1）休闲游戏公司PopCap Games与日本发行商Taito宣布通过日本社交网络GREE推出社交游戏服务Pop Tower。该服务为《宝石迷阵》这款PopCap经典游戏添加了不少社交功能，未来还将添加《Chuzzle》和《祖玛》等游戏。

每款Pop Tower游戏都会推荐几种新游戏模式和社交元素，支持用户在GREE平台与好友互动，而Pop Tower本身则是一款大型RPG游戏，设置了让玩家在塔中解救PopCap游戏角色的功能。Pop Tower是PopCap东京工作室的首个产品。

frontierville-oregon-trail

2）美国著名出版商Houghton Mifflin Harcourt子公司The Learning Company (TLC)日前向马萨诸塞州地区法院提起诉讼，称社交游戏开发商Zynga侵犯其享有的“俄勒冈小道”（The Oregon Trail）商标权。

据其诉讼资料显示，Zynga计划于5月30日推出其Facebook游戏《FrontierVille》的“俄勒冈小道”任务，根据YouTube预告视频显示，这些游戏任务的视觉效果和玩法均与其他版本的“俄勒冈小道”游戏十分相似，也是要求玩家“创建一辆马车、狩猎、涉水，以及帮助他人”。据该公司所称，他们自1971年以来就已投入巨资推广“俄勒冈小道”这个标志，Zynga此举侵犯了他们的权益。

LTC在去年曾与Zynga接触希望能够根据该题材开发一款Facebook版本的游戏，但谈判未果LTC只好转向Blu Fang开发了于今年1月份发布的另一款Facebook游戏，该游戏目前的用户将近120万。LTC要求Zynga停用“俄勒冈小道”这一名称，并向其赔偿损失。

army-attack-screenshot

3）社交游戏公司Digital Chocolate日前推出其新款游戏《Army Attack》，支持玩家在游戏中组建自己的帝国和军队，指挥大军与敌人作战，玩家还可以邀请Facebook好友加入战局，共同抵御敌军。该公司在未来数周还将持续更新游戏，为其添加更多社交功能和新内容。

Jamie Oliver

4）著名烹饪节目主持人Jamie Oliver最近与EA达成合作协议，允许后者在旗下的社交游戏《Restaurant City》（游戏邦注：该游戏由Playfish开发，AppData数据显示其最近DAU是140万）中植入带有Jamie Oliver元素的虚拟商品，支持玩家在游戏中经营餐厅时供应Oliver的招牌菜。

Trade-Nations

5）《Trade Nations》原先是一款iOS游戏，之前曾因版权问题而导致西雅图发行商Z2Live和加拿大Bight Games发生争执，后来达成协议由Bight公司运营该游戏的Facebook版本。据AppData数据显示，这款游戏目前的MAU已达9000，DAU是2000。玩家在该游戏中要创建一个可以自产自足的小城镇，可以购买资源、工人和货币，玩家可使用Facebook Credits购买其付费虚拟货币Magic Beans加快游戏进程。

6）Caesars Entertainment Corporation旗下的赌场Harrah’s日前收购了以色列游戏开发商Playtika的51%股份，总额约8000万至9000万美元。以色列媒体报道称这笔交易额“极为惊人”，因为Playtika还仅是一家缺乏资金流的小型社交游戏开发商，而Harrah’s却是首家向以色列在线游戏公司注入巨资的美国赌场。

Playtika games-MAU DAU

Playtika目前仅有14或15名成员，在乌克兰还有一些额外员工。该公司的老虎机游戏《Slotomania》和最近发布的《Farkle Pro》取得了成功，这家公司所有Facebook游戏的MAU总数为290万，DAU是64.3万，据称在全球多个社交网络共有900万用户。

7）《The Amazing Puzzle Factory》是一款由英国公司IdeasPad推出的从任天堂DS平台移植过来的Facebook游戏，它在4月中旬上线时的用户数量稳步增长，最近MAU超过了5.4万，DAU是6000。其用户数量增长主要得益于好友邀请功能，以及涂鸦墙信息，以及广告网络Appatyze所提供的点击式条幅广告推广服务。

The Amazing Puzzle Factory

该结合了传统的填字游戏、九宫格游戏等玩法，玩家得分取决于其完成挑战的速度。不过除了积分排行榜，该游戏并没有设置其他社交功能，主要靠Daily Puzzle和定期奖励刺激用户不断回访游戏。

empires-and-allies-billboard

8）据games博客透露，Zynga的下一款新游戏可能是《Empires & Allies》。虽然目前关于该游戏的信息极为有限，但games认为它可能是一款帝国建设类游戏，支持玩家建设古代风格的城市，其性质可能类似于Playdom旗下的《City of Wonder》，甚至有可能与2K和Firaxis即将推出的《Civillization World》一决高下。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

1）PopCap Releases Pop Tower Social Platform In Japan

by Mike Rose

Casual game developer PopCap Games and Japanese publisher Taito today launched a new game service called Pop Tower, via major Japanese networking provider GREE.

The new service has launched with a custom-built version of PopCap’s flagship title Bejeweled, adding a number of social features to the classic title. Other PopCap titles, such as Chuzzle and Zuma, are also set to be added to the service.

Each Pop Tower enhanced game will feature new game modes and social elements, allowing users to interact with their friends on the GREE network. Pop Tower itself is a metagame with RPG elements in which players have the chance to rescue PopCap characters around their tower by playing well in individual games.

Pop Tower is the first product to be released by PopCap’s Tokyo office, and comes in the same week that the company announced an exclusive partnership with Chinese social networking site Renren that will see the company release a social adaptation of Plants vs Zombies.（source:gamasutra）

2）The Learning Company Suing Zynga Over Oregon Trail Trademark

by Kyle Orland

A federal lawsuit filed this week in Massachusetts district court accuses social game mega-publisher Zynga of infringing on The Oregon Trail trademark held by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt subsidiary The Learning Company (TLC).

The complaint [PDF] centers on Zynga’s planned May 30 launch of an “Oregon Trail” set of missions in its popular FrontierVille Facebook game.

The lawsuit points to a YouTube trailer for these missions to highlight visual and gameplay similarities between it and various versions of The Oregon Trail game, including activities such as “setting up a wagon, provisioning, hunting, fording rivers, and helping others.”

Zynga’s use of the “Oregon Trail” name amounts to “deliberate theft of the goodwill associated with the iconic The Oregon Trail Mark, which the company has spent millions of dollars promoting since 1971,” according to the document.

“There can be no doubt that Zynga’s adoption of an identical and confusingly similar mark is willful and intended to free-ride on the established goodwill of The Oregon Trail Mark.”

According to the suit, TLC had approached Zynga last year to discuss making a Facebook version of the game. When those discussions fell through, TLC partnered with Blue Fang to make a Facebook version of the game, which launched in February and has since attracted nearly 1.2 million players.

The Learning Company is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop Zynga from using the “Oregon Trail” name, as well as assorted monetary damages. （source:gamasutra）

3）‘Army Attack’ Game Lets You Wage War On Facebook

By Kris Holt

Attention! Get ready to assemble your own army and take down the bad guys with social game developer Digital Chocolate‘s latest Facebook game, “Army Attack.”

The game gives you the opportunity to create and command your own army on the world’s biggest social networking service. The game challenges you to wage war against an evil empire that has taken over the land. You will have to build up your army by constructing guard towers, issuing commands to infantry units and tanks, calling in air strikes and delivering other orders to your troops. Once your army is strong enough, you can launch attacks on enemy forces in order to liberate the cities and villages of your homeland.

But what is the social aspect of this game? Well, dear reader, you have the option to invite your Facebook friends to join your war as your allies and to take on your enemies. Digital Chocolate — which is behind other hit Facebook games such as “Zombie Lane” and “Millionaire City” — will be bringing enhancements and updates to “Army Attack” over the coming weeks, including new ways to interact with your friends through the game as well as additional content.（source:scribbal）

4）Jamie Oliver is the latest celebrity to jump into social games

Jamie Oliver TV chef Jamie Oliver has become the latest celebrity to dive into online social games.

The British chef, whose “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” television show aims to change American eating habits, is making a debut on Restaurant City, a game played by 1.4 million people a day, according to AppData.com.

For the next month, Oliver’s signature dishes will make an appearance in the game, in which players operate virtual restaurants.

“I’m always interested in new social media and I hope that by creating my recipes in the virtual world, the Restaurant City community will be inspired to try making them for real,” Oliver said.（source:latimes）

5）Trade Nations Replicates Character-Driven Mechanics and Dynamic Economy of iOS Original

By Pete Davison

Trade Nations is the Facebook version of the popular iOS game of the same name that suffers some confusion over its parentage. It was originally published on iOS by Seattle’s Z2Live, which hired Canada’s Bight Games as a contractor to design artwork and gameplay for the title. Both companies subsequently claimed ownership of the intellectual property, but came to an agreement where Z2Live owns the rights to distribute Trade Nations in perpetuity on iOS while Bight maintains the Facebook title.

According to our traffic tracking service, AppData, Trade Nations currently has 9,000 monthly active users and 2,000 daily active users on Facebook.（source:insidesocialgames）

6）Playtika Acquired by Caesars Entertainment Casino Group for $80M to $90M

By AJ Glasser

Slotomania developer Playtika was partially purchased by Harrah’s, a casino brand in the Caesars Entertainment Corporation, for between $80 million and $90 million. Harrah’s initially acquires 51% of the social game developer.

According to reports from Israeli media, the buy is “astonishing” because Playtika is a small social game developer without a positive cash flow while the Harrah’s brand is the first big United States casino chain to invest such a large sum of money in an Israeli online gaming start-up. Playtika was founded in late 2010 by Robert Antokol and Uri Shahak after raising a reported $1 million in funding from investors. The developer currently has 14 or 15 full time staff members in Israel with additional staff at a facility in the Ukraine.

On Facebook, Playtika has seen success with slot machine simulation Slotomania and with the recently launched Farkle Pro. According to our traffic tracking service, AppData, the developer enjoys 2.9 million monthly active users and 643,000 daily active users across all its Facebook games. Playtika reports it has 9 million total users worldwide across multiple social networks.（source:insidesocialgames）

7）The Amazing Puzzle Factory Brings Traditional Pen and Paper Puzzles to Facebook

By Pete Davison

The Amazing Puzzle Factory is a Facebook game from British company IdeasPad, loosely based on their Puzzler World titles for the Nintendo DS, which are in turn licensed from long-running British puzzle magazine, Puzzler.

Since the game’s launch in mid-April, The Amazing Puzzle Factory has enjoyed steady growth up to present-day levels of over 54,000 monthly active users and 6,000 daily active users. Most of this growth seems to be from viral measures like friend invites or wall posts and from banner clicks from the recently launched display ad network, Appatyze.

The game doesn’t offer much in the way of social features beyond bragging rights for leaderboard scores. The lack of direct social interaction between players is unsurprising given the solitary nature of the puzzles, but the fact that friends are not required to progress limits the amount of viral growth The Amazing Puzzle Factory can leverage. Even so, the inclusion of the Daily Puzzle and rewards for regular players could be an effective way of maintaining a loyal base of daily users, which could make the game successful in the long run.（source:insidesocialgames）

8）Is Zynga’s next game called Empires & Allies? Signs say yes

by Brandy Shaul

Remember way back in December, when FarmVille users were shown a CityVille billboard at the outskirts of their farms to promote the launch of Zynga’s (then) newest game? It looks as though we’ll be seeing another of those billboards in the near future, advertising what looks to be Zynga’s newest game called Empires & Allies.

As of this writing, all details about Empires & Allies are incredibly slim, and we have very, very little to go on (basically, just this billboard). We know we’ll be able to “build an empire,” which leads us to believe that this could either be another take on the city-building genre, but with ancient buildings and architecture similar to Playdom’s City of Wonder, or, it could even go so far as to be Zynga’s version of an RTS (real time strategy game), created in an effort to beat 2K and Firaxis to the punch with their release of Civilization World.

Whatever the case, you can consider us excited. We’re definitely keeping both eyes peeled for any and all news concerning Empires & Allies, and you can be sure that we’ll make you the first to know everything just as soon as we do.（source:games）