While I was at Casual Connect in Seattle (no, it’s not like that, it’s a casual game developer conference) the Windows Azure Evangelism team (Nate, Wade, etc.) soft released the Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games. Today they have officially released version 1.0.
One of the key industries that are leveraging the cloud these days are gaming companies, especially social game companies. Most of these companies are small, with limited production budgets, and they hope to win it big with a game that goes viral through social networks. The cloud fits this business model pretty well, where you can launch your game with a small budget, and scale up the infrastructure as the game grows in popularity. Just imagine all of the games we will now see, that in years past would never see the light of day because the developer didn’t have the cash to buy a rack of silicon. Amazing!
So, what does this lengthy named and well built toolkit do for you? It includes code and services that you can use in your own games, for some very common features. It also includes three games built on that engine, including Tankster.net. 
Tankster.net is a game built completely in HTML5 with a Widows Azure backend. It provides for inventory, purchasing, chatting, and multiplayer, because of the toolkit.
The toolkit specifically provides libraries to provide these functions:
Server APIs
- Authentication (Uses Windows Azure Access Control Servers)
- Game Management
- Eventing
- User Profiles
- Leaderboards
- Inventory
- Real-Time Communication (Chat, etc.)
- Notifications
- In-App Purchases
HTML5 Features
- Game Play
- Turn Management
- Animations
- Inventory
- Leaderboard
- Events
- Chat (Real-Time Communication)
- Social Sharing (Like, Tweet, etc.)
- Audio
This is just version 1.0, so if there is a feature you really want, you should let them know. I know the ream is eager to rapidly grow the toolkit and provide the features game developers are looking for.
You should download the toolkit here. If you want to read a series of blog posts on how to work with the toolkit, head on over to Nate’s blog. He knows ALL about it. 
Psst: I runs Node.JS to help with browser to server communications.