1）据venturebeat报道，韩国网游公司Nexon计划于12月6日在日本上市（该公司在韩国起步，但后来将总部迁往日本东京），其首次公开募股将集资12.8亿美元，这是2011年电子游戏领域涉及数额最大的IPO之一。

Nexon招股说明书指出，截止今年9月份公司共有12亿注册帐号，7700万MAU，2010年售出6亿件虚拟道具，2010年玩家游戏时间长达5000亿分钟。

预计Nexon进行IPO之后中，其市值将达76.9亿至89.7亿美元，超EA的69.9亿美元市值。

冒险岛(from venturebeat)

其IPO文件还指出，公司目前已有8款游戏营收分别已超过1亿美元，其中有3款游戏营收超过3亿美元，有1款营收超过4亿美元，有两款游戏合并营收超过15亿美元；《Dungeon Fighter》这款游戏去年收益占公司总营收的30.9%，而《冒险岛》则占比26.3%。

Nexon在2010年总营收为9.03亿美元，2009年则是6.682亿美元；2010年净收益为1.075亿美元，2009年则是2.292亿美元。在2011年前9个月，Nexon营收为8.535亿美元，同比去年增长26.5%，净收益为2.601亿美元，增幅为14.6%。该公司自1996年以来一直呈盈利状态。

该公司现有3537名员工，其中包括1507名游戏开发团队成员。

2）据gamasutra报道，德国在线游戏公司Bigpoint的MMO太空射击游戏《DarkOrbit》自2009年12月上线以来，已在5年内收获6600万注册用户。该游戏在本月初推出了一款特殊道具“The 10th Drone”，每件售价高达1000欧元。

DarkOrbit(from pcgamer.com)

其制作人Simon Davis最近表示这件道具销量超过2千件，仅在限时发售的4天时间中就创收200万欧元。

3）游戏设计师Richard Garriott在最近的媒体采访中透露，他计划开发一种适用于所有类型玩家的新社交游戏。他设想在一个奇幻世界中，不同玩家可以通过扮演农民、商店店员或者探险者等不同角色，通过实时和异步玩法，为整个游戏世界发挥不同作用而获得奖励。

garriott(from collectspace.com)

他称假如玩家要扮演农民角色，他们就可以体验《FarmVille》游戏玩法，可以在自己的地方或者向咖啡店出售自己的农产品；而农民和店员都可以向探险者出售食物，探险者又可以提供自己从外面带回来的奇特恐龙蛋（可以做成史上最美味的煎蛋饼），这样咖啡店又可以用探险者带来的东西烹制佳肴。

4）Digital Chocolate最近发布了Facebook游戏《Zombie Lane》的iOS版本，支持iPhone、iPad和iPod touch用户免费体验该游戏。

该游戏Facebook版本于今年3月上线，目前MAU为250万，已在8月份投放Google+平台。

Zombie Lane(from games)

《Zombie Lane》iOS版本主要通过IAP功能盈利，目前的交易选项介于0.99美元至84.99美元，总体玩法与Facebook版本一致，但其初级角色自定义选项与Facebook/Google+相比较为有限，但正式进入游戏后仍可从自菜单中访问相关选项。游戏玩法进行了一些调整和简化，用户界面也利用了多点触屏功能，以便玩家放大或缩小游戏视野。

5）日本社交游戏开发商gloops最近计划将Mobage平台热门游戏《Legend Cards》转换成英文版本，投放至Facebook的智能手机平台。

Legend Cards(from serkantoto)

玩家通过智能手机浏览器访问Facebook方可体验游戏（无法通过Facebook原生应用访问该游戏），这是该公司首款英语游戏，它在Wi-Fi网络上的加载时间很短，语言翻译极佳，能够提供较出色游戏体验。

6）在本周DAU增长最快的Facebook游戏榜单上，Zynga新作《CastleVille》位居榜首，发布首周就收获500多万用户，第二名是《Words With Friends》，第三则是《宝石迷阵闪电战》。

Top Gainers This Week-Games(from AppData)

Zynga称这款新游戏仅6天就吸引500万用户，但Facebook数据更新滞后了三天。虽然Zynga没有提供该游戏的最新MAU数据，但AppData预测其本月MAU可能会达到900万。（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）Nexon will hold $1.3B IPO on Dec. 6 (exclusive)

Dean Takahashi

Online gaming firm Nexon is expected to go public on Dec. 6 in Japan, VentureBeat has learned. The company, which was started in Korea and moved its headquarters to Tokyo, is expected to raise $1.28 billion in its initial public offering.

Next to Zynga’s expected IPO, the Nexon deal is one of the biggest pending IPOs in the video game industry and it’s an example of the continuing strength of Asian online game companies. Nexon in particular has pioneered the top business model of the day: free-to-play games where people play games for free and pay real money for virtual goods. It’s a growing business: Market researcher Strategy Analytics expects the virtual goods market to grow from $6.8 billion in 2011 to $12.7 billion in 2016.

Nexon has not commented on the IPO date. Earlier reports placed the IPO in mid-December.

Last month, Japanese publications reported that the Nexon IPO could raise that amount in an offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The prospectus for the offering says that Nexon has 1.2 billion cumulative registrations, 77 million monthly active users as of September, 600 million virtual items sold in 2010, and 500 billion minutes played in 2010.

Nexon is one of Asia’s biggest online game publishers, with games including MapleStory, Mabinogi, Vindictus, Combat Arms, Dragon Nest and Dungeon Fighter Online. The games take anywhere from two years to five years to develop. To juice sales of the games, Nexon sells its virtual currency game cards in 45,000 stores in the U.s. alone.

The IPO would be the biggest IPO in Japan in 2011 and the largest one since Otsuka Holdings raised $2.05 billion in December, 2010.

Nomura Securities, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs are lead investment managers. After the IPO, Nexon could have a market value of about $7.69 billion to $8.97 billion. That compares to $6.99 billion for Electronic Arts.

In its IPO filing, Nexon said it has eight games with more than $100 million in lifetime revenues. Of those games, three had more than $300 million in revenues and one had more than $400 million in revenues. Two games combined have generated lifetime revenues over $1.5 billion. Nexon noted that as of last year, Dungeon Fighter accounted for 30.9 percent of revenues and MapleStory was 26.3 percent of revenues.

In 2010, Nexon’s revenues were $903 million, up from $668.2 million a year earlier. Net income was $107.5 million in 2010, compared to $229.2 million a year earlier. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2011, revenue was $853.5 million, up 26.5 percent from a year ago. Net income was $260.1 million, up 14.6 percent. Overall, Nexon expects to continue growing for the full year in 2011. Nexon has been profitable since 1996.

Much of the revenue is spread across multiple territories. For instance, only 35.2 percent of revenues for the Mabinogi game comes from Korea. In the U.S., virtual goods typically sell for 50 cents to $5. In MapleStory, there are 2,000 virtual goods items for sale in the U.S. version, all designed for a Western audience. They include things like a “summer royal hair” hairstyle.

Nexon has 3,537 employees, including 1,507 employees in development. Rivals include NCsoft, NHN Games, Hanbit Soft, Neowiz Games, Square Enix, DeNA, Gree, Nintendo, Sony, Tencent, Shanda Games, Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Riot Games, Zynga, Disney and Microsoft.（source:venturebeat）

2）Report: Bigpoint Makes 2M Euros From A Single DarkOrbit In-Game Item

by Mike Rose

German online games publisher and developer Bigpoint made over 2 million euros of revenue this month on a single in-game item purchase.

The company’s free-to-play MMO space shooter DarkOrbit, which launched in December 2006, has seen 66 million registered users in total over its five year life.

Earlier this month, BigPoint sold a special in-game item called ‘The 10th Drone’, which cost 1,000 euros to purchase, for a total of four days.

Simon Davis, producer on DarkOrbit, has now told Gamesbrief founder and Gamasutra contributor Nicholas Lovell that over 2,000 of these items were sold, meaning that over 2 million euros was spent on this single item over the course of four days.

Back in June, Bigpoint signed an agreement with Russian service provider Mail.Ru Group, allowing both companies to share their games via both of their portals.

As part of the agreement, Mail.Ru users are now able able to log in and play select Bigpoint games via the Russian service, including DarkOrbit. （source:gamasutra）

3）Will the Ultima maker’s new social game appeal to all forms of gamer?

by Joe Osborne

That’s sounds pretty … ambitious (to say the least), but that seems to be what game designer Richard Garriott is going for. During a recent interview with IndustryGamers, Ultima creator Garriott somehow revealed his master plan for how he’s going to change social gaming without revealing anything specific, really. While it’s too early to make serious judgment calls, his idea sounds downright awesome.

At least on paper, it sounds as if players will be able to carve out their own role in a fantasy world that rewards several different types of play. Basically, members of a group of friends can each take on different roles–be it farmer, shop owner or even adventurer–and somehow contribute to the overall world both in real time and asynchronously.

“And allowing it to be asynchronous interaction as well as synchronous interaction,” Garriott told IndustryGamers. “So if you’re the farmer, and you’re playing your FarmVille style of gameplay, and that’s what you like, that’s fine, and you can either sell it on your produce stand or come over to my cafe and sell it to me directly, but either way, if you’re offline, me or my chef can come over to your farm stand or to you personally if you’re online, and buy the produce we need, and in either case we’re gonna sell meals to the adventurer that just came through and might be bringing back the special dragon egg to make the greatest omelet that’s ever been made in the history of the world! I can now make it in my cafe based on the stuff the adventurer brought back.”

In essence, Garriott’s Lord British’s New Britannia (working title) will somehow allow the FarmVille player, the Cafe World fan and the Skyrim fanatic to all play the same game in their own way and help one another. If developer Portalarium can live up to these ambitions, then count us in.（source:games）

4）Zombie Lane Claws Its Way From Facebook and Google+ To Apple Devices

Randy Nelson

Calling the release the latest step in its new cross-platform strategy, Digital Chocolate has released a free-to-play iOS version of its Facebook game Zombie Lane that is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. The title hit Facebook in March of this year and is currently played by 2.5 million monthly active users, according to our tracking service AppData. A version of the game for Google+ was released in August. The iOS version debuted on November 22.

Zombie Lane for iOS is nearly indistinguishable from its Facebook and Google+ incarnations, although there are a few minor differences — and one more significant for players hoping to continue their experience between mobile and social networking platforms. That’s because, despite the versions being so similar, there is no interaction between the mobile and browser-based releases. Anything players do in the game on Facebook or Google+ has no impact on the mobile version and vice versa. This differs from the approach being taken by other publishers, such as Pangalore, for their upcoming native iOS releases that share data with their Facebook counterparts using Facebook Connect.

Digital Chocolate is monetizing Zombie Lane for iOS through in-app purchases of cash and coins using real money. Available transaction amounts range from $0.99 to $84.99.

Players will notice that the initial character customization options seem limited compared to the Facebook/Google+ release, but once in the game, the same options can be accessed from the customization menu. Some minor gameplay tweaks, such as a reduction in he number of steps required to perform some tasks like building, have also been made. The user interface has been modified to take advantage of multi-touch gestures, including pinching to zoom the player’s viewpoint.（source:insidesocialgames）

5）gloops Starts English Version Of “Legend Cards” On Facebook For Smartphones [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Super-successful social game maker gloops has decided to translate to English and bring one of their hit titles on Mobage, Legend Cards, to Facebook for smartphones.

It’s best if you open the link to the social card game on a phone: while the app opens on Facebook for the PC, too, it’s not playable (tap commands, for example, don’t work). You need to access Facebook through the smartphone browser (not the Facebook native app) in order to play the game, which will be opened in a separate browser window.

I just gave Legend Cards a spin, and so far, it looks like gloops did a good job translating the game: I couldn’t find any weird grammar or other mistakes that might put English-speaking gamers off. On Wi-Fi, loading time was very short, for example during battles with other Facebook users or when starting quests.

It’s the company’s first social game in English, and I am eager to see how well it will do outside Japan (where it is available on Mobage for feature phones and smartphones).（source:serkantoto）

6）CastleVille Conquers This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Games by DAU

AJ Glasser

CastleVille comes out on top of this week’s list of fastest growing Facebook games by daily active users with a staggering 5 million+ DAU in roughly its first week.

There’s a bit of confusion around just how fast the game is really growing, with Zynga telling us that Facebook is as many as three days behind in updating its traffic counts for apps. According to the developer, CastleVille officially broke the 5 million DAU mark in just six days, which would have been on Sunday, November 20th. Zynga has not provided an up-to-date monthly active user figure — but our AppData traffic tracking service indicates it would have been 9 million, assuming today’s DAU count is actually from Sunday.（source:insidesocialgames）