1）据venturebeat报道，Zynga首席安全官Nils Puhlmann也在日前离职，他在2009年加入Zynga并担任首席安全官职务，目前暂无法得知Puhlmann离职的更多详情。

nils puhlmann(from venturebeat)

观察者称Zynga创造收益离不开坚固的安全系统，因为这一系统直接与虚拟商品交易相关（游戏邦注：据gamasutra报道，自Zynga于7月25日公布财季报告以来，至少已有12名高管离职）。

2）据insidemobileapps报道，有知情者透露社交及手机游戏公司6waves日前在其美国团队裁员6人，其中包括产品副总监Joshua Burns（游戏邦注：他在2011年1月加入6waves）等产品管理及用户获取业务部门的成员。

6waves-logo(from gamesindustry.biz)

另外，发行高级副总裁Jim Ying也将经过一段未明确的时间而被逐步停职，据称该公司旧金山团队目前仍有7名全职员工在岗，暂无其海外团队是否将裁员的消息。

观察者称自从与SpryFox工作室因《Triple Town》而发生侵权诉讼官司后，6waves就开始经历大规模的裁员，在年初时解散了Lolapps全体员工，并将重心转向社交/手机游戏发行业务。

3）据insidesocialgames报道，社交游戏开发商Idle Games日前裁员25人（主要是Facebook游戏《Idle Worship》团队成员），该公司首席执行官Jeffy Hyman表示现在仍有40名员工在岗，其中包括其创始成员及高级工程师。

Idle Worship(from insidesocialgames.com)

《Idle Worship》于今年4月份上线，发布5周后的DAU为3万，目前DAU为1万。该游戏发布初期时曾因创新性而大获好评，并曾获得GDC Online大奖提名，但这一切并未提升游戏盈利性。

Idle Worship–DAU(from insidesocialgames)

Hyman表示该游戏DAU平均收益为0.12-0.13美元，平均每次游戏时长将近1小时，但它在Facebook上却难以找到用户，不过他们仍将继续支持这款游戏，将来还有可能以订阅模式将其推向平板电脑或开放网络等平台。工作室目前专注于制作新扑克游戏《Fresh Deck Poker》及将来的社交博彩游戏。

《Fresh Deck Poker》目前已经在Facebook推出可玩版本，但正式上线时间是10月初，现在已在东南亚地区展开广告营销，并已收获2万DAU。

4）据pocketgamer报道，手机游戏工作室Totem Games总经理Matt Cavanagh（前Bizarre Creations设计师）最近透露，他认为手机游戏开发者的生存处境远比自己预期的更艰难。

SpaceOff(from indiegameschannel.com)

他称在移动市场上找到用户远比主机游戏开发者想象得更为棘手，其复古射击游戏《SpaceOff》积极的用户评价并未带来乐观的下载量。他认为该游戏难以获得大量用户，主要应归咎于其富有挑战性的难度水平，其单人模式对于“多数休闲玩家”来说实在是太难了，他计划通过iPad版本推出多人模式，并调整游戏难度曲线。

《SpaceOff》自2012年2月发布以来，就一直难以进入美国App Store热门游戏前1000名，最高峰时也仅排在付费游戏下载量第257名。

5）据serkantoto报道，Square Enix历时一年终于在近日向GREE平台推出最新社交RPG《Emperors Saga》。

Emperors Saga(from serkantoto)

该游戏项目早在一年前就已公布（甚至已经开始预注册），但据称Square Enix并不满意游戏质量，因此将其发布时间延迟了12个月。

在这款社交卡牌战斗游戏中，玩家在游戏中要扮演一个国家的君王，与其他玩家合作“让世界恢复和平”；游戏中还植入了一个限时boss战斗模式，玩家只有3分钟时间打败随机出现的boss并赢取稀有卡牌。

6）据insidemobileapps报道，SGN公司日前宣布将Facebook热门游戏《Panda Jam》推向苹果App Store。

Panda Jam(from itunes.apple.com)

《Panda Jam》是一款宝石配对游戏，玩家任务是连线消除宝石以拯救小熊猫，其iOS版本支持跨平台游戏体验。据AppData数据显示，该游戏Facebook版本目前有150万MAU。（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）The exodus continues: Zynga’s chief security officer resigns

Dean Takahashi

Executive departures at Zynga are continuing as the social gaming giant’s chief security officer, Nils Puhlmann, is the latest to resign.

Techcrunch reported the departure, and we’ve confirmed it with a source at Zynga. Puhlmann served as CSO at Zynga since 2009, and he resigned yesterday.

Details on Puhlmann’s  departure aren’t yet available. Our only contact with Puhlmann came from an interview with him over a security flaw that hackers were exploiting in YoVille. Zynga had to create an ironclad security system because it generates all of its revenues digitally, largely through virtual goods transactions. And those transactions have to be secure.

The San Francisco-based social game company has seen departures in the wake of a weak earnings report. The executives who left include chief operating officer John Schappert, infrastructure chief technology officer Allan Leinwand, chief creative officer Mike Verdu, and chief marketing and revenue officer Jeff Karp. Other general managers and vice presidents have also departed.（source:venturebeat）

2）Exclusive: 6waves cuts more staff from U.S. office

Kathleen De Vere

Today, social and mobile game company 6waves cut its staff even further here in the U.S., Inside Social Games has learned.

Six members of the U.S. team were let go today from departments including product management and user acquisition. According to our source, Associate Director, Products Joshua Burns (who was with the company since Jan. 2011) was part of the group cut. Our source also says SVP of Publishing Jim Ying is being phased out over an undisclosed period of time. Reportedly, seven full-time employees are still working out of the San Francisco.

Our source says the decision was a financial one, due to “wrong turns being made,” with the company’s new business plan.

Following a lawsuit from developer Spryfox over an iOS clone of Triple Town, 6waves went through a massive staff shake-up earlier this year when it cut the Lolapps side of its company and was shifting its focus away from development towards social and mobile publishing. The company then re-branded and unveiled some fairly high-profile projects working with big names like Nexon to produce titles like The Grins Tale and Cloudstone on Facebook, as well as Brainz’s Vampire Season, Harebrained Schemes’s Strikefleet Omega and East Side Games’s Ruby Skies on mobile platforms.

Whether or not there have been any layoffs at 6waves’s international offices hasn’t been confirmed, but we’ve reached out to 6waves for comment. （source:insidemobileapps）

3）Idle Games layoffs ensue after developer increases focus on casino games

Mike Thompson

Social game developer Idle Games has let 25 employees go, Inside Social Games can confirm.

We first heard rumors about the layoffs yesterday, Idle Games Founder and CEO Jeffy Hyman confirmed them over the phone. Hyman said there are still 40 employees working at the company, including its founding members and senior engineers. Those displaced were from the team working on the company’s massively multiplayer Facebook game Idle Worship.

When we reviewed Idle Worship in April we noted the game implemented a number of innovative mechanics and had some stunning production values, but also had some technical and pacing issues. Five weeks after its launch, Idle Worship had 30,000 daily active users; now it has 10,000.

Hyman tells us the game is seeing an average revenue per daily user of $0.12 to $0.13 and average play sessions of approximately an hour, but that the game had trouble finding an audience on Facebook. “You either needed medication because you loved it so much or you just didn’t play it,” he says. “There was no happy medium.”

Correction: We originally reported the average revenue per user was $0.12 to $0.13. This should have been identified as average revenue per daily user.

Following the layoffs, Idle Worship now pays for itself and the game will continue to be supported. Hyman says Idle Worship may be brought over to another platform like tablets or the open web for a subscription fee in the future, but the studio is currently focused on its new poker title Fresh Deck Poker and future social casino titles. Fresh Deck Poker is currently playable on Facebook but isn’t going to officially launch until early October. However, the company is already advertising the game in Southeast Asia. Fresh Deck Poker currently has 20,000 daily active users and will probably see significant growth when Idle Games officially launches it on the social network, allowing cross-platform gameplay and real-money prizes.

Even though Idle Worship received a lot of positive press at the time of its launch and is currently nominated for a GDC Online Award (under the “Online Innovation” category), Hyman explains these things didn’t make the game profitable. “There’s a good life lesson there that you don’t need to innovate on every single vector,” he says. ”In order to be successful you don’t want the press, reviews and accolades. You want bucket loads of money.”（source:insidesocialgames）

4）Former Bizarre Creations designer finds mobile a harsh mistress

by James Nouch

Totem Games MD Matt Cavanagh – formerly a designer at Bizarre Creations – has revealed he’s finding life as a mobile developer more difficult than he’d anticipated.

Speaking via email, Cavanagh said finding an audience on mobile marketplaces is trickier than many console devs believe, claiming Totem’s retro shooter SpaceOff’s positive user reviews are yet to equate to downloads.

Different strokes

“After leaving Bizarre Creations and setting up Totem I had the indulgence of total creative freedom and I made a game that I love to play,” Cavanagh explained.

“I have learned the hard way that designing a game for iOS users is a world away from my previous role, designing for the console gamer.”

Cavanagh seems certain that the game’s failure to connect with a larger audience can be attributed to its challenging difficulty level, leading him to question whether SpaceOff is “too much a gamer’s game?”

The single-player mode’s difficulty is “too extreme for many casual gamers,” Cavanagh says, and that’s why he believes the game hasn’t appeal to mobile users.

Take two

Since its February 2012 launch, SpaceOff has failed to break into the top 1000 grossing games chart for the US App Store, and it peaked at #257 in the top paid game downloads chart.

Cavanagh hopes that an iPad version of SpaceOff – which gives the game’s multiplayer modes some extra space – will fare better, and he’s also taking the opportunity to tweak the game’s difficulty curve.

Other developers look to make the move from console to mobile might like to check out Tag Games MD Paul Farley’s PocketGamer.biz guest column, in which he outlines the opportunities and pitfalls for those looking to attempt the transition.（source：pocketgamer）

5）After 1 Year Of Waiting: Square Enix RPG Emperors Saga Finally Hits GREE [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Square Enix took a long time to finish for their latest social RPG, but at long last, Emperors Saga is now live on GREE for smartphones and feature phones.

The game was announced exactly a year ago (even pre-registration started), but reportedly Square Enix wasn’t happy with the quality of the game and kept pushing it back over the last 12 months.

Emperors Saga is the newest addition to the company’s SaGa series of RPGS, which started in 1989. In this case, GREE users can expect a mix between social RPG and card battle game.

In the game, every player takes on the role of an emperor of a country and needs to cooperate with other users to “bring peace to the world”.

Square Enix also integrated time-limited boss fights during which players have 3 minutes to beat bosses that appear randomly during the game to obtain rare cards.（source:serkantoto）

6）Panda Jam moves into the iOS territory

Kassi Murray

Another popular Facebook game gets formatted for iOS, as SGN announced today that Panda Jam is in the Apple App Store.

Panda Jam is a gem-matching game where a player works to save a baby panda from the top of piles of colored squares. The player selects groups of the same color to lower the baby panda to the ground as a baboon keeps adding squares to the bottom row. There are only a certain number of moves to complete the task and there is a certain amount of points needed to level up.

The iOS launch makes Panda Jam a cross-platform game, allowing players to leave off and pick up their games from multiple devices. According to AppData, Panda Jam has 1.5 million monthly active users on Facebook.（source：insidesocialgames）