rose 35 percent in October, better than many had expected. Hardware sales rose five percent; peripherals fell eight percent.

But the stocks are coming under pressure, due at least in part to cautious comments on the prospects for the industry in the unfolding economic downturn by Merrill Lynch analyst Justin Post. The Merrill analyst cut his ratings on both Electronic Arts (ERTS) and Activision Blizzard (ATVI) to Neutral from Buy. He maintains his Underperform rating on THQ (THQI).

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Kaufman Brothers analyst Todd Mitchell this morning raised his ratings on Activision Blizzard (ATVI), Electronic Arts (ERTS) and THQ (THQI), While Mitchell also is cutting estimates and price targets for the stocks, he thinks they are “oversold in a tough market.”

It’s not exactly a table-pounding buy; his notes advise against trying to “catch a falling knife,” but instead suggest investors ought to be ready to buy them when the economy settles down. Not a big surprise, then, that the reaction to the call is lukewarm.

• For Activision Blizzard, Mitchell goes to Buy from Hold, while cutting his target to $17.50 from $19. He maintains a 2008 EPS estimate of 60 cents, but trims 2009 to 70 cents from 72 cents. He says that the Activision and Blizzard combination is “powerful,” and that “the stock is at a point where investors should begin to get constructive with the goal of putting new money to work as we signs of economic stability emerging.”
• For Electronic Arts, his rating goes to Buy from Hold, but his estimate drops to $42.50 from $58. For the March 2009 fiscal year, his EPS estimate drops to $1.25 from $1.35; for ‘10, he goes to $1.90 from $2.13. Despite the lower estimates, he contends the stock is oversold.

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