1）MobileInsurance.co.uk最近针对2500名英国手机用户的调查发现，所有受访者在过去两年都曾弄坏一部手机，多数人持有手机不到四个月就要去找保险公司索赔。

37%受访者称自己的手机在三个月内就损坏了，有51%受访者称自己在2012圣诞节得到的手机现在不是坏了，就是已经丢失或者被盗。

broken-smartphone(from siliconangle.com)

仅有9%受访者在手机损坏、丢失或被盗时获得了保险金，65%受访者不知道多数保险政策仅服务于使用不到一年的移动设备，误以为可以在任何时候索赔。

2）据Techcrunch报道，Rovio最近又通过肯尼迪航空中心观光区推出愤怒的小鸟太空展览馆，其占地面积为4500平方尺，有6个支持游客与《愤怒的小鸟太空版》相关活动与游戏互动的站点。

Angry Birds Space Encounter Exhibit(from Techcrunch)

Rovio公司在芬兰埃斯波还击败宜家家居，获得了一个占地达12.9英亩的地块，计划在此扩建新办公室，以及一个家庭趣味主题乐园。

3）据venturebeat报道，Kabam和华纳兄弟最近推出了基于电影《霍比特人：意外之旅》的Facebook和网页版游戏《The Hobbit:Armies of the Third Age》。

kabam-hobbit(from venturebeat)

该游戏手机版本已在去年秋季上线，据App Annie数据显示，这款游戏在今年1月份跻身iOS游戏营收榜单前10名，该月还晋升至Google Play游戏前15名榜单。

这个新版游戏将在Facebook、Kabam.com和Google Chrome Store上线，目前支持英语、法语、德语和西班牙语。

4）据mobile-ent报道，黑莓首席执行官Thorsten Heins日前宣布BlackBerry 10目前应用数量已超过10万。

BlackBerry 10操作系统于1月底发布，当时已有7万款应用，历时7周增加了3万款应用。

5）据insidesocialgames报道，社交手机游戏开发商PlayFirst营销及产品管理副总裁Becky Ann Hughes在最近采访中表示，定期更新产品让公司游戏用户获得显著增长，他们每两周更新一次游戏，以免用户流量下滑。

Flos-Diner(from insidesocialgames)

在过去一年中，PlayFirst用户规模双倍增长，目前用户总数超过1000万（这些用户来自iOS和Kindle设备）。

6）移动应用营销平台Trademob最近发布信息图表，比较了iOS和Android两个移动平台在用户特征、应用数量、收益增长速度、智能手机/平板电脑市场份额上的区别。

iOS目前在智能手机市场中占比22.1%，Android占比69.2%；iOS在智能手机应用下载量中占比33%，在Android下载量中占比58%；iOS的平板电脑市场份额为46%，Android平板电脑市场份额则是48.8%；iOS平板电脑应用下载量占比75%，Android占比17%。

截止2013年1月，iOS应用下载量达400亿次；截止2012年9月，Android应用下载量为250亿次。

从美国用户收入情况来看，iOS收入较高用户占比41%，收入中等占比36%，收入较低者占比23%；Android收入较高用户仅占24%，收入中等占37%，收入较低占39%。

目前最畅销iOS设备是iPhone 5和iPad Mini，Android畅销设备则是三星Galaxy，Google Nexus 7；iOS应用数量达80万款（其中有27.5万是针对平板电脑优化的应用），Android应用数量也已超过80万。

关于应用商店优化策略的重要因素，iOS平台是名称和关键字，Android平台是名称和产品描述。

iOS应用审核流程最为严格，基本上需要2周时间，Android相对较为宽松，仅有一些限制和禁止条款。

iOS vs Android(from Trademob)

（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）Most mobiles are damaged within three months of ownership

by Zen Terrelonge

So, if you’re buying a Galaxy S 4 at launch, you’ll likely have a smashed screen by the summer solstice.

MobileInsurance.co.uk surveyed more than 2,500 UK mobile phone owners to find all respondents have broke a handset in the past two years, while most insurance claims are made in fewer than four months of ownership.

Indeed, 37 per cent said their phone had been scathed in three months or less, which was the most common answer, while 51 per cent of devices given as Christmas (2012) gifts have already been smashed, lost or stolen already.

Just nine per cent had insurance at the time of damage, loss or theft, while 65 per cent were unaware that most insurance policies can only be taken out on devices under a year old, believing they could insure the phone at any time.

Jason Brockman, director at MobileInsurance.co.uk, said: “To see that more than half of handsets given as gifts at Christmas are already broken, or have already been lost or stolen, is a big shock indeed. Most people are usually careful with their handsets in the initial weeks, wanting to keep their shiny new toy in tip top condition. After a little while though, phone owners tend to get careless.

“Most people assume you can insure a handset at any stage of owning it, but it’s difficult to find anyone willing to offer an insurance policy on a handset that’s over a year old.”（source：mobile-ent）

2）Rovio Opens Angry Birds Space Encounter Exhibit After Announcing Global Theme Park Plans

Jordan Crook

Rovio is yet again breaking into new businesses with the introduction of the first Angry Birds interactive attraction, as the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is opening an Angry Birds Space Encounter Exhibit.

The whole thing measures up to 4,500 square feet of pure Angry Birds wonder. Six stations are set up to let visitors interact with Angry Birds space-related activities and games. This is part of a slow build into Angry Birds-themed consumer attractions for Rovio, who has gone from a mobile game maker to merchandise phenom, with a newly released animated cartoon series being distributed through the games themselves.

The Finnish company has beat out Ikea in a contest for a 12.9 acre plot of land in Espoo, Finland, with which it plans to build new offices and a family fun theme park, reports the WSJ.

Rovio also mentioned that it had plans to develop a concept for this type of “family entertainment center” which could be used for a global network of Angry Birds theme parks.

“We’re in the process of developing a concept for a family entertainment center that could be replicated around the world,” EVP of Corporate development Mikko Setala told the WSJ.

“Concept development should be completed this spring.”

Alas, spring has sprung and the Angry Birds Space Encounter has opened up in Florida’s Kennedy Space Station. Is this the early concept for the forthcoming Angry Birds theme parks’ space-related branch? There’s no telling until Rovio gets the show on the road, but the timing sure matches up nicely with Setala’s remarks.

Guests of the exhibit can create customized Angry Birds and print it to take home. There are also games like an “Eggsteroid” slingshot contest and a “Cold Cuts Tile Puzzle”, which lets users slide around puzzle pieces to find their favorite Angry Birds characters.

The exhibit is open now to the public at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.（source：techcrunch）

3）After great success on mobile, Kabam launches new Hobbit game on the web

Dean Takahashi

After making a killing on mobile, Kabam and Warner Bros. are launching a new version of their Hobbit game on Facebook and the web. The companies launched the Kabam-created free-to-play browser game, The Hobbit: Armies of the Third Age.

The new launch follows the successful debut of The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth for mobile devices. That game debuted in the fall before Peter Jackson’s blockbuster film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, hit theaters. Now as that movie from New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Pictures debuts on disc and streaming, the companies hope to cash in on another transmedia game. This one will be available on Facebook, Kabam.com, and the Google Chrome Store.

I’m still playing the mobile version of the game, which is typically addictive in that it resembles many other Kabam games, such as Kingdoms of Camelot: The Battle for the North. In the mobile game, you build up your kingdom and armies, join an alliance (mine is the Levellers — hi, mates!), and then battle other players in real-time fights that can involve scores of players. You grow your Might and try to wipe the enemies off the map.

That mobile game was the No. 10 grossing game worldwide on iOS in January, and it was one of the top 15 games on Google Play that month, according to market researcher App Annie.

The Hobbit: Armies of the Third Age is similar. But you can’t cross-play between the mobile and the web versions. In the new game, you select a character like Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield, and Radagast the Brown. You lead an army of Elves, Dwarves or Orcs in a tactical combat game. You can join alliance and partake in an epic war online.

“The Hobbit: Armies of the Third Age and The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth deliver two immersive and dramatically different ways to experience the most iconic fantasy world of all time, across the Web and mobile devices,” said Andrew Sheppard, the president of Kabam Game Studios. “Kabam is unique in its ability to deliver compelling, high-fidelity free-to-play games across genres and platforms.”

The new Hobbit game is available in English, French, German and Spanish.

“The Hobbit: Armies of the Third Age from Kabam and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment is a great example of the type of high quality games being built on Facebook,” said Sean Ryan, the director of Games Partnerships, Facebook. “Kabam’s first strategy game Kingdoms of Camelot launched on Facebook in 2009 and became a major franchise, and we’re excited to see Kabam build their latest game on Facebook. As the Facebook games ecosystem grows, we look forward to seeing more highly engaging experiences from Kabam.”

“We’re eager to bring The Hobbit: Armies of the Third Age to the millions of Middle-earth fans who engage online,” said Greg Ballard, the senior vice president, digital games, for Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “The Facebook and browser-based portals are key locations where The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film fans can regularly engage with Middle-earth in a shared interactive environment.”（source：venturebeat）

4）BlackBerry 10 hits 100,000 apps milestone

by Zen Terrelonge

New OS accrues 30,000 new additions in seven weeks.

At the end of January, BlackBerry revealed its sink-or-swim BlackBerry 10 OS, which launched with 70,000 apps including Angry Birds, Facebook, Jetpack Joyride and NHL.

Seven weeks on, amid the firm’s CEO Thorsten Heins calling the iPhone outdated, BlackBerry 10 now boasts more than 100,000 apps, with Amazon Kindle, OpenTable and The Wall Street Journal among the new additions. Meanwhile, others on the way include CNN, eBay, Maxim, MTV News, and Viber.

Martyn Mallick, VP of global alliances at BlackBerry, said: “The response to the BlackBerry 10 platform and applications has been outstanding. Customers are thrilled with the applications already available, and the catalog just keeps growing, now with more than 100,000 apps.

“Top brands and application providers are joining us every day and are seeing the benefits of being early supporters of the new platform. We constantly hear from developers that the BlackBerry 10 tools are easy to build with and that we provide opportunities for app differentiation that they do not see on other platforms.”

The company’s flagship device, the BlackBerry Z10, lands in the US today.（source：mobile-ent）

5）Years after launch, PlayFirst’s games continue to thrive due to regular updates

Mike Thompson

Social mobile developer PlayFirst is continuing to see a rise in user numbers and revenue for its core “Dash” games, something of a rarity in an industry where dwindling players result in titles being removed from the App Store less than a year after they launch. PlayFirst VP of Marketing and Product Management Becky Ann Hughes tells us the company’s user base is continuing to see impressive growth due to the regular updates it provides to its games, especially seasonal content.

Hughes tells us PlayFirst has refocused itself to treat games as a service. “Every department is focused on games as a service development,” she says. “If we don’t update our games every two weeks, it affects our population. There’s a noticeable drop off in players.”

A recent example she provides is how in Diner Dash recently rolled out St. Patrick’s Day themed content including unique serving settings, recipes and themes. The themed content led to the game’s number of daily active users increasing by approximately 30 percent. The big draw, Hughes tells us, was simply that “it was new content people hadn’t played before.”

“In the past, PlayFirst has been a product-focused model,” Hughes says. “Now we’re using a retail-focused model.”
By being retail-focused, Hughes explains, PlayFirst is adopting a similar content experience one might find in retail chains like Target; when a customer walks into one of these stores, they immediately see themes and items tied to the current season and associated holidays.

Hughes says this content rollout is universally effective across their “Dash” brand of games (including Diner Dash, Wedding Dash, Cooking Dash and Hotel Dash), even though the titles have been available on iOS for years. In fact, she tells us the bi-weekly updates have resulted in increasing record-breaking revenues for the studio. She also says PlayFirst is expecting the numbers to improve even more dramatically, since the developer is planning to switch its monetization models completely over to a free-to-play from its current “try/buy” (downloading what is essentially a game demo for free and then unlocking the full game for a fee) model.

Over the past year, Hughes says PlayFirst’s user population has doubled. Currently, she says company’s total audience comprises over 10 million DAU. These users are only on iOS and Kindle devices, she says; interestingly, Hughes notes that PlayFirst is very happy with how the games monetize on Kindle, something we haven’t heard from other developers.（source：insidesocialgames）