1）据insidesocialgames报道，Zynga日前宣布将于2013年1月14日关闭Facebook游戏《Indiana Jones Adventure World》，即日起该游戏将不再吸收新玩家，并且不再开放支付服务。

indiana-jones-DAU(from AppData)

据AppData数据显示，这款游戏目前是Zynga人气排名第22位的应用，拥有120万MAU和6万DAU。

游戏原名为《Adventure World》，去年强势发行时曾位居Facebook游戏MAU榜单第9名。去年9月份Zynga曾与卢卡斯电影宣布进行《夺宝奇兵》授权合作，但此举并未提升游戏流量。

2）据insidesocialgames报道，GREE日前宣布聘请Jim Ying担任开发者关系&发行副总裁，后者将负责监管公司的开发者关系团队，其中包括业务发展，客户管理，以及开发者针对GREE新移动平台的咨询服务等项目（游戏邦注：GREE为推行其新移动平台，最近宣布将于12月14日关闭在2011年以1.04亿美元收购的OpenFeint平台）。

Jim Ying(from media.cocoachina.com)

Ying是北美和亚洲的资深游戏行业人士，此前曾任手机社交游戏公司6waves发行高级副总裁。

3）据gamasutra报道，NonStop Games创始人Henric Suuronen（前Digital Chocolate和Wooga元老）在日前的GDC China发言中表示，尽管最近频频出现不少关于HTML5的负面报道，但这并不意味着这一技术毫无可行性（游戏邦注：最令人瞩目的HTML5负面报道当属Wooga宣布放弃使用HTML5开发游戏，以及Facebook首席执行官Mark Zuckerberg承认使用HTML5推行移动战略是公司的一大失误）。

Henric_Suuronen（from en.socialityrocks.com)

Suuronen指出，目前美国畅销iOS游戏榜单上，仍有不少杰作是由HTML5开发而成，例如《Kingdoms Of Camelot》《Zynga Poker》、《Rage Of Bahamut》和《Slotomania》。

但像《Clash of Clans》这类对“动画质量要求极高”的游戏则难以使用HTML5开发内容，从总体上看。含有复杂动画、声音和快速响应要求的游戏都无法使用HTML5实现目标。而那些支持玩家随时随地体验的游戏（如在手机、平板电脑和PC）则更适合使用HTML5。

4）据gamasutra报道，游戏设计师Kim Swift（游戏邦注：她曾参与开发《传送门》、《求生之路》以及《量子谜题》）在日前的GDC China大会发言中回顾了自己的十年游戏设计经验。

Kim-Swift-Quantum-Conundrum(from evolveent.com)

她称如果你想成为优秀的设计师，就得让自己学习一切知识。例如，之前所掌握缝纫技术令她更易于处理3D模型。如果你不能时常通过生活学习新事物，那么你就很难掌握设计的要领。

此外，还需要保护谦逊的态度，不要小瞧其他人的想法。如果想要证明自己的理念确实很出色，那就需要进行不断的测试。

而游戏设计过程中最重要的一点就是，如果玩家掌握了错误的信息，那不是玩家的错，而是设计师的败笔。（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 shuts down Indiana Jones Adventure World

Emanuel Maiberg

Zynga announced via the Indiana Jones Adventure World Facebook page that it will shut down the game on Jan. 14, 2012. Zynga said that it made the hard choice to shut down the game in order “make room for future offerings.”

Starting today, Adventure World Indiana Jones is no longer available to new players and will no longer be accepting payments.

Our Appdata shows that Indiana Jones Adventure World is currently Zynga’s No. 22 most popular app with 1.2 million MAU and 60,000 DAU.

The game, originally named Adventure World, made a strong debut last year as the then No.9 fastest growing Facebook game by MAU, but failed to capitalize on those numbers. In September 2011 Zynga and LucasFilm announced a partnership that will infuse Adventure World with the Indiana Jones license, but this too failed to keep its numbers up.

Zynga also said that it will provide Adventure World players with bonus packages that will encourage them to move on to other Zynga games.（source：insidesocialgames）

2）Jim Ying joins GREE as new VP of Developer Relations and Publishing

Mike Thompson

Today, GREE announced it hired Jim Ying as its new Vice-President of Developer Relations & Publishing. This new position will see Ying overseeing the company’s Developer Relations team; this includes business development, account management, and heading up GREE’s consulting service for developers on GREE’s new mobile platform.

Ying’s a long-standing member of the video game industry, both in North America and in Asia. Most recently, he was with the social mobile developer and publisher 6waves as the company’s SVP of Publishing until he was phased out during the company’s most recent round of staff cuts. During his time with the company he helped oversee 6waves’ transition from social to mobile games, as well as its expansion into Asian territories.

GREE has been making a concentrated push into North American mobile markets recently, with its upcoming mobile platform about to launch and its high-profile “GREE Loves Indies” competition. The company is appealing to many developers right now because of the massive audience it has access to after it acquired OpenFeint for $104 million in 2011. As for OpenFeint itself, though, GREE caught many developers and users off-guard last week when it announced it would be shutting the service down on December 14.（source：insidesocialgames）

3）GDC China: Why HTML5′s negative publicity might be unfounded

By Simon Carless

Despite its bad publicity, HTML5 is still a viable platform for games and, in fact, most of the top-grossing mobile games of late could have been made using it.

That’s according to NonStop Games’ Henric Suuronen, a veteran of companies including Digital Chocolate and Wooga, discussed the state of HTML5 games, who spoke at GDC China on Monday.

Suuronen’s Singapore-based startup is HTML5-exclusive, and he noted that several recent high-profile stories have maligned the progamming language. Of these criticisms, “some were deserved, some not.”

The first PR blow for HTML5 in recent months was from Suuronen’s ex-employer Wooga, who said they were pulling out of making HTML5 games. This created big headlines, but Suuronen noted that Wooga were simply saying that HTML5 games were “not really for the mass market” – and in many ways he agrees.

The second PR blow was when Mark Zuckerberg said using HTML5 for mobile was Facebook’s biggest mistake of recent – but the NonStop Games founder notes that Facebook still has more users on the browser version than the native version. However, it was still a good move for Facebook to abandon HTML5 because the responsiveness issues meant less people were looking at news feeds – and therefore displaying ads.

Overall, Suuronen suggested that instead of looking at the sometimes overblown press, let’s look at what sells. Examining the top-grossing U.S. iOS titles, he suggests that some of the top titles like Kingdoms Of Camelot, Poker by Zynga, Rage Of Bahamut, and Slotomania could be made just as well in HTML5.

But some top games like Clash Of Clans couldn’t be, because the “level of polish and level of animation are so high” that it’s difficult to do in HTML5. Overall, titles with complex animation and sound and swift responsiveness won’t work as well in HTML5, Suuronen admits.

The ability to use a ‘wrapper’ to run an HTML5 game across web, mobile, Facebook, and other systems all at once mean that NonStop Games believe that hardcore social games are the sweet spot for HTML5 titles.

Games where you can play anywhere easily – on your cellphone, tablet, and PC – lend themselves to HTML5 much better, and you can tailor different short and longform gameplay for the different times of day – commuting versus sitting down in the evening.

Ironically, Suuronen notes that right now the ‘casual’ games are the more complex in terms of what’s screen, but these ‘core’ social games generally have more depth but less complex animations.

Having started on more casual HTML5 games such as Dollar Isle, NonStop is now concentrating on a more complex, PvP-included fantasy wargame, to be revealed soon, which intends to play up a lot of the advantages that he sees with the language.（source：gamasutra）

4）10 years of design lessons from Portal’s Kim Swift

By Brandon Sheffield

At GDC China’s Independent Games Summit in Shanghai, Kim Swift outlined the design lessons she’s gleaned as she went from a student game developer with Narbacular Drop, to her professional work on Portal, Left 4 Dead 1 & 2, and now Quantum Conundrum.

“If you’re looking to be a good designer, you owe it to yourself to learn everything you can. And I mean everything,” she began. “Learning how to sew when I was younger made it actually really easy for me to unwrap a 3D model,” adding, “If you’re not learning something new on a day-to-day basis, then you’re doing something wrong.”

But be humble, as well. “Sometimes your ideas aren’t always great. One of the best abilities you can have in this industry is to take a step back.

“I have just as many crappy ideas as the next person,” she admits.

So how do you figure out if your ideas are actually good? Playtest, playtest, playtest.

“It is seriously one of the most important processes for game design,” says Swift. If players are learning the wrong things “It’s not the player’s fault — it’s your fault.”

Playtesting should begin with your team, who you should be very actively listening to. “If you have a small team, you have literally no excuse not to listen to your teammates in a small group,” she says. “If you don’t trust your teammates to make the right choices and give valuable input, then you’ve probably chosen the wrong team.”

If you get into a situation where you have to cut features, she says you should “Focus down on the core mechanics that will make or break your game. … Categorize features into ‘integral,’ ‘somewhat important,’ and complete ‘wishlist.’”

When teaching new concepts, as with Portal, she says you need to first “teach a skill by itself, with very few distractions. Then you reinforce it. Show that skill to a player again and again and again, but make it a little more challenging this time.”

Swift says you should “reinforce newly-taught skills at least twice,” but then “give players an a-ha moment.” That is to say, after you’ve given people a few skills, bring them together; “this will make players feel really smart and accomplished.”

But don’t be afraid to take risks either. “Strive for random things, because you really never know if it might take off,” says Swift, citing the “Still Alive” song in Portal as an example of a weird idea that paid off.

“The game industry right now is super weird. It makes no sense and it’s kind of scary,” she concludes, noting the console transition, free-to-play gold rush, and mobile space.

“I have no idea what the next few years are going to look like. So as a small developer we have to stay on our toes, and adapt to whatever comes along.” （source:gamasutra）