1）据NPR报道，EA首席执行官John Riccitiello在最近采访中承认，EA在Facebook平台的表现与Zynga相比仍然差距甚远。他认为Zynga成功通过分析用户数据而成为Facebook平台的主导，但他认为这种模式未必是长久之计。

john-riccitiello(from gamesandme.com)

在他看来，将自己视为数据分析的公司并不算是真正意义上的娱乐公司，用户需要娱乐而不是被数字所操控，娱乐性是EA关注的要点，但EA也重视数字分析对社交游戏的影响。EA希望通过结合经典游戏设计与现代数据分析技巧，进一步缩小同Zynga的差距，与之角逐Facebook平台头把交椅。

2）据挪威网站Nordlys报道，EA打算增加对大型项目的投入，因此准备关闭旗下社交游戏开发商Playfish的Tromso工作室（位于挪威北部港市），届时将有21名团队成员失业。

Playfish-logo(from kaskus)

但Playfish总经理Kim Daniel Arthur仍将担任原职，有一部分Tromso工作室成员也会保留其岗位。该工作室曾助Playfish和EA收获全球8100万用户，其团队包括程序员及设计、文案等创意人员，这些失业成员将获得一定的补偿。

3）《波斯王子》之父Jordan Mechner在最近媒体采访中表示，他认为将游戏移植到新平台称为“游戏进化”的说法并不妥当，因为这会误导人们认为旧款游戏已经灭绝，但事实并非如此。

jordan_mechner(from kotaku.com)

据其所言，新平台的兴起为旧游戏带来了新发展机遇，例如人们可以在iPhone上以不同于PS 3设备的方式体验《小行星》，新平台为传统故事及冒险类游戏带来了更多新用户。

4）在本周的Facebook新晋游戏（MAU低于100万）榜单上，繁体中文角色扮演游戏《英雄远征》位居榜首，新增4万MAU，增幅达400％。

Top gainers this week-MAU(from AppData)

增幅最大的是《Super Slots》，新增MAU为2万9800，增幅高达14900％。另外两款增幅超过100％的游戏分别是Nival和KranX Production推出的《King’s Bounty:Legions》（新增2万MAU），以及Telaxo游戏《City Challenge:USA》（1万MAU）。

SGN有6款游戏跻身本周榜单，《Dots II》和《King of Sweden》都实现33％的增幅，新增2万MAU，《Advansnake》收获1万MAU，增幅100％；《Bowman》新增1万MAU，增幅达25％；《CarChaos》新增1万MAU，增幅达20％，《Conveyor》新增1万MAU，增幅为20％。（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）EA knows it has a lot of catching up to do to compete with Zynga on Facebook

by Tom Curtis

Over the past several years, Electronic Arts has continued to push its business into the digital sector with web-based social games like The Sims Social and Bejeweled Blitz. The company is

currently competing with King.com and Wooga for the number two spot on Facebook, but CEO John Riccitiello thinks the EA has a long way to go before it can compete with a juggernaut like Zynga.

“When it comes to Facebook, while we’re number two, I’d say we’re a distant number two, and [Zynga has] lapped us by about three times,” Riccitiello said in a recent interview with NPR’s Morning News.

Zynga obtained such a strong lead by becoming one of the most intelligent data-driven companies on Facebook. By examining player information and creating content that matches their tastes, the company has been able to grow its game network to some 273 million monthly active users.

That data-focused approach has worked well for Zynga so far, but Riccitiello isn’t sure if it’s sustainable in the long-term.

“The companies that are focused exclusively on social games think of themselves as data companies, sort of analytics companies, they’re not really in the entertainment business. I think that will eventually die — consumers want to be entertained; they don’t want to be data-managed,” Riccitiello said.

While entertainment might be EA’s focus, that’s not to say that data analysis doesn’t impact the way it approaches social games. In fact, last year EA hired its first global chief technology officer to implement technologies that will allow the company to better predict what consumers are looking for.

Adding to Riccitiello’s comments, EA CTO Rajat Taneja told NPR that his job is to “apply techniques like machine learning and neural nets to figure out what will happen next so that we can tailor the game and the experiences to delight our customers.”

By leveraging both classic game design and the modern data analysis techniques, EA hopes it can close the gap and Zynga and go toe-to-toe for the number one spot on Facebook.

Zynga, however, doesn’t appear too worried about losing its hold on the social market, as it has used the last several years to perfect the way it manages data to grow its numerous social games.

“We’ve spent three or four years building this infrastructure, and we already understand the problems in this space. I’m not trying to be dismissive, it’s just that we haven’t found people in the game industry who do this,” Zynga chief engineer Kostadis Roussos told NPR. （source:gamasutra）

2）EA to close social outfit Playfish’s Tromso studio

by Keith Andrew

Norwegian website Nordlys is reporting EA is set to close down social developer Playfish’s Tromso studio.

The site claims EA is looking to invest in some of its larger bases and, as such, has decided to call time on Tromso’s team, with 21 employees losing their jobs as a result.

Touting talent

It’s suggested Playfish’s general manager Kim Daniel Arthur is to stay on in his position in spite of the closure, and indeed, some other employees from the Tromso office “shall continue” in their jobs according to a translation.

Tromso is reported to have been behind games that have amassed Playfish – and latterly EA – 81 million users worldwide, with the office consisting of a mix of programmers and creatives covering everything from design to writing.

All the staff involved will work out the notice period, picking up extra compensation pay in the process, with Arthur calling on other studios looking to take on new talent to contact him for details.

EA acquired Playfish for around $400 million (275 million cash, $25 million in equity and $100 million based on perfomance) back in November 2009.（source:pocketgamer）

3）Prince of Persia creator Mechner says ‘evolution of games’ is a misleading idea

by Leigh Alexander

Jordan Mechner’s The Last Express is coming to iOS in a time that’s seen something of a resurgence in popularity for earlier game forms — particularly the adventure genre, in an environment of positive fundraising for the work of creators like Al Lowe, Jane Jensen and the Two Guys From Andromeda.

But Mechner, also renowned for his Karateka (currently undergoing its own remake) and Prince of Persia, cautions against viewing games on such a fixed continuum: “Older game forms don’t go away,” he tells Gamasutra. “So when we talk about the ‘evolution of games’, I think that’s misleading, because it implies that the older forms no longer exist.”

The emergence of new platforms simply creates new opportunities for older forms: “It actually makes sense to make a game like Asteroids now, in a way it hasn’t in the last 20 years,” he says for example, “because it makes sense to play Asteroids on your iPhone the way it doesn’t make sense to [play it] on your PlayStation 3.”

New platforms can bring traditional story and adventure-focused games to new audiences — but new approaches are also on the rise. Mechner is a big fan of Thatgamecompany’s Journey: “You interact [with other players] just through a couple of simple buttons, but within those few buttons there’s great subtlety,” he reflects.

That simplicity is just one of many signs that games are enjoying a similar growth arc to almost every other art form. “It’s easy to take film as an analogy… your early films were adaptations of stage plays or literary works, and then we had films that were remakes of earlier films,” Mechner says. Part of any art medium’s quest for its voice involves initially being imitative before finding its own strengths, and going through phases of popular appeal versus experimentation.

In film “we had genres that evolved, plateaued and then burnt out, like Westerns, but then the climate changed,” Mechner explains. “In the ’60s and ’70s, Hollywood came back to the Western, but they were revisionist… using an outdated genre to address themes like the end of America, the displacement of Native Americans, the cost of war… things Westerns had traditionally not done.”

“When game forms come back, they don’t come back the same way; they come back into a new environment where things are possible that were not possible before,” he notes. “You can now make a game that’s about games; you can comment on your [older] forms, you’re not just copying them.”

That’s part of what makes it an exciting time to enter the field, he adds: “There are teams large and small all over the world exploring pretty much any kind of gaming idea that you can imagine. I think this is a great time to be working in games at any level.” （source：gamasutra）

4）Chinese language RPG tops this weeks list of emerging Facebook games

Mike Thompson

Chinese language role-playing game《英雄遠征》繁體版 (“Traditional Version of the ‘Heroic Expedition’” ) took the No. 1 spot on this week’s list of emerging games, gaining 40,000 monthly active users for a 400 percent increase.

The largest gain percentage belongs to Super Slots (which goes by “3D Slots” on Facebook), the game picked up 29,800 MAU for a 14,900 percent gain.

Two other games on the list this week sported 100 percent gains: Nival and KranX Production’s King’s Bounty: Legions and Telaxo’s City Challenge: USA. King’s Bounty: Legions acquired 20,000 MAU, while City Challenge gained 10,000 MAU.

SGN — previously known as MindJolt — had six games on this week’s list. Both Dots II and King of Sweden gained 20,000 MAU for 33 percent increases. Advansnake snagged 10,000 MAU for a 100 percent gain. Bowman shot up by 10,000 MAU for a 25 percent increase. CarChaos also grew by 10,000 MAU, but it increased by 20 percent. Finally, Conveyor moved forward by 10,000 MAU for a 20 percent gain.（source:insidesocialgames）