1）《TinierCafe》是一款由休闲社交游戏开发商GCREST（CyberAgent旗下的工作室，另外还经营了一个Flash虚拟世界TinierMe网站）推出的餐厅主题游戏，虽然在5月底才登场，但却创造了一个良好的开端，跻身上周的Facebook前20名新晋游戏行列，其用户流量也进入了Facebook餐厅类游戏的前10名（排名第八，其MAU和DAU仅次于《Cupcake Corner》和《料理妈妈》）。

TinierCafe(from insidesocialgames.com)

据AppData数据显示，《TinierCafe》目前的MAU是50万728，DAU是4万4281。该游戏通过与TinierMe进行交叉推广，吸引了相对可观的用户，GCREST美国首席执行官Masaru Ohnogi表示，由于进行了市场推广和病毒式传播，这款游戏目前的用户约有一半是原来的TinierMe交叉游戏玩家，还有一半是新用户。

TinierCafe---MAU DAU(from insidesocialgames.com)

2）Rivet Games公司（原名FooMojo）宣布其首款Facebook游戏将以宠物为主题，虽然Facebook平台已充斥大量同类游戏，但该公司首席执行官Jesse Janosov表示，他们这款《Pet Tales》在视觉效果上将与其他游戏极为不同，它采用的是逼真的美术风格，游戏中小猫小狗的毛发均清晰可辨，而且锁定的并非喜欢卡通风格的儿童玩家，而是爱养宠物的成人用户。

Pet Tales(from insidesocialgames.com)

Rivet Games称计划将游戏引进手机平台，他们的3D模型均由Maya创建完成，使游戏中的动物更具现实感。该游戏于两周前上线，目前的MAU是8000左右。

3）商务社交网络LinkedIn的技术营销经理Matthew Shoup日前设计了该网站首款风格与《俄罗斯方块》类似的“社交游戏”DropIn，支持用户在搜索新鲜内容时，以《俄罗斯方块》的游戏操作方式排列自己的LinkedIn联系人头像，他们可以点击联系人头像以查看该好友所分享的内容。

LinkedIn DropIn(from socialtimes.com)

4）读者文摘协会公司及Vivity Labs曾针对iPhone的加速计和GPS功能推出一款免费的健康追踪应用Arookoo，最近又发布了一款Facebook游戏《World Explorers》，让手持iPhone在现实世界中步行的玩家赢取奖励。

World Explorers(from games.com)

该游戏虽然表面上与其他Facebook寻宝游戏相似，但实际制作水准并不理想，其质量无法与Zynga的《Treasure Isle》等同类游戏相提并论。

5）印度尼西亚网站Okezone日前宣布与新加坡社交及休闲在线游戏网站MatchMove Games合作（游戏邦注：MatchMove Games也是新加坡报业控股有限公司、马来西亚Alt Media和StarHub等公司的游戏供应商），在Okezone平台开辟一个游戏版块，目前该版块共有280款游戏，其中多数为休闲类游戏，此外还包括Plinga的《Pet Party》和Alawar的《Farm Frenzy》等多款社交游戏。

6）Wild Tangent最近在其游戏网站和Facebook平台发布了新款社交游戏《Polar Bowler》，它是Wild Tangent公司在2004年发行的Polar系列游戏的最新版本，玩家在游戏开始之初需扮演北极熊角色，体验在冰层上玩保龄球的乐趣。玩家在Wild Tangenet游戏网站上可使用Wild Coins购买道具和增加生命值，而Facebook用户则可使用Facebook Credits购买可解琐的道具。

polar_bowler(from polar-bowler.softonic.it)

7）据AppData数据显示，Zynga旗下有4款游戏稳居Facebook人气榜单的前五名，《CityVille》、《FarmVille》仍是最受用户欢迎的社交游戏，分别以8900多万和4400多万的MAU稳居冠军和亚军宝座。而迪士尼旗下的Playdom最新游戏《Gardens of Time》则以将近1300万的MAU位居第五名。

App Leaderboard-Games(from AppData.com)

Gaia Online在去年12月推出的RPG游戏《Monster Galaxy》目前的MAU是1250万左右，排在第七名，而Zynga另一款问世已达20个月之久的游戏《Cafe World》仍然拥有1200多万用户。PopCap推出的《宝石迷阵闪电战》的MAU是1050万左右，Wooga的《Diamond Dash》则是900万MAU（游戏邦注：该游戏于今年3月份才刚面世），EA Playfish的《Pet Society》也同样是900万，而Zynga的《Mafia Wars》则仅为870万左右。

Quick Hit CEO Jeff Anderson

8）《料理妈妈》发行商Majesco日前称将通过收购社交游戏开发商Quick Hit的大部分资产和股权，进一步扩大其社交游戏发展战略。Quick Hit首席执行官Jeff Anderson将加入Majesco团队，并担任该公司社交游戏业务高级副总裁。Jeff Anderson也是MMO游戏《指环王在线》开发商Turbine创始人及CEO，并曾担任EA Origin工作室以及Viacom的高管。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）TinierCafe Grows on Facebook Through “One Character, Multiple Games” Approach

By AJ Glasser

TinierCafe is a restaurant sim for Facebook from casual and social game developer GCREST, a subsidiary of CyberAgent, which maintains a Flash-based virtual world called TinierMe on its own site. Using cross-promotion and interconnected gameplay between TinierCafe and TinierMe, the developer has gotten TinierCafe a healthy start after its late May launch, landing it on our top 20 emerging Facebook games list as of last week and already placing it in the top 10 restaurant Facebook games by traffic.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, TinierCafe currently has 500,728 monthly active users and 44,281 daily active users.

TinierCafe comes in eighth among restaurant sim games as tracked by AppData, just behind Cupcake Corner and Cooking Mama in both MAU and DAU. The game debuted with a cross-promotion to TinierMe players on the game’s website, which attracted a large influx of initial players. Additionally, the game allows TinierMe.com players to import their character and their existing virtual currency balance to the game for a smooth platform transition between games. All of these factors contributed to the game’s initial traffic growth, however Masaru Ohnogi, CEO of GCREST America, tells us that marketing and viral growth have shifted the current player base to roughly half TinierMe cross-over players and half brand new players. The balance is still shifting even now as TinierCafe continues to grow.（source:insidesocialgames） 

2）Rivet Games Challenges Copycats With Pet Tales

By AJ Glasser

Social networks have been burdened by an overabundance of copycat social games with dozens of variations on essentially the same game type clogging Facebook’s search function. The pets genre in particular is looking pretty crowded on the platform with almost 100 apps tagged as such in our social game traffic tracking service, AppData. So we were surprised when Rivet Games, formerly known as FooMojo, announced a pet game as its first Facebook offering after closing a $5 million round of series B funding.

Far from feeling like a copycat, Rivet Games CEO Jesse Janosov says the company’s game is a unique offering based on its visual style alone. The game, called Pet Tales, uses a photorealistic style detailed enough to render individual hairs on cats and dogs when viewed close up within certain game modes like the “play with pet” one pictured below.

“It’s not really cartoony, like a lot of the other pet games aimed at [a younger audience],” Janosov says. “This game is for an older audience, for people who like pets.”

Pet Tales builds on the collectible pets theme established by FooMojo with its now off-Facebook title, FooPets, by adding a gameplay loop around decoration in addition to the pet care and other interactions. Players decorate a park for their adopted pets to inhabit and play with other pets. The game monetizes mainly around premium decoration items, much the same as other social games in the pets genre.

Where Pet Tales is unique, and where Rivet Games hopes to execute scalable growth, is in the visual assets. Janosov tells us that when he joined the studio, he noticed that the company wasn’t making use of a lot of the FooPets assets, so it made sense to build Rivet Games’ first title around those. The visual style lends itself to branding, should Rivet Games decide to take Pet Tales to mobile platforms in the future, which could be in the cards as the developer considers mobile game development. It also makes it difficult for other developers to copy Pet Tales on either Facebook or mobile platforms.

“Our 3D models are done in Maya, which gives our pets a really realistic look,” Janosov says. “This whole space has been dominated by copying — but good luck copying us.”

Pet Tales officially went live almost two weeks ago and currently has around 8,000 monthly active users as last reported by Facebook.（source:insidesocialgames）  

3）DropIn on LinkedIn with its first ever social game

by Joe Osborne

TweetHey, before you executives get in a tizzy about productivity, professionals need to play too. LinkedIn, the popular social network for businesses and professionals, takes a side on the argument with DropIn. Crafted by LinkedIn technical marketing manager Matthew Shoup in LinkedIn Labs, this is the first social game ever created for the network. In honor of the 27th anniversary of Tetris, Shoup created a Tetris like game, but in place of tetrominoes Shoup put the faces of your LinkedIn contacts.

“DropIn takes the classic Tetris experience to a professional level,” Shoup wrote on the LinkedIn Blog. “Rotate and stack your LinkedIn connections’ faces, while discovering the fresh content they’re sharing online. There’s never been a more relevant and productive time to play games at work.”

Shoup, who had some help from brand user environment design manager Steve Pecko, made the controls identical to just about any Tetris-like game you’d see on a PC. However, the duo also included updates on the faces your crushing beneath one another in a nifty sidebar. Players can click on what their friends are sharing at the moment to see that content as well. If you like DropIn enough to share it, you can post it to Twitter and LinkedIn through a handy button. Now, if only getting that dream gig was as easy as Tetris.（source:games）  

4）’Arookoo: World Explorers’ steps up social gaming, but stumbles on Facebook

by Jenny Ng

Arookoo is a “social fitness platform” in three parts: mobile, web, and social. Reader’s Digest Association and Vivity Labs’ big idea is to turn walking into a real-life game. To do this, they released a free iPhone app that takes advantage of the iPhone’s Accelerometer and GPS functions, created a website to help users track fitness progress, and finally, a Facebook game that players can earn boosts for, while walking around with their iPhones in the real world.

Of the three, the Facebook idea is the most novel. But letting players use their pedometers to power up game items isn’t entirely a new one. (Nintendo did it with the Pokéwalker for Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver on the DS.) As it stands, “World Explorers” is a polished looking title that may be too tied into the Arookoo app to stand as a solid Facebook game. On top of that, the game launched today with plenty of bugs (I completed the Africa maps but the game wiped my progress upon refreshing without letting me redo those maps) and doesn’t give anyone much to do at the moment.

On the surface, “World Explorers” resembles other Facebook treasure-hunting games, like Zynga’s Treasure Isle (inspired by zSlide’s “Treasure Madness”), but in actuality, it’s so horribly underdeveloped that there’s no room for comparison. Regardless, if you want to keep your eye on this game, then follow the game’s official Facebook page here. （source:games）  

5）Indonesian Publisher Okezone Launches Games

By Sebastian Sujka

Okezone, one of the most popular websites in Indonesia, has announced its partnership with Singapore-based social and casual online games MatchMove Games. The deal includes a co-branded gaming section on Okezone. The games section on Okezone already lists over 280 games, most of which are casual games.  We also find a bunch of social games, amongst them prominent titles likes Plinga’s Pet Party or Alawar’s “Farm Frenzy”. MatchMove Games is also the games provider for telecom and media giants such as Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and Alt Media(Malaysia) and StarHub.（source:socialgamesobserver）

6）Wild Tangent Introduces Polar Bowler Strike

By Thorsten Bleich

Wild Tangent has announced the beta release of its new social game version of Polar Bowler on both the Wild Tangent games service and Facebook. The social game, Polar Bowler Strike is the newest addition to the Polar franchise, which was first developed and published by Wild Tangent in 2004. Building off the popularity of previous Polar games, the social game allows players to knock down pins on the icy bowling lane as they increase through levels of play. Players begin the game as the character of a Hawaiian polar bear with a bowling ball.

On the Wild Tangent games service, players can use their Wild Coins to purchase items and additional lives. On Facebook, players can use Facebook credits to buy coins and polar bucks to obtain locked items. The original Polar Bowler, Polar Golfer, Polar Golfer Pineapple Cup, Polar Tubing and Polar Pool games are also available on the Wild Tangent games service.（source:socialgamesobserver）  

7）Gardens Of Time Springs Up On Popular Facebook Games

by Eric Caoili

[Every other week, we examine the most popular Facebook games (according to monthly active users), looking at the top titles and developers on the social network to see who's attracting or losing players.]

While key Zynga releases like FarmVille and CityVille remain as the most popular social games on Facebook, at least one recently launched title has climbed up the list and could even overtake FrontierVille soon — Playdom/Disney’s “hidden object” game Gardens of Time.

CityVille still has more than double the audience than any other title on Facebook, 89 million monthly players. It’s followed by three more Zynga games: FarmVille with 44 million users, Texas HoldEm Poker with 35 million card players, and FrontierVille with 14 million virtual pioneers.

Gadens of Time, which debuted on the social network two months ago, has grown rapidly to nearly 13 million users. The game has players using a time machine to “locate hidden objects throughout history, unravel the intrigues of a secret society, and protect the world from sinister forces.”

The sixth most popular title on the site is Gaia Online’s Pokemon-style RPG Monster Galaxy, which launched last December and now has 12.5 million monthly players. At #7, Zynga’s 20-month-old game Cafe World is still entertaining some 12 million patrons.

Rounding out the top ten, we have PopCap’s Bejeweled Blitz with 10.5 million, trailed by Wooga’s Diamond Dash with 9 million (debuted in March), and Electronic Arts/Playfish’s Pet Society with 9 million. Zynga’s Mafia Wars just missed the cut with 8.7 million virtual mobsters.（source:gamasutra）  

8） Majesco Expands Social Strategy With Quick Hit Acquisitions

by Kris Graft
 
Cooking Mama publisher Majesco said Monday that it is expanding its social gaming strategy through key acquisitions from social game developer Quick Hit.

Majesco said it acquired “key operating assets” from Quick Hit, developer of the free-to-play NFL-licensed social game Quickhit NFL Football. The publisher also acquired Quick Hit’s development team, which will lead the game maker’s microtransaction-based social gaming strategy.

Quick Hit CEO Jeff Anderson (pictured) is joining Majesco as part of the deal, and now will serve as SVP of social games at the publisher. He also was founder and CEO at Lord of the Rings Online MMO developer Turbine. Earlier in his career, he was a senior executive at EA’s Origin studio as well as Viacom.

Anderson will oversee Majesco’s social gaming efforts including Cooking Mama Friends’ Cafe, Parking Wars 2 and Bananagrams. Majesco added that he’ll head up “several [other] unannounced social and mobile products currently in development.”

Majesco said it is granting 10 new workers coming from Quick Hit a total of over 170,000 shares of restricted common stock in relation to the asset and talent acquisition.（source:gamasutra）