Online Mafia-based strategy games are surprisingly big business, and a lot of them have been finding the iPhone to be a particularly suitable platform (check out our Which Mafia iPhone game is the best? feature).
It's not all that long since we heard that iMob Online creator David Maestri was up in court against mobile developer Zynga over similarities between his game and Mafia Wars. The virtual Mafioso's must have sorted things out, however, as Mafia Wars has just made its way onto the iPhone.
This underworld strategy game has already seen massive popularity on Facebook (with nine million players) and MySpace (with an even more impressive 11 million players).
"Mafia Wars on Facebook and MySpace has a cult following and now players can compete in social gaming's most popular crime-based game on the iPhone with the mobile version," says Mark Pincus, CEO, Zynga. "We are excited about our growing slate of games for the iPhone which allows us to deliver our highly social games to mobile so players can connect with friends anytime, anywhere."
Mafia Wars launches as a free game, but aims to adopt similar premium packs as its rivals iMafia and iMob Online has done.
These premium versions will allow players to get a leg up in the game by buying respect points, ranging from $10 to $40 (we'll have to wait and see what that works out at in real money).
Mafia Wars is live on the App Store right now, and you can have a quick look at the technical video below explaining how the game works.
