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每日观察:关注Zynga与DeNA、GREE和EA的运营对比(7.4)

发布时间:2011-07-04 12:27:15 Tags:,,,,

1)据Zynga向美国证券交易委员会提交的S-1文件资料显示,Zynga自2007年成立以来累积收益已达15亿美元;2008年收益为1940万美元,2009年上升至1.22亿美元,2010年达5.98亿美元(游戏邦注:Zynga每一财年的结束日期与历年制相同,即每年的12月31日)。

2011年第一季度的销售额为2.35亿美元,同比增长133%;与之形成对比的是日本社交游戏巨头DeNA和GREE,前者同期的净销售额达3.93亿美元,后者同期销售额为1.98亿美元,这两者的用户基数都远逊于Zynga——Zynga的DAU超过了6000万,而DeNA和GREE的注册用户都不足3000万。

Zynga's Quarterly Revenue and Net Income(from pocketgamer)

Zynga's Quarterly Revenue and Net Income(from pocketgamer)

从利润上来看,Zynga在2010财年的净收益为9060万美元,而2009年则亏损5280万美元,2008年亏损2200万美元。

2011年第一季度,Zynga净利润为1180万美元,截止该季度共有价值达9.96亿美元的现金、现金等价物和有价证券;该公司目前共有2268名全职员工。

而GREE在同期的净收益达9900万美元,DeNA而是高达1.14亿美元,有此似乎可以看出,游戏开发商在手机平台上运营项目比在Facebook更为有利可图。

2)就在不少评论称Google+存在模仿Facebook的痕迹时,Facebook工程师Vladimir Kolesnikov、Peng Fan、Zahan Malkani、Brian Rosenthal却反而从Google Circles功能获取灵感,设计出了Circlehack这种更为简便的Facebook好友列表创建工具。

Circlehack(from techcrunch.com)

Circlehack(from techcrunch.com)

用户之前要创建Facebook好友列表,就只能进入好友页面,点击其帐号的下拉菜单,然后点击“编辑好友”,再完成“创建列表”等一系列繁琐的操作流程。假如要实现像Google+那种出色的特定分享功能,还得再访问“隐私设置”,点击“自定义”,然后再选择“向其开放信息”

现在的Circlehack虽然有效简化了操作流程,但其功能设计还不像Google+的Circles那样完善,暂时不可以在应用内自动创建Groups或私隐设置,但这至少说明Facebook功能向前迈进了一步。

3)venturebeat日前发表系列文章解析Zynga上市消息,并将Zynga与老牌电子游戏公司EA进行了一番比较:

EA's Battlefield 3 VS.Zynga's Empires & Allies(from venturebeat)

EA's Battlefield 3 VS.Zynga's Empires & Allies(from venturebeat)

在营收上,Zynga截止今年第一季度的收益是2.35亿美元,比去年同期的1.01亿美元增长130%;而EA本财年第四季度基于GAAP的净收入是10.9亿美元,同比上一年的9.79亿美元增长了11%。

在利润上,Zynga今年第一季度的净利润为1180万美元,比2010年同期的640万美元增长84%;而EA则是1.51亿美元,比上一年同期的3000万美元增加了5倍。

在销售成本上,Zynga今年的销售成本是6760万美元,去年则是3290万美元;EA的销售成本是3.28亿美元,去年是2.98亿美元。

在市场营销成本上,Zynga这一项上的支出远低于EA,今年第一季度的市场营销成本为4020万美元,去年同期则是1740万美元;EA今年同期的销售及营销成本高达1.94亿美元,去年则是1.71亿美元。

在总务及管理费用上,Zynga此项开支仅是公司运营的零碎成本,在今年第一季度的管理支出仅为2710万美元,去年同期则是1650万美元;EA今年同期的管理成本却是7500万美元,去年则是7900万美元。

在人员规模上,Zynga截止5月底共有2268名员工,在3月31日前共有1858名成员;EA截止3月31日共有7645名成员。而在2008年12月,Zynga仅有157名成员,现在有64%的员工在公司就职时间不满一年,有92%入职时间不足两年,但旗下拥有大量的EA前高管,例如John Schappert(EA之前的二号人物)、Steve Chiang(EA Sports之前的主管)以及Mark Skaggs。

Zynga的现金及有价证券总价值达9.956亿美元,而EA则是22亿美元。

在社交游戏用户上,Zynga在3月31日共有2.36亿MAU,基本上与去年持平;EA的MAU则是3600万(游戏邦注:基本上来自Playfish游戏),比去年同期的5100万下滑不少。Zynga的用户总数甚至超过排在其后的15家Facebook游戏开发商的总和。

有观察者认为,Zynga的估值超过EA可能意味着市场已认同Zynga代表将来时态,而EA只是过去时态的这种看法,Zynga甚至有可能超过市值达135亿美元的动视暴雪,成为全球身价最高的游戏公司。

4)从《福布斯》到《每日邮报》,几乎人人都在热议Facebook首席执行官马克·扎克伯格加入Google+用户群的消息,他的Circles好友圈中包括Facebook成员Dustin Moskovitz和目前的Facebook首席技术官BretTaylor。

Facebook CEO's Google+ account(from techcrunch)

Facebook CEO's Google+ account(from techcrunch.com)

很多人怀疑这个帐号的真正主人并非扎克伯格本人,但科技博客主Robert Scoble最近却在Twitter上发微博表示,扎克伯格已亲自向他确认,那个帐号确实为其本人创建,并称自己很困惑为何人们这么吃惊他在使用谷歌帐号。

有人认为,人们对此事的意外反应很大程度上源自谷歌创始人Larry Page和Sergey Brin远离Facebook的态度(游戏邦注:但据Steven Levy透露,Brin实际使用了假名注册Facebook帐号,而谷歌首席执行官Eric Schmidt也在使用Facebook),但其他的网站创始人(例如Myspace创始人Tom)的表现却足以说明,使用竞争对手的服务并非鲜事,也不能算是刺探军情的行为。

5)商务社交网络LinkedIn虽然目前已达1亿用户,但在日本市场却遭到冷遇,虽然该公司并非公布具体的日本用户数据,但人们仍可像调查Facebook用户一样,使用LinkedIn自助广告服务工具,推算该网站的大概日本用户数据。

LinkedIn Ads(from serkantoto)

LinkedIn Ads(from serkantoto)

从上图可以看出,LinkedIn日本用户仍不足37万(游戏邦注:LinkedIn表示其自助广告工具的“预估匹配用户只是较为接近实际注册用户,但并不能视为准确用户数据)——仅是Facebook日本用户的十分之一左右。

Google Trends for LinkedIn(from serkantoto)

Google Trends for LinkedIn(from serkantoto)

从以下的谷歌趋势图中也可以看出,LinkedIn在PC平台上的每日访问用户不足4万,对其而言日本只是一个小众市场。

6)美国工作室Emotional Robots宣布将把采用Unreal开发工具创建的PC游戏《Warm Gun》移植到iPhone和iPad平台。由于该游戏是一个直接移植版本,所以在手机平台上的画面效果会略打折扣,但从其首批截图来看,其画面质量仍然不失水准。

Warm Gun(from pocketgamer)

Warm Gun(from pocketgamer)

这款免费模式的第一人称射击游戏背景是西部荒野世界,玩家可选择The 49′er、铁匠、巫师和传教士这四种角色,每一种角色都有三种独门武器,玩家可在五个地图以及连线和离线模式中玩游戏。预计该游戏iOS版本将于今年夏天发布,PC版本则在秋季问世。

7)已经十多年未推出新作的EDGE Games公司(游戏邦注:该公司主事者Tim Langdell曾与EA因商标权问题而对簿公堂)最近又重返正轨,向苹果App Store的iPhone和iPad平台推出《EDGEBobby2》。

EDGEbobby2(from wosblog.podgamer.com)

EDGEbobby2(from wosblog.podgamer.com)

据该游戏描述所称,“它是经典游戏《Bobby Bearing》的继集版本,在游戏中Bobby将重返Technofear寻找失散的兄弟。这款游戏容易上手,但难于精通,是一款可让玩家持续体验数小时的街机动类作3D益智游戏。”

该游戏将发布iPhone和iPad的0.79欧元通用版本,以及一个仅含一个区域的免费版本,并计划推出Android、PC和Mac版本。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

1)With cumulative revenue of over $1.5 billion, Zynga’s doing okay, but doesn’t match DeNA or GREE for profits

by Jon Jordan

With Zynga finally filing for IPO, looking to raise $1 billion in the process, a flood of information has been released via its Form S-1.

This is legally required by the US SEC so potential investors can understand the company’s business, and hence it has to reveal its financial data.

How much is mucho?

This aspect provided the headline data with respect to turnover: cumulatively, the company has generated over $1.5 billion in revenue since it launched in 2007.

In 2008, it had annual revenues of $19.4 million. This rose to $122 million in 2009, and $598 million 2010. Zynga ends its financial year in sequence with the calendar year on December 31.

In terms of its current quarter, in Q1 FY11 ending March 31, the company had sales of $235 million, up 133 percent year-on-year.

In comparison, over the same quarterly period, pure mobile Japanese competitors DeNA posted net sales of $393 million, while GREE had sales of $198 million, both on the back of much smaller user bases.

Zynga has more than 60 million global daily active users, while the Japanese companies say they have less than 30 million subscribers apiece.

Could do better

When it comes to profits, Zynga had net income in FY2010 of $90.6 million, compared to a loss of $52.8 million in 2009 and a loss of $22 million in 2008.

For Q1 FY11, the company made net income of $11.8 million, and ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $996 million, mainly thanks to its many pre-IPO investor rounds.

It currently has 2,268 full-time employees.

For the same period however, GREE had net quarterly income of $99 million, while DeNA booked $114 million of income, demonstrating – even in a somewhat apples to pears comparison – as mobile platforms they are much more profitable than Zynga, which relies on Facebook for the majority of its business. (source:pocketgamer

2)Facebook Engineers Build Google+ Inspired Facebook Hack

Alexia Tsotsis

With many asserting that Google+ is heavily Facebook influenced, Facebook engineers Vladimir Kolesnikov, Peng Fan, Zahan Malkani, Brian Rosenthal have flipped the switch and taken inspiration from the novel Google Circles design with Circlehack, a much simpler tool to build Facebook Friend lists.

Right now the only way you can create lists on Facebook is by going to the Friends page, clicking on the Account drop down menu, then clicking on “Edit Friends” and then again on

“Create a List” and a bunch of other cumbersome stuff.

It’s a mess, but crucial if you want to achieve the same granular sharing features as Google+ on Facebook (which you can do by going to “Privacy Settings,” clicking “Customize,” then under “Make this open to” click oh hell just Google it).

While Circlehack doesn’t have all the design features of Google+ e.g. the circles your friends are members of don’t glow upon hover and you can’t automatically set Groups or privacy settings within the app, it’s a start, at least for Facebook.(source:techcrunch

3)Who outguns the other? Electronic Arts vs Zynga

Dean Takahashi

Social game maker Zynga, maker of games like FarmVille, filed for an initial public offering on Friday. The largest maker of games on Facebook will reportedly offer 10 percent of the company for sale at a $20 billion valuation. That compares to an $8 billion valuation for Electronic Arts, one of the biggest and oldest video game publishers which competes head to head against Zynga for employees.

EA was founded in 1982 and it makes games such as the upcoming Battlefield 3, pictured on the left. Zynga was founded in 2007 and it makes social games on Facebook such as Empires &Allies, pictured right. While EA is part of the old guard, investors are frothing at the prospect of Zynga’s IPO because it dominates the market for games on Facebook, where it has 279 million monthly active users. Since Facebook is still private, investors may view a Zynga IPO as the next best thing.

Zynga is growing faster than EA, but Zynga hasn’t completed its first year with a billion dollars in revenue yet. Meanwhile EA is generating nearly $4 billion a year making video games for consoles, PCs, mobile phones and social platforms such as Facebook; about $850 million in EA’s revenues comes from digital sources such as mobile, online, Facebook, and downloadable console games. Will investors be insane to view Zynga as more valuable than EA? For the first time, thanks to Zynga’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, we can now do a side-by-side comparison of how the companies both performed in the first calendar quarter of the year. Take a look at what the numbers show.

Here are a few significant differences between two of the mightiest companies in the game industry.

Revenue: Zynga brought in $235 million in net revenue in the first quarter this year, up 130 percent from $101 million in revenue in the same quarter a year earlier. EA’s GAAP net revenue for the fourth quarter was $1.09 billion, up 11 percent from $979 million in the prior year.

Profit: Zynga made a net profit of $11.8 million in the first quarter this year, up 84 percent from $6.4 million in the first quarter of 2010. EA’s net income was $151 million, up five-fold from $30 million a year earlier.

Cost of goods sold: Zynga’s cost of goods sold were $67.6 million, up from $32.9 million a year ago. EA’s cost of goods sold was $328 million, up from $298 million a year ago.  This is the cost for getting products out the door.

Marketing Costs: Compared to EA, Zynga spends very little on marketing. Zynga spent $40.2 million on marketing in the first quarter this year and $17.4 million a year earlier. EA spent $194 million on sales and marketing, up from $171 million a year ago.

Selling, General and Administrative Costs: Zynga’s administrative costs only make up a fraction of the company’s total costs.  Zynga spent $27.1 million on administrative costs in the first quarter this year, compared to $16.5 million in the first quarter last year. EA spent $75 million in administrative costs in the quarter ended March 31, down from $79 million a year ago.

Employees: Zynga had 2,268 employees at the end of May and 1,858 at the end of March 31. EA had 7,645 employees at the end of March 31. Back in December, 2008, Zynga had 157 employees.

About 64 percent of the Zynga employees have been there less than one year and 92 percent have been there less than two years. But Zynga has a number of former EA executives, including John Schappert (former No. 2 at EA), Steve Chiang, former head of EA Sports, and Mark Skaggs.

Cash: Zynga has $995.6 million in cash and marketable securities. EA has $2.2 billion.

Social game users: Zynga had 236 million monthly active users on March 31, flat compared to a year ago. EA had 36 million monthly active users (from its Playfish acquisition), down from 51  million a year ago. Zynga has more users than the next 15 competitors combined on Facebook.

What does it all mean? EA beats Zynga on just about every measure, but it is valued at less than half of Zynga, based on the expected valuation of the IPO. That’s insane and it shows how  frothy the market is for internet stocks. Zynga’s hold on its users is fragile. If it doesn’t come up with a hot game, users will cycle through its games and move on to others. If Zynga launches games that are duds, the bubble will pop.

On the other hand, Zynga has become a distribution powerhouse, with games like Empires & Allies growing to 46 million users in a month because of viral links to other games. Each new Zynga game is turning out to be more successful than prior games. If Zynga can also grow in other parts of the world and make headway in mobile games, it will be less dependent on Facebook for revenue.

The danger for EA is that froth has a way of becoming real; Zynga’s higher potential valuation means that the market views Zynga as the future and EA as the past. Zynga is expected to be even more valuable than Activision Blizzard, the largest video game company, which has a $13.5 billion valuation. Again, that’s crazy, considering Activision Blizzard’s strength in online gaming via World of Warcraft. To truly earn its place as the world’s most valuable game company, Zynga will have to live up to its tradition of being a disruptor.(source:venturebeat

4)Zuckerberg Surprised That People Are Surprised He’s On Google+

Alexia Tsotsis

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg joining Google+ was a major media event, with everyone from Forbes to The Daily Mail covering the fact that the founder established a Google+ profile, building Circles that include former Facebooker Dustin Moskovitz and current Facebook CTO Bret Taylor.

While many were doubtful that the real Zuckerberg would join a competing social service, tech blogger Robert Scoble texted Zuckerberg himself to confirm, tweeting out “Name drop moment.

Zuckerberg just texted me back. Says “Why are people so surprised that I’d have a Google account?”

In case anyone is still doubting that it is the real Zuck on there, Scoble tells me that Zuckerberg indeed meant Google+ account when he referred to Google account. But the real question is, why are people so surprised that Zuckerberg would chose to be on Google+?

Perhaps the answer lies in the precedent set by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who seem to have shied away from interacting on Facebook as themselves. (According to Steven Levy, Brin is actually on Facebook as a pseudonym. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt is also rumored to be on the service, independently of when Mike impersonated him).

Page’s and Brin’s behavior aside, plenty of other founders (Myspace Tom for example) have shown that it’s perfectly normal to partake and enjoy competitive services, and that it shouldn’t necessarily be considered an act of espionage. I for one just hope Zuckerberg is more prolific on Google+ than he is on Twitter.(source:techcrunch

5)Q: How Many Users Does LinkedIn Have In Japan? A: Not Many.

Dr. Serkan Toto

Business social network LinkedIn is a juggernaut on a quite a few levels, but as many sites of its kind, it never gained traction in Japan. The American company started working on a Japanese localization (in February this year) before announcing a full-fledged entry into the local market back in May (together with Digital Garage).

In fact, LinkedIn planned to enter Japan as early as 2007 (and founder Reid Hoffman still sits on the advisory board of Digital Garage).

Japan has always been a difficult market to enter for LinkedIn, which currently boasts 100 million registered members worldwide. But how many of them are located in Japan?

The company itself doesn’t break down country-specific numbers, but as in the case of Facebook, there is a work-around to find at least an approximate number: the official LinkedIn self-service ad tool.

I used the tool to find out how many Japan-based members the site has today, and this is what it showed me:

As you can see, it seems that the number stands at just below 370,000 (LinkedIn says that “The Estimated Target Audience is an approximation of total member registrations and should not be considered exact.”). To put things into perspective: that’s 10% of Facebook’s current user base in Japan.

Google Trends for Websites shows that with regards to traffic on PCs, LinkedIn, at this point, is a niche site in Japan:(source:serkantoto

6)Unreal PC steampunk cowboy shooter Warm Gun coming to iOS

by Jon Jordan

Previously just in development for PC using the indie Unreal Development Kit, US studio Emotional Robots Inc. has announced Warm Gun is coming to iPhone and iPad.

It describes the release as being a direct port from the PC game; no doubt the quality of the graphics will be have to be toned down, but the first batch of screenshots look pretty nice.

Guns in them there hills

As for the gameplay, Warm Gun a freeform FPS, set in an apocalyptic futuristic steampunk cowboy world, in which you get to choose between one of four characters – The 49′er, the Blacksmith, The Shaman and The Preacher.

Each has three unique weapons – each of the type ranged, instant kill melee and grenade – and the action takes place across five maps, available in online and offline modes. Keeping you on your toes, these feature traps and special events such as the Air Raid, pick up stations and grenade depots.

You can get some idea of the level of promised graphics in the iPad screen below, although the gameplay videos are from the PC version. More information is available at the game’s website.

Warm Gun is expected to be released for iOS this summer and for PC in the autumn.(source:pocketgamer

7)Tim Langdell returns to edgy game development with EDGEBobby2 for iOS

by Jon Jordan

Like the anti-hero who miraculously revives at the climax of a blockbuster to force another adrenaline boost on the audience, EDGE Games – the operation of infamous IP litigant Tim Langdell – is apparently back in operation.

It’s just released the snappily titled EDGEBobby2 onto the Apple Store for iPhone and iPad.

From the description, we can read it’s the “Sequel to the highly popular classic game Bobby Bearing.

“Bobby returns to the realm of Technofear to seek out his brothers who have got lost again. Easy to play, but very hard to master, this arcade action style 3D puzzler will keep you challenged for hours.”

From the single screenshot, it looks a bit like Marble Madness meets ecstasy iconography, and is available in a paid universal 99c, €0.79 or 59p release, or a free version which just contains the first zone [iTunes link].

Apparently, there are also plans for the game to be released for Android, PC and Mac. (source:pocketgamer


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