1）据gamasutra报道，Zynga日前宣布公司第三收益为3.166亿美元（高于行业分析师原先所预测的2.56亿美元），亏损达5270万美元（而去年同期该公司利润达1250亿美元），同时还宣布将在2013上半年与在线博彩游戏公司bwin.party合作向英国推出真钱博彩项目。

bookings & revenue(from insidesocialgames)

值得注意的是，Zynga月独立付费用户从上一季度的410万降至第三季度的300万，降幅达28%；其中以手机游戏《Draw Somehting》表现最为明显。

users(from insidesocialgames)

而《CastleVille》和《ChefVille》等多款Zynga游戏同样难以挽留用户，其玩家流失速度远超《FarmVille》和《CityVille》等Zynga旧游戏（游戏邦注：据insidesocialgames报道，《The Ville》、《ChefVille》和《FarmVille 2》是Zynga第三季度发布的主要社交游戏，其中表现最佳者是《FarmVille 2》，目前MAU为6130万，DAU为910万，《ChefVille》有2820万MAU和410万DAU，《The Ville》流量则明显下滑，目前MAU为1710万，DAU为150万）。

为减少亏损Zynga在近日裁减约5%的员工（近150人），并减少对《The Ville》的投入（裁减了该游戏多数开发者），将关闭13款旧游戏。此外，Zynga还将减少其广告和网络开支，据其首席技术官David Wehner所称，此举将有助于公司在一下季度中节省1500万-2000万美元。

2）据insidesocialgames报道，Zynga近日虽已宣布将关闭13款表现不济的游戏，但并未明确指出具体游戏名称。观察者根据AppData数据分析称，Zynga旗下目前共有91款应用，如果从日活跃用户超过1000的游戏来看，没有任何一者出现即将关闭的消息。

zynga games_edited(from AppData)

但有三款Zynga游戏已经下线，《Mafia Wars 2》已经完全撤出Facebook，《FrontierVille》则将用户导向《Pioneer Trail》，《Zynga Poker》也将用户引向《TexasHoldEm Poker》。

其他可能被Zynga撤销的游戏还包括《Zynga Bingo》、《Indiana Jones – Adventure World》、《PetVille》、《FishVille》、《Draw My Thing》、《Vampire Wars》、《Cupcake Corner》、《Pool World Champ 》、《Gem Rush》。

3）据serkantoto报道，继Nexon本月初以4.69亿美元高价收购日本社交游戏开发商gloops之后，日本社交游戏行业巨头GREE也在日前宣布，将在10月30日以1.73亿美元收购另一家开发商Pokelabo。

Pokelabo成立于2007年，曾在去年10月宣布与世嘉形成资本合作关系（世嘉掌握了Pokelabo公司19.1%股份，成为该公司第三大股东）。Pokelabo目前有91名成员，其上一财年（截止2011年9月）收益为700万美元，利润为200万美元。

4）据gamasutra报道，美国娱乐软件评级委员会（ESRB）日前宣布其免费评级服务将延伸至所有数字平台，ESRB主席Pat Vance表示，Hart Research执行的调查结果显示，85%的家长对他们ESRB评级较为熟悉，ESRB希望能够为所有需要这一评级服务的开发商提供便利。

shift_ESRB(from digitaltrends.com)

开发者可通过在ESRB注册或者提交申请之后获得的链接而获得申请表格，并在其中填写游戏内容、“互动元素”（例如，地理位置和分享服务）以及用户生成内容等相关信息。系统将根据开发者回答的一系列问题进行自动计算，并即时生成开发者可用于店面和营销材料的评级结果，ESRB将负责执行其提交游戏的后期发行审核过程。

这项新服务将首先覆盖Xbox Live Arcade、PlayStation Network、PlayStation Vita、PlayStation认证设备、任天堂eShop、Wii Shop和Windows 8平台，随后还将添加针对社交及流媒体平台的服务。

5）在本周DAU增长最快的Facebook游戏榜单上，Zynga游戏《FarmVille 2》持续领先，目前DAU总数达910万，新增40万DAU，增幅为5%。

Top gainers this week–DAU(from AppData)

King.com游戏《Candy Crush Saga》位居第二，新增30万DAU，增幅为6%。Peak Games游戏《Lost Bubble》位列第三，新增20万DAU，增幅为17%。Social Point游戏《Dragon City》排名第四，新增20万DAU，增幅为7%。《Bubble Witch Saga》位居第五，新增20万DAU，增幅为5%。

EA游戏《JetSet Secrets》新增19万DAU，增幅为380%；《Family Farm》新增10万DAU，增幅为38%。（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 loses players, looks forward to an online casino empire

By Tom Curtis, Frank Cifaldi

Zynga may be losing players, but it’s back on its investors’ good sides after performing slightly better than expected last quarter and moving one step closer to becoming an online casino.

The company announced it will launch a real money gambling initiative in the UK during the first half of 2013 thanks to a partnership with online gaming operator bwin.party, which will include a slots simulator based on its FarmVille IP. Zynga’s been hinting at real money gambling titles for quite some time, and now these projects are finally coming to fruition. Zynga says this is “only a first step” toward a larger online gambling business.

Investors seam pleased: Share prices are up nearly 14 percent to $2.42 in after hours trading, thanks both to the partnership and quarterly revenues of $316.6 million that were better than the $256 million analysts were anticipating.

Looking beyond revenue, however, things start to look even more troubling. Zynga suffered a loss of $52.7 million for the quarter — a stark contrast to the $12.5 million in profit the company earned during this time last year. On an adjusted basis, however, the company broke even, in line with analyst expectations.

Losing players

Zynga’s biggest challenge during the quarter ending September 30 was in simply maintaining its players, failing to meet the growth it set for itself last quarter.

“We didn’t create enough new heat for our players by innovating on content an features,” CEO Mark Pincus told investors in a conference call.

And even those that stayed didn’t pay. Zynga’s monthly unique paying customers decreased 28 percent from 4.1 million to 3 million between its second and third quarter, with many of those losses coming from the floundering mobile title Draw Something.

In addition, many of Zynga’s major Facebook titles like CastleVille and ChefVille have had a very hard time hanging onto their audience, and players have been dropping these games faster than they did with older Zynga titles like FarmVille and CityVille.

Scrambling to save money

As it announced yesterday, Zynga has been forced to cut its losses and lay off roughly 5 percent of its overall staff. The company laid off approximately 150 employees across numerous

studios (three of which are closing down), and is also shutting down some of its weaker games. The company is reducing investment in The Ville (by way of laying off most of its developers) and is shutting down 13 of its older social games.

This is all part of a larger cost reduction plan that also includes reducing advertising and network spending, a plan that CFO David Wehner says will save the company between $15 and $20 million next quarter.

Looking ahead

Zynga’s partnership with bwin.party is just the beginning toward a larger Zynga gambling empire.

“We view this as a first step into real money gaming, and we believe that it’s a good first step,” Wehner told investors. “But it’s only a first step toward what we think is a large opportunity for Zynga.”

In addition to gambling, Zynga is also looking ahead to attracting those elusive “mid-core” game players next year thanks to its acquisition of developer A Bit Lucky.

The company’s also taking mobile a lot more seriously looking forward. During the last quarter, Zynga reorganized its teams to align web and mobile development under the same roofs.

Development-wise, Pincus says that all new web games now have mobile and/or tablet offerings in development at the same time. （source：gamasutra）

2）Zynga’s game traffic reveals likely sunset candidates

Mike Thompson

Part of Mark Pincus’s company-wide email yesterday revealed that Zynga is planning to sunset 13 of its under-performing games. This was also mentioned during today’s earnings call, but the company is keeping mum on exactly which games will be shut down. Looking at the company’s games traffic, though, we might know which titles are going to disappear soon.

Our traffic-tracking service AppData shows Zynga currently has 91 apps in its catalog, several of which appear to be defunct. We revisited all of the titles with over 1,000 daily active users to see if any were already shut down or unavailable from mobile app stores. None of the active games contained messages about their impending closure.

Our search reveals a total of three games have been taken offline. Mafia Wars 2  is completely gone from Facebook; there’s not even a game canvas on the page any more. Meanwhile, FrontierVille redirects users into Pioneer Trail and Zynga Poker drops players into TexasHoldEm Poker.

Some games expected to be sunsetted by Zynga include recent titles Zynga Bingo and Ruby Blast, as well as Indiana Jones – Adventure World. Meanwhile, the following older Facebook games all have under 100,000 DAU and could easily be on the company chopping block: PetVille, FishVille, Draw My Thing, Vampire Wars, Cupcake Corner, Pool World Champ and Gem Rush. Including the three games we already mentioned as being offline, that’s a total of 13 Facebook apps.

Correction: It’s been pointed out Zynga announced Ruby Blast would be going cross-platform during the Zynga Unleashed event back in June. As a result, we’re taking it off our list of candidates.（source：insidesocialgames）

3）GREE Buys Tokyo-Based Social Game Maker Pokelabo For US$173 Million [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Following Nexon’s US$469 million acquisition of gloops earlier this month, Japan’s social gaming industry saw another spectacular exit today.

GREE announced it plans to acquire Tokyo-based social game maker Pokelabo on October 30 – for a handsome US$173 million (13.8 billion yen), in an all-cash deal.

Founded in 2007, Pokelabo announced a capital partnership with Sega (which is holding 19.10%, making it the third-largest shareholder) in October last year.

In recent months, Pokelabo has managed to create a number of smartphone games that have been doing very well in the Japanese App Store and Google Play (example). This summer, the company also launched a card battle game called Mystic Monsters in English.

Pokelabo generated US$7 million in revenue and US$2 million in profit in the fiscal year ending September 2011. The company currently employs 91 people.

And here is Pokelabo’s revenue for 2012 (unit: 100 million yen):

More data can be found on GREE’s IR page (the two PDFs marked “2012/10/24″, Japanese only).

GREE’s last acquisition in this price range took place in the US when the company took over Funzio for US$210 million in May this year.（source：serkantoto）

4）ESRB offers an easier way to get a rating for your digital games

By Kris Graft

The Entertainment Software Rating Board has another solution to keep up with the flood of games released every day on digital platforms.

In its continuing efforts to standardize its age and content rating tool across all kinds of video games, the ESRB announced today it would begin to extend its free voluntary rating service across all digital platforms.

The move makes it faster and easier for game developers on digital platforms to obtain ESRB ratings for their games, meaning consumers, especially parents, have more exposure to a more familiar ratings system.

“It’s very important for consumers to have access to ESRB ratings for games, regardless of the platform they’re using,” said ESRB president Pat Vance in a phone interview. “[And] we want to provide ratings to all developers who want them.”

Vance said a study done for the ESRB by Hart Research showed that 85 percent of parents are familiar with the ratings.

Here’s how the new Digital Rating Services program works: Developers access a submission form via a link provided to them either after submitting their game to a digital storefront, or by registering for free with the ESRB. Then, developers fill out an online questionnaire regarding their game’s content and “interactive elements” (e.g. location and sharing services), as well as exposure to user-generated content.

Following an automated calculation based on the answers on the questionnaire, a rating is immediately issued and usable by the developer to display on storefronts and marketing materials. The ESRB conducts a post-release review of submitted games.

The new streamlined digital service will first be put into place for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation-certified devices, Nintendo eShop, Wii Shop and Windows 8. Support for additional platforms, including social and streaming, are on the way, Vance said.

With retail games, publishers submit videos and documents that would be reviewed by experts at the ESRB who would assign a content rating prior to release, but that process simply can’t keep up with the digital world.

So about a year ago, ESRB sought to address efficiency issues by introducing a voluntary mobile app rating system. Today’s announcement is an extension of that to all digital platforms.

“What we’re trying to do is create a standard across devices that, frankly, I think developers should buy into,” said Vance, “because when they market those products, they can use the ESRB rating to broadly market the age appropriateness and notifications to consumers, and consumers will get it.

“It’s free for developers, which I think is important for it in order to gain broader adoption. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s free, so we’re hopeful that developers will use it.” （source：gamasutra）

5）FarmVille 2 reaches new heights among fastest-growing Facebook games by DAU

Mike Thompson

Zynga’s FarmVille 2 is continuing to thrive on Facebook, having reached a new daily active user record. The game’s currently holding the top spot with 9.1 million DAU, up by five percent and 400,000 DAU over the past week.

King.com’s Candy Crush Saga took the No. 2 spot with 300,000 DAU, a six percent gain. Peak Games’ Lost Bubble came in at No. 3 with 200,000 DAU, up 17 percent. Social Point’s Dragon City took No. 4, also up 200,000 DAU but for a seven percent increase this time. Finally, Bubble Witch Saga was the third game to snag 200,000 DAU, grabbing the No. 5 spot with a five percent gain.

Percentage-wise, gains were small this week. There were only three titles with increases greater than 30 percent. EA’s JetSet Secrets took in 190,000 DAU for a 380 percent gain. Family Farm (which was revealed to be a clone of Country Life back in April) is showing up on our list again with 100,000 DAU for a 38 percent increase. Playforia’s Bubbles IQ took in 70,000 DAU for a 39 percent gain.（source：insidesocialgames）