1）Zynga最近财报显示，2012年第一季度公司收益为3.21亿美元，同比上年增长32%；净亏损为8540万美元，而2011年同期则有1680万美元的净收益。

zynga bookings & revenue(from insidemobileapps)

Zynga游戏DAU同比去年增长6%，从原来的6200万增长至6500万；MAU则从去年同期的1.46亿增长至1.82亿，增幅达25%；Zynga每月独立付费用户也从2011年第四季度的290万，增长至2012年第一季度的350万。

zynga MAU & DAU(from insidemobileapps)

第一季度Zynga推出了6款游戏，它们分别是《Hidden Chronicles》、《Zynga Slingo》、《Scramble with Friends》、《Dream PetHouse》、《Dream Heights》以及《Draw Something》（游戏邦注：其中有四款是手机游戏，《Draw Somehting》则是Zynga收购所得）。去年同期，Zynga仅发布了一款《CityVille》，该游戏目前仍是Facebook头号社交游戏，目前MAU为4160万，DAU为660万。

2）Zynga财报显示，公司手机游戏DAU已增长至2100万，而2011年第四季度则是1200万。

据其首席运营官John Schappert所称，Zynga手机游戏用户增长主要得益于《Words With Friends》、《Scramble With Friends》和《Zynga Poker》（游戏邦注：《Draw Something》是在该季度末期才被Zynga收购，因此其用户不计入这一行列；Mark Pincus称这款游戏的月独立用户已计入Zynga第一季度财报，但其月独立付费用户则不在此列）　。

Words-with-Friends(from fashify.com)

需注意的是，发布已三年的手机游戏《Zynga Poker》已跻身Android平台营收榜单之首，而《Words With Friends》则在3月份被苹果评为头号iOS免费游戏。

3）Zynga首席执行官Mark Pincus在最近财报会议中指出，收购《Draw Something》开发商OMGPOP对Zynga财务策略及手机业务发展极具意义，这款手机游戏呈现了新的社交联系和病毒式传播形式，它是一个不同于Zynga其他产品的罕见资源；Zynga计划今后谨慎收购其他公司，只有当对方符合Zynga发展战略时才会达成交易。

4）据gamasutra报道，著名卡牌收集游戏《Magic:The Gathering》制作者Richard Garfield日前在Kickstarter发起一个大众融资活动，号召粉丝为基于地理定位（以下简称LBS）的新手机游戏项目筹资。

Map Monsters(from kickstarter.com)

Garfield的目标是在5月5日为止筹资4万美元，这款LBS冒险游戏名为《Map Monsters》，支持玩家在游戏中不同的地理位置捉怪物。该游戏将首先发布于iPhone和iPad平台，并最终推出一个Android移植版本。

他将同擅长开发LBS手机及社交游戏的西雅图独立工作室BodSix合作推出这款游戏，后者团队成员拥有亚马逊、苹果、皮克斯、Wizards of the Coast等公司背景。

该项目允诺将为支持者提供虚拟商品、签名海报、Map Monsters主题T恤等奖励，目前已经集资1万多美元。

5）comScore最近报告指出，截止2012年2月，亚马逊Kindle Fire在全美Android平板电脑中已占据54.4％的市场份额，而三星Galaxy Tab平板电脑仅占比15.4％，Xoom平板电脑占比7％。

华硕Transformer平板电脑占比6.3％，东芝AT 100平板电脑占比5.7％。

6）据pocketgamer报道，Windows Phone官方博客最近发布消息称，Windows Phone用户需将手机操作系统升级至7.5版本才能正常使用该平台应用商店，否则他们通过Marketplace下载内容（无论是新应用还是更新版应用）时将会收到错误信息。

Windows-Phone-Marketplace(from androsym.com)

据该平台高管Mazhar Mohammed所称，微软的这一举措意在提升Marketplace运行性能及安全性，以便更好地实现平台的快速发展并推出更多新功能。

7）NPD最新报告显示，每四个iPad用户中就有一者是新晋苹果用户（即他们之前从未购买过苹果产品）。

该报告调查了3000多名美国用户，并发现iPad已经成为苹果品牌的一个“入门”产品。iPad刚发布时的销量增长速度超过了任何苹果产品，每5个苹果家庭用户中就有一个iPad——几乎与拥有苹果电脑的用户数量相当。

尽管有70％的“资深苹果用户”表示，iPod才是自己的第一个苹果产品，但在最近两年才加入苹果用户行列的群体中，这一数据已降为57％。（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）Zynga reports highest ever bookings for Q1 at $329M

AJ Glasser

Zynga’s made $329 million in bookings and $321 million in revenue for the first quarter of 2012, an increase of 15 percent and 32 percent year-on-year, respectively. The developer reported net loss at $85.4 million, compared to a net income of $16.8 million for Q1 2011.

Daily active users are up 6 percent year-on-year from 62 million to 65 million. Monthly unique users are up 25 percent to 182 million from 146 million in Q1 2011. Zynga also says its increased monthly unique paying users from 2.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2011 to 3.5 million. Zynga released six games during Q1 2012, four of them mobile: Hidden Chronicles, Zynga Slingo, Scramble with Friends, Dream PetHouse, Dream Heights and Draw Something (which Zynga acquired just before the end of the quarter). Last year, Zynga only had CityVille on its release calendar for Q1 — and that game is still top dog on Facebook at 41.6 million monthly active users and 6.6 million daily active users today.（source:insidemobileapps）

2） Zynga up to 21M mobile daily active users on strength of Q1 releases

AJ Glasser

During today’s earnings call, Zynga revealed it had grown to 21 million mobile daily active users, compared to the 12 million DAU it had in Q4 2011.

COO John Schappert says that the bulk of the growth was organically generated by Words With Friends, Scramble With Friends and Zynga Poker. Draw Something, while boasting impressive numbers all on its own, didn’t become a part of Zynga until very late in the quarter — which is why it didn’t account for more of that growth. Mark Pincus explained that the game’s monthly unique users were factored into Zynga’s Q1 2012 earnings; it’s monthly unique paying players were not.

Schappert also pointed out on the call that Zynga Poker — a three-year-old mobile game — finally broke into the No. 1 spot on Android’s Top Grossing chart, having already achieved that distinction on iOS. Apple also recognized Words With Friends in March as the No. 1 free game app of all time.（source:insidesocialgames）

3）Draw Something acquisition was a ‘rare’ opportunity for Zynga, says CEO

by Tom Curtis

While just last week Zynga CEO Mark Pincus mentioned that he wanted to “aggressively pursue” more companies like the recently acquired Omgpop, the executive took a more cautious stance during a recent earnings call, noting that purchasing the Draw Something studio was a “rare instance” for the social game giant.

During the company’s financial earnings call on Thursday, Pincus said that the $180 million acquisition of Omgpop only made sense because it fit in perfectly with the Zynga’s financial strategy and growing mobile business.

“[After Words With Friends,] Draw Something was the second major product line that we went out and acquired. It was a rare instance for us,” Pincus said. “We believed it was not just accretive financially, but we were excited about its growth and what this game meant for mobile and social gaming.”

Pincus added that the Omgpop’s Pictionary-inspired app offered a new take on social connectivity and viral growth, making it an unusual resource that offered something completely different than the rest of the Zynga catalog.

“We thought it would be synergistic to our network and infrastructure. We thought it would be more valuable to Zynga and that we could organically build from it,” Pincus said.

Going forward, Pincus said Zynga still plans to take a cautious approach to acquiring other companies, and will only go after new deals if they make sense and augment the company’s bottom line.

“It does not represent a change in our strategy or our approach to large investments in our data, analytics and hosting infrastructure. At every point, we have been very careful, prudent, and bottom-line oriented to make investments where we could connect the dots to an accretive return,” he said.（source:gamasutra）

4）Magic the Gathering creator seeks Kickstarter funding for mobile game

by Eric Caoili

Richard Garfield, creator of popular collectible card game Magic: The Gathering, has launched a fundraising campaign to finance development for a new location-based mobile game.

He joins a growing list of notable game designers who have turned to crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and fans to front the bill for their new projects — recent success stories include campaigns from Tim Schafer (Psychonauts), Jordan Weisman (Shadowrun), and Brian Fargo (Wasteland).

Garfield hopes to raise $40,000 in pledges by May 5 to fund a free-to-play location-based adventure title called Map Monsters. In the game, players capture monsters that they can find in different physical areas. It will release for iPhone and iPad initially, and will eventually receive an Android port.

The designer has teamed up with BodSix, a Seattle-based independent studio that specializes in location-based mobile and social games, to create Map Monsters. The team is made up of veterans from companies like Amazon, Apple, Pixar, and Wizards of the Coast.

The Kickstarter campaign is offering credits for virtual goods, signed posters, Map Monsters shirts, a “game night” with Garfield, and other incentives to donators. So far, Garfield and BodSix have received around $10,000 in pledges, a fourth of their goal.

Though Garfield is best known for creating seminal card game Magic: The Gathering, he has helped design a number of video games in recent years like Torpex’s Schizoid, Mind Control’s Mind Twist, and Hothead’s Kard Combat. （source:gamasutra）

5）ComScore: Amazon’s Kindle Fire Now Has Over Half The U.S. Android Tablet Market (And All The Mindshare?)

Ingrid Lunden

On the same day that Amazon will be releasing its quarterly earnings, some research from comScore underscores just how far the company has come since launching its Kindle Fire tablet in November 2011.

The researchers say that as of February 2012, Amazon’s Kindle Fire now accounts for 54.4 percent of all Android tablets in the U.S. Given how many different models of Android tablets there are out in the market at the moment, that gives it a strong lead over the rest of the field: the whole range of Samsung Galaxy Tab tablets, added together, only accounted for 15.4 percent of the market, with the Xoom following at seven percent, comScore said.

That’s an embarrassing state of affairs for a company like Samsung, which has not only flooded the market with different-sized devices but was an early mover in the Android tablet space. And these figures also emphasize just how much work Sony has ahead of it in its battle to try to get more traction in tablets and mobile in general.

On the other hand, the small shares for so many manufacturers also, inadvertently, gives a good opening for Microsoft to entice OEMs to build on its platform to try to wrest share from Amazon and Apple and its iPad, which is still the most popular tablet of all — although its share of sales has decreased over time. Apart from Amazon, which is using a forked version of Android, no one has really made headway among consumers using Android to date.

It also points to the possibility that if Amazon can create a successful forked Android product, will we see others trying their luck using this route soon?

Of course, there’s more to making a successful product in the tablet market, and what Amazon has managed to do is create a price-busting ($199), content-rich product that not only has the benefit of Amazon’s own content relationships, but by getting a critical mass of tablet users it is also attracting third-party developers to make apps specifically for its platform.

Beyond that, Asus with its Transformer has made an almost equal impact as Motorola, with a 6.3 percent share of the market and Toshiba’s AT100 has a 5.7 percent share.

With some expecting Amazon to release a second model of the Fire with a bigger screen — and others speculating that Apple will do the same by releasing a smaller-screened iPad — the industry hasn’t really settled on which size tablet might be optimal. Some figures out from comScore give some insight at least into how different sizes get used.

Basically, when it comes to browsing, the bigger the better: a tablet with a 10-inch screen generates 39 percent more browsing than a tablet with a seven-inch screen, and a 58 percent higher consumption rate than five-inch tablets.  (That’s not too much of a surprise, really, since it’s much easier to browse the Internet on a bigger screen, but it does also point to the fact that over time we may see more content created to capitalize on this trend.)

ComScore’s numbers come from a new research division called Device Essentials, which tracks Internet traffic on a device-specific basis. Other types of data it collects are around smartphone and feature phone usage on an OS-level; how much smartphone traffic is carried by different operators; and traffic for specific content categories based on operating systems and devices; and whether people are using cellular network or Wi-Fi to browse.（source:techcrunch）

6）Windows Phone owners need to upgrade to use Marketplace, says Microsoft

by James Nouch

Owners of Windows Phone handsets who have yet to upgrade to version 7.5 of the firmware will soon find themselves locked out of the platform’s app store.

According to a post on the official Windows Phone blog, those running older versions of the OS will soon receive an error message when trying to download Marketplace content – whether new apps, or updates to those already on their device.

Moving with the market

“Starting in the next few weeks anybody who wants to buy or download a new app, update an existing app, or submit app reviews to Marketplace will need Windows Phone 7.5 on their phone,” detailed director of program management Mazhar Mohammed.

“Requiring Windows Phone 7.5 is part of a larger effort aimed at improving Marketplace performance and security, and paving the way for even faster growth and more new features.”

Microsoft has also removed the option to shop for Windows Phone apps from its Zune PC software, responding to stats that show Windows Phone users favour the on-device store or the recently launched web-based Marketplace

Said developments follow rumours yet to be denied by Microsoft that existing Windows Phone owners will not be able to upgrade to Windows Phone 8 – better known as Apollo – when it launches later in 2012.（source:pocketgamer）

7）1 in 4 iPad purchases made by first time Apple buyers

by James Nouch

One in our iPad owners have never purchased an Apple product before according to a new NPD report, with the device serving as an “introductory Apple device” for many customers.

The report, which surveyed more than 3,000 consumers across the US, suggests iPad is performing a function previously fulfilled by the iPod: serving as a ‘gateway’ product to the Apple brand.

The gateway device

“iPad sales are growing much faster than any other Apple product has this soon after launch,” explained Ben Arnold, NPD’s director of industry analysis.

“In fact, one in five Apple owner households has one – nearly equivalent to the number that own an Apple computer. This demonstrates the appeal of both the new form factor and Apple’s app ecosystem.”

While 70 percent of ‘long standing Apple owners’ say iPod was their first Apple purchase, that figure falls to 57 percent in the case of consumers who have joined the Apple train within the last two years.

NPD claims the fact MP3 playback is now incorporated into other portable devices means newcomers are increasingly being drawn towards non iPod devices, like iPhone and iPad.

Together, bith account for one third of all first-time Apple purchases since 2010.（source:pocketgamer）