1）迪士尼日前宣布将以40.5亿美元现金加股权收购George Lucas所持有的卢卡斯电影公司（包括电子游戏发行部门LucasArts），其收购对象包括卢卡斯电影的一切资产，包括技术、IP（游戏邦注：例如将在2015年推出第七部续作的《星球大战》）。

disney-lucasfilm(from joblo.com)

迪士尼首席执行官Bob Iger表示，《星球大战》有可能以社交游戏形式登陆Facebook平台，但拒绝透露对这笔收购交易的具体计划。

从迪士尼Playdom基于《复仇者联盟》推出的游戏《Marvel:Avengers Alliance》最近表现来看，《星球大战》也是适合投放到社交及移动平台的IP。AppData数据显示，《Marvel:Avengers Alliance》虽然仅有530万MAU和110万DAU，但有知情者透露该游戏盈利性超过一般社交游戏，并且DAU/MAU比值（即用户粘性）也在不断上升，并且该游戏还登陆iOS平台，并称跻身iPad付费游戏榜单第12名，iPad游戏营收榜单第82名。

据卢卡斯知情者透露，公司通过《星球大战》授权产品创收超过10亿美元。如果开发社交及手机游戏能够加强该IP的粉丝粘性，迪士尼也极可能采取相应行动。

2）据insidesocialgames报道，EA首席执行官John Riccitiello日前宣布公司已将重心转移到移动业务，因此将取消或推迟10个不同社交游戏项目。

Riccitiello表示EA已经看到社交游戏发展减速的情况，也注意到硬核社交游戏盈利性高于休闲社交游戏的现象，但EA并没有放弃Facebook，而是选择将社交元素植入其PC及手机游戏。

观察者分析称，EA这一决策并不令人意外，该公司在上一季度中主要向Facebook发布了三款游戏《Outernauts》、《SimCity Social》和《JetSet Secrets》，但没有一者成为热作。

JetSet Secrets(from ea.com)

《JetSet Secrets》是三者中唯一能够持续增加流量的游戏，在过去数天DAU达到25万，但该游戏发布仅一个多月，目前尚无法判断其成功前景。

《SimCity Social》在7月份时流量达到高峰，收获180万DAU，但目前DAU已不足58万，虽然从15％的DAU/MAU比值来看，该游戏发展尚且健康，但也并没有再度攀升的迹象。

而出自AAA开发商Insomniac Games之手的《Outernauts》（7月份发布）尽管颇受好评，但流量一直不太理想，在9月份时DAU仅为4万左右，现在已降至2万，DAU/MAU比值也仅为8.3％左右。

3）据gamasutra报道，Valve产品设计师Greg Coomer在最近采访中介绍了公司的员工管理制度，他称只要成员愿意努力，他们就可以在Valve迅速获得发展和提升，公司主张赋予成员更多自由的成长空间。

Greg Coomer(from geekwire.com)

他表示，Valve赋予员工制定产品发布决策，确实是个不可思议的举措，但如果Valve想吸收杰出人才，就不应该对他们加以限制，也不应该忌惮让他们掌握产品发布权，因为这是对员工的信任。

4）据insidesocialgames报道，社交游戏开发商King.com日前宣布向移动设备推出《Candy Crush Saga》，并发布新款Saga游戏《Pet Rescue Saga》。

Pet Rescue Saga(from insidesocialgames)

《Pet Rescue Saga》拥有不同益智挑战和游戏模式，产采用了3D画面，玩家在其中任务是消除砖块以解救小动物，游戏最初版本拥有50多个不同关卡。

《Candy Crush Saga》将于11月份登陆iOS平台，它在4月份进驻Facebook平台时大获人气，上周最高峰时的MAU达1560万，DAU为500万；目前位居DAU前25名Facebook游戏榜单第4名。（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）Disney reveals (probable) plans for Star Wars social game

Mike Thompson

Speaking on a conference call today about Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed Star Wars is probably going to be coming to Facebook as a social game.

When asked by a caller about how Disney would handle the LucasArts arm of game development — the question highlighting the recent rise of social/mobile games as competition for titles on PCs and consoles — Iger  said Disney would actually be focused on bringing the Star Wars universe to social platforms in some form. Iger declined to go into further detail about this, and didn’t say when further information would be available.

Disney’s well-placed to bring Star Wars to both social and mobile platforms, based on the recent success it’s seen on both. Disney Playdom’s Marvel: Avengers Alliance has proven a long-lasting hit in the midcore genre; although our traffic-tracking service AppData shows it only has 5.3 million MAU and 1.1 million DAU, sources tell us the game is monetizing well above industry norms and its DAU/MAU percentage is continuing to climb. Meanwhile, the company brought the Avengers Alliance universe to iOS with Avengers Initiative, which was the No. 12 top paid iPad game and the No. 82 top grossing iPad game at the start of the month.

The Star Wars Universe arguably has an even larger and more devoted fan base than Marvel Comics, and a source at Lucas recently told us the company makes over $1 billion in revenue share from licensed merchandise alone. If social and mobile games are on the horizon and are fun enough to keep fans engaged, then those titles could become a new way for Disney to print money.（source：insidesocialgames）

2）EA’s shift from social to mobile kills or delays up to 10 games

Mike Thompson

EA’s Q2 2013 earnings report was scant on information about the company’s performance and plans for its social games. However, CEO John Riccitiello revealed the company’s changed its outlook from last quarter as it’s shifted to focusing on mobile development, killing or delaying as many as 10 different social games.

The issue was brought up by Atul Bagga of Lazard Capital during the Q&A session at the end of the call. Bagga noticed in EA’s report that it had significantly diminished the number of social titles it was planning to release over the 2013 fiscal year and asked about it, at which point Riccitiello  revealed the cancelations and delays but didn’t go into specific about which titles were affected.

According to Riccitiello, EA’s seeing the slowdown in the social games genre that many developers are and called Facebook out for some of this, noting the structural issues and discoverability challenges on the social network. However, he also noted EA was expecting to see a repeat of its social games’ traffic doubling and doubling again, as had been the case in the past. That said, he also noted how core games are performing and monetizing better than their casual counterparts. Likewise, Riccitiello said EA isn’t abandoning Facebook. Instead, the company’s simply incorporating social elements into its PC and mobile games, platforms EA is currently thriving on thanks to success stories like The Simpsons: Tapped Out.

It’s not surprising that EA is pivoting away from Facebook, since the company hasn’t been able to recreate the success it saw with The Sims Social. Over the past quarter, EA saw three major releases on the social platform: Outernauts, SimCity Social and JetSet Secrets. None of these have proven to be major hits on the platform. JetSet Secrets is the only title still seeing regular traffic gains; over the past few days, it reached new peak user numbers of 250,000 daily active users, but the game only launched a little over a month ago so it’s too early to call the game a success.

SimCity Social, meanwhile, quickly peaked in July with July with 1.8 million daily active users and started to noticeably lose players and is now down to 580,000 DAU. SimCity Social’s DAU/MAU percentage is at 15 percent, which mean means the game’s traffic is still considered healthy, but this also means the game isn’t likely to see any growth any time soon. As we noted in our August deep dive, the game seemed to suffer from the fact there wasn’t another cross-chapter story mission after the initial one based around converting a spaceship into a Launch Arcology, as well as turning off potential players with an excessive amount of requests and posts.

Outernauts, which was created by AAA developer Insomniac Games, has gone nowhere since it launched in July. The original plan we were told about involved publishing the game and selling tie-in merchandise including limited-edition plush animals that would unlock limited monsters within the game. Although Outernauts was critically well-received, the game’s numbers never really seemed to take off. In late September, the game reached a high traffic point of 40,000 DAU, but it’s now down to 20,000 and it has a DAU/MAU percentage of 8.3 percent.

EA’s plan to combine Facebook Connect with its mobile titles also shouldn’t be surprising, based on the recent report from Facebook showing how implementing its new features was able to dramatically boost traffic and revenue for Bingo Blitz.（source：insidesocialgames）

3）How Valve empowers each and every one of its employees

By Mike Rose

“Three people at the company can ship anything.”

- Greg Coomer, product designer at Valve, further explains how the company’s hierarchy works.

He adds, “The reason [we say] three people — because really … one person can ship anything — [is because] the work gets better if you just check with a couple of people before you decide to push a button.”

There has been much discussion this year surrounding how Valve employees are managed, following the release of the company’s new employee handbook. Coomer explained this week at the Seattle Interactive Conference exactly how anyone gets anything done when “nobody is checking your work.”

“The actual career growth in an environment like Valve’s is incredibly accelerated and it is something that allows people to make progress exactly limited only by their own desire and ability,” he explained. “When you spend time at Valve, you are enormously empowered and you grow a lot faster than if you were following a more traditional path.”

Coomer admitted that giving any employee the power to ship a Valve product by themself is “pretty daunting,” but noted that “It can feel like an exercise and an experiment in cooperative leadership.”

He continued, “If we are going to hire these incredible people, and we are not going to put constraints on them, then we can’t be afraid to let them actually take charge and ship. That takes a lot of courage and trust.

“We are trying to learn to talk about it in a way that doesn’t make us sound crazy,” he added. （source：gamasutra）

4）King.com launches Pet Rescue Saga, bringing Candy Crush Saga to mobile

Mike Thompson

Social game developer King.com today announced it’s bringing Candy Crush Saga to mobile devices, as well as the launch of its newest “Saga” game: Pet Rescue Saga.

Pet Rescue Saga is a new block-busting puzzle game featuring different puzzle challenges and game modes, as well as 3D graphics. The title features a number of animated pets for players to rescue from various threats in multiple environments. Gameplay has users removing blocks so the animals can move through the levels to safety, and players can win by either removing a required number of blocks or saving a certain number of pets. Each episode (with its own special environment) will include up to 10 different types of levels, and the game comes with over 50 different levels at the time of launch.

Candy Crush Saga, meanwhile, is coming to mobile devices in November. The game’s proven extremely popular on Facebook ever since it launched in April, rapidly climbing the charts over the past few months and hit new peak traffic levels of 15.6 million monthly active users and 5 million daily active users over the last week. At the moment, the game’s currently holding the No. 4 spot among the top 25 games by DAU.

The game will be available for iOS and, like Bubble Witch Saga before it, will offer complete synchronization with Facebook to provide a fully cross-platform experience. Bubble Witch Saga’s move to iOS didn’t seem to bring in new users like we expected it would with the Facebook Connect implementation, but King.com’s Tommy Palm revealed at GDC Online that the game is monetizing three times as well on iOS as it is on Facebook.（source：insidesocialgames）