1）社交及手机游戏公司Arkadium日前发布报告显示，“社交家”（指至少同6位好友玩游戏的用户）和“硬核玩家”（常在Facebook之外的平台体验硬核策略和RPG游戏的用户）这两个群体最可能为游戏付费（游戏邦注：其调查样本为1576名用户，其中有986名女性，584名男性，其余受访者未注明性别）。

social butterflies(from Arkadium)

将近63%受访者属于“社交家”，有30%“社交家”自称每次只在一款游戏中进行一笔交易，有33%表示自己一笔游戏内置交易中的消费额就超过20美元。有26%“社交家”表示每月在Facebook游戏中的消费额为11-20美元，有70%这类玩家体验某款游戏一周之后才会从中消费。

game type(from Arkadium)

有62%的策略玩家表示自己很可能在Facebook游戏中消费，而RPG玩家的这一比例也达到61%。但39%策略玩家以及32%的RPG玩家每月愿意投入Facebook游戏的消费额最多不超过10美元。这些硬核付费玩家主要花钱解琐游戏中的故事内容，获取竞争优势，或者赢取个性化装饰品。

2）据AdAge报道，Facebook广告API合作伙伴SocialCode日前宣布，Facebook手机广告点击率高于其桌面电脑平台的点击率。

SocialCode监测了该网站700万次广告印象，发现有24.2万次手机newsfeed印象收获了1911次点击量，超过了仅向桌面电脑平台投放广告的两倍。

据SocialCode高管Addie Conner所称，newsfeed版块是一个很有效的广告工具，因为用户在发现广告之前已在newsfeed搜索内容，如果能够在此推出不让用户反感的广告，就有望实现可观收益（游戏邦注：Twitter最近宣布其移动平台收益超过了桌面电脑收益）。

3）据games.com报道，The Tetris Company起诉休闲游戏公司Xio一案日前在新泽西州法院作出判决，被告Xio承认旗下益智游戏《Mino》剽窃了原告作品《俄罗斯方块》。

tetris(from games)

新泽西州法院指出，虽然《俄罗斯方块》的游戏功能和规则不受版权法保护，但游戏所表达的理念却属于版权法保护范围。

观察者认为，这个判决结果有可能对游戏行业今后的侵权案产生影响，社交游戏行业的山寨现象应当引以为诫。

4）据techcrunch报道，谷歌近日宣布Chrome Web Store添加一项类似论坛的新功能，开发者植入这个反馈系统后，用户就可以直接向其发送与之相关的反馈，以便开发者使用该服务回复用户。

chrome_web_app_feedback(from techcrunch)

这个反馈系统划分为漏洞报告 、一般问题和用户评级/评价三个版块，其反馈结果会向大众公开，以便减少重复性的用户反馈。但目前开发者需手动添加这项新功能，所以现在采用该服务的应用数量相对有限。

5）据serkantoto报道，Square Enix《最终幻想》系列的首款社交游戏《Final Fantasy Brigade》最近在日本电视频道推出两个广告，值得注意的是，这两个广告都选用著名男演员担任代言人，而且瞄准的是城市白领这一特定群体。

commercial actor(from kotaku.com.au)

DeNA最近针对社交游戏《Rage of Bahamut》推出的电视广告也将白领上班族视为目标用户。

6）在本周的DAU增长最快的Facebook榜单上，Zynga游戏《Bubble Safari》位列榜首，新增90万DAU，增幅为14%，该游戏目前DAU总数为740万，是DAU排名第一的Facebook游戏。

Top gainers this week-DAU(from AppData)

FreshPlanet的音乐问答游戏《Song Pop》新增51万DAU，增幅达104%；Zynga《Texas HoldEm Poker》新增10万DAU，增幅为1%；Emagist Entertainment游戏《Ninja Saga》位列第四，新增9万DAU，增幅为20%；Jellyvision游戏《You Don’t Know Jack》位居第五，新增4.2万DAU，增幅为525%。（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）Arkadium study shows ‘social butterflies’ and core gamers spend more on social games

Mike Thompson

Social and mobile developer Arkadium has released a new study focused on monetization in social games that sheds some light on which types of users are more likely to spend money on Facebook games.

According to Arkadium’s findings, the two groups most likely to pay are those who play with six or more friends, defined by the company as “social butterflies” and “core gamers,” players who play unspecified “core” strategy and role-playing games outside of Facebook.

Approximately 63 percent of the survey’s participants were identified as Social Butterflies. Although 30 percent of social butterflies reported only spending money only once per game, 33 percent indicated they had spent more than $20 on a single in-game purchase. About 26 percent said they spend between $11 and $20 per month on Facebook games. Among social butterflies, 70 percent said they played a game for more than a week before spending money on it.

Arkadium also found that core gamers — those who play “core” strategy and role-playing titles outside of Facebook — were also likely to spend money on Facebook games. We reached out to Arkadium for specific titles they considered for this demographic, but have yet to hear back. About 62 percent of strategy players said they were likely to spend money on Facebook games, as did 61 percent of RPG players. However, 39 percent of strategy fans and 32 percent of  RPG fans were only willing to spend $10 or less a month on Facebook games. The majority of these users spent their money to unlock story or narrative content in games, gain a competitive edge over other players or acquire in-game decoration and customization.

This information about core gamers is in keeping with what we’ve heard from studios like Kixeye, which actively pursue the demographic. An example of this price point in action is the developer’s newly-revealed Club D.A.V.E. subscription for Backyard Monsters, which is going for $9.99 a month. Kixeye’s VP of Marketing John Getze tells us the subscription is designed to reward loyal Backyard Monsters players, but also provide incentive for new players to start paying into the game by providing bonus in-game content for their money.

The study was conducted with 1,576 users, split between a confirmed 986 females and 584 males. Readers can view the entire slideshow here.（source:insidesocialgames）

2）SocialCode: Facebook mobile ads have higher click throughs than PCs

by Zen Terrelonge

Mobile CTR is equivalent to 0.79 per cent, compared to 0.327 per cent on desktop-only ads.

In February, Facebook admitted it had no idea how to monetise its mobile platform, and a month later it announced its Twitter-like ‘Sponsored Stories’ mobile ad strategy, which was launched last month.

Now, the firm’s advertising API partner, SocialCode, claims Facebook mobile ads have more click-throughs than its desktop counterparts, according to AdAge.

The data covered seven million impressions on the network, with 242,000 mobile feed impressions receiving 1,911 clicks.

It’s isn’t a mind-blowing figure, but the mobile CTR is more than twice that of desktop-only ads, with the average across both platforms reaching 0.148 per cent.

Addie Conner, chief innovation officer, SocialCode, said: “If you can make it an ad that users don’t hate, it’s actually extremely monetisable.”

She claims that the newsfeed is useful tool for ads because users will already be searching through the feed before discovering an ad.

Twitter recently said that its mobile revs sometimes outstrip desktop revs.（source:mobile-ent）

3）Watch out, Facebook game makers: Tetris beat a clone in court

by Joe Osborne

A lot of casual and social game cloning cases are about to be revisited, we bet. A New Jersey court recently ruled in favor of The Tetris Company, which sued casual game maker Xio for copyright infringement. The developer admitted to copying the company’s flagship franchise with Mino, a puzzler that allegedly looks and plays identical to Tetris.

This would normally fly on account of the usual defense to come from cloned game creators–”that it copied only non-expressive, functional elements of the original game,” according to Sunstein Law member Jack C. Schecter. But not this time. The New Jersey court respected that, while the actual functions and rules of Tetris are not protected by copyright, the way in which the game expresses those ideas is, in fact, protected. However, the “underlying idea of Tetris should be distinguished from the game’s protectable expression.”

This court ruling could, and probably will, inform future decisions made by judges presiding over copyright infringement suits in the games industry. The countless cases reported earlier this year of copycatting could very well be revisited, which means big time developers–ahem, Zynga–better have stellar legal teams.（source:games）

4）Google Separates App Reviews From Bug Reports In Chrome Web Store – Coming Soon To Google Play, Too?

Frederic Lardinois

It’s no secret that the current ratings system most online app stores use is slightly broken. Users often use them to file bug reports and request new features, but that’s not exactly an efficient way to contact developers. Google, it seems, is trying to fix this. Developers who have apps in the Chrome Web Store can now enable a new feature that separates bug reports, feature request and general questions about an app from regular ratings and reviews. Once a developer enables this feature, users will be able to send more developer-focused feedback directly to the developer and developers will be able to respond to their customers using the same forum-like application.

These feedback forums are publicly visible, which Google says should help cut down on duplicate reporting. Developers have to manually enable this new feature, though, so chances are you won’t find many apps that use it just yet. In the long run, though, this will likely become a useful tool for developers to collect bug reports. As Google also notes, this feature will provide “a clean separation between reporting bugs and compatibility issues to developers and the rating / comments users can leave in the store relating to the functionality and usefulness of a given app.”

It’s hard not to look at this and think that Google is just using its relatively small Chrome Web Store to test this idea. Its much bigger Google Play app marketplace, after all, suffers from the same issues (as does virtually every other online app store) and could also benefit from this separation between ratings and bug reports.（source:techcrunch）

5）Final Fantasy Brigade On Mobage Gets Two TV Commercials [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Japan is the only country in the world where social games are being advertised on national TV on a regular basis. The newest title to get the TV promotion treatment is Final Fantasy Brigade, Square Enix’ first social version of the popular RPG franchise.

Final Fantasy Brigade is doing very well on Mobage, but apparently that doesn’t mean it could do better with the help of a few more marketing yen.

What’s interesting about these TV spots is not only that they star two famous Japanese actors (and run during prime time on national TV over here), but the fact that they target a very specific target group: office workers.

It’s a well-known fact in Japan that social games are particularly popular in that part of the population, which is why the way the spots are arranged isn’t surprising:

In fact, DeNA chose the exact same target group for their recent Rage Of Bahamut TV commercial.（source:serkantoto）

6）Bubble Safari once more on top of this week’s list of fastest-growing Facebook games by DAU

Mike Thompson

Zynga’s Bubble Safari took the top spot on our list of fastest-growing Facebook games by daily active users, picking up 900,000 DAU for a 14 percent gain. This brings Bubble Safari to a total of 7.4 million DAU, making it top game on Facebook by DAU.

FreshPlanet’s music trivia game Song Pop took the top spot on this week’s list of fastest-growing games by daily active users, grabbing 510,000 DAU for a 104 percent gain. Zynga’s Texas HoldEm Poker came in at No. 3 with 100,000 DAU for a 1 percent gain. Emagist Entertainment’s Ninja Saga took the No. 4 spot with in 90,000 DAU, up by 20 percent. Jellyvision’s mix of sarcasm and trivia in You Don’t Know Jack seems to be paying off, with the game coming in at No. 5 with 42,000 DAU for a 525 percent gain.

Six other games on the list had gains of 100 percent or more, including two clones of popular arcade/console games: Best Arcade Games is up by 28,000 DAU for a 1,400 percent gain, while Super MariO grabbed 20,000 DAU for a 22 percent increase.

Meanwhile, four legitimate titles were up by 10,000 DAU for a 100 percent gain: Telaxo’s Cupcake Frenzy, Card Ace: Casino, THQ’s UFC: Undisputed Fight Nation Game and Elex’s Mutlu Çiftlik 3.（source:insidesocialgames）