1）据《韩国时报》报道，韩国文化体育观光部（MCST）日前宣布将禁止所有“商业目的性质”的游戏道具交易行为，以扼制因游戏道具交易而产生的青少年犯罪现象。

diablo3-Korea(from geekosystem.com)

MCST将于下个月公布更多细节，据称其颁布法案还涉及禁止用户利用外挂工具为玩家自动收集道具等内容（游戏邦注：报道称韩国有60%以上的在线交易虚拟道具来自这些自动收集程序），以净化韩国游戏文化环境，并鼓励教育类游戏的发展。

违反该法案的行为将受到可能高达5000万韩元（4.3万美元）的罚款以及5年监禁。

2）据Andriasang报道，日本社交游戏公司DeNA最近发布的2012财年第一季度（2012年4-6月）预测报告指出，尽管“Kompu Gacha”已被取缔（游戏邦注：日本政府已下令禁止社交游戏公司采用具有赌博性质的Kompu Gacha机制），但这不会给公司未来销售额造成重大影响。

预计截止今年6月30日，公司这一季度销售额将达175亿日元（即2.22亿美元），超过上一财年同期的158.9亿日元（2.015亿美元）。

3）据Serkantoto报道，NHN Japan公司日前宣布其社交平台LINE将于7月3日针对推出社交游戏服务，观察者认为LINE或将成为DeNA和GREE潜在竞争对手的原因包括：

*NHN Japan最近宣布LINE注册用户已达4000万（该平台发布仅一年而已），其中有1850万用户位于日本，82%属于活跃用户。而DeNA的Mobage平台及GREE在日本注册用户虽然都有3000万左右，但却并未公开活跃用户比例（可能远低于82%）。

*NHN Japan已发布两款基于LINE的应用，其中一个是问候卡应用LINE Card，以及一个照片应用LINE Camera（下载量已超过500万次）。

LINE camera(from techinasia.com)

*LINE社交平台不但将发布第一方游戏，而且还将向其他开发商开放服务，并采用类似于Mobage和GREE的收益分成模式。

*NHN此前已经进军游戏领域，在日本运营了一个在线游戏门户网站Hangame，支持用户通过PC、智能手机和功能性手机访问该网站。

*NHN在韩国的经济实力足以支持其日本分公司扩大影响力（该公司在韩国首尔证券交易所的市值将近100亿美元）。

此外NHN在日本展开了大规模的宣传攻势，获得了一些名人支持（这也是Twitter在日本获得迅速发展的策略之一），并且在日本电视频道播放一系列广告（这是DeNA与GREE的重要发展因素之一）。

4）据gamasutra报道，Valve日前宣布聘请希腊经济学家及经济理论教授Yanis Varoufakis加入公司团队，帮助分析游戏中的虚拟经济/货币问题（据称CCP公司在数年前也引进一名经济学者帮忙分析MMO游戏《EVE Online》中的相关问题），以便Valve产出更多免费模式游戏。

Yanis Varoufakis(from examiner.com)

Yanis Varoufakis曾任希腊首相George Papandreou的经济顾问，他本人并没有什么游戏行业背景，并且从来不玩电子游戏，但Valve首席执行官Gabe Newell对其著作颇为了解，因此向其寻求帮助，咨询如何让两个游戏世界使用同种货币等问题。

Varoufakis将负责进行数据挖掘、实验等工作，并根据自己的观察校准公司为玩家提供的服务。他将在Valve网站的个人博客中发布自己对游戏经济领域的观察周报和想法。

5）据Variety报道，Zynga将与美国哥伦比亚广播公司CBS合作推出一档电视游戏节目，该节目将由索尼影视、Ryan Seacrest Productions和Embassy Row联合制作，但尚未公布具体播映时间。

draw something(from variety.com)

该节目暂定构思是多位名人、用户在摄制现场观众面前进行互动，将人们在上下班途中或临睡前所玩的热门游戏转变为一个搞笑的游戏电视节目，而在家中观看电视节目的观众也可以通过游戏与现场人员互动。（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）Virtual item trading to be banned in South Korea

by Mike Rose

Authorities in South Korea plan to introduce a new law next month that will ban all virtual item trading and virtual item harvesting, as it says game item trading is one of the causes of teenage crime in the country.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is set to announce the details of the law next month, in a bid to encourage students not to waste time gathering virtual currency.

The law will also cover programs that some users utilize to automatically harvest items in online games without the need for the player to be present, covering the use of gold bot farming.

The ministry estimates that over 60 percent of virtual items exchanged online in Korea are obtained via these automatic programs, reports The Korea Times.

Kim Kap-soo, head of the ministry’s content policy division, said that the law was in aid of creating a healthy game culture in the country, noting that games should be used more often for academic purposes.

Anyone who violates the law may see a maximum fine of 50 million won ($43,000) and five years in prison. The ministry plans to provide the police department in Korea with active guidelines, such that it can actively enforce the law. （source:gamasutra）

2）DeNA forecasts increased earnings despite ‘Kompu Gacha’ ban

by Mike Rose

Tokyo-based social and mobile gaming giant DeNA has released its earnings expectations for the current fiscal quarter, noting an increase in earnings year-over-year despite a recent “Kompu Gacha” sales ban.

The company was forced to abandon the practice of selling random virtual goods last month following a ban by Japan’s Consumer Affairs Agency. DeNA’s CEO Isao Moriyasu said at the time that he did not believe it would too greatly affect DeNA’s sales.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2012, DeNA forecasts sales of 17.5 billion yen ($222.0 million), up from 15.89 billion yen ($201.5 million) for the same quarter in the previous fiscal year, reports Andriasang.（source:gamasutra）

3）LINE To Become A Platform For Games (And A GREE / DeNA Competitor) Soon [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

LINE, the incredibly popular social networking/messenger app from NHN Japan (the Tokyo-based subsidiary of the Korean web company), is to become a platform for other apps soon.

During an industry event in Sapporo, NHN Japan CEO Morikawa said that he will lay out details on how he intends to turn LINE into a platform on July 3. But he gave away a few hints, which TechCrunch Japan picked up here.

There are reasons why Mobage operator DeNA and GREE should take LINE seriously as a possible future competitor:

1

NHN Japan recently announced that LINE already has 40 million users – barely a year after launch. 18.5 million of those 40 million LINE users are located in Japan: and 82% of these users are active, according to NHN Japan.

Mobage and GREE have around 30 million registered Japanese members each but don’t reveal the number of active users (but it’s much, much lower than 82%).

2

NHN Japan itself released two LINE-based apps already, a greeting card app called LINE Card and a photo app called LINE Camera (which already boasts over 5 million downloads).

In other words, cross-promoting and piggybacking on the success, branding and distribution power of LINE seems to work.

3

The plan is to not only release 1st-party games on LINE but also let other game makers do the same, most probably using a revenue share model, just like on Mobage and GREE.

4

In the gaming space, NHN isn’t exactly a nobody. The company  runs Hangame in Japan, an online gaming portal that’s available on the PC, smartphones, and feature phones.

NHN Japan may have slept through the mobile social gaming boom but now has the theoretical chance of striking back. For more background on NHN’s gaming business in Japan (in English), click here.

5

NHN in Korea certainly has the financial power to back its Japanese subsidiary with enough yen to further push LINE (current market cap at the Seoul Stock Exchange: close to US$10 billion).

And the Tokyo office does promote the service aggressively, for example by adding accounts celebrities to LINE (one of the reasons why Twitter grew so quickly in Japan a few years back) and running a number of commercials on national TV (one of the reasons for the growth of DeNA and GREE).

Other Japanese platforms that compete with GREE and DeNA currently (in one way or the other) include Mixi Appli, Nico Nico Applications (background), CyberAgent‘s Ameba (background), Joynt, or entag.（source:serkantoto）

4）Valve hires economist to manage, experiment with its free-to-play games

by Eric Caoili

Valve has hired Greek-Australian economist and economics theory professor Yanis Varoufakis to help the company analyze the virtual economies/currencies of its games.

The company isn’t the first game developer to have an in-house economist — CCP brought in one to study its EVE Online MMO several years ago — but this move supports Valve’s shift toward producing free-to-play titles, such as Team Fortress 2 and the upcoming Dota 2.

Though Varoufakis has little experience working in the game industry or playing video games at all, Valve head Gabe Newell was familiar with the professor’s work concerning Greece’s economy and the Eurozone crisis — Varoufakis had previously served as an economic adviser to former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou.

Newell approached Varoufakis as the company struggled with issues concerning linking economies in two game environments to create a shared currency. He realized that the problem sounded similar to the current real-world economics troubles between Germany and Greece, and invited Varoufakis to become Valve’s economist in residence.

Varoufakis says that working with in-game economies are an economist’s “dream-come-true,” as he actually has access to data from every transaction, and doesn’t need to rely on statistics. At Valve, he intends to perform plenty of data mining, experimentation, and calibration of the company’s services to players based on his findings.

He also aims to “forge narratives and empirical knowledge that (a) transcend the border separating the ‘real’ from the digital economies, and (b) bring together lessons from the political economy of our gamers’ economies and from studying Valve’s very special (and fascinating) internal management structure.”

Varoufakis will publish weekly reports on his projects, experiences, and ideas regarding the company’s game economies on his blog at Valve’s site.（source:gamasutra）

5）Zynga And CBS Are Working To Bring Draw Something To Primetime TV

Ryan Lawler

So you wondered how Zynga was gonna make money off its $210 million acquisition of OMGPOP? How about this: Hit game title Draw Something will soon be at the center of a new primetime game show, according to a report by Variety. The show’s pilot, which was picked up by CBS after an apparent bidding war, will be produced by Sony Pictures Television, Ryan Seacrest Productions, and Embassy Row.

The pilot concept will reportedly pit multiple celebrities and users against each other in front of a studio audience, translating a game most people play in their spare time while commuting or before bed into a hilarious new game show. Viewers at home will also be able to play along with the folks on TV, according to Variety.

Draw Something was the key piece of Zynga’s acquisition of OMGPOP earlier this year. But traffic has plummeted ever since the deal closed, leading some to question the wisdom of Zynga buying at what seems to be the game’s peak.

Putting Draw Something on TV, and letting users interact with the on-air players, is one way to resurrect interest in the game. That will also bring a social element to the TV show, and could help boost ratings as users interact with the program on their mobile phones and tablets.

Interestingly, CBS’ choice of shows — and the stars that appear on the network — suggest a strong affinity toward Silicon Valley. It picked up ill-fated comedy $#!% My Dad Says in 2010. And it aired a show called Friend Me, which apparently is about friends who work for Groupon. And how could we forget about the choice of Hollywood star and Valley investor Ashton Kutcher to replace Charlie Sheen on Two And A Half Men — a role which Kutcher used to promote various investments with startup stickers on his on-screen laptop.

Anyway, while the network has signed up for the pilot, it’s not clear how soon the show would arrive on air. Variety notes that CBS has a full fall lineup, although the game show could find its way to primetime mid-season if the network has some cancellations.（source:techcrunch）