1）据games.com报道，美国联邦贸易委员会（FTC）日前对社交游戏发行商RockYou进行25万美元的处罚，并要求后者采取“全面的数字安全保护措施”，原因是后者在2009年曾造成3200万用户数据外泄的事件（游戏邦注：此事发生于数年之前，当时RockYou尚未进军社交游戏领域，可能只有当时的用户才会受到影响）。

data-protection(from games)

除此之外，RockYou还违反了美国《儿童在线隐私权保护法》（简称COPPA），非法搜集了17.9万名儿童的个人信息。据FTC所称，RockYou运营的一个网站要求用户输入电邮地址以及密码以使用该网站的照片分享等功能，另外还允许儿童用户创建个人资料，发布可在网上共享的个人信息，但却没有对这些个人信息进行加密。

2）Adobe公司日前宣布，从8月1日开始，所有使用Flash Player 11.2高级功能开发的网页游戏都需要向Adobe支付9%的净收益，这两项付费功能包括访问domain memory和通过Stage3D渲染处理硬件加速3D图像。

Adobe-Flash-Player-11-AIR(from techfrom)

不过通过Adobe AIR工具使用这些功能的手机、Mac和PC平台开发者不需要支付任何费用，原因是iOS和Android开发者已经需要向苹果和谷歌支付30%收益，而网页内容开发者却不需要与其他发行商分享收益。

3）据InStyle报道，名模兼《生化危机》电影女主角Milla Jovovich日前承认，她对《模拟人生》这款游戏很上瘾，甚至因此而模仿自己游戏角色的发型。

mila-jovovich(from games)

她表示，自己在游戏中所有角色都采用同个发型。观察者据此猜测，Playfish或许有可能借助这一名人效应，也在《模拟人生社交版》推出相关主题的内容。

4）社交游戏发行商6waves Lolapps日前宣布更名，删减“Lolapps”一词，正式以6waves的名称同32家社交游戏开发商合作，计划在2012上半年发布40款社交游戏。

6waves(from escapistmagazine.com)

该公司本次发行合作伙伴有6家是来自中国大陆的开发商，它们分别是Adjoy、Gamecon、Jiangsu Juteng Network Technology、KOD Games、Leiyoo和UUC。

5）日本社交游戏公司DeNA高管Kenji Kobayashi在最近的媒体采访中表示，DeNA所开发的多数社交游戏仅需2名程序员、3名工程师、1名美术设计师和1名数据库工程师就可以完成项目开发。这7名人员一般是4-7个月开发一款游戏，而这种游戏每年至少创收100万美元，并且能够保持5年盈利。也就是说，他们仅需7名开发人员就能至少创收500万美元。

kobayashi(from dena.jp)

6）在本周DAU增长最快的Facebook游戏榜单上，《Zynga Slingo》在过去一周中新增170万DAU，增幅达74%。

本榜单仅有《The Price Is Right Slots》这款老虎机游戏增幅突破100%，达到2500%。

Top gainers this week--DAU(from AppData)

其他表现较瞩目的游戏包括《Township》（Playrix），增幅为75%，以及《Super Ferme》（游戏同名公司Super Ferme），增幅为57%。EA Popcap旗下也有两款游戏上榜，《Lucky Gem Casino》和《Solitaire Blitz》增幅分别达36%和33%。

值得注意的是，《Township》和《Astro Garden》最近的流量增长都与发行商6waves的推广有关。（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）FTC slaps RockYou for security snafu that exposed 32 million users

by Joe Osborne

If you’ve ever played Zoo World, Gourmet Ranch or any RockYou game, you might want to change your passwords. But if you ever used a RockYou service before it got into the games business, you definitely want to. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has slapped the social game publisher with a $250,000 fine and an order for it to implement a “comprehensive data security program” after the personal information of 32 million users was exposed to hackers back in 2009.

Considering this security breach occurred years ago, it’s likely only past users could have been affected. RockYou also allegedly violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule (COPPA) after collecting the personal data of about 179,000 children.

The FTC complaint alleges that RockYou operated a website that required users’ email addresses and passwords for them to use its photo-sharing and slideshow creation tools and to save their creations on the website. According to the FTC, RockYou allowed children to “create personal profiles and post personal information on slide shows that could be shared online.”

According to the complaint, RockYou didn’t even bother to encrypt this personal information. While the complaint refers to RockYou’s time before it got into social games, it’s tough not to worry about the state of security in the publisher’s various games. Read the complaint in full here, and just to be safe, change all of your passwords if you ever played a RockYou game or used services like “Photos and Slideshows” or “Birthday Cards.”（source:games）

2）Adobe announces 9% revenue share for Flash Player 11.2 web games, while mobile developers go free

by Jon Jordan

As Adobe continues to build out its own ecosystem approach to web and mobile games, it’s introduced a new business model.

This sees the company asking for a revenue share from developers using the premium web version of Flash 11.2.

Mobile developers, as well as Mac and PC developers, who access those feature via Adobe’s AIR tools don’t have to pay anything.

Trigger cut

Starting from 1 August, all web games that use two premium features of Flash Player 11.2 will have to play Adobe 9 percent of net revenue, although this won’t apply to the first $50,000.

The two features that trigger payment are access to domain memory and hardware-accelerated 3D graphics via Stage3D rendering.

Adobe has taken this approach because developers using Flash for iOS and Android are already sharing 30 percent of their revenue with Apple and Android, while web revenue streams are typically not shared with other publishing partners.

More monetisation

The company is also looking to expand its business opportunities with a new digital marketing services initiative that is expected to include in-app purchases and advertising.

Deeper integration with other middleware providers such as Unity is also on the cards.

An example of this approach has seen Madfinger’s Shadowgun game published to the web, using Flash Player 11.2′s premium features from within Unity’s tools.

“Digital marketing services are still being fleshed out,” Adobe Gaming Solution’s group product marketing manager, Diana Helander told PocketGamer.biz.

“We’ll be announcing them later on this year along with collaborations beyond Unity.”（source:pocketgamer）

3）Milla Jovovich blames The Sims for her goofy, hipster-style haircut

by Joe Osborne

We have another The Sims addict in out midst. Model and star of the Resident Evil films Milla Jovovich admitted to InStyle that she’s strangely addicted to The Sims. In fact, she’s so hooked on the games that she modeled her newest hairdo after the one she gives all of her in-game characters.

“I have a strange addiction to The Sims,” Jovovich told InStyle at a Restoration Hardware event in Los Angeles. “All my Sims wind up with this haircut, and it’s always a house full of really hot chicks. I thought, ‘Obviously I want this haircut because I keep picking it out.’”

Maybe we’re not in with the fashion world, but that do looks downright silly. Honestly, she’s one buzz away from a Skrillex, and only famous dubstep producers and hipsters can get away with that. And now for the ultimate question: Can you rock a hipster haircut like this in The Sims Social? Sadly, no, but given that Rock Star is now a career choice in the Facebook game, we’re sure you could take this to the Playfish forums. Don’t be surprised to see this do crop up in your local dive bar any day now.（source:games）

4）6waves drops “Lolapps” name entirely, announces publishing deals with 32 social developers

Mike Thompson

Publisher 6waves (now no longer going by “6waves Lolapps” or “6L”) revealed publishing partnerships with 32 social game developers today, as well as its plans to launch a total of 40 social games within the first half of 2012 .

The announcement continues 6waves’ efforts to refocus itself entirely on games publishing, which began when the company cut its development staff earlier this month. Several of  the games in this deal  are already live: Antic Entertainment’s Platoonz, Big Blue Bubble’s Fling-a-thing, Gamecon’s Sin Capital, iEvoTech’s Gold Slots, Large Animal/WMS’s Lucky Cruise, Socialinus’s Farkle Online, and Starz/Large Animal’s Spartacus Vengeance.

With its renewed focus on publishing, 6waves seems to primarily be partnering with small developers with limited marketing power to help them achieve better distribution. The re-launches of Township and Astro Garden under the 6waves banner have brought the games back into the spotlight, and the titles appeared on both of this week’s lists for fastest-growing Facebook games by DAU and MAU.

This new publishing deal also increases 6waves’ presence in China, which was one of CEO Rex Ng’s stated goals when the reorganization began. Amongst the 32 announced partner developers, six are from  China.

The full list of partnered developers — as well as their respective countries — is listed below.

• Adjoy, China

• Antic Entertainment, Canada

• Atari, USA

• Big Blue Bubble, Canada

• C.C.C.P., France

• Chiwawa Games, Russia

• Drimmi, Russia

• Enteraction, UK

• Game Insight, Russia

• Gamecon, China

• Guerillapps, USA

• Hourblast Games, USA

• iEvoTech, Russia

• Imba Games, Isreal

• izelus, USA

• Jammy Pot, Korea

• Jiangsu Juteng Network Technology, China

• Kabam, USA

• KOD Games, China

• Large Animal/WMS, USA

• Leiyoo, China

• OSA, Russia

• Pixonic, Russia

• PlayDay, Hong Kong

• Sharkus Games, UK

• Socialinus, Korea

• Starz/Large Animal, USA

• UUC, China

• White Rabbit Studios, Pakistan

• Zodiak Active, UK（source:insidesocialgames）

5）DeNA: ‘We can get at least $5M out of a game developed by seven people’

by Brandon Sheffield

Social games are a big business worldwide, and the social mobile space has been exploding with games that are free-to-play, in which you pay for items.

DeNA is one of the biggest players in the space, acquiring game companies like Ngmoco (for $400 million), Punch Entertainment Vietnam and Akatama in Chile. We’ve also heard time and time again how social and mobile games can be made by small teams, while being massively profitable.

I recently spoke with former Capcom head of R&D Keiji Inafune, and here’s what he had to say about pay and incentive structures in Japan versus the West, specifically in social. “In social games, you have outfits like Zynga that blew it out of the park from the very beginning,” he said. “They have that hunger, they want to be the heroes, and it’s something the management recognizes and nurtures.

“In Japan, meanwhile, even if you take the hero role, what it gets you is interviews like this one — it’s not like your salary goes up or anything. You don’t get much reward for your effort. You get massive amounts of responsibility — the responsibility to take this game and make it sell X copies — but not much in terms of respect. That’s why we can’t give birth to heroes.”

To hear about this from the perspective of someone who’s actually making this money and using this structure, I spoke with DeNA director Kenji Kobayashi first about the pay-for-play aspect of some free to play mobile apps, and second about the compensation for the company’s employees. The interview was unfortunately cut short soon after the latter discussion began, but you still get an interesting sense of the climate of social game development in Japan, and indeed, in free-to-play worldwide, now that companies like DeNA own so many others.

In fairness to Kobayashi, his answers were honest and frank, without pretense or marketing speak. And that is probably why his handlers wanted him to leave as soon as possible.

DeNA’s social games are making a lot of money these days. How much does it cost to run the business versus what you’re taking in?

Well, with most social games we develop, there are two programmers, three engineers, and one art designer. That, and one database engineer. So about seven people overall, and it takes maybe four or five months to develop a game. These products have the potential to gross at least $1 million a year, and the revenue can continue for upward of five years. So we can get at least $5 million out of a game developed by seven people. （source:gamasutra）   http://gamasutra.com/view/news/167390/DeNA_We_can_get_at_least_5M_out_of_a_game_developed_by_seven_people.php

6）Zynga Slingo wins again with this week’s fastest-growing Facebook games by DAU

Mike Thompson

Zynga Slingo topped this week’s list of fastest-growing Facebook games by daily active users, with 1.7 million new players joining for a gain of 74 percent.

Only one game on the list this week saw a gain greater than 100 percent: Ludia’s The Price Is Right Slots, which made an impressive debut with a 2,500 percent gain.

Ten other games had double-digit percentage DAU gains. Playrix’s Township and Super Ferme’s eponymous Super Ferme saw significant gains of 75 and 57 percent, respectively. Halfquest’s Happy Land grew by 50 percent, Peak Games’ City of the Pyramids saw a 33 percent gain and King.com’s Hoop De Loop Saga was up by 30 percent.  German farm sim Dorfleben went up 20 percent, Redspell’s Astro Garden hung onto the No. 20 spot with an 18 percent gain and Game OS’s Slots Farm – Slot Machines spun up 12 percent. Two of EA Popcap’s titles made the list as well, with Lucky Gem Casino gaining 36 percent and Solitaire Blitz increasing by 33 percent.

It’s interesting to note Township and Astro Garden’s recent traffic improvements seem to largely due to publisher 6L. Renewed marketing efforts from 6L have brought the games back into public view, and as such, their numbers have been significantly rising over the past week.（source:insidesocialgames）