Yodo1, a Beijing-based company that works intensively with Western game developers to bring their titles to the Chinese market, raised $5 million from SingTel Innov8, the corporate venture arm of a mobile carrier. An earlier investor, Changyou Fund, also participated in the round.

Yodo1 has a co-production model where they actually get access to the code base of a Western developers’ game. They modify the graphics, virtual goods and music for local Chinese tastes.

An example CEO Henry Fong points to is Ski Safari, a game from Brisbane, Australia’s Defiant Development. In the platformer title, a character races up and down ski slopes (kind of like last year’s indie hit Tiny Wings out of Germany). For the Chinese version, they made the architecture of the houses in the background more Chinese, added a zither to the music and put in terra cotta warrior outfits.

Last month, we posted a bit of a rumor: that Finland’s Supercell — likely the most lucrative iOS gaming company in the world — had raised about $100 million in funding in a round led by Index Ventures, Atomico Partners and Institutional Venture Partners.

Now we have confirmation today that the deal did happen, according to a flashy Forbes feature.

The tiny Helsinki-based company, which is about 100-people strong, did in fact raise $130 million on a $770 million valuation from Index, Atomico and IVP. Like we said, the round was secondary: all shareholders, including early investor Accel Partners, sold 16.7 percent of their holdings in the company to the newer investors. Index took $52.5 million of the round.

While Apple’s app store and Google Play have long had leaderboards for the most downloaded and lucrative apps, there hasn’t been that much transparency around engagement after the download.

Heyzap, a Union Square Ventures-backed startup that runs a mobile gaming network, has stepped in and decided to build one. The startup, which was founded about four years ago and originally centered around Flash games, has moved onto mobile platforms (pretty much like every other game developer over the past few years). They have an app on Android with about 10 million installs that lets gamers add friends in their favorite titles and share tips and badges.

How do you make sports gambling more addictive? Make a role-playing game where you level up by completing quests of placing specific fake-money bets. And how does a sports community app like Hitpost build such a smart game? It hires lead producer Courtland Alves from games giant Crowdstar as its new CEO. After four years in sports, Hitpost is making a play for the social gaming big leagues.

Hitpost’s founder and former Chief Executive Aaron Krane tells me, “The team doesn’t care that I’m not the CEO anymore. They’re all obsessed with sports and it bonds them. They are thick as thieves. I love gambling but I don’t watch sports on TV. Getting Courtland in as CEO is the best contribution I can give.” Alves led monetization for three of Crowdstar’s top mobile titles, and is a beloved manager that could attract serious talent to Hitpost.

Krane will stay on as chairman and will advise the company on design. His passing of the torch doesn’t mean he thought the startup wasn’t going anywhere, but just that someone else was clearly more fit to lead. ”This was such an obvious choice to better the business, the product, and the team, and all have noticeably improved already. Courtland’s network enables us to recruit an entirely different class of game builder.”

Editor’s note: Tadhg Kelly is a veteran game designer, creator of leading game design blog What Games Are and creative director of Jawfish Games. You can follow him on Twitter here.

There’s a reason why games and organized crime have often gone hand in hand. The thrill of the win, of achieving – often with money attached – has long proved a lure that society felt the need to control, like a drug. Games of chance, Poker, horse racing, sports betting and many others brought quixotic pleasures to many and bankruptcy (or worse) to some. There was always money to be made in the shadows for those happy to work in them.

That shady aspect still exists in the games industry today. While there are some highly ethical game makers out there who conduct their business in a manner befitting their ideals, there are also plenty who dupe and deceive to profit from an audience. Some are merely morally gray, maintaining that since games are a tough market and the cost of user acquisition is high, they have to be scrappy. Even if they don’t personally like it, it’s just how life is.

Following last’s year expansion into merchandise including toys, underwear (!), and more, EA’s PopCap is now taking its popular “Plants vs. Zombies” title to the printed (and e-inked) page. Penguin Children’s has acquired the physical and e-book publishing rights to the game, in a three-year deal.

The first books – Plants vs. Zombies Official Guide, The Official Sticker Book, and the Plants vs. Zombies Joke book, will be published this summer, in August 2013.

Plants vs. Zombies has been downloaded over 120 million times since its release in 2009. It made a big comeback in March after the company made the paid title free, ahead of the release of a sequel due out later this year. As TechCrunch noted at the time, many game developers behind older, but still popular titles, on iOS are making their original games free, most notably Rovio, which also made the original version of Angry Birds free that same month.

Predictive sports game startup PrePlay has closed a $4.7 million Series B round, led by Trilogy Equity Partners LLC. RSE Ventures, the VC fund founded by Miami Dolphins’ owner Stephen Ross and Matt Higgins, also participated in the round.

PrePlay closed its $3.1 million Series A last July, with RSE Ventures’ CEO Matt Higgins participating in that round as an angel investor.

The startup, which was founded in 2010 and has just clocked up its 100,000th registered user, acts as a second screen companion for live TV shows. It creates social gaming apps for smartphones and tablets that allow sports fans to compete with each other by predicting the outcome of the match — you know, just like they do down the pub anyway — such as in its PrePlay Football app, shown below:

Editor’s Note: Semil Shah is a contributor to TechCrunch. You can follow him on Twitter at @semil.

“In The Studio” rolls on this week by welcoming a long-time Valley operator, founder, angel investor, venture capitalist, and now general partner at one of the first “super angel” funds.

Charles Hudson, now a partner with SoftTech VC, has sat on every side of every table in the startup world. With stints as an operator at Google, as an investor with In-Q-Tel (the CIA’s venture capital arm), and founder of companies in the gaming space, Hudson brings a wealth of experience and insights — particularly around the gaming industry — to the table. Hudson is a familiar face in the Valley’s startup ecosystem as an active angel investor, speaker, and commentator, as well as penning a great blog with nontraditional insights, such as this one which suggested beleaguered Zynga may consider going private after going public.