游戏邦在:
杂志专栏:
gamerboom.com订阅到鲜果订阅到抓虾google reader订阅到有道订阅到QQ邮箱订阅到帮看

每日观察:关注Zynga IPO及谷歌新服务Google+(6.29)

发布时间:2011-06-29 15:11:46 Tags:,,,

1)据《华尔街日报》报道,社交游戏开发商Zynga正计划于近日向美国证券交易委员会提交融资20亿美元的IPO申请文件,该公司目前估值已达150亿至200亿美元,超过了市值为75亿美元的美国艺电,堪比视频游戏巨头动视暴雪(市值约133亿美元);Zygna的IPO支持者包括摩根士丹利和高盛等金融和投资公司。

Zynga IPO(from nakeva.net)

Zynga IPO(from nakeva.net)

2)传说中的谷歌新型社交网络服务终于在近日亮相,这个名为Google+的社交网络乍一看像弱化版的Facebook,但它实际上并不只是分享信息,在线更新状态和内容,它还支持用户创建各种好友群,控制自己与各类群体分享的内容。除此之外,用户还可通过Google+与好友进行实时视频聊天和互动。

Google+(from intomobile)

Google+(from intomobile)

Google+现已推出Android应用程序,从谷歌发布的演示视频中可以看出,它提供了基于地理位置的搜索和分享服务,用户拍下照片后即可迅速将其上传至Google+,并选择将与何人分享该照片。目前只有接收到邀请的用户,方可注册登陆Google+应用程序,该服务的iOS版本也即将发布。有人认为,Google+若要与Twitter、Facebook和Foursquare社交服务相抗衡,不但要在手机平台上多下功夫,更应想法摆脱模仿的痕迹,体现其差异化和创新性。

3)据All Things Digital报道,为了不影响公司2012年财报情况,新闻集团很有可能在本周四之前以2000万至3000万美元的价格出售表现不济的Myspace(游戏邦注:周四是新闻集团该财年的最后一天),但有可能仍保留在Myspace的一小部分股权。

myspace-for-sale(from dotcominfoway.com)

myspace-for-sale(from dotcominfoway.com)

据知情人透露,Specific Media和Golden Gate Capital是最有可能收购Myspace的公司,而Myspace联合创始人Tom Anderson、Chris DeWolfe和Criterion Capital Partners等投资集团也已被传出有可能成为Myspace新东家的消息。

新闻集团于2005年7月以5.8亿美元收购位于加州的Myspace,后者在2008年的营收曾高达9亿美元。

4)休闲游戏发行商eGames日前收购社交游戏公司Heyday Games,并提名后者主管Gene Mauro担任新工作室总裁兼首席营销官。

eGames-logo(from ceebot.com)

eGames-logo(from ceebot.com)

位于宾夕法尼亚州的eGames成立于1992年,其代表作包括《Puzzle City》和《Boss Hunter: Revenge is Sweet!》等休闲游戏,该公司在2005年收购了经典电脑游戏开发商Cinemaware的资产,并推出了基于《Three Stooges》和《Defender of the Crown》的新作。

5)《日经新闻》最近调查了Tecmo Koei、Square Enix和Konami这三家主流视频游戏公司在社交游戏领域的表现情况:

Tecmo Koei目前的在线和手机游戏业务利润率达27%,几乎是传统包装零售游戏的两倍。它的社交游戏项目的利润同比上年增长66%,共达2500万美元,并计划于今年将其100人的社交游戏团队规模扩充至200人。Tecmo在这一领域的代表作是投放于GREE平台的策略类游戏《100 Man Shin Sangoku Musou》。

Square Enix在2010财年亏损1.2亿美元,但计划在本财年通过在线游戏(包括社交及手机游戏)实现双倍运营利润并创收3730万美元,代表作是运营于Mobage平台的《Traveling Fairy》。

Dragon Collection(from peng365.com)

Dragon Collection(from peng365.com)

Konami在社交游戏市场的表现极为抢眼,旗下的卡牌游戏《Dragon Collection》连续35周称雄GREE平台人气游戏榜单,预计其社交游戏业务将在本财年实现3.73亿美元收益(约占总销售额的10%)。

6)Adknowledge宣布推出新服务Social2Web,支持游戏开发商无需顾虑盈利解决方案,方便快捷地将Facebook游戏称植到其他门户网站。

Adknowledge(from venturebeat)

Adknowledge(from venturebeat)

采用该服务的开发商可使用奖励性邀请、社交展示盈利解决方案、直接付费和访问Adknoledge的奖励安装等服务选项(游戏邦注:奖励性邀请等一些选项已被Facebook移除)创造收益,还可以通过Twitter或电子邮件链接推动游戏的病毒式传播。开发商可采纳比Facebook Credits抽成更低的信用卡交易选项,并在游戏网站上通过展示性广告获得收益(但在Facebook平台上,这类广告收益往往流入Facebook的口袋)。

7)云端优化服务供应商Akamai Technologies香港公司宣布向社交游戏发行商6waves提供Dynamic Site Delivery解决方案,通过缩短游戏加载时间和保证高水准的运行性能,提高后者用户的游戏体验。除此之外,Akamai平台还支持6waves在无需部署任何新硬件或软件的情况下,快速向新市场发布游戏。

Akamai-Logo(from innovatrs.com)

Akamai-Logo(from innovatrs.com)

6waves目前服务的全球社交游戏开发商共有5000万MAU,约有35%用户来自亚洲,30%是美国用户,25%是欧洲玩家,还有10%属于其他地区用户。

8)AltEgo是一项3D虚拟形象跨平台更新解决方案,支持玩家及开发商将游戏虚拟形象通过Twitter、电子邮件、手机及社交游戏平台进行同步更新。

AltEgo(from altego.com)

AltEgo(from altego.com)

AltEgo会将所有虚拟形象及其相关道具保存在系统中,开发商可将自己的模型、人物模型、动画等美术资产输入该系统,并为每个虚拟形象的道具设置一定的参数。例如,将一对精灵翅膀设置为可赠送的礼物,或将一个土耳其帽子设置为限量版特价商品。然后开发商可使用AltEgo将这些虚拟形象和道具植入自己在任何一个平台运营的游戏中,玩家虚拟形象的变化也可在多个平台(电子邮件例外,玩家可根据自己的心情和需要,通过发送一封新邮件更新自己在邮件中的虚拟头像)同时显示出来。

9)OnLive创始人及首席执行官Steve Perlman在媒体采访中表示,他有意将视频游戏流媒体服务引进Facebook,为仅拥有中低端设备的游戏玩家带来高清分辨率的硬核游戏体验。他称目前的社交平台基本上为休闲内容所统治,但OnLive推出的服务可支持开发商创建高运行性能的硬核社交游戏。

facebook-OnLive(from games.com)

facebook-OnLive(from games.com)

10)《FishHunt》是一款由HitGrab新推出的Facebook捕鱼类游戏,在6月7日进行公开测试,并于上周登上Facebook新晋游戏榜单。据AppData数据显示,《FishHunt》目前的MAU是25万4362,DAU是1万8234。

FishHunt(from insidesocialgames)

FishHunt(from insidesocialgames)

玩家在游戏中的任务是扮演一个渔民,驾驶自己的小船在呈网格状的水域中捕鱼,并由此交换奖品(其功能是让玩家获知如何捕获更多鱼类)或直接拿到鱼市上贩卖。由于玩家的小船空间有限,玩家的保鲜冰块会在一定时间后融化,所以他们得及时将捕获的鱼类出售,以免鱼肉变质。

HitGrab首席执行官Joel Augé称尽管Facebook上已经有不少鱼类题材的游戏,但与钓鱼运动相关的游戏内容仍然有待挖掘,《FishHunt》与其他鱼类游戏仍存在诸多不同,例如游戏中的地图采用了动画效果(动态显示水波和天气状况),玩家可分享有关鱼市和天气的情报等。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

1)Updated: Zynga might file for $2 billion IPO Wednesday

Matthew Lynley

Social games maker Zynga may file to go public as early as Wednesday to raise up to $2 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Zynga is expecting a valuation somewhere between $15 and $20 billion, sources familiar with the matter told the Journal. That would put the company well ahead of massive game publisher Electronic Arts, which currently has a market cap of $7.5 billion. Activision-Blizzard, which typically caters to console and hardcore gamers, has a market cap of around $13.3 billion.(source:venturebeat

2)Why Google+ needs to succeed in the mobile space

by Marc Flores

Google tried its hand at social networking with Buzz, but ultimately failed at what seemed like an honest effort. It tried to buy Twitter and Facebook in the past, but couldn’t manage that, either. So, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Again. That’s what the search giant is hoping to do with Google+.

At first glance, it looks a lot like a watered-down version of Facebook. However, instead of just passively sharing messages, updates and media online, you can also organize your friends, family and colleagues into groups so you can control who sees what content you share. Being a Google product, you can also chat and video chat with friends via Google+ in the “Hang out” section.

While the new social networking service will see a slow, gradual roll-out (which just might hurt it in the end), perhaps the most important key to its success is mobile adoption and execution. Much of our social networking is conducted on mobile devices these days, whether it’s a smartphone or a tablet, and the features that are key to Google+ have to be just as smooth and seamless on mobile devices.

An Android app for Google+ already exists, and the video demo shows what you can do with the mobile application. Aside from location-based search and sharing, along with what your friends are sharing on their streams, you can also instantly upload photos as you shoot them and choose which photos to share with whom later. But since Google+ is still invite-only, you’ll need an invitation in order to log into the app. An iOS version is coming for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users soon.

While the desktop client looks pretty good from the screenshots and video demos we’ve seen so far, smartphone is where this new service will be made or broken. In order to compete with the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare, the folks in Mountain View really need to focus their efforts into making sure this isn’t just another reactive, copycat service that no one will care about after a year or so.(source:intomobile

3)News Corp. finalizing $30M sale of Myspace

Tom Cheredar

Myspace’s parent company News Corp. is in the final stages of selling the under-performing social network for $20 – $30 million, reports All Things Digital.

News Corp. is apparently in a rush to complete an acquisition deal by Thursday — its fiscal year-end. The media giant probably doesn’t want MySpace to blemish its 2012 financial records, especially given the lackluster revenue predictions.

Backing up earlier information, the report indicates that significant cuts in staff and operating costs will be made to Myspace depending on who the buyer is. News Corp. might also retain a small minority stake in the company, according to the report.

Specific Media and Golden Gate Capital are at the top of the list of companies that could acquire Myspace. Both companies would focus Myspace on music, sources told All Things Digital.

However, it’s unclear if prior music licenses will transfer with the sale.

An investment group that includes Myspace co-founder Tom Anderson, another separate investment group that includes Myspace co-founder Chris DeWolfe and Criterion Capital Partners have also been rumored as showing interest in purchasing the company, according to the report.

News Corp. purchased the California-based social network in July 2005 for $580 million. The company’s revenue peaked at over $900 million in 2008.(source:venturebeat

4)eGames Acquires Social Game Maker Heyday Games

by Frank Cifaldi

Casual game publisher eGames, Inc. has acquired social gaming company Heyday Games, appointing studio head Gene Mauro to be its new president and COO in the process.

According to the company, Mauro will be in charge of “all aspects of future game products.”

Langhorne, Pennsylvania-based eGames was founded in 1992, and has developed casual games that include Puzzle City and Boss Hunter: Revenge is Sweet!.

In 2005 the company acquired classic computer game developer Cinemaware’s assets, and has since released new titles in its Three Stooges and Defender of the Crown franchises. (source:gamasutra

5)3 Examples: How Are Japan’s Video Game Companies Doing In Social Games? [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

One big trend in Japan’s social gaming industry is that local video game makers, from smaller developers to listed companies, are starting to produce more and more social games for GREE, DeNA, and Mixi.

Japanese business daily The Nikkei recently investigated how successful three major video game companies in particular are in the social gaming business, namely Tecmo Koei, Square Enix, and Konami.

Tecmo Koei:

Tecmo Koei currently boasts a profit margin of 27% in its online and mobile gaming business, which is nearly twice as high as the margin for “traditional” packaged software. Profit in the social gaming business grew 66% to $25 million year-on-year – so it’s no surprise Tecmo Koei wants to double its developer base for social games from 100 to 200 people this year.

One of the most famous Tecmo Koei social games is strategy game 100 Man Shin Sangoku Musou (on GREE).

Square Enix:

Final Fantasy maker Square Enix lost US$120 million in fiscal 2010 but plans to double the operating profit from online games (social and mobile included) to $37.3 million this fiscal.

This company also plans to hire more social game developers in order to boost growth.

One recent example of a social game made by Square Enix is fantasy adventure Traveling Fairy (on Mobage).

Konami:

Konami has been doing especially well in the social gaming field. Their card game Dragon Collection, for example, has been topping the popularity ranking on GREE for 35 weeks in a row (it’s still No. 1).

This fiscal year, Konami wants to double sales in its social games business to a whopping $373 million (10% of overall sales).(source:serkantoto

6)Adknowledge lets developers move Facebook games to web portals

Dean Takahashi

Adknowledge is announcing today a way to package Facebook games for monetization and launch them on web portals.

The goal is to enable game developers to easily expand their games from Facebook to the broader web without having to worry about doing all of the integration work for monetization.

Adknowledge calls its solution Social2Web, which lets game developers create stand-alone versions of their Facebook games on their own web sites.

Other companies such as Heyzap and Hi5 make it easy to convert Facebook games from one platform to the web as well. But Adknowledge can do a better job because it offers a full range of monetization options for its customers, said Bobby McFarland, director of Social2Web.

Social2Web allows developers to create web versions of their games that can be inserted into just about any game portal or web site. That helps expand a game’s distribution to a lot more users and it equips the game with the means to make money out on the open web. Social2Web allows developers to uses incentivized invites, social display monetization, direct payments, and access to Adknowledge’s monetization options such as offers or its ad network. Some of those options, such as incentivized invites, have been removed from Facebook.

Developers can expand their virality with incentivized game invites, such as sharing links via Twitter or email. They can also process transactions for credit cards at rates much lower than the 30 percent fee charged by Facebook for its Facebook Credits virtual currency. There are more payment options for gamers. And on the web, developers can earn money for display ads shown next to their games; on Facebook, the money for such ads goes into Facebook’s pocket.(source:venturebeat

7)6waves Partners with Akamai To Enhance Social Game Experience

By Sebastian Sujka

Akamai Technologies Hong Kong Limited, provider of cloud optimization services, today announced that 6waves Inc., a leading international publisher and developer of gaming applications, is leveraging Akamai’s Dynamic Site Delivery solutions. These will enable 6waves to enhance the delivery of its social media games and applications to social networking platforms, including Facebook and Yabage in Japan. Akamai supports 6waves in the delivery of some of the most popular social games including Ravenwood Fair, Mystery Manor, Mall World, and Resort World, which attract 15.9 million monthly active users alone.With this partnership 6waves aims to improve the user experience by reducing the game load time and ensuring a high level of performance, regardless of where the user is located.

In addition, Akamai’s platform gives 6waves the ability to scale quickly and enter new markets, without the need to deploy any new hardware or software. “Through partnerships with top developers, 6waves aims to publish the next generation of social games to cover every genre, language, and platform to reach a global audience,” said Rex Ng, Chief Executive Officer, 6waves. “With the rapid growth of game developers and many popular game titles, the social gaming industry is becoming increasingly competitive. Akamai’s support enables us to work with game developers to provide a fast, reliable and high quality social gaming experience to players around the world.” 6waves’ business model provides distribution and monetization solutions for developers by delivering high quality social games to its global network of 50 million monthly active players. Currently 35 per cent of 6waves users are in Asia, 30 per cent in the United States, 25 per cent in Europe and the remaining 10 per cent spread across the rest of the World.(source:socialgamesobserver

8)AltEgo Set to Sell Cross-Platform Avatar Solution to Social Game Devs

By AJ Glasser

AltEgo has recently emerged as a cross-platform 3D avatar pipeline solution that allows players to integrate their in-game avatar into all parts of their digital life — Twitter, email, mobile and social games. It also could serve as a shortcut for developers looking to go cross-platform thanks to some services AltEgo provides to developer partners.

The way it works is AltEgo stores all avatar and avatar items within its system along with a marketplace feature. Game developers can import all their art — meshes, character models, animations, etc. — to the system. Once there, the developer can set parameters for individual avatar items; for example, making a set of fairy wings a giftable item or setting a turkey hat to be a limited edition item for sale. The developer can then use AltEgo to bring the avatar and avatar items into any platform on which the developer’s game runs, be it mobile or social. Any change a player makes to their avatar in-game is reflected across all platforms (except email) instantaneously.

AltEgo CEO Seth Gerson walked us through a product demo that spanned a social game, a blog, and an email thread. Using his wife’s Goth-themed avatar, he purchased a hat in-game that immediately appeared on the avatar’s head when he exited the store screen. Clicking over to her blog and refreshing reflected the updated avatar. Email was a slightly different matter with the avatar not updating until he’d actually sent a new email.

“The reason for that is we want [the avatar] to match your emotion [at the time the email was sent],” Gerson explained. “Like if you send an email that says ‘I’m happy,’ but you just bought a fist-pump animation, that wouldn’t make sense.”(source:insidesocialgames

9)Hardcore games could battle social games on Facebook with OnLive

by Joe Osborne

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. During an interview with MCV, OnLive founder and CEO Steve Perlman hinted that he’s interested in bringing his videogame streaming service to Facebook. What the OnLive service does is bring hardcore, graphics (and hardware) intensive games to gamers with low-to-mid level machines over the Internet in HD resolution.

This is thanks to how far streaming technology has come, and the service is already coming to iPads soon. But now, “OnLive will,” Perlman told MCV, “bring core gaming into a social space currently dominated by casual content.”

Perlman went on to say: “The thing about FarmVille and Mafia Wars is that they work on every device for every user. So when you invite someone to help you or play with you, they’re immediately there. With core games, you can’t do that. With OnLive you can do that.”

“So what’s really exciting was actually buried in the initial press release, and that’s the fact that all the Facebook interaction is exposed in the SDK, so developers can make games that are social games but are still high performance core games,” Roberts told MCV. “You’ll see the first of these round about the time of the UK launch.”(source:games

10)FishHunt Explores Under-Developed Fishing Genre, Focuses on Expansion According to Player Feedback

By Pete Davison

FishHunt is a new Facebook game from developer HitGrab, Inc. The game launched in open beta on June 7 following a 30 day pre-release marketing strategy designed to engage early adopters and build a user base before launch. It turned up on our list of emerging Facebook games just last week.

According to our traffic tracking service AppData, FishHunt currently has 254,362 monthly active users and 18,234 daily active users.

FishHunt is a game that focuses on the life of a fisherman. Players can navigate their boat around various grid-based maps in a similar fashion to treasure-hunting games, and are able to fish water squares if they have the appropriate rod and bait. Fish can be exchanged for trophies (which provide hints on how to catch more of the same fish) or alternatively sold at the fish market, which uses a dynamic player-driven economy. Selling fish becomes necessary at times, as the player’s boat only has a certain amount of space. There’s a time limit before caught fish spoil, too, thanks to the player’s gradually-melting ice supply, which can be topped up in exchange for soft currency.

Players can acquire additional licenses and access to further regions and equipment by completing sets of quests rather than using a more traditional experience point-based leveling system. This allows casual players to make noticeable progress in a short time rather than having to “grind” for experience points.

HitGrab CEO Joel Augé feels that the actual sport of fishing has been under-explored, despite the many fish-themed games on Facebook. He also believes that the game has a number of features that set it apart from other titles on Facebook even beyond the fish genre.

“A few detailed traits include the fact that the whole map is animated (with waves and weather conditions being dynamic) and the fact that the marketplace and weather conditions are shared across all users,” he says. “With feedback from our players, we’ve innovated a number of features we plan to release to make the social side of FishHunt even more fun as well. We’ve built one of the fastest Flash game engines in the world called ‘Blitz,’ which is what powers the thousands of simultaneous animations in the game. That’s pretty unique in our space.”(source:insidesocialgames


上一篇:

下一篇: