1）东京杂志发行商Enterbrain（游戏邦注：其旗下最重要的产品是日本最有影响力的电子游戏杂志《Famitsu》）最近发布的报告显示，2010年日本社交游戏市场规模比2009年增长4.4倍，产值从原来的3.24亿美元增长至14.5亿美元。

sales in japan's online gaming industry(from serkantoto)

这些数据包括日本DeNA（Mobage平台）、GREE、Mixi、Hangame以及所有第三方社交游戏开发商（日本约有500家第三方开发商）创造的收益。这一数据非常接近东京市场调研公司Seed Planning之前发布的报告结果。

Enterbrain表示日本社交游戏的14.5亿美元产值约占2010年日本在线游戏总营收的三分之一。

2）Pew Internet Research最近调查结果指出，66%美国成人用户使用Facebook、Twitter、MySpace和LinkedIn这些社交网络。他们表示与家人和朋友保持联系，是他们使用这些网站的主要原因之一。年龄在18-29岁之间的年轻用户群体自称与目前好友保持联络是其使用社交网络的主要原因；55%年龄介于30-49岁的用户称自己命名用社交网络与失散的老友联系。

motivations for using social networking(from Pew Research)

staying in touch with friends(from Pew Research)

尽管有关兴趣和爱好的粉丝页面在Facebook发展迅速，但仅有14%用户称分享兴趣爱好是自己访问社交网络的主要原因，仅9%用户称自己加入社交网络是为了结交新友。有5%用户主要查看公众人物的评论，仅3%用户是为了找到合作伙伴。但中老年用户却比较乐衷于通过社交网络分享兴趣爱好，30-49岁的这一用户比例达16%，50-64岁的这一用户比例为18%，但仅有10%的18-29岁群体有此表现。

调查还发现，女性用户比男性更喜欢与家人保持联系，其比例达72%，而男性用户比例是55%；常与好友联系的女性用户比例达70%，男性用户则是63%。但男性用户更关注通过社交网络分享兴趣爱好，有56%男性用户将其视为使用社交网络的主要原因，但女性用户的这一比例仅44%。有12%男性用户更喜欢通过社交网络结识新友。

在所有社交网络用户中，Twitter用户喜欢关注公众人物，11%的Twitter用户常查看政客、名人或体育明星的评论，并将此视为自己使用社交网络的主要原因。

84%用户不会通过社交网络寻找潜在合作伙伴。

3）日本社交平台GREE近日宣布与EA Sports合作，将后者旗下社交游戏《国际足球大联盟》（FIFA World Class Soccer）引进GREE的日本功能性手机及智能手机平台。

FIFA World Class Soccer(from serkantoto)

该游戏由EA Sports与东京工作室gumi联合开发，其最大卖点在于游戏中包含一些现实的足球星球。玩家在游戏中可组建和管理超明星阵容的球队，通过积分排行榜与好友进行挑战。游戏还将定期举办锦标赛，添加游戏挑战等内容。

足球运动最近几年在日本人气增长迅速，目前日本最大的足球社交游戏是Konami在Mobage平台推出的卡牌游戏《J-League Dream Eleven》。

4）据《印度时报》报道，Zynga高管Mark Skaggs在媒体采访中表示，做游戏好比是做蛋糕，要找到合适的食材——也就是美术、技术、音乐和游戏玩法，然后像个厨师一样将所有元素恰到好处地综合起来。

portal-cake(from games)

Skaggs之前是EA游戏元老，而且还是《CityVille》游戏理念的核心创意人员，他称好游戏应该具有迷人的美术效果，而音乐和音频则会给人带来空间和现实感。游戏玩法（游戏邦注：这里指游戏规则，游戏中的操作方式，交互性等）则可决定玩家能否得到乐趣。

他表示Zynga公司在印度已有200名成员，并透露由印度工作室开发的Ville系列游戏不久也将问世。

5）Zynga之前针对即将问世的新游戏《Hidden Chronicles》创建了Facebook粉丝页面，最近又发布该游戏预告视频截图。从游戏的美术设计上看，《Hidden Chronicles》风格与多数寻物解谜的PC下载游戏相似，其中包括一些复古家具、海底世界的场景。观察者认为，这款游戏或许与Playdom旗下的《Gardens of Time》情况相似，只是采用了不同主题的场景。

Hidden Chronicles(from games)

6）Facebook游戏平台主管Gareth Davis在最近媒体采访中表示，Facebook平台上的硬核游戏正在崛起，“这些策略游戏的质量堪比PC游戏”。

edge world(from games)

尽管人们很难认同Facebook游戏质量已足够和《星际争霸》、《命令与征服》等PC即时策略游戏相提并论的说法，但却不得不承认这些锁定细分市场的游戏发展潜力不容小觑，它们打破了《FarmVille》这类游戏的固定模式，推动了Facebook游戏的多元化发展。

Davis称开发商可通过推出不同类型的游戏，满足不同用户需求以创造大量收益。（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）Report: Japan’s Social Gaming Market Grew 4.4x Y-O-Y In 2010 To $1.45 Billion [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

There are industry reports from a number of  Japan-based investment banks available out there, and everyone sees the market size of the domestic social gaming market differently. For analysts, investors, and everyone else interested in such data, one alternative is the analysis from Enterbrain, a Tokyo-based magazine publisher (whose most important asset is Japan’s biggest video game magazine Famitsu).

Enterbrain recently released the so-called “Social Game User White Paper 2011″ (Japanese only), and in an excerpt, the company says that the market for social games in Japan has grown 4.4 times from 2009 to 2010 (from US$324 million to US$1.45 billion).

This is for revenue of social games in Japan as a whole, generated by DeNA (Mobage), GREE, Mixi, Hangame, and all third par game developers in the country (there are about 500 of them).

The number for market size for 2010 is very close to the one Tokyo-based market research firm Seed Planning released about a year ago.

Enterbrain says the US$1.45 billion in sales for social games in Japan in 2010 accounts for about a third of all online game-related revenue in the country in that year.（source：serkantoto）

2）67% of Online Adults Use Social Media To Stay In Touch With Friends

By Alicia Eler

In a new study released today,Pew Internet Research found that 66 percent of American adults online use Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn. They cite staying in touch with family and friends as one of the major reasons for using these sites. Seventy-one percent of the younger demographic, ages 18-29, cites staying in touch with current friends as a major reason for using social networks. Fifty-five percent of users ages 30-49 are on social networking sites to connect with old friends they’d lost touch with.

Even though hobbies and interest fan pages proliferate on Facebook, only 14% of users say that they go on social media sites to connect around a shared hobby or interest. Only nine percent of users say making new friends is a key reason for joining social media. Reading comments by public figures and finding partners is a big reason for only five percent and three percent of users, respectively. Middle-aged and older adults tend to use social media more for connecting around a hobby or interest. Sixteen percent of 30-49-year-olds and 18 percent of 50-64-year-olds use social media for connecting around a hobby or interest versus only 10 percent of 18-29-year-olds.

Gender plays a key role in this study, which reveals that women are more likely than men to cite family connections (72 percent vs. 55 percent) and friends (70 percent vs. 63 percent) as major reasons for using social media sites. Men are more likely to use social media to connect around a hobby or interest, with 56 percent citing it as a major reason for using social media versus only 44 percent of female users. Twelve percent of men are more likely to use social media for meeting new friends.

Of all social media users, Twitter users are the most interested in connecting with public figures. One in 10 Twitter users (11%) say that reading comments by politicians, celebs or athletes is a major reason for using social networks.

Social media does not play a major role in helping people find potential partners–more than eight in 10 (84%) do not use social media for this reason.（source: readwriteweb）

3）EA Brings FIFA Social Game To GREE [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Big win for GREE today: EA Sports has brought social game FIFA World Class Soccer to GREE on Japanese feature phones and smartphones (pre-registration actually started a while ago).

FIFA World Class Soccer has been co-developed with Tokyo-based gumi, one of the biggest third-party social game makers in Japan. The biggest selling point of the title is that it features real soccer stars, including Japanese players.

GREE explains:

FIFA World Class Soccer enables players to build and manage their ultimate team of soccer superstars from around the world, including many of the top Japanese soccer stars. Competing on global leaderboards and against friends, players utilize features such as player loans and player trades, scouting networks, and training in an authentic social gaming experience that replicates the emotion and drama of the real world of soccer. In addition, FIFA World Class Soccer on the GREE Platform will be highlighted by regular tournaments, special Teams of the Week, and in-game challenges.

As soccer has become increasing popular in Japan over the last few years, GREE and EA have a certain hit on their hands with this game.

The biggest soccer-based social game in Japan at the moment is Konami’s card game “J-League Dream Eleven”, which is so far only available on Mobage.（source:serkantoto）

4）FarmVille’s creator: Making a great game is ‘like making a cake’

by Joe Osborne

Wait, so this is the analogy behind making a multi-billion dollar game franchise? When asked what makes a great game by The Times of India during his first visit to the country, FarmVille maker Mark Skaggs said, “Think of it like making a cake. You have to get the right ingredients – in this case the art, the technology, the music and the game play. And like a chef, put it all together in the right way.”

Skaggs, who serves as Zynga’s head of product, is also credited as the mind behind CityVille. That said, the EA veteran is arguably the driving force behind the two best performing social games of all time. So, the guy has to be onto something, right?

“You need art that makes people feel it’s inviting and attractive,” Skaggs told Times of India. “Music and audio gives you the sense of space and reality. The game play (the rules of play, why something moves in a particular way, how interactions happen etc) determines whether you have fun playing it or whether you get bored.” (So says the man behind the main source of inspiration for designer Ian Bogost’s Cow Clicker.)

Skaggs went on to praise India for its talent, revealing that a whopping 200 of Zynga’s employees are based in the country. Better yet, the man who birthed the ‘Ville franchise said that original, global Zynga games developed in India are coming soon. Let’s just hope those developers aren’t taking Skaggs’s analogy to heart–we already have enough of those games.（source:games）

5）Zynga releases screens for Hidden Chronicles, coming soon to Facebook

by Brandy Shaul

After announcing the development of Hidden Chronicles back at Zynga Unleashed in October, Zynga has since created a Facebook fan page for the company’s upcoming hidden object game on Facebook, and has recently started offering some new screenshots and artwork of the game.

We still don’t have a release date for the new game, but we can see that the art is reminiscent of many of the genre’s most popular PC download titles; that is, some of the environments look as though they’re set in the past, with classic pieces of furniture, as but one example. We can also see some underwater art which is particularly pretty (perhaps we’ll go snorkeling, looking for the lost treasure of a pirate ship?), and what looks to be a massive castle or temple reaching up into the sky. Could this mean that the game is setup similarly to Playdom’s Gardens of Time, with differently themed areas to travel to across the entire game? Regardless, one thing that should be noted is that it looks like some scenes will be less cluttered than others, as the underwater shot above looks to contain only a few household items, while others in the gallery below have far larger junk piles.（source:games）

6）Facebook strategy games match PC quality … from back in the day

by Joe Osborne

“We see the emergence now of companies on Facebook who are building what they’d call a core game,” Facebook games platform head Gareth Davis said to GamesIndustry.biz in an interview. “Games targeted at people who played PC games back in the day, strategy games. They’re at the quality level now of those PC games.”

Considering these games are being created in 2011, we’re not sure whether that’s a compliment or a complaint. This isn’t to say that games like Kixeye’s War Commander or Edgeworld by Kabam aren’t impressive in their own right. However, if Davis is referring to classic real-time strategy games for the PC like StarCraft and Command & Conquer–you know, games that allowed for real-time multiplayer matchmaking and control of individual units on the battlefield–then we’d have to disagree.

Davis’s ultimate point is that new genres are blooming in the Facebook games space for growing niche audiences, like hardcore strategy gamers (from the late ’90s?). Jokes aside, new niches in Facebook games are certainly cropping up, and that can only mean more diversity from the tired FarmVille formula. For instance, Entertainment Games is aiming directly at our parents with its first Facebook game, Retro World.

“So we’re seeing this broadening now of the kinds of games and audiences and you can be very successful, creating different types of games and you can make a lot of money doing it,” Davis told GI.biz. “We’re seeing a real maturing of the eco-system as people figure out the right opportunities and go after them.” If this means an end to the rampant propagation of the ‘Ville species, then count us in.（source:games）