1）市场调研公司EEDAR最近采访3000名北美活跃手机游戏玩家的报告指出，有大量高消费玩家认为自己购买的东西“物有所值”。

75%曾在一款游戏中至少投入50美元的玩家，以及67%至少投入100美元的玩家对自己的消费体验很满意。

Money-Spent-Graph(from EEDAR)

在这些玩家所青睐的游戏中，支持率最高的是King游戏《Candy Crush Saga》，其付费用户在调查样本中占比22%，Supercell游戏《Clash of Clans》付费用户也占比9%。

EEDAR还发现，这些高消费用户对免费游戏十分挑剔，他们不会轻易受到外界因素的影响而草率在游戏中投入金钱，他们在花钱之前都很谨慎。

那些在单款游戏至少投入50美元的受访者在智能手机上所花时间占比34%，在平板电脑上占比19%，在主机上占比17%，在游戏掌机上占比6%，在PC上占比24%。

虽然50美元的IAP所提供的内容量可能不及50美元的AAA主机游戏，但这些高消费手机游戏玩家仍然很享受其中乐趣。

2）Ambient Insight最新报告预测，由于移动设备上学习型应用的兴起，教育类游戏（又称“严肃游戏”）将再度复兴。

该报告预计严肃游戏市场规模将从2012年的15亿美元增长至2017年的23亿美元。而更大的基于模拟的教育市场规模，则将从2012年的23亿美元增长至2017年的66亿美元。总体教育游戏市场规模将从原来的39亿美元增长至2017年的89亿美元。

Serious-Games(from socialgamesadnetwork)

Ambient Insight首席调查官Sam Adkins称基于游戏的教育公司融资已超过1.117亿美元，而更大的教育游戏市场（包括合作培养和教育消费者游戏）在风投融资超过15亿美元，远超过互联网史上的任何时代。他指出教育类应用目前在许多地区已经进入热门应用榜单前十名，手机教育游戏销量已经开始超过PC教育游戏。

在去年31家成功融资的游戏型教育公司中，有23家来自移动平台，并且有21家瞄准的是消费者群体。

3）eMarket最新报告显示，对手机游戏广告感兴趣的移动用户在过去三年中显著增长。在2000名美国成人受访者中，有45%用户自称对通过移动设备收到的广告有点兴趣，而2009年的这一比例仅为26%。

Chart_1(from eMarketer)

Chart_21(from eMarketer)

Chart_31(from eMarketer)

86%认为很有必要获得本地信息或活动，每五人中就有四者认为本地通知很有用，并认为这种信息与自身关系更密切。

72%认为本地移动广告可能会促使他们去就近的商店消费，83%认为他们会因为这些广告而尝试新产品。

4）据pocketgamer报道，Wooga高管Timo Dries在日前的GDC Europe大会上表示，休闲游戏或社交游戏设计不能只依赖开发者的直觉，因为玩家的需求一直在变化，但工作室也不可过度沉迷于数据分析，因为这也只是设计哲学的一部分。

Monster-World(from download.com)

他称Wooga针对休闲游戏《Monster World》会提取用户每次玩半小时的游戏数据，并用这些数据改变游戏设计，以便更好满足一般玩家的需求。单次变化并不会创造多大益处，但不断重复这一过程，就会产生理想的效果。

Dries指出，你无法用数据衡量一切，而要用心制作游戏，让玩家感受到开发团队在游戏中所倾注的爱。所以他们每回都会额外花些时间，为游戏添加一点笑话或动画效果，让玩家注意到每个细节。他最后总结到，开发者应该发挥创造力，结合爱心和热心，利用数据和分析工具创造有趣的内容。

5）据mobile-ent报道，Facebook最近因开发者帐号和应用被恶意软件攻击而备受开发者批评，因为在其网站被黑期间，开发者应用漏洞频现并且无法正常运行。

Facebook+Malware(from hackersnewsbulletin)

尽管Facebook在开发者博客致歉并说明问题，但还是有大量评论抱怨Facebook并未提供更良好的技术支持。有名开发者留言称这一情况导致他的帐号两周无法登陆，以致其无法查看和更新自己的应用。（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）Exclusive: 78% of mobile gamers spending $50+ on IAP say they’ve received ‘their money’s worth’

by Matthew Diener

New research from market research firm EEDAR suggests that many perceptions about free-to-play gamers are wide of the mark.

It’s interviewed 3,000 active mobile gamers in North America as part of its Deconstructing Mobile & Tablet Gaming 2013 study.

The conclusion is that an overwhelming percentage of heavy spenders felt they were “getting their money’s worth” with their purchases.

Empowering play with pay

Or put another way, over three-quarters (75 percent) of the players that spent $50 or more on a game and over two thirds (67 percent) of players that spent $100 or more on a game stated they were satisfied with their experience.

Leading the charge of games referenced in the study were King’s Candy Crush Saga, which represented 22 percent of the sample, and Supercell’s Clash of Clans, which represented 9 percent.

EEDAR’s research also calls into question the role of consumer agency in the decision to make purchases.

Previously, there were some in the industry who felt that free-to-play games were ‘Skinner boxes’ that relied on the power of impulse purchases to trick players into availing themselves of IAPs.

But EEDAR found that these heavy spenders were very selective in determining which freemium games they spent on and weren’t influenced by flashing lights and the desire to speed through just any game.

Rather, these heavy spenders were likely making a conscious decision on whether a game was good enough or not before they invested money in it.

Consoling the consoles

Another point which EEDAR called into question was the conception of free-to-play gamers and console gamers as two separate gaming groups.

The data collected for the Deconstructing Mobile & Tablet Gaming 2013 study shows that freemium gamers and ‘traditional’ gamers overlap.

Of those respondents who spent $50 or more on a single mobile game, 34 percent of their gaming time was spent on a smartphone, 19 percent on a tablet, 17 percent on a console, 6 percent on a gaming handheld, and 24 percent on a PC.

Thus, while a $50 in-app purchase might not deliver the same amount of content as a $50 triple-A console game, heavy mobile spenders recognize – and enjoy – the value of both.

Bringing it all together

Speaking on the data points collected during the study, EEDAR’s senior analyst Patrick Walker lays out exactly where detreactors are mistaken with its impressions of free-to-play gamers.

“Critics of the free-to play-business model state that the model takes advantage of heavy spenders by leveraging impulsive buying behaviors rather than providing true gameplay value,” he says.

“However, when asked, the majority of heavy spenders endorse that they are satisfied with the purchases made in the mobile games on which they spend the most money.（source：pocketgamer）

2）With a mobile boom, learning games are a $1.5B market headed toward $2.3B by 2017 (exclusive)

Dean Takahashi

Educational games, also known as “serious games,” are going through a renaissance in part because of the acceptance of learning apps on mobile devices. That’s the finding of a new research report by Ambient Insight.

The forecast predicts the Serious Games market, which Ambient calls game-based learning, will grow from $1.5 billion in 2012 to $2.3 billion in 2017. The larger simulation-based learning market, which includes corporate training games, is expected to grow even more from $2.3 billion in 2012 to $6.6 billion in 2017. Altogether, the learning games market will grow from $3.9 billion to $8.9 billion in 2017. Much of the growth will come from apps that target the mobile market.

“Mobile has re-energized the market,” Adkins said.

Ambient Insight will unveil the data at the Serious Play Conference next week in Redmond, Wash. Sam Adkins, chief research officer at Ambient Insight, said in an exclusive interview with GamesBeat that game-based learning companies raised more than $111.7 million. The larger educational game market — including corporate training and educational consumer games — raised more than $1.5 billion in venture capital, more than at any time since the dotcom craze.

“For all of the eight combined learning markets we cover, that was the highest amount of money invested in learning capital ever,” Adkins said. But he noted that game-based learning is a small subset of that. He defines game-based learning as products that teach knowledge through gameplay (including some form of competition against oneself or others) and a reward/penalty system that functions as an assessment method. That includes games such as Teach With Portals, (pictured) a way to teach physics based on Valve’s Portal and Portal 2 video games.

Adkins sees two very different markets. The corporate training games include simulation programs that train people how to do their jobs, particularly in fields like healthcare where workers have to learn how to use expensive equipment. Game-based learning, on the other hand, focuses on teaching knowledge to kids or general consumers.

Both fields have had a rich history. Nintendo took game-based learning to a new level in 2005 when it launched Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day, on the Nintendo DS handheld.

That game and its variants sold more than 37 million copies. JumpStart’s Math Blaster game has taught children about math for years, and now it has a mobile version. Today, companies like Lumos Labs (maker of Lumosity), MindSnacks, Tiny Tap, and Vivity Labs (maker of FitBrains) are carrying on that tradition. Across the spectrum of learning companies, there are hundreds of startups.

“Nintendo re-energized this market with products for older adults and now that trend has moved into mobile games and apps,” Adkins said. Learning apps now rank in the top 10 apps in many different countries, not just in Japan where the trend started.

“Mobile educational games are now outselling PC educational games,” he said. “And the entrepreneurs are incredibly passionate about what they are doing. What we find interesting is the interest among investors in mobile.”

Of 31 game-based learning companies that raised funding last yea, 23 were mobile. And 21 targeted consumers. Some of the projects look very promising, like GlassLab‘s project to create a learning game from SimCity. But it is very difficult to make money with educational games in the mobile market, unless you have a big brand like Sesame Street. DragonBox, made in Norway, is a math game that is outselling Angry Birds in that country, Adkins said.（source：venturebeat）

3）45 per cent of US mobile owners want mobile ads and offers

by Phil Tottman

78 per cent find location based alerts useful.

The number of mobile phone owners who are interested in receiving more mobile advertisements has increased a considerable amount in the last three years, according to eMarketer.

45 per cent of the 2000 US adults asked said that they are somewhat interested in receiving mobile alerts from brands, compared to 26 per cent in 2009.

86 per cent find it important to be able to access local information and/ or activities – with four out of five deeming location based alerts useful, and think that they would be more

relevant to them.

Alistair Goodman, CEO at Placecast, said: “When it comes to local offers on their phones, consumers are not only growing accepting, but expecting of them. Savvy brands will carefully consider how much of their digital spend is going too mobile, particularly local-mobile.”

Media savvy brands would win all round if they were to push local mobile ads, as 72 per cent said that they may be encouraged to make spontaneous purchases from nearby stores, and 83 per cent said that they would try new things.

Accessing local information, searching for local retail and text messaging all ranked higher in terms of mobile functionality than accessing social networks – and although Facebook’s mobile advertising is increasingly popular, it appears to be the ads that are sent direct to a mobile that are preferred over those on sites or social networks.

Goodman Continued “On the publisher side, companies like Facebook and Google are being handed a huge opportunity to leverage their massive audience and deliver ads in a responsible, relevant way. The key is for the ads to be perceived as a valuable service by their users, not unwanted or intrusive.”（source：mobile-ent）

4）Make love, not metrics: Wooga on the importance of romancing the player

by Keith Andrew

“I have to be honest with you – we don’t know what our players want,” opened Wooga’s Timo Dries during his talk at GDC Europe in Cologne.

“When it comes to casual games or social games, you can’t rely on your gut feelings, because what people want and what people are playing constantly changes.”

So how can developers best take advantage of the ever-growing social gaming scene? Are metrics the answer?

According to Dries, it’s very easy for studios to become obsessed with metrics and numbers, but they’re only one part of the story.

Monster testing

Dries said that, with Wooga’s casual release Monster World, the studio watched people playing the game for half an hour at a time.

That data was then used to shift the game’s design it to better meet the needs of the average player. Individual changes won’t always deliver the goods, but if you repeat this process over and over, improvement in some shape or form is almost guaranteed.

But testing isn’t everything.

“You can’t measure everything,” added Dries. “Someone at Casual Connect Seattle last year said love is the ultimate metric.”

In this context, love plays out as the “little details you add to your game” when you have a spare five minutes. The in-jokes, the animations. In short, going the extra mile to make your game feel like the product of the team behind it.

Love to love

“You have to make sure your players feel the love that has been put into your game,” he continued.

“Every time we have some spare time, we add these little jokes to the game or little animations, so that whenever people are playing – people who have been playing for years and who notice every little detail – there’s something new for them.”

In Monster World, Wooga took a previously unpopular character – Robert the Robot – and started adding animations that showed him flirting with a female robot named Roberta.

Almost instantly, the audience took to him.

“Take your creativity and your love and you passion and combine it with all your numbers and your analytics, and you’ll create something fun,” concluded Dries.（source：pocketgamer）

5）Developers fuming at Facebook over lack of service support

by Phil Tottman

Angry back lash on blog post apology.

Facebook recently experienced an attack on its developer accounts and apps which resulted in them being temporarily unavailable. The service was taken down as it had been effected by malicious apps, however during routine restoration, developers apps were mistaken for bugs and also disabled.

A entry was posted on Facebooks develops blog explaining the issue and apologising, however was met with a number of comments requesting better support.

Ni Bu, co-founder of RidePost, said: “Thanks for the honesty, but can you please provide a way for developers to communicate with you when this does occur? I understand needing to limit communication for the general one billion user base. However when something like this happens that can potentially cripple an application (which it did for us) there needs to be a channel to quickly get your attention and get some clarity.”

Facebook have said that it will be creating better tools to detect affected apps without mistaking developers services for bugs, and will look into improving recovery processes which is currently slower than expected.

Another developer commented on the blog, telling how he lost access to his account for two weeks, leaving him unable to check on his services or update his apps. He expressed his frustration over not being able to contact someone direct for assistance.

The developer, David Beaton, CEO at Sharkius, said: “There have been a few other times when direct access to a real person would have stopped me losing an awful lot of money. That is my number 1 grievance against Facebook, as a platform developer.”（source：mobile-ent）