1）社交游戏开发商Zynga最近向Android平台发布《Hanging With Freinds》，该游戏是Zynga最近几个月推出的第五款Android游戏。玩家现在即可通过Android Market免费下载《Hanging With Freinds》。

Hanging-With-Friends(from buzzbox.com)

该公司目前共推出了5款Android版游戏、5款iPad游戏，1款移动网页游戏，13款iPhone游戏。

2）据游戏运营博客gamesbrief观察，去年11月份，IAP（应用内置付费功能）模式为iOS应用商创造了30%的收益；在该平台营收前100名的应用中，有34款属于通过IAP创收的免费增值游戏。需注意的是，在该应用商店中，IAP免费应用数量仅占1.34%比例。

infinity blade(from enterquantum.com)

今年6月份，Epic Games通过《无尽之剑》创收1000多万美元，其中有三分之一以上来自IAP模式。

与此同时，XMG studios有将近三分之二的营收来自虚拟商品交易，而去年的这一比例仅有10%。

平均每笔iOS或Android的IAP交易额为14美元，这比多数开发者通过精装版+付费版这种盈利模式的收益高14倍（游戏邦注：该数据取自观察者对350万用户在游戏中消费行为的分析结果）。

51%的IAP营收来自每笔20美元以上的交易，这其中每笔50美元以上的交易比例占30%，这意味着50美元以上的交易在IAP总收益中所占比例达15%。如果要最大化游戏盈利性，开发者应想法让玩家在游戏中消费50美元以上。

Social Gold报告曾指出，如果游戏能够成功让玩家投入1美元，那么56%的付费用户还会进行第二次消费，25%的付费用户会进行三次或更多次消费。

3）Appy Entertainment宣布其手机游戏《FaceFighter》系列目前下载量已突破1000万次，玩家体验所有的Appy游戏达1.14亿次，每天游戏时间超过360万小时。

FaceFighter(from funiphone.pixnet.net)

该公司采用免费模式之后，其游戏下载量提升了340%，现在每日下载量是2万次。

4）移动广告营销公司Tapjoy日前推出新服务Tapjoy Videos，支持游戏开发商和广告主通过该服务更有效地获取手机用户。

Tapjoy video ad(from venturebeat)

广告主可通过购买Tapjoy平台中的手机应用ppv（计次付费）视频广告，使其在游戏或应用运行过程中进行展示，而用户则可通过观察视频广告获取优惠奖励，例如赢取手机游戏中的虚拟商品、虚拟货币。

5）据彭博社报道，芬兰开发商Rovio日前宣布将与星巴克展开品牌营销合作，将支持购买咖啡的用户通过店内的WiFi网络玩《愤怒的小鸟》获取由星巴克提供的手机应用、书摘，甚至是电视节目和手机游戏等免费内容，并通过星巴克电子阅读板看到自己获得的高分。

angry-birds-coffee-art(from blog.games.com)

6）据asiajin报道，日本DeNA公司旗下的Mobage平台正准备进军平板电脑领域，支持该平台的功能性及智能手机游戏开发者使用Mobage ngCore SED创建iOS、Adnroid平板电脑的游戏版本。

Mobage moves to tablets(from asiajin)

该公司将把智能手机版的Mobage应用引进日本富士通的Docomo平板设备“ARROWS Tab LTE F-01D”，并作为“游戏中心”预装到三星的Docomo平板设备“GALAXY Tab 10.1 LTE SC-01D”，这是Mobage首次预装到平板电脑。

7）日本社交平台GREE也在近日宣布将把智能手机版GREE移植到Android平板电脑和iPad，该平台开发者的智能手机应用将自动针对平板电脑进行优化。开发者无需执行额外开发工作，就能同时针对两种设备开发GREE应用。

GREE(from asiajin)

GREE的Android平板电脑版本将预装到富士通和宏碁Android平板电脑，这些设备将从今年秋季开始发售。

8）市场调研公司NPD最新报告显示，Windows Phone 7平台的用户认同度较为乐观——有44%现在已经拥有或者有意买智能手机的受访者表示，他们会考虑购买WP7手机。

windows-phone-7(from venturebeat)

但NPD同时也指出，WP7目前遇到的瓶颈是其知名度相当有限。在所有受访者中，有45%的用户不了解这个手机操作系统，有50%准备在未来6个月中购买新手机的用户反映，WP7不在他们的考虑范围之内。还有21%用户表示，他们不会选择WP7的原因是，转换手机平台需耗费大量时间或金钱。

从总体上看，Android的用户人气最高，对其“有兴趣”的用户比例达63%，表示对其“最感兴趣”的用户比例也达到了36%。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Zynga takes Hanging With Friends social game to Android

Dean Takahashi

Zynga keeps spreading its bets around. It announced today that it is launching its Hanging With Friends game to Android mobile devices. The title is the fifth that the social game maker has launched on Android in recent months.

The strategy reflects an accelerated release schedule for San Francisco-based Zynga, which hopes to go public in an initial public offering. To diversify beyond Facebook, Zynga has been moving into mobile games. But it isn’t clear how big a piece mobile revenues are for Zynga, which is the largest maker of Facebook games. Zynga now has five games on Android, five on the iPad, one on the mobile web, and 13 on the iPhone.

But mobile games aren’t yet the same kind of gold mine as Facebook games when it comes to monetization. And on the iPhone and Android, competition is fierce, with hundreds of thousands of titles competing with what Zynga offers. Among the rivals in mobile are Electronic Arts, Glu, and MindJolt. Zynga’s twist on mobile is to always offer social functionality.

Starting today, users can download the game for free from the Android Market. In the game, players take turns guessing words in a revamped version of Hangman. David Ko, chief mobile officer at Zynga, said the company is committed to offering mobile social games across multiple platforms. In the end, this game probably won’t determine whether Zynga can do an IPO or not. But it could make some Hangman enthusiasts happy.（source:venturebeat）

2）Games industry statistics – How much money could you make from in-app purchases?

Zoya Street

Wondering how much money you could make by introducing in-app purchases to your games? GAMESbrief has the figures you need to read on IAP revenues and players’ purchasing behaviours:

Last November, in-app purchases represented 30% of all iOS app store revenue. 34 of the top 100 grossing apps were free, monetised by in-app purchases, even though only 1.34% of all apps followed this model.

By June of this year, Epic Games had made over $10 million from Infinity Blade, of which between a third and a half came from in-app purchases.

Meanwhile, at XMG, approximately two-thirds of revenue now comes from virtual goods, up from only 10 percent a year ago…The reason is simple – selling virtual goods means that a small enthusiastic user base can carry a game’s economics.

The average transaction value for an iOS or Android in-app purchase is $14. That’s 14x the revenue that most developers get with a Lite + Premium strategy, and is based on an analysis of how 3.5 million consumers spend their money in games.

51% of revenue generated from in-app purchases comes from transactions of over $20. Of that 51%, 30% came from $50+ transactions suggesting that 15% of total revenue came from $50+ purchases. That means, to maximise revenue from IAP, you should have a strategy that enables players to spend $50 in your game.

Social Gold reports that once you get a player to spend a dollar, 56% of them come back to spend a second time and 25% of them spend three or more times.（source:gamesbrief）

3）Appy’s FaceFighter franchise pushes it past 10 million iOS downloads

by Matt Sakuraoka-Gilman

In an announcement of statistic proportions, Appy Entertainment reveals it’s reached a milestone of 10 million downloads, thanks in the main to its successful FaceFighter franchise.

The study also reveals that 114 million sessions of Appy games have been played, representing over 3.6 million hours of play time.

Freemium success

An impressive sixty million FaceFighter bouts have been fought, with 1.5 million pictures of defeated friends, enemies, and celebrities having been uploaded.

In the 12 weeks since Appy Entertainment started adopting freemium models such as Trucks & Skulls NITRO – as explained by Paul O’Connor in a PG.biz column – it has seen its download rate grow by 340 percent, with revenue surging by 100 in that time.

With 20,000 downloads daily, founder and CEO Chris Ulm certainly has a lot to celebrate.

“We started Appy because we envisioned a smartphone, tablet-driven future away from game consoles and dedicated handhelds.” he said.

“We made sure our games were touchscreen-native, ridiculously fun for short sessions but deep enough to challenge grizzled console veterans. With the rise of tablet computing, the paradigm shift to app stores and the upcoming ‘smart TV’ revolution, the social-mobile gaming revolution is just getting started!”（source:pocketgamer）

4）Tapjoy says it can offer more effective mobile video ads that don’t tick off users

Dean Takahashi

Mobile ad monetization firm Tapjoy is launching Tapjoy Videos today as part of a new way for game developers to make money and advertisers to reach a smartphone audience more effectively.

The move will help Tapjoy cash in better on mobile video ads, which are expected to grow to more than $20 billion by 2015, according to market researcher Gartner.

The program will allow advertisers to buy pay-per-view video ads within Tapjoy’s mobile app universe. That is, the ads will run in the games and other apps that have integrated Tapjoy’s monetization platform via its software development kit. Tapjoy will provide a native video player on the iPhone and Android smartphones that will play videos all the way through completion and do so without any annoying delays.

“We can deliver a much better result for the advertisers and the users,” said Linda Tong, Tapjoy’s vice president of products, in an interview.

Users can view the video ads to fulfill special offers, or ad deals where a user watches a video in order to earn a reward such as a virtual good inside a free-to-play mobile game. Rather than pay real money for the virtual goods, the user can do something of value to the advertiser, such as watching a movie trailer.（source:venturebeat）

5）Angry Birds shooting for Starbucks retail partnership

Aislyn Greene

Starbucks customers playing hit game Angry Birds on their smartphones could soon get access to free content and see their high scores reflected on an electronic leader board, if a reported partnership between Starbucks and game creator Rovio Entertainment comes through.

Rovio vice president Wibe Wagemans talked about a possible partnership with the Seattle coffee retailer in an interview with Bloomberg this week.

The gaming company is looking to expand its retail offerings as it preps for an IPO, readies a movie version of Angry Birds and faces increasing competition from other gaming companies, according to Wagemans.

Starbucks has ramped up its in-store digital offerings recently, looking to make use of its WiFi network and customers’ increasing use of digital devices. The coffee retailer has long offered a free song download with a beverage purchase, but recently has started to offer free apps, book excerpts and maybe even TV shows and mobile games.（source:techflash）

6）Mobage Moves To Tablets – Now Compatible With Tablet Devices, iOS, And Android

by samueljlilly

DeNA [J] has begun development of Mobage for tablet devices.

From the middle of September, their currently running game engine “Mobage ngCore SDK” is compatible with tablet devices. Now it is possible for developers who have been creating games for feature phone and smart phone with “Mobage ngCore SED” to offer social games for all tablet, iOS, and Android devices.

Simultaneously, in order to grant easier access for tablet users, smartphone Mobage applications will be made available for Fujitsu’s Docomo device “ARROWS Tab LTE F-01D.” Also, Mobage will be pre-installed as “Game Hub” on Samsung Electronics’ Docomo device “GALAXY Tab 10.1 LTE SC-01D.” This is the first instance of a Mobage pre-install for a tablet.（source:asiajin）

7）GREE Also Moves to Tablet, Developing Partners’ Smartphone Apps Automatically Optimized

by Chiho Komoriya

GREE [J] has announced that they will expand their “GREE Platform for smartphone” into “GREE Platform” for Android tablets and iPad. Developing partners’ smartphone applications will be automatically optimized for tablet.

Some titles which GREE currently offers for smartphone have already been set up to be compatible with tablets, and other titles are planned to be made available in turn. From now, all publicly available smartphone web applications will automatically be optimized for tablet, and developing partners (below-mentioned GREE partners), without needing any additional development, will now be able to develop for two types of devices. Also, it has been decided that GREE for Android tablet will be pre-installed in both Fujitsu and Acer Android tablets being sold from the Fall of 2011.

Furthermore, from this Fall, Gree will begin to offer a native application development environment compatible with Android tablet and iPad. In this first phase, “Destroy Gunners Z” by Shade, “Real Skijump HD for GREE” by Prope, and “Ragdoll” by Matrix are all panned to be released. Also PSOFT’s “AR Missile” has been announced to be released for iPad.（source:asiajin）

8）Windows Phone 7 grabs consumer interest, may threaten Android

Devindra Hardawar

News that Google’s Android mobile operating system is dominating the smartphone market is old hat, but a recent report suggests that the Windows Phone 7 OS is gaining considerable ground in terms of consumer awareness.

As unbelievable as it may seem, 44 percent people who currently own or intend to buy a smartphone say that they are considering a Windows Phone 7 device, the market research group NPD reports, based on findings from its Connected Intelligence service. While consumer intent can only tell us so much, the figure is a sign that Microsoft is doing something right with its new mobile platform.

Still, NPD points out Windows Phone 7 faces major hurdles — 45 percent of all consumers still aren’t aware of the platform, for example. Additionally, 50 percent of consumers who say they plan to buy a new smartphone in the next six months, but aren’t considering Windows Phone 7, cite lack of awareness as a reason for their disinterest. The second most popular reason against considering Windows Phone was ecosystem lock-in, with 21 percent saying they had “too much time or money invested in another smartphone OS.”

Meanwhile, Android continues to dominate consumer interest compared to other mobile operating systems (63 percent). It was also the leading platform that consumers were most interested in (36 percent). According to Connected Intelligence’s research, Android accounted for more than half of all smartphone sales in the past three quarters, which falls in line with recent figures from NPD and Nielsen.（source:venturebeat）