Michael Eisner Greenlights FameTown With $300,000 Seed Investment

Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner is now greenlighting social games. His personal investment company, Tornante, is backing an LA startup, Diversion, which is about to launch a new social game on Facebook called FameTown. According to an SEC filing, the amount of the seed round was $300,000. FameTown is modeled after Zynga's FarmVille or Mafia Wars, except that you try to become a Hollywood player and produce movies instead of building a farm. The game, which will launch in beta as a Facebook app on November 1, starts out as star map of Hollywood, with a studio area, a nightlife area, a shopping area, and your profile (see screenshots below). You earn "favors" (the currency of the game) by producing movies and you spend energy in the nightlife area, which includes bars, hotels, and the "Underbelly." Your friends in the game can help promote your movie with buzz or sell their friends' secrets to the paparazzi.

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