1.On Device Research最近调查显示，用户对移动运营商的好感与其手机质量及服务直接相关。

该调查发现，比起偶尔才使用浏览器的用户，每日必访移动网络的英国用户对运营商的好感增加了22%；印度用户的同一比例为10%，肯尼亚用户的这一比例为26%。对比非移动社交网络用户，社交网络常客们对这类服务运营商的好感增加了10%，印度用户的同一比例为14%，肯尼亚则是10%。手机游戏对肯尼亚用户购买手机的决定会产生重大影响。89%的肯尼亚移动网络用户自称，他们在选择新款手机时，首先考虑的就是该手机平台可运行的游戏。

2.诺基亚日前与阿联酋电信（Etisalat）签署了合作协议，Ovi store将向阿拉伯联合酋长国、沙特阿拉伯、埃及地区用户提供该运营商计费服务，并计划在今年引进更多中东和亚洲地区的运营商计费服务。Ovi本周宣布实现每日500万次的下载量，采用了全球36个市场的112家运营商的计费系统。目前还没有其他应用商店可提供如此多样化的计费服务，而Android Market目前却只有 NTT DoCoMo、SoftBank、KDDI、Sprint、T-Mobile USA 和AT&T这几项运营商计费服务。

Backbreaker:Tackle Alley

3.英国发行商NaturalMotion Games宣布《Backbreaker:Tackle Alley》在今年初的Super Bowl XLV期间，通过与肯德基的广告赞助合作，实现了100万次以上的下载量。据该公司所称，这款游戏在该时期的限时免费下载促销活动，直接为公司带来了不少经济效益，使其在随后一段时间中的下载量实现了双倍增长，并通过交叉推广让另一款游戏《Backbreaker 2: Vengeance》提升了三倍的下载量。

unpleasant-horse

4. 针对PopCap旗下新工作室4th and Battery首款游戏《桀敖马》（Unpleasant Horse）出师不利，被苹果App Store“退货”一事，该公司CEO戴夫·罗伯特（Dave Roberts）日前出面辟谣称此事纯属讹传，该游戏正处于应用审核过程中，并未被苹果拒之门外。 他同时还表示，4th and Battery的宗旨是鼓励设计师发挥创意，而不是向其施加开发《植物大战僵尸》等大作的业绩压力。

5.就在IGDA（国际游戏开发者协会）发表公开信呼吁亚马逊Appstore开发者维护自身权益后，独立应用商店GetJar首席营销官帕特里克·莫克（Patrick Mork）也出面声援IGDA，通过其博客指出所有应用商店至少应该遵守“四项基本原则”：一是尊重开发者的定价权；二是允许开发者自由选择计费服务合作伙伴；三是不可限制开发者在其他应用商店的特价促销活动（游戏邦注：亚马逊Appstore不允许开发者在竞争对手的平台以更低价格发售同款产品）；四是尊重开发者的劳动成果，并与其进行有效沟通。

6.针对IGDA对亚马逊Appstore与开发者“不平等条约”的指责，这家零售巨头日前通过亚马逊Appstore开发者博客作出了回应，声明IDGA所指向的内容是亚马逊已经作废的条款，并在网上公布了HTML版本的“已过期”条款内容，并用PDF格式展示了最新条款的内容，但随后又采用了同一种文本形式公布了两者的内容，这两份文件只字未提该应用商店的产品定价权问题。

android-iphone

7.谷歌亚太总裁Daniel Alegre日前表示，iPhone与Android是同盟而非宿敌。他称自己并不认为iPhone和Android处于对立关系，iPhone极大推动了谷歌的发展，谷歌也因向iPhone平台发布应用而获利。他的观点不无道理，因为iPhone预装了谷歌搜索引擎、谷歌地图等应用，而iOS用户也确实比其他手机用户更经常使用谷歌提供的这些服务（但Android的崛起可能改变这种局面），即使谷歌地图没有预装到iPhone，该应用对iPhone用户来说也仍然很有吸引力。

但有人认为，苹果与谷歌之间的冲突仍在不断扩大，原因在于苹果无法通过同样的途径从谷歌身上获益。所以就有了苹果与微软合作，将Bing设置为iPhone默认搜索引擎的项目。此外还有观点称，尽管苹果去年收购了地图公司Poly9，但仍然不太可能推出比谷歌地图更专业的服务。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

1.Mobile web usage makes people love operators

Study says the more they browse, the deeper their feelings of love become.

On Device Research says the relationship that a consumer has with his or her mobile operator is directly related to the perceived quality of their mobile phone and the services they use on it.

For example, UK consumer that access Facebook on their phones are ten per cent more satisfied with their operator than who don’t.

You have to ask, where the hell do these guys get a signal from?

Central London mobile web users must be having their hearts broken on a daily basis by those cruelly handsome operators.

Other findings from the report include:

* Operator satisfaction increases 22 per cent for daily mobile internet users compared to occasional browsers in the UK, +10 per cent in India, +26 per cent in Kenya.

* Mobile social networkers’ operator satisfaction increases ten per cent in the UK compared to those who do not use the service, 14 per cent in India, ten per cent in Kenya.

* In Kenya mobile games have huge influence on which mobile phone to purchase. 89 per cent of mobile media users in Kenya consider the quality of games they can play on their device when choosing a new phone.（source:mobile-ent）

2.Ovi Store carrier billing now on Etisalat

Available in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt during 2011 with more Middle East and Africa opcos planned.

Nice deal for Nokia, which has made operator billing a cornerstone of its apps strategy.

Earlier this week, the firm confirmed that Ovi downloads are up to 5m a day, and that operator billing on the store now supports 112 operators in 36 markets.

No other app store can come close to this. Android, for example, offers it only with NTT DoCoMo, SoftBank, KDDI, Sprint, T-Mobile USA and AT&T.

H.E. Mohammed Omran, Etisalat chairman, said: “We are certainly delighted to partner with Nokia in driving the demand of high quality applications and technology.

“The growth in the applications industry and the readiness of today`s consumers to adopt new technologies is a ramp curve to pursue.”（source:mobile-ent）

3.Super Bowl KFC promotion generated 1m downloads for Backbreaker game

NaturalMotion says taking its Tackle Alley game free gave it a seven-figure boost.

UK publisher NaturalMotion Games says its Backbreaker: Tackle alley game was downloaded more than one million times over Super Bowl XLV weekend earlier this year, thanks to a sponsorship deal with KFC.

The deal saw the game made free for a short period of time. NaturalMotion says that the seven-figure free downloads had a direct impact on the company’s finances, doubling subsequent sales of the game, while tripling the sales of separate game Backbreaker 2: Vengeance through cross-promotion.

“We’re thrilled by the user numbers we’ve been able to drive during the Super Bowl weekend,” says CEO Torsten Reil. “It’s a testament to the reach of Apple’s App Store, and an eye opener for how quickly we can generate millions of impressions for global brands on the App Store.”

Total downloads for the Backbreaker games have now passed five million, according to Reil. The games are developed by UK firm Ideaworks Game Studio, using the Airplay SDK of sister company Ideaworks Labs.

Ideaworks Labs CEO Niall Murphy has also hailed Backbreaker’s performance. “It’s great to see the huge excitement that the Ideaworks-developed Backbreaker titles continue to draw. It is strong  proof of Airplay SDK’s capabilities in developing high-performance games and the importance of giving people the ability to enjoy their favourite games on multiplatforms.”（source:mobile-ent）

4.PopCap: Unpleasant Horse Still In Review Process

PopCap’s 4th and Battery label hasn’t gotten quite the correct shake in the busy time since it was first unveiled a little over a week ago, and the company’s execs wish a few things were a little bit clearer — including the “rejection” reports about debut game Unpleasant Horse.

“People said Apple ‘rejected’ it, which they did not do,” PopCap CEO Dave Roberts tells Gamasutra.

“There was a miscommunication internally; [Unpleasant Horse] is going through the review process; it wasn’t rejected.”

It should be noted that the miscommunication was partly external as well, with an initial tweet from the company complaining specifically that “Apple rejected Unpleasant Horse cuz of ‘mature content.’”

Some might have mis-estimated the focus of the studio, as well, Roberts says. “What we’re trying to do is different, so we don’t want to make money from it; we get irritated when people ask about what our ‘big strategy’ is [for 4th and Battery],” adds Roberts.

But the company presently sees the label as an incubator intended to benefit design creativity, rather than a production line.

“It’s solely and exclusively designed for our studio team,” he says. “If every game has to be Plants vs. Zombies or Bejeweled, that creative bar is so high, and so stressful. It doesn’t give you an outlet; it doesn’t allow more people to start and finish projects, where you learn a lot.”

“It’s for the soft stuff,” says Roberts. “It’s a creative outlet for our studio. Unfortunately, some of the brouhaha around it has caused more pressure, but it’s just going to be fun stuff.” （source:gamasutra）

5.GetJar’s Patrick Mork enters IGDA-Amazon Appstore debate with his Manifesto for App Stores

Yesterday, grassroots gaming organisation the IGDA fired a salvo over the bows of Amazon concerning the terms and conditions for its Appstore for Android. The IGDA considers them a bad thing for developers.

Now free app store GetJar has also got involved in the debate.

In a blog post entitled; Paying Rent: A Developer Manifesto on Pricing, chief marketing office Patrick Mork has outlined four guiding principles he thinks app stores should use to help developers make money.

The world according to

The first is that developers should be able to set the price of their apps.

This is easy on GetJar as everything is free, but Amazon retains the power to discount or give away content on its store, paying developers a guarantee of 20 percent of the list price or 70 percent of the sale price; whichever is greater.

Mork’s second point is that developers should be able to choose their billing partners.

This is wider issue, with most app store have official payment channels; Apple requires iTunes, for example. Mork particularly points the finger at Google’s Android platform over this point. He recently argued the new Android in-app billing system should be available for everyone selling Android content.

Don’t be evil

The third principle is back to Amazon: “App stores shouldn’t hamper developers’ ability to leverage promotions or placement in other stores through rigid pricing policies.” Amazon doesn’t allow its partners to sell content cheaper on rival app stores.

Mork’s final point is a more general catch-all schema; “Show developers some respect for the product they create and communicate that.”

“As app stores, we need to keep in mind that ultimately content is what consumers come to us for,” he concludes.

“It’s a bit tough to meet that demand if you ignore developers or worse, impose restrictive commercial policies on them. We can do better than that.”

Of course, cynics will argue this is fine and dandy for Mork say. As GetJar is limited to hosting free games and apps, few of these points affect it directly.

Still, it will be interesting to see how the widening debate over standard terms for content, and Android content in particular, develops over the coming months. （source:pocketgamer）

6.Amazon responds to game developer controversy: nothing to see here

The International Game Developers Association sent out a warning this week to Android game developers, warning them that the Amazon App Store for Android presented some problems that might make them want to reconsider selling their wares in Amazon’s market. “The IGDA has significant concerns about Amazon’s current Appstore distribution terms and the negative impact they may have on the game development community,” the organization warned.

Amazon has responded to the budding controversy by nipping it in the bud. On the Amazon Appstore Developer Blog, the retailer clarified that the terms that led to IDGA’s complaints were actually an old draft of the terms that Amazon has since abandoned. The terms viewed online in plain HTML were “outdated” and didn’t reflect the new terms available in a PDF version. Amazon has since rectified the problem by making both documents show the same information, neither of which includes the worrisome text about app store pricing.

The IGDA previously complained that the Amazon Market made unreasonable demands on developers. Among the complaints:

Amazon reserved the right to give the developer only 20% of its minimum list price

Amazon demanded that developers maintain similar pricing as what’s available in other stores. So if a $5 game went on sale for $1.99 in the Android Market, that price would have to be $1.99 in the Amazon Appstore – forever.

Amazon could offer premium apps at steep discounts (or even free) for the promotion of the store and at the detriment to many developers who may not recoup the money in lost sales.

These were all major concerns that IGDA was right to bring attention to. Amazon claims that it updated the terms in November, so the controversy seems to be over. At least until we discover something else troubling in the developer distribution agreement.（source:androinica）

7.Google: We succeed when the iPhone succeeds

You may think that Google has some beefs with the Apple iPhone because it wants Android to rule the world. But if you ask Google’s Asia-Pacific president Daniel Alegre, the iPhone is more of an ally than an enemy.

“Whenever iPhone succeeds, Google succeeds,” Alegre told AdNews. “I actually don’t look at it as iPhone versus Android. iPhone is a very strong driver of query growth for Google. We also monetize apps through the iPhone … we actually benefit from iPhone’s growth.”

This does make a lot of sense, as the Apple iPhone is preloaded with Google search and Google maps and iOS users still generally use more data than other platforms, although that may be changing with Android. Google apps also get some good traction on the iPhone even if they’re not preloaded.

We’re hearing some rumblings that the animosity between Apple and Google is growing, particularly from Apple’s side. Apple doesn’t necessarily benefit from the success of Google the same way the search giant does from the iPhone. That may be why we hear rumors that Steve Jobs hid the iPad from Eric Schmidt when the Google executive was on Apple’s board.

There’s a chance that Apple could up-end the search giant by including its own services or partnering with rivals. Microsoft Bing is now available on the iPhone and turning it to the default search would instantly increase Bing’s mobile share.

Of course, Google Maps is a stellar way to find things around you and to navigate around but Apple did purchase the mapping company Poly9 last year and it’s not impossible for it to roll out some sort of specialized mapping service on the iOS devices. I still don’t think it has the experiences or resources to make this as functional as the latest version of Google Maps but I could see Apple trying.（source:intomobile）