1）据路透社报道，社交游戏开发商Zynga将于12月16日上市并筹资9亿美元，该公司估值将达140亿美元。

据知情者透露，Zynga将以ZNGA的代号在纳斯达克以每股8至10美元的价格出售股票，该公司将于下周举行IPO路演以吸引投资者的关注。

Zynga IPO(from games)

2）Sojo Studios日前宣布推出其首款社交游戏《WeTopia》，在支持玩家体验游戏乐趣的同时，鼓励他们在现实世界中行善，为儿童慈善机构募捐。

玩家在该Facebook游戏中可建设自己的村庄，并向邻居施以援手。当玩家从中购买虚拟商品时，系统就会弹出一个向现实慈善机构募捐的对话框。但他们并不一定需要购买虚拟商品才能行善，他们可以通过观看赞助广告赢取的“joy”积分为儿童、医疗、教育等非赢利性机构捐款。

donation(from venturebeat)

Sojo的品牌合作伙伴包括Clorox、美泰和Dippin’ Dots，该公司还将把自己50%的净收益捐赠给非赢利性组织。Sojo成立于2010年，现有20名成员。

3）巴西社交游戏公司Vostu近日宣布其实时足球游戏《GolMania》入驻Google+平台（游戏邦注：这是Vostu首款休闲游戏，曾在9月份底在Orkut和Facebook平台发布），该游戏已推出英语、西班牙语和葡萄牙语版本。

Gol-Mania(from insidesocialgames.com)

该游戏植入了许多世界著名的赛场，每个球场都支持玩家解琐新环境、玩法和足球技巧，并通过Vostu的多人引擎与其他玩家参与实时足球赛。

4）DeNA与韩国门户网站Daum最近公布了Mobage平台进军韩国市场的相关细节，指出Mobage在韩国平台将命名为Daum Mobage，并希望该平台到2012年底可收获1000万用户。

mobage-korea(from penn-olson.com)

5）社交游戏开发商Tiny Speck两个月前发布一款网页MMO休闲游戏《Glitch》（游戏邦注：该游戏由Flickr核心创业成员及《块魂》开发者Keita Takahashi联合开发），但近日该公司却宣布将游戏撤回进行测试，并进行大规模的修改和调整，但并未宣布何时正式发布游戏。

glitch-main(from venturebeat.com)

其联合创始人Stewart Butterfield通过官方博客表示，游戏中存在两个明显问题需要进行调整，一是让游戏尽早向新手接触有趣内容，二是为已经达到一定水准，并深为游戏所着迷的用户提供创造性工具，让他们自主设计新建筑、设置资源流等。他称游戏的一些核心机制需要大幅调整，所以暂时无法完全开放服务。

该游戏在测试阶段仍可运行，但新用户需使用排队系统进行注册，而原来的玩家接收的游戏版主信息可能会有所延迟。该公司表示他们无意重新设置玩家进度，但称计划也可能有变，已经在游戏中付费的玩家可通过Glitch官网进行全额退款。

6）EA Playfish公关经理Akiko Abe近日表示，公司或将于圣诞假期后发布新款游戏《Risk:Factions》（该游戏原计划于今年秋季发布，但由于添加新功能而延迟上线时间）。

Risk:Factions(from gameguru.in)

该游戏与EA Playfish之前的桌游《百万大富翁》（Monopoly Millionaires）有所不同，但其设计可能结合《百万大富翁》的菜单式界面，以及《模拟人生社交版》的动画效果，其潜在用户可能来自桌游细分市场，而非《模拟人生社交版》的大众用户。

EA Playfish今年还向iOS平台移植了两款Facebook游戏，其中最为成功的是《Restaurant City：Gourmet Edition》，该游戏目前是EA旗下人气最旺的10款iOS游戏之一，在App Store免费应用中排在第168名。但另一款移植游戏《Pet Society: Vacation》则因运营缺乏人气而将在12月份关闭项目（根据Abe的说法，其失败原因是《Pet Society》Facebook用户不肯光顾该游戏的iOS版本）。（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）Everybody, start your engines: Zynga will go public on Dec. 16

by Joe Osborne

Did you remember your enormous salt shaker? Good, because Reuters reports that Zynga, everybody’s favorite social game maker, will make its stock market debut on Dec. 16. According to Reuters, the CityVille creator will look to raise $900 million, a hair down from the almost unanimously-reported $1 billion that will bring its valuation to $14 billion.

But hey, that’s still right on par with the most valuable games company in the West, Activision Blizzard. (Of course, Reuters cites “a source involved in the process.”) Zynga will reportedly ask between $8 and $10 a share on the Nasdaq under the ticker ZNGA–a fairly noticeable one, no? However, Reuters does confirm that Zynga will start its roadshow next week to spur investor interest.

That is, if investors can look past the recent torrent of reports and quips that don’t paint the prettiest picture of the company behind FarmVille. The New York Times allegedly revealed that Angry Birds maker Rovio turned down a $2.25 billion offer from the company, while a recent Wall Street Journal report seems to have exposed quite the stock scandal within Zynga. Worse yet, players are apparently leaving in droves. It’s time for Zynga to shift into third gear: That $900 million is atop one giant hill.（source:games）

2）Sojo Studios’ WeTopia social game lets players do good in the real world

Dean Takahashi

Sojo Studios is announcing its first online social game, WeTopia, which is designed to be part of a series of games where players can have fun while doing good in the real world by raising money for children’s charities.

WeTopia is a free-to-play Facebook game where players create villages and help their neighbors. When players purchase virtual goods in the game, that results in a direct donation to a real world cause. Buying an in-game fountain, for instance, leads to a donation for clean water. Actual projects related to the donations have already begun in the U.S. and Haiti and will soon launch in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.

But players don’t have even have to make purchases to to have an effect. They earn ”joy” points from viewing ads from sponsors, who then make donations to nonprofits that provide children and families with basic needs, healthcare, and education in the real world.

Lexington, Ky.-based Sojo Studios has lined up an impressive number of partners, including a variety of children’s charities and celebrities such as talk show host Ellen DeGeneres.

Players can track their contributions inside the game through pictures, videos, blogs and in-game posts. The goal is to combine fun and tangible help, so that rewards in games are more than just a collection of points.

“With WeTopia, players can have fun with friends and family in-game, and experience the joy of supporting projects that help children in the real world. Best of all, players can see and track the progress of these real world projects,” said Lincoln Brown, founder and chief executive at Sojo Studios.

The idea of playing for good isn’t new. Social game maker Zynga has donated millions of dollars to causes via its Zynga.org group. The Game Developers Conference sponsors a conference and special interest group focused on Games For Change. That group has been around since 2004 and focuses on the creation and distribution of social-impact games that serve as tools for humanitarian and educational efforts.

But Sojo’s WeTopia has an impressive list of partners. They include Save the Children (www.savethechildren.org), buildOn (www.buildon.org), and the Children’s Health Fund (www.childrenshealthfund.org), among others. Dave Morin, CEO and founder of Path, and tech investor Esther Dyson are advisors.

Some of the nonprofits will offer limited-edition social goods (or virtual goods) such as food stuffs or specialty shops.

“Save the Children is thrilled to be part of Sojo Studios’ innovative approach to social gaming,” said Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Save the Children. “WeTopia will help to build awareness about important social issues and give people a fun way to make a lasting difference for children in need. Thanks to Sojo, millions of people can become important partners in the work we do each day.”

Brand partners for Sojo include Clorox, Mattel and Dippin’ Dots. Those brands assist with the donations. Sojo itself is donating 50 percent of its net profits to nonprofit groups around the world. Sojo has about 20 employees and was founded in 2010, after the earthquake in Haiti.

Brown, the founder, had been going to Haiti for years and was there after the quake. He saw a need for improving how people could contribute to a social cause in a more sustainable way. He was inspired that so many people were playing games online, and he wanted to tie that to causes in a transparent way. The company has offices in New York and Los Angeles and has raised $8 million to date from private investors. The game has been in a closed beta test in six countries.（source:venturebeat）

3）Vostu’s Golmania Launches on Google+

By Gary Merrett

Vostu announced today that GolMania, its real-time football (soccer) game is now available on Google+. GolMania, Vostu’s first casual game, previously launched at the end of September on Orkut and Facebook.

So far, over 35 million matches have been played and over 75 million goals have been scored – 36 million in Brazil and 39 million in other countries across the world. Every single day, over 35,000 matches are played just between players in Argentina and players in Brazil. GolMania is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese with more languages to come.

In GolMania, players face off in real-time footballs matches powered by Vostu’s multi-player engine. The game takes the player on a tour of the world’s most renowned stadiums, each of which unlocks new environments, game play and football tricks. GolMania now also features real-life famous soccer clubs.

Boca Juniors and River Plate Buenos Aires, the two most famous clubs in Argentina, will have their own stadiums in the game and players can play their teams versus each other. It features fast, arcade-style and action-packed soccer, aimed at both men and women and football beginners and experts. So far, when the legendary match-up occurs between players from Brazil and players from Italy, Brazil wins 56% of the time, Vostu shared with us.

Miguel Marino, Chief Creative Officer from Vostu said: “Vostu has enjoyed a longstanding relationship with Google and we are excited to bring our social games to the emerging Google+ platform.”（source:socialgamesobserver）

4）DeNA and Daum target 10 million South Korean Mobage users in 2012

by Keith Andrew

Further to the unveiling of the two firm’s initial memorandum of understanding, DeNA and web portal Daum have released new details as to Mobage’s move on the South Korean market.

The social platform’s debut in the region will be coupled with the launch of a dedicated SDK, the companies have confirmed, with the platform itself rebranded Daum Mobage especially for the South Korea market.

Game on

Both firms believe such a localised approach will pay off from day one, with Daum Mobage hoping to amass 10 million users by the end of 2012.

It’s a target DeNA claims will be aided by the recent lifting of the ban of games on Android Market in the country, following a similar decision taken in respect of the App Store.

“South Korea is an explosive market for smartphones and social mobile games and DeNA is excited to collaborate with Daum to deliver Mobage Korea to South Korean gamers,” DeNA Seoul’s regional head Steven Yang said of the partnership earlier in November.

“Mobage Korea will deliver great games to local audiences, while also helping developers around the world quickly and easily deliver their contents to an increasingly global audience.”（source:pocketgamer）

5）Tiny Speck’s Glitch Goes Back Into Beta

by Tom Curtis

Two months ago, social developer Tiny Speck launched Glitch, a casual browser-based MMO headed up by key Flickr founders and co-developed with Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi. Today, Tiny Speck announced that it has pushed the game back into beta to make some large-scale revisions.

On the official Glitch blog, Tiny Speck co-founder Stewart Butterfield said, “There are two obvious and huge improvements we need to make: the first is to make the early game reveal itself more easily to new players so they can get into the fun faster.”

“The second and larger task is to give those players who have gotten over that initial hump and fallen in love with the game — spending dozens or even hundreds of hours playing — the creative tools that they need to change the world in more tangible ways: building whole new locations themselves, designing new buildings, setting up resource flows and forming flexible organizations to create bigger things together,” he continued.

“Some fairly radical changes to core game mechanics are going to be necessary to make Glitch what it needs to be. And making radical changes to core game mechanics is something that’s a lot harder to do while the front doors are open,” Butterfield said.

While in beta, the game will continue to run, though new registrations will now use a queue system, and existing players can expect slower response times from game moderators. Tiny Speck said there are currently no plans to reset players’ progress, but noted that plans can change, and new systems “won’t map perfectly to the new ones.”

As compensation for players who have already spent money on the game, Tiny Speck is offering a full refund via Glitch’s official website. The company did not mention when it expects to officially re-launch the game.（source:gamasutra）

6）EA Playfish After The Sims Social: Risk, Mobile, and Sims Expansions

AJ Glasser

Now that The Sims Social has reached maturity on Facebook, EA Playfish can move on to the next game in its release schedule — Risk: Factions. The developer is also still finding its footing in mobile and planning for a Sims Social expansion in the near future.

Risk: Factions was originally planned for a fall release, but it was delayed while EA Playfish experimented with adding new features. Akiko Abe, public relations manager, tells us that the game could be held back until after the Christmas holiday if EA believes that fewer people will be playing social games during the break. The game differs from EA Playfish’s previous board game adaptation, Monopoly Millionaires, in that it’s an adaptation of an Xbox Live/PlayStation Network/Steam download property. This means that Risk: Factions’ design will likely come down somewhere between the menu-driven interface of Monopoly Millionaires and the vibrant animation of The Sims Social. Depending on how the actual board game itself is translated into the gameplay, the potential audience for Risk: Factions could be more niche than the broad spread of players attracted to The Sims Social.

Meanwhile on mobile, EA Playfish had a hit and miss experience in bringing two of its established Facebook brands to iOS this year. The hit was Restaurant City, where the one-to-one translation of restaurant management adapted well to the mobile interface in Restaurant City: Gourmet Edition. The game is currently one of EA’s top 10 most popular iOS apps across all 100 of its games, and it ranks at No.168 in the App Store’s Top Free Apps. The miss is Pet Society: Vacation, which will shut down in December due to a lack of players. As Abe says and the farewell post alludes to, the Pet Society audience on Facebook just didn’t carry over to iOS in this case. Even so, Abe tells us that EA Playfish will continue to find its footing in mobile.

Lastly, EA Playfish is mindful of extending the life of The Sims Social on Facebook through expansions. Far from holiday content updates or light gameplay tweaks available through new purchasable items, EA Playfish is aware that Sims fans are expecting almost completely new gameplay additions on the order of those we see in the PC franchise — pets, romance, new locations, etc. Abe tells us the developer isn’t ready to talk specifics yet but that we can expect to see Sims Social getting its first expansion “very soon.”（source:insidesocialgames）