1）Distimo高管Hendrik Koekkoek在威瑞森大会发言中指出，在所有智能手机应用商店中，威瑞森V Cast的应用平均售价最高（仅次于iPad应用），在今年4月份达到目的4.81美元，紧随其后的是平均售价达4.17美元的黑莓App World，而iPhone App Store的产品平均售价则是3.84美元。

avg listing price whole store(from Distimo)

Android和Windows Phone应用平均售价分别为3.3美元和3.29美元。

Koekkoek还对V Cast和iPhone应用商店定价和盈利模式进行了一番对比，并表示在今年4月，美国最热门应用在V Cast的平均售价为3.79美元（接近于平均售价达3.94美元的iPad应用），而在7月份的iPhone应用商店却平均仅售1.47美元。

avg selling price most popular apps(from Distimo)

在付费与免费应用的下载比例上，V Cast的数据也同样高于iPhone应用商店，其下载比例为11.8（付费应用）：100（免费应用），而iPhone的同一比例仅是8.7：100。

free volume vs paid volume(from Distimo)

V Cast并不支持IAP功能，但在其营收前200名的应用中，有44%收益来自订阅服务。

2）在最近的威瑞森开发者社区大会上，Distimo高管Hendrik Koekkoek在发言中表示，自2010年以来，iPhone App Store中的免费应用下载量增长了34%，而付费应用下载量增长率仅为7%（游戏邦注：这些数据分别取自前300名免费与付费应用榜单）。

revenue comes from IAP(from Distimo)

值得注意的是，尽管仅有4%的App Store应用含有IAP功能，但却有72%的收益来自这些IAP应用；在这72%的收益中，有24%来自含IAP的付费应用，有48%来自含IAP的免费应用。App Store中的付费应用创造了剩下的28%收益。

他还指出，尽管Android Market在今年3月才开始支持IAP功能，但在8月份，在美国营收前25名的Android应用中，就有68%采用了IAP功能。

3）免费在线游戏发行商Aeria Games日前宣布其30多款在线游戏的全球用户超过2300万（主要分布于北美、拉美和欧洲地区），目前每月平均新增用户100万左右。

Aeria Games(from venturebeat)

该公司还积极向移动领域进军，收购了手机游戏工作室Punch Development（成立于2005年）的一款正在制作中的游戏和一个团队，Punch团队将加入Aeria在美国加州圣克拉拉的工作室。

4）据pocketgamer报道，亚马逊现在虽未正式宣布向全球开放Android应用商店亚马逊Appstore服务，但其英国应用商店日前已开始支持下载应用，据称其他已开放服务的地区包括澳大利亚、荷兰和印度。

amazon-android-appstore(from blog.gadgethelpline.com)

亚马逊Appstore在今年3月上线时仅向美国地区开放服务，目前尚无关于其付费游戏下载数据，据称其免费应用下载量最为庞大。

5）据社交新闻网站继声称将起诉Rovio、EA、雅达利、Square Enix等大型公司之后，Lodsy公司最近又将矛头指向小型独立开发商。

《Dillo Hills》（游戏邦注：它是《Tiny Wings》的Android版克隆游戏）的独立开发者Justin Smith日前自称收到Lodsys一封厚重的来信，后者通过大量文件指出Smith的游戏有多处设置侵犯其号码为7,222,078的专利权，例如游戏中的“仅限付费玩家”按钮，该功能支持玩家将免费应用升级至付费版本。

dillo-hills-claim(from pocketgamer)

Smith只好在Android Market中移除了《Dillo Hills Lite》这个免费简装版本，他表示无论对方提出的理由有多荒唐，他都不愿意卷入任何专利侵权案，所以只能选择主动移除应用这种息事宁人的方式。

6）《光晕》开发商Bungie日前发布其首款iOS游戏《Crimson:Steam Pirates》，这款免费的iPad策略游戏出自Harebrained Schemes和Jordan Weisman之手。

Crimson：Steam Pirates(from insidemobileapps)

玩家在游戏中要扮演Thomas Blood船长的角色，掌管蒸汽战舰、潜艇和飞艇，完成8项与这些运输工具变体有关的任务。该游戏还含有一个支持玩家在同一部iPad中体验游戏的多人模式。

《Crimson:Steam Pirates》发布后曾获得苹果iOS每周游戏版块的推荐，目前仍位列iPad应用营收榜单前10名，其主要营收渠道是游戏中的1.99美元IAP功能。

7）法国游戏发行商Gameloft日前推出Gameloft游戏卡，在英国将通过两大零售商Game和Gamestation发售，每张卡售价4.95英磅，支持用户使用游戏卡通过Gameloft的D2C网站下载5款游戏。

Gameloft Game Card(from eurodroid.com)

这就意味着该卡不可用于购买iOS游戏，而只能选择下载Android、黑莓、Symbian和Java版本的游戏，但可以通过此举获得可达66%的优惠。

Gameloft表示这是公司首次支持用户用户通过实体零售商购买其手机游戏。该公司之前还针对Android高清移动设备推出了订阅服务。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Verizon’s V Cast store maintains highest average app price on mobile reckons Distimo

by Matt Sakuraoka-Gilman

A recent Distimo presentation at the Verizon Developer Community Conference in Las Vegas highlighted the fact its curated V Cast store has the highest average application price listing among smartphone app stores.

The average listing price of a V Cast app was $4.81 in April this year. BlackBerry App World came closest with $4.17 as its average price per app, while iPhone’s app store average was $3.84.

Android and Window’s Phone’s averages were almost level at $3.30 and $3.29 respectively.

The only format higher than V Cast was iPad.

Money, money, monetisation

The presentation, given by Distimo’s Hendrik Koekkoek, also detailed a comparison between V Cast and iPhone in terms of price modelling and monetisation.

The average US selling price of the most popular apps on V Cast was $3.79 in April, while the figure stood at $1.47 on Apple’s iPhone in July. The V Cast figure, though representative of mobile apps, was close to the $3.94 given for iPad average app prices.

11.8 paid for every 100 free

In terms of new pricing models and in relation to the increasing financial validity of freemium titles, Koekkoek highlighted the number of paid apps purchased for every free app downloaded.

V Cast’s figure here was higher than the iPhone’s at 11.8 apps bought for every 100 downloaded for free. On iPhone it was found that 8.7 apps were bought for every 100.

While V Cast does not yet allow in-app purchases, 44 percent of its revenue from its 200 most grossing applications is based upon subscription services.

Verizon recently dropped the V Cast name to launch its new Android-based app store with search specialist Chomp.（source:pocketgamer）

2）72% of iPhone app revenue comes from in-app purchases, up from 28% in 2010

by Matt Sakuraoka-Gilman

In a recent presentation at the Verizon Developer Community Conference in Las Vegas, Hendrik Koekkoek of Distimo – once again – highlighted the importance of the freemium application model.

Specifically he revealed that the growth of free app downloads from the iPhone App Store has grow 34 percent since 2010, whie paid application downloads have grown by 7 percent. These figures were taken from the top 300 downloads in each category.

In-app magic

Further pushing the freemium format is the fact that, despite only 4 percent of apps on the App Store allowing in-app purchasing – apparently – 72 percent of revenue comes from apps featuring the method.

This 24 percent of revenue was attained via paid apps with in-app purchasing while 48 percent was attained through free apps with in app purchasing. The remaining 28 percent was attained through paid apps.

The figure of 72 percent represents a large rise from this time last year, when a mere 28 percent of revenue was attained through in-app sales.

The presentation also iterated that, even though Android had only started to allow in-app purchases in March 2011, in the US in August, 68 percent of the 25 most grossing apps were utilising the service.（source:pocketgamer）

3）Aeria Games expands into mobile, reaches 23 million users worldwide

By Andrew Webster

Free-to-play online games publisher Aeria Games has announced that it has surpassed 23 million users worldwide across its library of games. The company has also acquired its first, as-of-yet untitled mobile game along with additional mobile developers.

The 23 million users are spread out across Aeria’s library of more than 30 online games, available in North and Latin America and Europe. However, the publisher has been growing quickly, and currently averages around one million new players each month.

“Our strategy of targeting highly engaged power gamers around the world and delivering high quality content and outstanding service is paying off with our steadily growing pool of tens of millions of gamers and our extremely strong average revenue per user,” Aeria CEO Lan Hoang said. “As we move forward, we will continue to form strategic partnerships and grow our development teams while building and acquiring more engaging content to reward our dedicated power gamers.”

As for mobile, Aeria has acquired both a game and a team from Punch Development, a mobile studio founded in 2005. The game doesn’t have a name nor were any details about it announced. The Punch team will join Aeria’s office in Santa Clara, California where it will work on this, as well as other unannounced mobile projects.（source:gamezebo）   http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2011/09/19/aeria-games-expands-mobile-reaches-23-million-users-worldwide

4）Amazon Appstore for Android finally goes live globally

by Jon Jordan

It’s taken much longer we initially hoped but Amazon seemed to have rolled out its Appstore for Android globally.

There’s been no official confirmation yet but the UK store is definitely enabling downloads – both paid and free.

Other confirmed territories now online include Australia, Holland and Indi,a so it seems likely that the store has been opened for European and other key countries.

The news comes as Amazon is expected to officially announce its tablet plans with a $250 7-inch Android-powered Kindle-branded device rumoured to be released in November.

Store for all

The Amazon Appstore for Android was originally launched for only American Amazon account holders in March.

Download volumes of paid games aren’t thought to have been particularly high to-date, and there’s been plenty of controversy over Amazon’s terms and conditions for developers, but the store’s free app of the day is known to be generating large numbers of downloads.

Now, hopefully, with the content available to hundreds of millions of additional consumers, we’ll really be able to see how Amazon’s store fits into the wider, fragmented Android store ecosystem.（source:pocketgamer）

5）Patent troll Lodsys targets independent developer of Tiny Wings Android clone Dillo Hills

by Anthony Usher

Not content with attempting to sue Rovio, EA, Atari, Square Enix, and a bunch of other big name players in the gaming industry, patent troll Lodsys is once again going after the little guy.

Posting on social news website Reddit, independent developer Justin Smith – best known for his Tiny Wings Android clone Dillo Hills – has detailed the company’s patent infringement claim against him.

“Yesterday, I received a bulky envelope containing a massive stack of papers from an address I didn’t recognize: Lodsys, LLC, from somewhere in Texas.

“It was a kind gesture, as I’m actually starting to run low on toilet paper, but some of the papers claim that one of my personal/hobby projects, Dillo Hills, is infringing upon one or more of their patents.”

The patent in question is numbered 7,222,078 and refers to an in-game ‘Premium Players Only’ button, which allows you to upgrade a free app into a paid app, complete with benefits.

Dillo Hills Lite has since been removed from the Android Market by Smith.

“Anyway, the very first thing I did is take the free version of the game off the market, so that I am not willingly infringing on any of these patents, no matter how stupid and unreasonable they are.”（source：pocketgamer）

6）Crimson: Steam Pirates Sails Into Charted Territory on the iPad

By Randy Nelson

Bungie Aerospace, Halo creator Bungie’s initiative to help mobile and social game developers,  has launched its first title for iOS. Crimson: Steam Pirates is a free, iPad-exclusive strategy game from Harebrained Schemes and Jordan Weisman, the creator of FASA franchises MechWarrior, Crimson Skies and Shadowrun.

In this steampunk styled title, players are Captain Thomas Blood, a swashbuckling hero in command of steam-powered battleships, submarines and zeppelins. Eight missions employ more than a dozen variants of these vehicles, as players tap and drag to create paths for their war machines to follow. Gameplay unfolds from a bird-eye view on a hand-drawn world map.

Aboard their ships, special crewmates allow players to increase their gun range, boost their speed and other perks. Beyond just pulling alongside other vessels and opening fire, players can send crew members to attack and board their enemies’ ships, eventually commandeering them if victorious.

The game also offers a multiplayer mode utilizing a single iPad. This involves players passing the device back and forth between turns in two different scenarios: rescue and protecting a VIP.

Crimson: Steam Pirates was chosen as Apple’s iOS Game of the Week following its release and has remained in the top 10 iPad apps since. Although the game is free, its publisher is offering additional missions in the form of a $1.99 in-app purchase.

You can follow Crimson: Steam Pirates’ progress using AppData, our tracking service for mobile games and developers.（source:insidemobileapps）

7）Gameloft selling mobile Game Cards in UK retailers

by Stuart Dredge

Game and Gamestation will be selling £4.95 cards for downloads of Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and Java games.

Mobile games publisher Gameloft has unveiled its latest direct-to-consumer initiative: Gameloft Game Cards.

The cards are initially being sold in the UK through two high-street retailers: Game and Gamestation. The cards cost £4.95, and enable the purchaser to download five games from Gameloft’s own mobile store.

That means no iOS titles though. Instead, people buying the Game Cards can choose from Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and Java games on the publisher’s D2C store, with savings of up to 66% available.

Gameloft is saying this is the first time people in the UK have been able to buy its mobile games from physical retailers, although we’re fairly sure it used to sell game boxes with download codes inside in mobile shops back in the day.

The new cards follow the publisher’s recent launch of a subscription service for Android HD devices.（source:mobile-ent）