1）法国发行商Gameloft日前宣布《Ice Age Village》（Fox Digital Entertainment旗下电影《冰河世纪》授权游戏）自4月5日发布以来，已在iOS和Android平台实现500多万次下载量。

Ice-Age-Village(from jayceooi)

《Ice Age Village》在50多个国家/地区iPhone免费游戏榜单登顶，成为90多个国家/地区的头号iPad免费游戏，并跻身50多个国家/地区游戏营收榜单前5强。

2）据serkantoto报道，由Square Enix推出的新社交卡牌战斗游戏《Diffusion Million Arthur》最近迅速晋升至日本App Store游戏营收榜单之首，成为继《Puzzle & Dragons》（由GungHo出品）之后的第二款不依赖GREE或Mobage平台的日本iOS游戏营收榜单冠军（游戏邦注：排名如下图所示，截图时间为4月13日，日本标准时间早晨1点）。

Diffusion-Million-Arthur Ranking(from serkantoto)

Diffusion-Million-Arthur (from serkantoto)

3）据gamezebo报道，著名游戏设计师宫本茂最的在巴黎的采访中表示，他本人对手机游戏《愤怒的小鸟》非常着迷，并称《愤怒的小鸟》带有一点传统电子游戏风格，同时又极具创意，这就是他喜欢该游戏的原因。

Angry-Birds-Space(from digitaltrends)

他称自己没有太多时间可玩智能手机游戏，但很看好这一市场的发展前景，并认为来自苹果的挑战并非坏事，因为只有竞争才能不断激发任天堂的进取之心。

4）谷歌近日通过Android开发者博客宣布，Google Play现已支持以色列、捷克共和国、墨西哥、波兰开发者通过该应用商店发售付费应用及IAP内容，并使用本国货币结算（游戏邦注：谷歌之前已币墨西哥和以色列开发者开放销售付费应用的服务，但仅支持他们通过AdSense帐号及美元货币结算费用），Google Play目前共支持31个国家的开发者销售付费应用。

google-play(from geektrop)

5）据GamesIndustry报道，Digital Foundry公司最近指出新iPad给不少高端游戏开发商带来了一些麻烦。不少开发者为了保证游戏在新iPad上能够流畅运行，不得不舍弃高清像素，或者为完整体现Retina显示效果而勉强接受并不稳定的画面帧率。

iPad 2 vs new iPad version(from gamesindustry)

据该公司所称，许多人认为苹果会让新iPad的CPU和GPU同时获得提升，但实际上只有图像显示技术实现升级。于是就会出现这种问题，《质量效应：渗透者》和《无尽之剑2》等画面质量极高的游戏，并没有完全利利新iPad的2048 X 1536屏幕分辨率，而是以半原始分辨率的方式运行，但仍可展现比iPad 2版本提升2倍的细节。

也有一些开发商采用了另一种策略，例如《Galaxy on Fire 2 HD》、《Modern Combat 3》和《Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy》支持完整的Retina分辨率，但运行时的画面帧率却比原来的iPad 2更不稳定。而Vector Unit旗下的《激流快艇》则支持玩家通过菜单选择画面设置，让他们根据自己的喜好调整分辨率（但这可能会影响画面帧率）。

6）独立应用商店GetJar最近进行了一系列人事调整，由创始人Ilja Laurs任执行主席，而美国的首席运营官Chris Dury则晋升为CEO。

Dury之前曾在英特尔、scanR、OneFone及Firetalk公司任职，现已在GetJar就职三年，曾推动GetJar Gold及其虚拟货币的项目开发。（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）Success for Gameloft’s new IAP strategy as Ice Age is top 5 top grossing in over 50 countries

by Jon Jordan

One-time premium-paid stalwart, Gameloft has gone all free-to-play and IAP, and it seems the new strategy’s working.

Latest release Ice Age Village has been downloaded over 5 million times on iOS and Android since its 5 April release.

Indeed, it’s been the top free game in over 50 countries on iPhone and in over 90 countries on iPad, activity which boosted it to be a top 5 top grossing game in over 50 countries.

Baby, it’s cold outside

It’s good news for Gameloft that the Fox Digital Entertainment licence has found an audience as it’s got plenty more film and franchise tie-in games to come.

These include Men in Black 3,The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers (feature phones only), The Amazing Spider-Man, My Little Pony and Littlest Pet Shop”We are pleased with the extremely positive reception this newest addition to the Ice Age franchise has enjoyed across the world,” said Rick Philips, SVP of mobile for Fox.

“Ice Age fans are eager to meet their heroes on tablets and smartphones. New missions, which will be released over the next three months, will help prepare fans for the return of Sid, Manny, Diego and Scrat in Ice Age: Continental Drift, which is coming to theaters this summer.”（source:pocketgamer）

2）Another Social Game Not Using GREE Or Mobage Tops Japan’s App Store Chart [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

It’s a mini trend: social games on smartphones that are not embedded in Mobage or GREE – but do pretty well anyway. Following Puzzle & Dragons from GungHo, it’s Square Enix newest title that sees success with this strategy.

“Diffusion Million Arthur”, a great-looking social card battle game loosely based on the King Arthur saga, has quickly climbed up the ranking of the top grossing apps in the Japanese App Store.

As can be seen below, the game currently tops that ranking – ahead of two GREE titles and several other stand-alone/”platform-free” social games.

It’s the second social game not using GREE or Mobage in a row to be the No. 1 money maker on iOS – Puzzle & Dragons was the top grossing app for almost 8 weeks before that.（source:serkantoto）

3）Shigeru Miyamoto praises Rovio’s Angry Birds

By Nadia Oxford

Shigeru Miyamoto isn’t just a legendary game designer; he’s also a humble, classy dude. Even though he’s the property of Nintendo, Miyamoto’s not afraid to talk about outside games that he loves and admires. During a recent interview that was conducted in Paris, he said that he holds affection for Angry Birds, one of the most popular games on iOS.

When Miyamoto was asked about his favorite non-Nintendo games over the past year, he stated, “What I like about Angry Birds is that it has a traditional videogame [feel] to it, but also a very creative side. And you can really feel that they’re having fun developing the game. That’s what I like about it.”

Miyamoto admitted that he doesn’t have a lot of time to play smartphone games, but he still has a good deal of insight on the emerging market. “I check up on [smartphone games] sometimes, but I don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “I think we also have a history of having certain fun ideas and making a game out of it, and there’s lots of other people also doing this [now].

“This kind of environment inspires us to try even harder, and create even more unexpected new things.”

Nintendo has not been shy about admitting that it sees Apple as a threat—a bigger threat, even, than Microsoft and even Sony, whose Vita is in direct competition with the Nintendo 3DS.

Naturally, when two companies are at war (even a cold war), both sides are likelier to pooh-pooh the others’ products instead of acknowledging any hard work or good ideas that went into them. Nintendo has made comments in the past about iOS games being “disposable,” and Steve Jobs wasn’t exactly full of nice things to say about the House of M[ario].

So it’s nice to see one of the world’s premiere game designers stand up and say, “Angry Birds may not be a Nintendo game, but it’s well-designed, and I enjoy playing it.”

It’s heartening to see that Miyamoto still values fun and well-designed games above the bluster, big talk, and marketing that is inevitably paired with console wars.

And he’s absolutely right: competition from Apple is keeping Nintendo on its toes, particularly as a hard reminder that digital distribution isn’t going to go away. This is a very good thing for the 3DS in particular, which actually has a halfway decent online shop thanks to pressure from the App Store.（source:gamezebo）

4）Google Play Now Accepts Paid Android App Submissions From New Seller Countries

Chris Velazco

While Google’s top brass were busy dissecting the company’s Q1 earnings on their scheduled conference call, it was business as usual for the rest of the company. Over on the official Android Developers blog, for example, Google announced that developers in the Czech Republic, Mexico, Israel, and Poland can now sell Android apps and in-app additions in the Google Play store (and in their native currencies to boot).

“But wait,” you may say. “Developers from Israel and Mexico have been able to sell their apps for years now!” You’d be absolutely right — the Czech Republic and Poland are the only really new additions, but there was a bit of a catch for the other two.

At the time, developers in Mexico and Israel could only sell their apps through an AdSense merchant account and set prices in U.S. dollars. With this new change in place, Google now

supports both countries’ respective currencies. The process for Israeli or Mexican developers to make the transition seems a bit hairy though — Google outlines the whole thing here, and it involves creating a new Google account and re-registering with Google Play.

So what does this mean for you developers? Well, unless you live in one of the aforementioned countries, not a whole lot. While most of the work will have to be done by developers operating out of those locales, Google still suggests that you consider whether or not you want to set a specific price for each of those new markets instead of just letting your default price ride.

Those minor issues aside, Google now officially supports paid application sales from developers in 31 countries. It sounds pretty good until you realize that it’s taken over a year and a half for Google to add these new names to the list of supported countries. I’m sure that developers in those countries will appreciate that Google has finally gotten around to them, but there are still quite a few that haven’t.

A link to the post was shared by the Android Developers’ Google+ account, inspiring a litany of requests from people asking Google to support their countries as well, prompting Android Developer Relations Lead Reto Meier to apologize for the delay. Then again, Google’s always been very upfront about this sort of thing — they note in their list of seller countries that they are “unable to provide any guidance on timelines.”（source:techcrunch）

5）Mass Effect and Infinity Blade 2 running at sub-Retina resolution on new iPad

by Keith Andrew

The PR gloss laddled over the new iPad at launch has started to chip off, following revelations that some high-end game developers are encountering problems with the hardware.

It’s an issue Digital Foundry – which delivers HD capture solutions – has chosen to address in an opinion piece on GamesIndustry.biz, with the company claiming developers are being forced to compromise in order to get the most out of the tablet.

Many studios working are either sacrificing resolution in order to keep the game running at a smooth rate, or tolerating choppy framerates as an outcome of fully supporting the Retina display.

A question of strategy

“Many suspected that Apple would double up on both CPU and GPU cores for its new device, but in the event only the graphics technology has been upgraded, with a 2x boost in power over the iPad 2, being tasked with maintaining 4x the resolution,” details Digital Foundry’s Richard Leadbetter.

“This results in some compromises: Retina upgrades to graphics-intensive titles like Mass Effect: Infiltrator and Infinity Blade 2 don’t actually address the full 2048×1536 potential of the screen, running at sub-native resolution – but still offering something approaching a 2x boost in detail compared to the iPad 2 versions.”

In contrast, the company claims, some other developers have adopted an alternative strategy.

“Other titles like Galaxy on Fire 2 HD, Modern Combat 3 and Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy support full Retina res, but also appear to possess a more inconsistent frame-rate compared to the same games running on the older tablet,” the firm continues.

“An interesting compromise is Vector Unit’s Riptide GP which has a graphics menu option allowing players to scale up resolution to their liking while acknowledging that doing so impacts frame-rate.”

Step by step

It’s an admission that chimes with PocketGamer.biz feedback from an anonymous sweep of well placed iOS developers.

“Devs are in a dilemma situation now as they either have to go back to standard resolution or keep supporting Retina to be featured by Apple while facing unhappy customers and poor ratings,” one studio told us.

“This is true for pretty much any of the high-end 3D games currently available for the new iPad and users are giving devs plenty of one-star ratings.”（source:pocketgamer）   http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/Digital+Foundry+news/news.asp?c=39854

6）GetJar COO Chris Dury steps up to CEO position as free app store looks to ride US Android boom

by Jon Jordan

Free app store GetJar has tweaked its executive structure.

Founder Ilja Laurs becomes executive chairman, while US-based COO Chris Dury steps up into the CEO position.

“GetJar is continuing to expand rapidly, but now a majority of our growth is occurring in the United States,” said Laurs, particularly pointing out the strength of the Android ecosystem in the territory.

“We felt it was important for top leadership to be based there, and it was an easy decision to elevate Chris given his leadership and substantial contribution.”

Going for more gold

Dury previously worked at Intel, scanR, OneFone and Firetalk and has been with GetJar for three years.

Based in San Mateo, he’s been instrumental in the creation of GetJar’s Gold program, including its virtual currency.

Laurs will continue full time, focusing on business strategy and development from Lithuania.

“I’m excited about what lies ahead,” said Dury.

“Our new GetJar Gold virtual currency is already helping dozens of apps grow their revenue and close the monetisation gap between Android and iOS. We are extremely well positioned for growth as the next billion users adopt smartphones over the next few years.”（source:pocketgamer）