1）据games报道，密苏里大学科技教授Ivan G.Guardiola近日提出社交游戏《FarmVille》有用助于传播工程学知识的观点，并以其开展的一个调研课题“挑战FarmVille”为例进行说明。

farmville teaches engineering(from games)

该课题共有28名大学生参与者，他们需要在一周内多次体验《FarmVille》这款游戏，他们需在当周比拼谁获得最多的虚拟货币和经验值。这些本科生在刚开始时可以通过数学算法设置自己的最佳方案，但随着游戏条件的变化，他们就会发现自己的计划总赶不上变化。

Guardiola认为这款游戏的独特属性是其作理想实验范例的原因，它可以让学生随着变化的环境而制定决策，解决互有冲突和矛盾的问题。学生们在玩游戏过程中可自行决定要开垦多少土地，播下多少种子，何时收割庄稼，在工程学领域，他们习惯参照数据来制定决策，但由于万物都在发生变化，所以这种方法存在局限性，参与课题的多数学生都表示玩《FarmVille》提高了他们的辩证思维，但也有三分之一学生认为玩《FarmVille》真是一项耗时的工作。

2）手机及社交游戏开发商Funzio日前登上了《华尔街日报》的Dow Jones VentureWire FASTech 50榜单，成为最具创新性的科技初创企业之一，该公司是今年唯一上榜的游戏公司。

crime-city(from venturebeat.com)

该公司在今年5月的A轮融资中筹得2000万美元，旗下的《Crime City》去年发布于Facebook，在最高峰时的DAU超过100万，MAU曾突破750万，

3）微软研究院高级研究员Danah Boyd在7月份调查了许多家长允许13岁以下儿童接触Facebook的原因，并发现这些家长对儿童在线隐私保护法案（COPPA）并不了解（游戏邦注：该调查样本是1007名拥有10至14岁子女的美国家长，调查日期是7月5日至14日）。

Facebook underage users(from blog.socialshield.com)

55%拥有12岁子女的家长知道孩子有Facebook帐号，其中有82%知道孩子注册帐号的时间，76%帮助孩子注册帐号。

36%家长表示孩子在13岁之前就加入了Facebook网络，其中有68%还帮助孩子创建Facebook帐号。

53%家长认为Facebook需要设定一个最小年龄限制，有35%家长认为这种想法只能作为一个参考建议。

78%家长认为违反Facebook最小年龄限制的这个规则并无不妥。

虽然COPPA在Facebook问世前就已经存在，但有许多家长希望子女成为“负有责任感的数字公民”，所以不排斥他们接触Facebook之类的网站。

4）市场调研公司Enders Analysis最近预测，2015年英国社交游戏市场规模将达4亿英磅。

尽管与前两年相比，这个数据表现平平，但由于Facebook等社交网站的病毒传播及免费游戏的盛行，PC端社交游戏领域已获得显著发展，在未来四年，PC、移动和平板电脑领域的社交游戏产值将达4亿英磅。

5）据TriplePundit报道，前律师及企业家Michael Fox日前表示其即将推出的纽约社交游戏公司Beekin将在第一年募集100万美元，并希望由此成立一个非赢利机构。

Beekin-logo(from games)

观察者指出，虽然2010年社交游戏领域的总产值为13亿美元，Fox此番决心并非不可实现的目标，但却必须面临Facebook游戏曝光率减少的问题。不过Fox称Beekin开发的每款游戏都将有4个支持力量：主流品牌、名人推荐、公益目的以及了解社会弊病的热心玩家。

据称Fox成立的Humanitainment公司已掌握了大量名人资源，所以应该不难产生名人及品牌号召力，真正的挑战在于Beekin能否开发出吸引玩家付费的游戏。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）FarmVille can teach engineering skills, too, Missouri professor says

by Joe Osborne

We’ve heard of Zynga’s iconic game teaching valuable lessons in addiction, design and even copyright law, but engineering? That’s what Missouri University of Science and Technology professor Ivan G. Guardiola thinks FarmVille is capable of. Guardiola’s 28 students enrolled in the Introduction to Operations Research course must play the game for one week. Pretty sweet deal, huh?

“The unique attributes of this game make it ideal for presenting the students with a problem that evolves, aims to define the student’s decision-making rationale and allows the student to address conflicting and competing objectives in an environment of continuous change,” Guardiola said in a release.

This week-long portion of the course, titled the “FarmVille Challenge,” used to eat up a month of the students’ semester. Within this week, eager undergraduates compete to see who can come away with the most coins and experience points. Students make plans at the outset based on mathematical models, but those plans can quickly change with shifting game conditions.

“It is up to the player to determine how much land to plow, which seeds to plant, how many seeds to plant, and when to harvest the plants,” Guardiola said. “Decisions are completely up to the player. In engineering, we use data to make decisions, but that approach has limitations because situations are constantly changing. So you have to assess your situation continuously and adjust accordingly.”

According to Guardiola, a majority of his students agreed that playing FarmVille has improved their critical thinking ability. (Really? Because I thought players log in to turn their minds off for a bit.) However, more than one-third of students considered FarmVille to be too time-consuming. Then again, who ever said college wasn’t altogether time-consuming?（source:games）

2）Funzio Named the Most Innovative Gaming Startup in The Wall Street Journal

By Sebastian Sujka

Funzio, developer games for mobile, Facebook and Google+, has been named to the Dow Jones VentureWire FASTech 50 list of the most innovative technology startups that appeared in The Wall Street Journal. Funzio is the only gaming company who made this year’s list.

“Venture capitalists are always searching for startups that are developing truly original technology with the potential to transform the marketplace,” said Scott Austin, editor of Dow Jones VentureWire. “The FASTech 50 cuts through the clutter of me-too startups to highlight companies developing the most innovative and investment-worthy technologies.”

Funzio’s Crime City game first launched on Facebook, and it quickly became one of the top Facebook games of the year. Crime City on Facebook has had more than 1 million daily active users and more than 7.5 million monthly active users at its peak.

In May 2011 Funzio secured $20 million in Series A growth financing led by IDG Ventures in the US and IDG Capital Partners in China.

“We’re honored to be selected as the most innovative gaming startup,” said Ken Chiu, CEO of Funzio. “We can’t wait to release more high quality games that people love playing on mobile, Facebook and Google+.”（source:socialgamesobserver）

3）Why Parents Scoff At Facebook’s Age Limit Of 13

by David Cohen

Okay, maybe it’s not as bad as parents buying beer for their kids under age 21 or cigarettes for those under 18, but Microsoft Research Senior Researcher Danah Boyd examined why so many parents allow their children under the Facebook age limit of 13 to join the social network.

Boyd found that parents don’t have enough awareness about the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which restricts access to social network to kids aged 13 and older. And:

55 percent of parents of 12-year-olds know their children have Facebook accounts, with 82 percent of those knowing when their kids signed up, and 76 percent assisting them in the process.

36 percent of all parents surveyed (1,007 U.S. parents with children 10 to 14 living with them, from July 5 through 14) said their kids joined Facebook before turning 13, and 68 percent of those also helped their children create their accounts on the social network.

53 percent of parents think Facebook has a minimum age requirement, while 35 percent believe it is only a recommendation.

78 percent think violating the minimum-age limits for online services is acceptable.

Boyd pointed out that strictly enforcing COPPA would be cost prohibitive for online companies such as Facebook. The legislation became effective prior to the emergence of social media.

She added that many parents want their children to become “responsible digital citizens,” and the first step toward that is allowing them to access sites such as Facebook.（source:allfacebook）

4）UK Social gaming sector worth around £400m by 2015 says Enders Analysis

by STEPHEN LEPITAK

UK Social gaming sector worth around £400m by 2015Social gaming in the UK is expected to be worth up to £400m by 2015, predicts Enders Analysis.

The research company has produced a presentation on the social gaming market within the UK, examining consumer spend on games software.

While this has been flat for the previous two years, the sector has seen ‘rapid growth’ in PC-based social gaming, with free-to-play games and viral marketing through social networks, particularly Facebook, proving effective.

As a result, social gaming through PC, mobile and tablets could be worth £400m within the next four years, with much of this revenue driven by ‘social’ layers being added to existing gaming franchises.（source:thedrum）

5）Beekin looks to make social games that raise $1 million for nonprofits

by Joe Osborne

Social game giants like Zynga and EA raise a good amount of money for disaster relief and other charities during events. But what if that in-game event never ended? That’s what former lawyer and entrepreneur Michael Fox hopes to make possible with Beekin, his upcoming New York-based social games project. According to TriplePundit, Fox hopes to raise $1 million for nonprofits in the company’s first year.

While no games were announced or detailed, the company hopes to bake an infrastructure for helping nonprofits meet their goals directly into each game. “They’re the FarmVille of philanthropy,” Beekin founder Micheal Fox told TriplePundit. While TriplePundit says that Fox’s goal of $1 million raised for nonprofits within a year is reasonable, citing the $1.3 billion the social games industry made in 2010.

However, there is an issue of exposure. Even with changes to the Ticker and other enhancements to game discovery, it’s more difficult than ever to gain traction on Facebook. Well, Fox and Beekin have a plan for that: Every social game created by Beekin will be supported by a four-pillar system: major brand support, celebrity endorsements, nonprofit interest and motivated players that become aware of the social ills each game is trying to correct.

We’re not too keen on that last one, but Fox’s primary company, Humanitainment, has access to immense celebrity resources. If hip hop icons Kanye West and Common showed their support for the company’s New Life Project, then perhaps Fox can rally other celebrities and brands to get behind Beekin. The most daunting challenge facing Beekin is whether it can create social games that can spur players to pay up.（source:games）