Facebook and football's superstars

Using a licence from FIFA, football's governing body, social games developer Playfish created FIFA Superstars. It lets Facebook users train, buy and sell virtual stars taking part in the World Cup or playing in the UK's Premier League.

"We think FIFA Superstars marks a turning point in the social gaming industry," Sebastien de Halleux of Playfish told the Financial Times. "We're connecting real-life passions to online activity. Around 750 million people watched the last World Cup, and Facebook has 450 million people online, so we feel there's a natural overlap there."

For the millions of gamers who are tired of virtual farms and pets, managing David Beckham's career promises to be much more exciting.

Although FIFA Superstars is free to play, users will have to buy additional "team packs" if they want to be successful. Facebook users expect that events in the virtual world will follow the progress of teams in the "real" World Cup, but the game developers are not saying whether users will see "virtual injuries" to reflect what happens to the players themselves.