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每日观察:关注社交游戏领域公司概况及新作品(5.4)

发布时间:2011-05-04 17:29:19 Tags:,,,

1)西雅图社交游戏公司Mindbloom日前宣布同Aetna达成合作协议,为该医疗机构的会员提供强化版《Life Game》。《Life Game》于去年7月发行,旨在通过提供涉及健康、精神、人际关系、休闲、生活方式、资产、创造性和职业的游戏体验帮助玩家树立更为健康和均衡的生活方式。游戏中玩家通过种植和供养Life Tree传递自己的理想生活方式。

Life Game

Life Game

今年秋天,Aetna将为会员提供这款社交游戏,帮助用户实现自己的健康目标。这并非医疗保险公司涉足社交游戏领域的首创。早在去年11月份,Humana的国内Health Entertainment团队就推出了类似游戏(游戏邦注:即《FamScape》),旨在帮助家庭成员实现健康生活目标。

2)THQ日前公布了公司2011年度的财政业绩,据悉公司今年损失1.361亿美元,远超出2010年度的900万美元亏空。公司今年总营收为6.653亿美元,也低于去年的8.991亿美元。但公司第4季度的销售业绩稍有好转,总营收为1.242亿美元(相比之前的1.974亿美元略有下滑),净损失为4410万美元(此前为1040万美元)。

thq

thq

2011年度,除了《Homefront》售出260万本之外,《uDraw GameTablet》、《SmackDown vs. Raw 2011》、《WWE All Stars》和《UFC Undisputed 2010》的销售量也分别达170万、400万、400万和300万(游戏邦注:《SmackDown vs. Raw 2011》和《WWE All Stars》是基于8ts WWE品牌推出的游戏)。公司表示,他们计划2012年将Jimmy Buffet的《Margaritaville》植入Facebook、iPad和iPhone平台。

3)在线社交游戏服务网站King.com力争将公司热门Facebook和在线游戏打造成顶级跨平台手机应用(游戏邦注:该公司3回合比赛游戏《Miner Speed》已于上周通过免费应用形式入驻iOS设备)。早在这款应用尚未植入手机平台之时,King.com的几款游戏就已展露良好发展势头。《Puzzle Saga》、《Bubble Saga》、《Miner Speed》以及公司游戏门户的其他游戏均出现于上月Inside Social Games每周20大增势强劲游戏榜单之中。公司希望借助手机应用市场的新用户寻求更大的发展。King.com社交和手机产品运作主管Lars Jornow表示,首次安装《Miner Speed》游戏的用户将被提示同Facebook Connect签署协议,每个版本将提供2.5万的免费Coins。相比Facebook或King.com平台的《Miner Speed》玩家而言,手机版《Miner Speed》玩家能够获得双倍的免费游戏货币。

King.com growth

King.com growth

4)许多现身4月份榜单的游戏依旧出现于5月份前25名Facebook游戏榜单之中,而许多外语游戏则销声匿迹。就DAU(日活跃用户)而言,本月首款新晋榜单的游戏为Playdom的隐藏物品游戏《Gardens of Time》,其位列榜单第16。这款游戏自4月份发行以来,增长势头强劲。

Top-25-DAU-May-2011

Top-25-DAU-May-2011

而就MAU(月活跃用户)榜单来看,第二款新晋榜单的游戏为德国开发商Wooga的《Diamond Dash》,游戏排名第21。这款游戏于今年3月底发行,增长趋势平稳。由于Facebook现已推出新病毒式传播功能Sponsored Stories,各款游戏未来有望稳步获取新用户。

Top-25-MAU-May-2011

Top-25-MAU-May-2011

5)拉丁美洲热门在线社交网络和游戏平台Quepasa.com截至2011年4月新增注册用户200万,用户人数创历史新高,达3560万。相比去年4月份的130万增长用户而言,Quepasa.com月用户的年均增长率高达54%。Quepasa.com在用户粘性方面也取得了傲人成绩,页面浏览量同网站回访率之比为30.7,比例年增长率高达80%。网站2011年4月份的页面浏览量为2.458亿,年增长率达162%。仅4月份的访问者就多达1700万,同比2010年4月增长高达175%。Quepasa首席执行官Abbott表示,页面用户粘性的提高完全得益于公司今年初对用户个人资料进行完善。

Quepasa

Quepasa

6)MMSG游戏(游戏邦注:如《Kingdoms of Camelot》、IGN Reader 2010年的《Choice Facebook Game》、《Glory of Rome》和《Dragons of Atlantis》)开发商Kabam日前宣布推出测试版《Global Warfare》,这是一款针对Facebook平台的策略MMSG游戏。《Global Warfare》是首款将现代军事战争带入社交网络的游戏。Kabam首席产品经理Andrew Sheppard表示,公司希望通过《Global Warfare》强化MMO设计原理,推进MMSG游戏的发展。与其他休闲游戏不同,《Global Warfare》提供更为深刻、更具策略且更富粘性和扩展性的游戏体验。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

1)Mindbloom Partners With Insurance Provider Aetna For Game Promotion

Seattle-based social game developer Mindbloom announced a deal with Aetna to provide the healthcare provider’s members with an enhanced version of its Life Game.

Launched last July, Life Game is designed to inspire and help players “live healthier, more balanced lives” by presenting them with goals related to health, spirituality, relationships, leisure, lifestyle, finances, creativity, and career in a game-like experience.

Players grow and maintain a “Life Tree” meant to represent the life they want to have (branches and leaves representing specific goals). As they reach their goals, their tree grows, and they are rewarded with virtual currency to unlock new features and content.

Beginning this fall, Aetna will offer the social game to its members as a way to “[engage] people in achieving personal health and wellness goals.” Mindbloom is collaborating with Aetna to make significant enhancements to Life Game and add mobile features.

This isn’t the first time a health insurance company has experimented with social games — last November, Humana’s internal Health Entertainment team launched a similar title called FamScape that is designed to “motivate families to achieve healthy-living goals”.

“Considering that Americans are spending over $200 billion a year on healthy living products and services, but the rates of chronic health conditions and obesity continue to rise, the time is right for a new approach to engaging people in achieving better overall health,” says Aetna’s medical director of health and wellness Kyra Bobinet, MD, MPH.

“We think the Mindbloom Life Game will provide a fun, rewarding and effective way for Aetna’s members to make lasting improvements in their physical and emotional well-being.”(Source:Gamasutra) 

2)THQ Posts $136M Loss For Fiscal 2011

THQ has announced the financial results for its 2011 fiscal year, posting a loss of $136.1 million, significantly more than the $9 million it lost in fiscal 2010.

Revenue was reported at $665.3 million, also down from the $899.1 million in the prior year.

Fourth quarter comps fared a little better, with revenue reported at $124.2 million (down from $197.4 million) and a loss of $44.1 million (from $10.4 million), consistent with its guidance.

“THQ posted strong fourth quarter results primarily driven by the success of Homefront,” said THQ President and CEO Brian Farrell. “We have already shipped 2.6 million units, a solid start for this new franchise, which kicks off the strongest pipeline of AAA core games in our history.”

Looking forward, the company said it will generate “significant growth, profitability and cash” in fiscal 2012, driven by upcoming installments in its Saints Row, Red Faction, Warhammer 40,000, MX vs. ATV, UFC, WWE and uDraw franchises.

“We are creating a digital ecosystem for each of these games that will continue to keep consumers engaged and generate additional revenue opportunities beyond the initial retail sale,” said Farrell.

“We also continue to aggressively invest in our digital initiatives, including online social and mobile offerings as well as our Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online MMO.”

The company also announced that its uDraw franchise will expand from its Wii-only debut to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this holiday season, with “GameTablet” accessories designed specifically for those systems.

During fiscal 2011, in addition to 2.6 million copies of Homefront, THQ shipped 1.7 million units of the uDraw GameTablet, 4 million units of 8ts WWE-branded titles SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 and WWE All Stars, and 3 million units of UFC Undisputed 2010.

The company also announced plans to bring Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville brand to Facebook, iPad, and iPhone in fiscal 2012. The 1977 song has also been developed into restaurants, alcoholic beverages, prepared foods, clothing and furniture.(Source:Gamasutra) 

3)King.com Games Gain Growth Through Cross-Platform Play

Online social games service King.com aims to be ahead of the cross-platform game with mobile apps for its leading Facebook and online titles. The first of these, match-3 game Miner Speed, hit iOS devices just last week as a free app.

Even before the app went live, King.com was already seeing strong growth across several of its titles. Puzzle Saga, Bubble Saga, Miner Speed and the developer’s games portal all occupied spots in our weekly lists of top 20 games by growth on AppData in the last month. By launching Miner Speed on mobile devices, King.com hopes for more growth as new users discover the games via mobile app markets.

King.com’s Lars Jornow, Director of Product Performance on Social & Mobile, explains that first-time users installing the free Miner Speed app are prompted to sign on with Facebook Connect. Doing so unlocks boosts in both the Facebook game and the mobile game, and 25,000 free Coins within each version. This grants new users arriving at Miner Speed through mobile games twice the free currency an existing online user gets from signing into Miner Speed through Facebook or King.com for the first time. Mobile users signing on with Facebook Connect also count towards Miner Speed’s MAU and DAU numbers on Facebook because they’re registered as new users if they haven’t previously installed the app on their Facebook account.

“We chose Miner Speed because it’s one of the easier titles to [build] for cross-platform,” Jornow tells us. “We keep the wallets separate on Facebook and mobile, but the scores stay the same.”

Cross-platform mobile apps are difficult for most Facebook game developers to integrate because of technical limitations between platforms and because of the different payment ecosystems. Most mobile platforms don’t support Flash or daily updates that some Facebook developers rely on to maintain their games, and inconsistent network connections on mobile devices make it synchronous gameplay very difficult. Apple actively blocks Flash on iOS devices and is only barely supported by Android. In-game payments on Facebook are done with Facebook Credits while in-app purchases on iOS are handled through iTunes, which is why Miner Speed keeps the wallets on each version separate.

Zynga only has a few mobile apps live for its leading games so far, and aside from FarmVille topping a few iOS charts, we haven’t heard much to suggest that they’re especially successful. Even so, cross-platform is where many feel the social/mobile market is going and so we see companies staffing up on mobile developers and searching for ways to integrate their Facebook brands onto mobile devices through companion apps, stripped down versions of the Facebook app, or through independent apps that carry the same name.

Miner Speed proved to be an easy build for King.com because of its single-player, asynchronous gameplay. Like Bejeweled, players aim to connect rows or columns of like-colored gems to clear the set and earn points within a time limit. The only social element of the game that relies on Facebook is the score-tracking among different users, which King.com uses to build weekly tournaments between friends, regions, and on a global level.

“Tournaments are our DNA,” Jornow says. “We want to bring that to iOS.”

You can track Miner Speed’s Facebook progress on AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.(Source:Inside Social Games

4)Top 25 Facebook Games For May 2011

Going into May 2011, many of the games from April’s top 25 Facebook games stay with us while some foreign language games vanish. Add to that a few notable newcomers, and you’ve got our top 25 Facebook games for May 2011.

First up, we sort the top 25 by daily active users. This gives us an idea of which games people tend to visit habitually. Be sure to compare this list to the top 25 monthly active users list for an idea of which games have a higher retention rate (or “sticky factor”) with players. Remember that DAU is vulnerable to sharp fluctuations as a result of ad campaigns, technical difficulties, and holiday lulls when people aren’t visiting Facebook when they usually would.

Our first notable newcomer on this list is Playdom’s hidden object game, Gardens of Time, at number 16. The game has seen rapid growth since its early April launch, routinely making our weekly lists of top 20 games by growth. Players progress through a story-driven sequence of missions, each being a hidden object puzzle or some variation thereof.

Next up, we sort the top 25 by monthly active users. This gives us an idea of how larger a game’s total audience is, although it doesn’t pain a clear picture of how well the game retains or monetizes among its audience. A game’s MAU isn’t as vulnerable to sharp fluctuations as DAU, however, so we can see overall trends in a game’s life cycle that tell us whether it’s thriving or decaying.

Here we see our second notable newcomer from German developer Wooga, Diamond Dash, at number 21 on the list. This bubble-popping arcade game officially launched late in March and steadily climbed the growth charts throughout the month of April before landing at its present-day DAU and MAU levels.

It’ll be interesting to see if both our newcomers can keep up the pace for another 30 days to make June’s top 25 list of Facebook games. Assuming both were supported by ad campaigns, we can expect to see DAU taper as the campaigns come to an end; however, with new viral features available to games through Sponsored Stories, both games could maintain a steady stream of new players.

All results of our Top 25 articles are based on information collected from AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and their developers.(Source:Inside Social Games

5)Quepasa.com Membership Reaches Record 35.6 Million Registered Users in April

54% Year-Over-Year Membership Growth Complements Improved Site Metrics

WEST PALM BEACH, FL–(Marketwire – May 3, 2011) – Quepasa.com, the popular online social network and game platform for the Latino community operated by Quepasa Corporation (NYSE Amex: QPSA), added nearly 2.0 million registered users in April 2011 to reach a record total of 35.6 million. This marks a year-over-year increase in monthly growth of 54%, compared to growth of 1.3 million new users in April 2010.

“Our user base reached a record level in April by adding approximately two million newly registered users,” commented Quepasa’s CEO, John Abbott. “We continue to work on the fine tuning and broadening of our user acquisition channels as part of our broader growth plan.”

Quepasa.com also reported significant improvement in user engagement during April, with Page Views per Return Site Visit of 30.7, representing an 80% year-over-year increase. Total Page Views in April came in at 245.8 million, representing 162% year-over-year growth. Unique Monthly Visitors totaled 17.0 million in April 2011, up 175% from April 2010.

“Our retention metrics benefitted from user profile enhancements made earlier in the year,” said Abbott. “Additionally, we are very pleased with the initial results of the Wonderful City beta-launch, and, as we now begin to market the game on Quepasa.com, we look forward to discussing its impact on overall site metrics next month.” (Source:marketwire

6)Kabam Unleashes Global Warfare on the Emerging World of Massively Multiplayer Social Gaming

Kabam™, a leading developer of massively multiplayer social games (MMSGs) including Kingdoms of Camelot®, IGN Reader’s Choice Facebook Game of 2010, Glory of Rome™ and Dragons of Atlantis™, today announced the beta release of Global Warfare™, a new strategy MMSG for Facebook. Set in a near future torn apart by warring city-states, Global Warfare features deep gameplay in a highly social setting and is the first MMSG to bring a modern military warfare theme to social networks.

Global Warfare places players in a world of geopolitical chaos where formal governments have been dissolved in favor of a new world order of warring city-states. Player alliances are the glue that binds together city-states with common interests, whether for peace or all-out war. In the game, powerful generals vie for control as they compete for territory and strategic resources such as titanium, gather artifact sets for crafting new items, and band together into strong alliances.

“With Global Warfare, Kabam continues to push the evolution of MMSGs by incorporating strong MMO design principles into the game,” said Andrew Sheppard, Chief Product Officer, Kabam. “Engine enhancements, new gameplay elements such as crafting and strategic resources, and new combat dynamics combine to create a play experience that is both streamlined and deep.”

Unlike casual social games designed for short bursts of play alternating with out-of-game sharing requests, Global Warfare offers deeper, more strategic, engaging and extended gameplay. Synchronous gameplay allows players to interact with each other and the game world in real time. Players can use chat to synchronize waves of infantry, tank, and air force attacks to hit an enemy city at once or coordinate resource allocation with their alliance.

“Our team was inspired to new heights by Global Warfare’s modern military setting, which was a top theme request from players,” said Bryan Bennett, General Manager of Kabam. “To bring players out of their cities to fight, we created points of conflict by adding limited quantities of strategic resources such as diamonds and titanium. To make the combat more strategic and fair, we created a new combat system with ‘paper-rock-scissors’ troop effectiveness. To top it off, we gave players MMO-style crafting with the ability to farm non-player territories for artifacts used to craft goods for intelligence, resources, and combat.”

Additional key features and advancements in Global Warfare include:

Balanced combat system, featuring dozens of offensive and defensive military units, each with unique strengths and weaknesses. This allows players to focus their attacks strategically for maximum damage, with no single unit dominating every situation.

Strategic Resources: The competition for resources and power creates an atmosphere of competitive action as well as social interaction as thousands of players battle with and against each other in real time.

In-game missions guide gamers forward and provide a reward system as they level up, continually unlocking new powers and abilities for global domination.

Taken together, the game’s features create a new level of MMSG depth, engagement and complexity. In combination with a game world of military warfare designed to appeal to core gamers, they give Global Warfare the potential to open a new category of MMO-style modern military social gaming.(Source:sfgate


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