1）据金融网站Seeking Alpha报道，手机游戏公司Glu Mobile有可能被社交游戏开发商Zynga收购。

据称如果用PopCap以超过自身年收入13倍的价格出手，Glu Mobile身价可能达到9.75亿美元，该公司员工多达600人左右，若Zynga收购Glu将不得不进行一次重大人员改组。

截止本文撰稿，Glu当前市值为2.09亿美元，是其年收入的3.2倍左右。

2）据彭博社报道，市场调研公司Gartner和IDC最近预测，2015年微软Windows Phone操作系统Mango市场份额将达20%，其主要支持力量是HTC等硬件设备制造商。

值得关注的是，Windows Phone营销主管Achim Berg甚至表示，上述两家公司的预测仍然较为保守，他对Mango的发展潜力甚为乐观。

观察者称，假如Windows Phone市场份额要从目前的4.3%增长至20%，那就意味着其他手机平台同一时期的增势减缓甚至出现下滑现象。据Gartner估计，苹果iOS在2015年的市场份额可能仅有17%，只比2010年的16%增长1个百分点。与此同时，Android将从2010年的23%市场份额，增长至2015年的49%。

应用开发者的选择可能将成为推动这一发展趋势的重要因素，惠普停产webOS设备有可能促使大量开发者转向Windows Phone，除此之外，HTC、诺基亚、Acer、富士通和ZTE等硬件设备制造商合作伙伴的支持，也有可能成为微软打响这场智能手机翻身战的有力优势。

3）日本手机社交游戏平台GREE日前公布了其海外五家新工作室的名单：

·GREE韩国（将于2011年10月成立，位于首尔）

·GREE新加坡（将于2011年10月成立）

·GREE英国（将于2011年10月成立，位于伦敦）

·GREE荷兰（将于2012年1月成立，位于阿姆斯特丹）

·GREE巴西（将于2012年2月成立，位于圣保罗）

据悉，GREE竞争对手DeNA已经在首尔、新加坡和阿姆斯特丹设立工作室。

4）日本社交平台Mixi日前调整了其网站的logo（如下图所示），并添加了一项新功能Mixi Pages。

Mixi Pages功能与Facebook pages类似，支持个人、公司、名人、餐厅或商店创建一个用于自我推广和传播的页面，粉丝、好友和顾客都可以点击按钮关注该页面。

创建Mixi pages的用户可以在页面中添加自己的logo、图片、更新内容、Twitter按钮甚至是游戏等元素。

值得一提的是，虽然Mixi本身是一个封闭式的平台（例如不会被编入搜索引擎索引），但Mixi pages创建者却可以将页面设置为公开状态，已注册帐号的用户不需要登陆Mixi就可以访问某个Mixi page（游戏邦注：前提是用户已经成为该页面粉丝）。

用户通过PC、功能性手机和Mixi Touch（智能手机版本）平台均可使用Mixi Pages功能（如下图所示）。据该公司所称，该功能问世仅3天，Mixi用户就创建了8万个页面。

5）据Gamebiz报道，日本社交平台Mixi日前与电信公司KDDI合作，支持后者的Android手机用户通过“KDDI au Kantan Kessai”这项服务支付在Mixi平台的相关费用，并通过用户每月手机话费进行结算（游戏邦注：DeNA旗下的Mobage平台在今年2月已推出这项服务）。

为了推广这项新服务，Mixi将展开一场促销活动，将向在9月20日通过Kantan Kessai服务购买Mixi积分的用户提供50%的优惠折扣。

6）瑞典开发商Mediocre最新Android和iOS游戏《Sprinkle》发布仅4天就突破10万次下载量（该游戏于8月25日发布），迅速跻身52个国家的苹果付费应用榜单前5名。

特别需要注意的是，该游戏iOS版本售价0.99美元，而其Android版本（针对运行Nvidia Tegra处理器的设备）售价却是1.49美元，因此有人推测其目前营收至少已达9.9万美元，其中多数来自Andorid版本。

该公司称他们将为这款游戏推出更多以水为主题的益智关卡，同时还移除了游戏中的IAP（应用内置付费功能）选项，现在所有iOS玩家均可付费0.99美元，体验其中4个完整游戏世界的内容（之前有些App Store评论者称批评了该游戏的IAP功能，并因此而给予差评）。

7）手机应用服务公司AppRedeem日前推出应用内置换促销服务AppRedeem Deals，为经常访问应用的用户提供奖励，帮助开发者提高付费转化率。

例如，AppRedeem Deals通过《The Moron Test Section 2》这款iTunes App Store排名第三的免费应用推广《Moron Test》付费版本，为后者提升了50%至100%的销量。据该公司所称，这种在同款应用的免费版本中推广付费版本的做法更有效果，有助于促使对该应用已经有所了解的用户采取付费行动。

该服务推出测试6周之后，AppRedeem用户已从5.5万增长至58万，也就是说每天增长3.4万左右的用户。AppRedeem公司联合创始人Sheffield Nolan表示，AppRedeem目前不会从这项服务中抽成，所有折扣收益均归开发者所有，但不排除未来进行少量抽成的可能。

8）继上周《胡莱三国》称雄MAU增长最快Facebook游戏榜单之后，本周又有三款中文版社交游戏进入前10名。排在第一位的是由MiniMax推出的《水果忍者》（最近MAU是81.6万），该游戏实际上是Halfbrick Studios同名热门iOS游戏的直接移植版本，但目前尚不清楚这款游戏是否获得了后者的授权，但从其中大量的条幅广告和游戏开始前的视频广告加载内容来看，《水果忍者》的来历很值得推敲。

排在第三名的是由Raytoon推出的《蛋蛋龙》（最近MAU是33.9万），该游戏与《胡莱三国》一样均由6waves Lolapps发布到Facebook。第八名是由Koram Games推出的《千军破》华文版这款三国题材的RPG游戏。

9）从9月份的前25名Facebook游戏榜单来看，Zynga游戏统揽全局的情况已经不复存在。

在DAU前25名游戏榜单中，EA Playfish推出的《模拟人生社交版》以756万DAU位居第三名，《FrontierVille》的扩展游戏《Pioneer Trail》位于第七，《Words With Friends》以及育碧《The Smurfs & Co.》均有不俗表现。

在MAU前25名游戏榜单中，《模拟人生社交版》位于第四名（MAU为2461万），《Pioneer Trail》排名第六（MAU为1975万），Playdom游戏《Garden of Time》是第七名（MAU为1717万），《Words With Friends》则是第八名（MAU是1156万）。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Seeking Alpha thinks Zynga should buy Glu Mobile

by Jon Jordan

One to file under speculation – certainly when it comes to the price – but financial website Seeking Alpha has been pondering the acquisition of Glu Mobile (NASDAQ:GLUU) by Zynga.

In some ways, a deal would work well for Zynga, giving it a pure mobile, freemium business with annual revenues of around $65 million.

Still, the integration of a loss-making business with a headcount of around 600, that’s undergoing substantial restructuring itself following the acquisition of Blammo Games and Griptonite Games, may not be what’s most sensible as Zynga deals with the rocky road to its IPO.

Apples and pears

What’s more interesting though is the proposed price of a deal. Taking a PopCap-style 13 times revenue valuation, it’s argued Glu could be worth up to $975 million.

Obviously, the difference is PopCap is highly profitable while Glu is highly loss-making.

It’s also seen its share price drop in recent market instability: at time of writing Glu’s market cap is $209 million, valuing it at 3.2 times revenues, rather less than the 8 times – or $600 million – valuation Seeking Alpha thinks is fair.（source:pocketgamer）

2）Gartner, IDC: Windows Phone To Steal Second Place From iOS By 2015

Jordan Crook

Based on its history, you probably wouldn’t expect to see Windows Phone take off like a rocket. But apparently that’s what it’s going to do. Research out of Gartner and IDC says that Mango may grab a whopping 20 percent of the market by 2015, with the help of hardware partners like HTC and a little extra effort in the marketing department.

Thus far, Windows Phone hasn’t had the best reception. In some ways this is deserved, as many of the big features on the Windows OS were rolled out much later than they were on rival platforms. Even the carriers seemed to discredit WP7 in store — a trend Microsoft was definitely not cool with.

Windows Phone head of marketing Achim Berg said yesterday that IDC and Gartner’s 20 percent market share forecasts are actually conservative (shocker!), and he expects even greater success out of the platform. And the road to such success starts in Europe, with the launch of the HTC Radar and Titan on October 1. Microsoft has hired “hundreds of salesman” to help demonstrate the power of its newly refreshed platform, and plans to target the ladies and the youngsters to nab that 20 percent share.

If you passed elementary math, you know there’s only so much market share to go around. If Windows Phone goes from a 4.3 percent share to control 20 percent of the market, that means another platforms growth is sure to slow. According to Gartner, Apple’s iOS will be the one to do so, growing from a 16 percent market share in 2010 to just 17 percent in 2015. Meanwhile, Android is poised to maintain control with growth from a 23 percent share in 2010 to a massive 49 percent in 2015, reports Bloomberg.

What will make or break windows will be its app selection. HP’s decision to halt production of webOS devices will likely help with that, as a fresh batch of developers have just been abandoned. Still it’s got a long way to go to match the 425,000+ App Store apps that made the iPhone what it is today.

Past that, hardware is also key here. Microsoft will have the support of big name hardware vendors like HTC and Nokia, along with Acer, Fujitsu and ZTE. That same divide and conquer strategy has obviously worked splendidly for Android, and with the promise we’re seeing out of Mango, WinPho is sure to do the same. Since iOS appears on only one phone — an incredibly popular phone, but one nontheless — it’s at a significant disadvantage going forward. （source:techcrunch）

3）GREE To Open Offices In Seoul, Singapore, London, Amsterdam And Sao Paolo [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Truth be told, I don’t quite understand GREE‘s internationalization strategy, but here we go: the company announced dates and locations for a total of five new offices outside Japan.

Here’s the full list:

GREE Korea (in Seoul, from October 2011)

GREE Singapore (from October 2011)

GREE UK (in London, from October 2011)

GREE Netherlands (in Amsterdam, from January 2012)

GREE Brazil (in Sao Paolo, from February 2012)

GREE says their aim with all of these subsidiaries is “collaboration with game developers and developer support”.

GREE competitor DeNA already opened offices in Seoul, Singapore and Amsterdam earlier this year.（source:serkantoto）

4）Mixi Gets New Logo, Launches Mixi Pages [Social Networks]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Earlier this week, Japan’s biggest real-identity social network Mixi changed two things on its website: First, Mixi introduced a new logo, as you can see on the picture below:

Second, Mixi launched a new feature, Mixi Pages, which works much like Facebook pages: individuals, companies, celebrities, restaurants or shops can set up pages for self-promotion and broadcasting. Fans, friends or customers can become followers with the push of a button.

Owners of Mixi pages can add a logo, pictures, updates, Twitter buttons or even games.

What’s interesting is that owners can choose to make Mixi pages public even though Mixi itself is completely closed, (as in not indexed by search engines, for example). You can access i.e. Disney Japan’s Mixi page even when you’re not logged in (you have to have an account to become a follower, however).

As you can see below, Mixi pages are available through the PC, feature phones and Mixi Touch, Mixi’s smartphone browser version:

Mixi says they plan to add more functions to pages in the future, for example a dashboard to let owners track engagement with their pages.

The company claims a total of 80,000 pages were created just 3 days after launch of the new feature.（source:serkantoto）

5）Mixi Enables KDDI au Kantan Kessai On Smartphones [Social Networks]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

DeNA did it for Mobage back in February, now Mixi is following: it’s now possible for subscribers to KDDI au using Mixi on Android phones to make payments via “KDDI au Kantan Kessai”.

This mobile settlement service makes it possible to pay for Mixi points, Mixi’s virtual “currency”, via the monthly cell phone bill (for example when playing social games). It has been available on feature phones from KDDI for years.

To promote the new service Mixi has started a campaign that runs through September 20 and offers a 50% discount when purchasing Mixi points through Kantan Kessai.（source:serkantoto）

6）iOS and Android game Sprinkle sells 100k copies in four days

by Stuart Dredge

Strong opening weekend for Mediocre title. And yes, Mediocre is the name of the developer…

Many apps milestones focus on downloads, making it hard to estimate how much cold, hard cash those apps are generating for their developers. Not so in the case of Swedish developer Mediocre’s new iOS and Android game Sprinkle.

The game sold more than 100,000 copies in the first four days after its release last Thursday (25 August), racing into the top five of Apple’s Paid Apps chart in 52 countries.

How much has it grossed? The iOS version of the game costs $0.99, while the Android version – which has been optimised for devices with Nvidia’s Tegra processor inside – costs $1.49. So that’s a minimum of $99,000 of revenues, but more depending on how many Android copies were sold.

“After months of development it’s fantastic to finally see Sprinkle released and thriving,” says co-founder Dennis Gustafsson. “The early success of Sprinkle reinforces our belief that mobile gamers wil enjoy the experience we created.”

Mediocre is now focusing on creating more levels for the water-themed puzzler, to be released in future updates.

The company has also removed the in-app purchase option that was part of the game’s initial release: players now get all four of the game’s worlds on iOS for their initial $0.99 payment.

Some App Store reviewers had criticised the use of IAP within the game, awarding it low ratings as a result.（source:mobile-ent）

7）AppRedeem Launches In-App Deals To Drive Users Of Free Apps To Their Paid Versions

Rip Empson

In January, AppRedeem raised $750,000 from SV Angel and Blue Run Ventures to offer mobile app developers innovative, effective solutions aimed at driving app installs and engagement. Since then, the startup has been quietly working its way into a hot new category: Deals. Today, the Mountain View-based startup is officially announcing AppRedeem Deals, a new mobile in-app promotional network that rewards users for continued app engagement, while helping developers to drive conversion to paid versions of their apps.

To test the waters, the startup began with “The Moron Test Section 2″, currently the third ranked free app on the iTunes app store. To use this app as an example of how AppRedeem Deals works, AppRedeem presents a promotional discount for Moron Test’s paid app. The startup is currently offering 50 to 100 percent off those paid apps from within its free counterpart.

Unlike Tapjoy, said AppRedeem Co-founder Sheffield Nolan, AppRedeem Deals aims to ensure that people taking advantage of the discount have already installed the free version without any incentive, so the motivation to buy the paid version is fully aligned with that of Apple and its policy.

According to Nolan, this enables users of the free app to take advantage of the opportunity to upgrade at no cost to them, whereas for developers, their paid apps are then monetized more effectively, and they get to use those promotional dollars targeting people who already tried and enjoyed their apps.

Since launching the beta 6 weeks ago, AppRedeem membership has grown from 55,000 to over 580,000 — in other words, membership has grown by more than 34K members per day since adding Deals.

Here are the key numbers that came from the first 6 weeks of AppRedeem ‘Deals’. Nolan tells me that, at first, AppRedeem will use their new deals network as a customer acquisition tool.

At present, they are not taking a cut of the discount they are offering gamers, so all the money earned from the discounts is going straight to the developers. The team plans to offer cuts and take a small percentage of the deal in the future.

The startup’s next focus, the co-founder said, is to begin helping developers drive increased engagement of their apps, and to begin implementing deals with more partners to enable further functionality to promotional offers for in-app purchases. In the last week, Nolan said, AppRedeem hit profitability, so they will also be looking to raise a series A round in the coming months. (They will also be announcing the addition of a top executive of a big deals company in the near future.)（source:techcrunch）

8）Chinese Language Games Dominate This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Games

By AJ Glasser

Just one week after 胡萊三國 (Hoolai Sanguo) conquered our list of emerging Facebook games, three more Chinese-language titles turn to claim spots in the top 10.

First up in our top spot is 水果忍者 (Fruit Ninja), from developer MiniMax. The game is essentially a port of the Halfbrick Studios’ popular iOS game of the same name, only with finger-swipes swapped for mouse clicks. It is not clear if this is a licensed Facebook adaptation, but given the almost spam-like persistence of banner ads and unskippable video ads that load before the game begins, 水果忍者 doesn’t seem very authentic.

Next at No.3 is 蛋蛋龍 (Dragon Egg), from developer Raytoon. Like 胡萊三國, Dragon Egg is published for Facebook by 6waves Lolapps. It’s a cute-looking role-playing game where players apparently have to train dragons to fight egg-stealing monsters.

Lastly, coming in at No.8, we have 《千军破》华文版，最真实三国网游 (Qianjun Break Chinese), from Koram Game. We had trouble accessing this title at time of press, but it appears to be an RPG set in China’s three kingdoms era, like so many other Chinese language RPGs.（source:insidesocialgames）

9）The Top 25 Facebook Games for September 2011

By AJ Glasser

Heading into September 2011, we have a slew of new games joining the ranks of the top 25 Facebook games by traffic as tracked by AppData — and shockingly, not all of them are from Zynga.

We begin with the top 25 Facebook games by daily active users. This figure is useful in determining the actual number of people faithfully playing a game each day, as opposed to those who log into a game once and then never return after their first experience. Keep in mind that DAU is vulnerable to rapid fluctuations due to external factors like ad spend, game outages, or cross-promotions with other games and media.

Right away, we’re introduced to the big name newcomers on the platform launched in the last 30 days: EA Playfish’s The Sims Social, Zynga’s Pioneer Trail FrontierVille expansion, Zynga’s Words With Friends, and Ubisoft’s The Smurfs & Co. Each of these games got head starts on traffic that pushed them toward the top of our rankings in different ways.

The Sims Social enjoys brand recognition from millions of PC fans that have been playing Sims games for over a decade, and also had an extensive pre-launch marketing campaign driven through its Facebook page. Zynga’s Pioneer Trail and Words With Friends also had recognition, but in both cases, the games pulled from an existing user base with FrontierVille players being directed to migrate to the new app and Words With Friends players on iOS and Android already using Facebook Connect logins to access the Facebook version of the app. Ubisoft’s The Smurfs & Co. also gets some brand recognition from the beloved 1980s cartoon, but it had additional affiliations with The Smurfs live action summer film.

Now we turn our attention to the top 25 Facebook games by monthly active users. This figure is useful in determining a game’s overall reach, but can sometimes be skewed by the game’s natural lifecycle. At this point in the Facebook platform’s development, it seems like most games have the highest MAU in the first three to four months on the market.

*Zoo World 2 appears as Zoo World in our AppData traffic tracking service because the sequel and the original are run through the same app ID.

Again, the newcomers make the biggest splash here, although the not-quite-as-new Zoo World 2 is still working its way up the list. Depending on how Zynga’s experiment in Pioneer Trail with driving users from the original game to a new app ID goes, other developers may consider creative alternatives to the “sequel not selling problem” other social games have struggled with in the past.（source:insidesocialgames）