1）继推出基于《海贼王》和《最终幻想》题材的社交游戏之后，DeNA近日宣布另一款大作——基著名卡通品牌多啦A梦（Doraemon）的社交游戏《Doraemon Hokkorina》将于今年春季登陆Mobage。

多啦A梦(from serkantoto)

《多啦A梦》最初于1969以漫画形式问世，后来演变成动画片，并进军电子游戏、周边产品、电视广告、音乐、剧情片等领域，在日本和亚洲其他国家大受欢迎。

据DeNA所称，玩家在游戏中将与多啦A梦联手，使用该游戏提供的1000多种秘密工具完成其他卡通角色指派的任务。此外游戏还将植入一个故事模式以及“冒险模式”（使用时光机器往返过去与未来），该项目现已向Mobage功能性手机及智能手机用户开放预注册服务。

2）据serkantoto报道，基于《海贼王》动漫作品的社交游戏《One Piece Grand Collection》在Mobage上线17天已收获200万注册用户，该游戏由Namco Bandai发布，上线4天就突破100万用户。

3）DeNA最近发布的2011财年第三季度（2011年10月至12月）财报显示，公司销售额同比上年增长16%，达341.53亿日元（约4.45亿美元），但净收益（60.82亿日元，即7900万美元）却同比下降25%。

dena-q3-FY2011(from DeNA)

operating income(from DeNA)

相对比之，GREE在上一财季销售额同比增长190%，达到415亿日元（约5.45亿美元），净收益也同比增长206%，达到127亿日元（约1.67亿美元）。

4）日本社交平台Mixi近日发布的2011财年第三季度（2011年10月至12月）财报显示，公司销售额同比上年下降2.7%，达34.47亿日元（约4500万美元），营业利润骤降50.5%，仅为5.35亿日元（约700万美元），而竞争对手GREE上一季度的营业利润高达2.87亿美元。

mixi-q3-fy2011(from Mixi)

number of users(from Mixi)

Mixi上一季度的MAU为1520万，注册用户总数为2623万。

5）分析公司Parks Associates最新报告显示，目前美国约有1.35亿每月至少玩一小时游戏的用户，比2008年时的5600万玩家翻了2倍。

mobile-gaming(from digitaltrends.com)

多数用户属于新游戏玩家，约有18%的美国游戏玩家下通过手机下载游戏，而2008年的这一比例仅7%；71%的成人用户以及79%的青少年用户每月至少在平板电脑上玩一小时游戏。

约80%美国玩家曾体验免费在线游戏或Facebook游戏，平均每名付费玩家每月在Facebook游戏上消费29美元，在其他免费增值游戏中平均每月投入21美元。

6）韩国网游公司Nexon最近宣布将把热门游戏《跑跑卡丁车》（KartRider）引进Facebook平台，该游戏自2004年发布以来其注册用户已超过2.7亿（游戏邦注：去年发布的iOS游戏版本上线一周左右的下载量突破100万次，目前已收获670万次下载量），其Facebook版本《KartRider Dash》将于3月份正式露面。

KarRider iOS(from mzstatic)

观察者认为，《KartRider Dash》或将成为Facebook赛车类游戏的代表，之前的《Car Town》仅提供有名无实的异步赛车玩法，《Title Town Racing》并无多大知名度，而《BMW xDrive Challenge》是一款以广告为主的赛车游戏，原先有人认为EA将把《极品飞车》引入Facebook，但至今仍无动静。与此同时，Gameloft向Google+推出3D赛车游戏表明，赛车游戏不但适用于社交网络，而且可能成为开发商开拓新市场的重要切入点。

7）法国发行商Gameloft近日向Google+移植第二款游戏《Green Farm》，这也是Google+平台引进的首款农场游戏。

Green Farm(from games)

该游戏玩法与一般农场社交游戏相似，但更关注绿色能源和科技等内容，支持玩家进行手工艺品、家酿果汁等物品交易，并将通过推送服务提醒玩家及时收割庄稼和饲养家畜。（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）Mobage’s Next Super-Hit Is Coming: Doraemon Hokkorina [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Following One Piece and Final Fantasy Brigade, Mobage is about to get another super-hit game soon: DeNA announced Doraemon Hokkorina for spring this year, a social game based on the popular cartoon series Doraemon.

Doraemon was first released as a manga in 1969, then turned into an anime series and was later used for video games, all kinds of merchandising, TV commercials, musicals, feature films, etc. The protagonist of the same name is a blue cat with special powers – the series is very popular in Japan and other parts of Asia.

In the game, players team up with Doraemon and use secret tools in order to finish missions requested by other characters from the cartoon. According to DeNA, users will be able to collect a total of 1,000 different tools throughout the game.

Players can also expect a story mode and an “adventure mode, which allows them to use a time machine (pictured on the top right on the image below) to travel to the past or future.

DeNA is already accepting pre-registrations for Doraemon Hokkorina on Mobage for feature phones and smartphones.（source:serkantoto）

2）One Piece Social Game Hits 2 Million Users On Mobage – In 17 Days [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

One Piece Grand Collection, the social game based on the popular manga/anime series One Piece, now has 2 million registered users on Mobage. The title was launched by DeNA partner Namco Bandai just 17 days ago.

It took the social figure collection game, which features various characters from One Piece as virtual figures, just four days to pick up the first million users.

One Piece Grand Collection is available on Mobage for features phones and smartphones.（source:serkantoto）

3）DeNA’S Q3 FY2011: Sales Up 16%, Net Income Drops 25% [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

DeNA has released their financial report for Q3 FY2011 (October-December 2011) today, and the Mobage operator has no reason to be happy.

Sales went up 16% year-on-year to 34.153 billion yen (US$445 million) – but that’s about the only positive key figure. All other numbers, first and foremost net income (which went down 25% in the same time frame to 6.082 billion yen/US$79 million), aren’t looking good at all.

By way of comparison: in their last financial quarter, GREE saw sales going up 190% year-on-year to 41.5 billion yen (US$545 million) and net income balloon 206% to hit 12.7 billion yen (US$167 million). See here for details.（source:serkantoto）

4）Mixi’s Q3 FY2011: Profit Takes Nose Dive, MAU Still Solid At 15 Million [Social Networks]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Mixi released their financial report for the third quarter of fiscal 2011 (October to December 2011), and things aren’t looking too good for Japan’s largest social network.

Sales, for example, went down 2.7% year-on-year to 3.447 billion yen (US$45 million), while operating profit plunged 50.5% to 535 million yen (US$7 million). By way of comparison: GREE’s operating profit last quarter stood at US$287 million.

The good news for Mixi is that sales for “charges” (from apps and games) grew 51.5% y-o-y to 1.097 billion yen (US$14 million) – which is still almost nothing compared to the sales DeNA and GREE are seeing.（source:serkantoto）

5）Number of U.S. gamers more than doubled since 2008, study finds

by Tom Curtis

According to a new report [PDF] from analyst firm Parks Associates, there are now 135 million people in the United States playing games for at least an hour per month, more than double the 56 million gamers reported in 2008.

Most of these new gamers, the firm says, have been attracted by the free to play and social markets, which have captured new audiences on the web, smartphones, and other emerging platforms.

In the mobile space, specifically, Parks Associates reports that roughly 18 percent of all U.S. gamers download games through their phones, up from 7 percent in 2008.

Games are even more popular for tablet owners, as 71 percent of adult owners and 79 percent of teen owners admitted to playing games on their device at least one hour per month.

Outside of the mobile space, roughly 80 percent of U.S. gamers play either free-to-play online games or Facebook games — a considerable number, considering these markets only hit their stride within the last few years.

In addition, Parks Associates detailed spending habits for the free to play and online markets, noting that gamers who buy virtual goods via Facebook games spend about $29 per month on average, while those who purchase items in other free to play games spend roughly $21 per month.

Last year, the firm issued a similar report, saying that the number of gamers in older demographics has more than doubled since 2007, thanks in large part to games such as Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, and Words with Friends. （source:gamasutra）

6）Exclusive: Nexon Brings KartRider to Facebook

AJ Glasser• Feb 7th, 2012Design, facebook, Featured, international, Metrics, News, Social Games  After a tentative start on Facebook that includes MapleStory Adventures, Zombie Misfits and Wonder Cruise, Korean free-to-play giant Nexon is ready to launch its popular KartRider franchise on the platform.

KartRider is an online multiplayer racing game that has racked up over 270 million registered since its 2004 launch. Players control a single kart and can race against human and computer controlled opponents in various gameplay modes. Nexon Mobile released an iOS version last year that topped 1 million downloads in a little over a week; the company reports that the game is now at over 6.7 million downloads. The Facebook version, KartRider Dash, is due out in March.

Nexon has taken its time finding footing on Facebook. Aside from launching MapleStory Adventures in 2011, the Korean publisher experimented with different ways to engage with the platform throughout the last year — including investing in developers A Bit Lucky and 6waves Lolapps and co-developing or publishing new IP for the platform. Results have been mixed with MapleStory Adventures performing well while Zombie Misfits struggled to find an audience and Wonder Cruise has yet to really set sail. Speaking to Inside Social Games, Nexon EVP of Social Games Aron Koh acknowledges the learning curve — but says “we can do better than what we’re doing now.”

“We’re still learning how to approach players on Facebook and [other] platforms besides our core PC business,” Koh says. “It’s been challenging. It’s not easy to push out multiple updates to get the metrics up. But we’re very conservative when it comes to acquiring new users. We spent very, very little on [MapleStory Adventures] and we could see that the IP was popular and that was the main factor in acquiring users. It was a very good experience and we’re very happy with how our original IP translated to the platform.”

Aside from the appeal of the franchise itself, KartRider has a shot at defining the racing genre on Facebook. Leading car game Car Town only has a nominal, asynchronous racing game; Title Town Racing never made it big; and BMW xDrive Challenge is an advergame first and a racing game second. At one point, it looked like EA might bring its Need for Speed franchise back to Facebook (in fact, it still might); but so far, there isn’t one racing game that’s made it big on the platform. Meanwhile, over on Google+, mobile developer Gameloft proves that a rich 3D racing experience is not only possible on a social network, it’s probably a good way for a developer to distinguish itself from all the citybuilders and the puzzle games.

“One thing I’m very interested to see from our own [studio] and from other companies is more synchronous games on Facebook,” Koh says. “There a couple of synchronous games out there, but it’s very limited. As a company we’re interested to see more players jumping into that arena.”

Nexon raised $1.17 billion in its initial public offering late last year.（source:insidesocialgames）

7）Gameloft breaks ground where Zynga hasn’t, hits Google+ with Green Farm

by Joe Osborne

If your itch to do some good old digital farming has somehow gone unscratched on Facebook, then perhaps it’s time to move on to Google+. At least that’s what developer Gameloft seems to hope, as the company has launched Green Farm on Google+. This is the French game maker’s second release on Google+, and–shockingly enough–the first farming game on the platform.

It’s crazy, but true. (We’re downright confused.) The game plays much like you would expect a farming social game to play these days. Players plant and harvest crops to earn coins for even more crops to harvest. Of course, players can also introduce animals into their farming family and create a variety of buildings to customize it with. And, surprise: You can visit your friends’ farms and send them helpful gifts.

However, Green Farm focuses more on green energy and technology, at least thematically. Players can also take up trades, like carpentry and homemade juice and dairy-making. In order to make sure players are on time with harvesting crops and feeding animals, the game will send them push notifications. And what other farming game grants players with helpful robots? Alright, so this game isn’t all that different, but it beat the farming game to Google+. That shows for something, right? Right?（source:games）