1）社交游戏公司RockYou最近与媒体调查机构Interpret联合展开的调查表明，一些社交游戏玩家实现上远比人们想象得更为“硬核”，50%的美国社交游戏玩家都有一个传统的游戏掌机。

这项调查的样本是2000名年龄在18岁以上的美国社交游戏玩家，男女比例为40：60。调查发现四分之一的社交游戏玩家喜欢带有过关模式的游戏，22%自称分享高分机制是他们玩游戏的动力。每名社交游戏玩家在Facebook等网站逗留的13小时中，平均有9.5小时用于玩游戏。平均每名玩家拥有16名也在与自己玩这些游戏的现实好友，并通过社交游戏结识了20个新朋友。

调查结果还指出，42%的社交游戏玩家会更偏爱提供现实折扣券或礼物卡的游戏。

2）Facebook移动主管Erick Tseng在最近的媒体采访中表示，在未来一两年内，Facebook将成为一家移动公司。

据他所称，非洲、印度最普遍的上网设备是手机，Facebook现在已有3.5亿移动用户，再过一两年Facebook将成为移动公司，拥有二分之一移动用户。

但有观察者认为，Facebook目前已是各个智能手机平台最受欢迎的应用程序，在8亿多的Facebook用户中，有43%用户经常通过移动设备登录Facebook，所以Facebook已然算是一家移动公司了。

3）据The Guardian报道，社交游戏开发商Zynga移动高级副总裁David Ko在日前的媒体采访中声称，Zynga认为移动领域将成为社交游戏的新阵地。

尽管Zynga在2008年时就已将《Zynga Poker》推向iOS移动设备，但其手机游戏基本上无法脱离Facebook Connect功能，从严格意义上来讲，并不能算是功能完整的手机游戏。不过Zynga打算充分的利用摄像头、加速计等移动设备功能开发手机游戏，此外平板电脑也是他们的重要考虑对象，HTML5也是他们感兴趣的领域。

4）serkantoto博客最近盘点了在日本市场较受欢迎的游戏题材，主要包括：农场（例如热酷日本工作室的《阳光牧场》）、饲养宠物（例如DeNA的《Aquarium Collection》）、经营餐厅（例如Synphonie的《Boku No Restoran 2》）、城市建设（例如Zynga日本工作室的《Machitsuku》）。

以上所列举的题材在欧美等其他地区也同样很有市场，但还有一些在日本尤其吃香的游戏题材，例如Mobage、Yahoo Mobage、Hangame、Mixi和GREE等平台的以下游戏：

*社交赛马游戏（要求玩家训练赛马，培养马术，或者成为赛马场的经营者）

举例：GREE平台的《100man Nin No Winning》（Koei-Tecmo公司）

*俱乐部主持人模拟游戏（玩家扮演主持人角色）

举例：Mobage、GREE、Mixi、Yahooo Mobage平台的《Koi Shite Kyaba Jo》（KLab公司，该游戏用户已超过300万）

*以漫画为题材的社交游戏

举例：Mobage平台的《Gundam Royal》（Bandai Namco公司）

*社交RPG游戏

举例：Mobage平台的《Gleipnora》（Square Enix公司）

*社交约会模拟游戏

举例：GREE、Mixi和Hangame平台的《Delicious Kiss》（Andamul公司）

*社交偶像（明星）养成游戏

举例：GREE平台的《Love Jyun!Idol Battle》（Willark公司）

*社交卡牌搜集游戏

举例：GREE平台的《Dragon Collection》（Konami公司）

需注意的是，以上提到的几种类型可能互有重叠，例如卡牌搜集游戏通常的含有RPG元素（例如《Dragon Collection》，在以上几种类型中卡牌游戏最受欢迎。

除了这些题材之外，Capcom的幸存者恐怖动物游戏《Biohazard》（即GREE平台上的《生化危机》），以及Polygon Magic的昆虫战斗游戏《Kabu x Kuwa Battle Masters》（Mobage平台，如上图所示）也同样很有人气。

5）据gamasutra报道，牛津大学和耶鲁大学一些研究人员通过一款名为《Plante Hunters》的网页游戏，要求玩家浏览开普勒（游戏邦注：德国天文学家、物理学家、开普勒定律的发现者）公开资料提供的数据以寻找潜在星球，结果发现在太阳系以外可能还存在两颗尚未被科学家发现的行星。

在该调查研究中，玩家需要观察星星释放出的光，找到特定某颗星的光变曲线，从而发现该星球表面可能环绕着一颗行星。研究人员随后就使用这些搜集到的数据在潜在区域中寻找行星，而无需在15万个星球中挨个搜索。

据该研究报告所称，这个调查项目启动首个月，玩家就已经辨别出两颗潜在新行星，科学家随后将对这两颗新行星进行确认。

6）据serkantoto报道，日本社交平台GREE美国子公司最近在旧金山101大道架起了一个巨型广告招牌，值得注意的是其广告内容是人员招聘而非游戏产品，而且也并没有任何OpenFeint标志。

观察者表示，这种巨型广告价格不菲，Zynga在2009年也有类似广告举动。

7）在本周DAU增长最快的Facebook游戏榜单上，《CityVille》（最近DAU为1334万）位居榜首，其次是《Bubble Witch Saga》（最近DAU为34万）和《Adventure World》（最近DAU为440万）。

《模拟人生社交版》的MAU仍在不断增长，但DAU自9月25日起开始下滑（目前DAU为971万），因而不在本榜单之列。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Half of all U.S. social gamers own a game console, RockYou study says

by Joe Osborne

As if we already didn’t know: Some social gamers are more “hardcore” than we thought. But the next study released that attempts to drive this point home is courtesy of Zoo World creator RockYou and conducted by Interpret, a media research firm. Titled the “Social Gamer Thought Leadership Research Study,” it finds that 50 percent of U.S. social gamers own a traditional gaming console.

The study, which polled over 2,00 social game fans living in the U.S. aged 18 and older with a 60-40 women to men split, also found that social gamers are more “sophisticated.” To back up the claim, the study reports a quarter of social gamers prefer games with quests, and that 22 percent admit that score-sharing drives their urge to play more. Oh, and these players also spend quite a bit of time with the games.

Of the over 2,000 people polled, RockYou and Interpret found that the average social gamer spends an average of 9.5 hours playing out of the 13 average hours they spend on networks like Facebook. The average social game player, according to the study, has just over 16 real-life frieds playing these games with them and has made 20 new friends through social games. Of course, the study doesn’t get into how deep said friendships are, but how could you?

The study also reports that 42 percent of social gamers would play a social game more, if offered real world rewards like coupons or gift cards. (But isn’t the idea to get them to pay up?) It was just recently that Raptr discovered that a number of Zynga fans may be Halo and Grand Theft Auto fans, too. And before that, Kabam found in its own study that the hardcore crowd on Facebook is growing.

What should you take away from this influx of studies and reports? Regardless of whether you still dig tending to virtual crops or running a shanty town, many developers–even the “casual” ones–seem all but done with your farms and cities of yore.（source:games）

2）Facebook’s Mobile Chief: Within 1-2 Years, We’re Going To Be A Mobile Company

Greg Kumparak

Facebook has their sights locked on mobile. We know that. This afternoon at GigaOm’s Mobilize conference, Facebook Mobile Chief Erick Tseng touched on just how crucial mobile is to them — and more importantly, how crucial it will be.

Just how crucial are we talking about? Within 1-2 years, Tseng sees Facebook becoming as much of a mobile company as it is a desktop/web company.

“It’s interesting that if you take a look at our top line of growth, we’re getting to the point that the countries we’re getting into now are ones that don’t really use computers at all. The predominant ways people are connecting in Africa, in India, is through their mobile devices. As Mark touched on a few days ago, we now have over 350 million mobile users. Within another year or two, we’ll be a mobile company, with 1/2 mobile users.”

It’s kind of funny to think that Facebook might not already think of themselves as a predominantly mobile company. They’re already the most popular app on nearly every smartphone platform, are deeply integrated into countless Android devices, and 43% of their active user base of 800 million is using mobile on a regular basis. What else can they really hope for? Oh, thats right: to take over the mobile world with a development platform of their very own.（source:techcrunch）

3）Zynga Mobile Chief: Mobile is a ‘new social gaming frontier’

by Joe Osborne

Everyone else is right there with ya, big red. During an interview with The Guardian, Zynga Mobile SVP David Ko said, “We believe that mobile represents a new social gaming frontier. We’ve always said we want Zynga to be the best content creators in the world, and we are platform agnostic.” More and more Zynga fans expect to play its games on their phones and tablets, which wasn’t exactly where CEO Mark Pincus’s heart was many moons ago.

Regardless of whether Zynga has been creating mobile games since Zynga Poker hit iOS devices in 2008, it was only the advent of Facebook Connect that motivated the company to dig deeper into the platform. From that we got games like FarmVille and CityVille Hometown, neither of which are feature-complete versions of their Facebook counterparts. (The latter of which is a different game entirely.)

Now, The Guardian reports that Zynga is looking to take advantage of mobile devices’ key features like cameras and accelerometers in future games. And tablets appear to be a big deal in Zynga HQ–Ko told The Guardian the company was “very bullish” on the idea. And HTML5, the emergent web coding language that’s been touted as the proverbial messiah for cross-platform social gaming, is something Ko admits the company is interested in.

“HTML5 is interesting, although I do feel it is early,” Ko told The Guardian. “With those acquisitions, you can see into our thinking in this area a little bit.” (Ko there is referring to companies like Newtoy and Dextrose.) Zynga already released one game through HTML5: Mafia Wars Atlantic City. （source:games）

4）7 Japan-Only Social Game Genres [Social Games]

Dr. Serkan Toto

I could write a book or two about the differences between social gaming in Japan and elsewhere, but one easy and (hopefully) interesting way to take a high-level look at things is the difference in genres (with the biggest difference being that social gaming in Japan is mainly mobile).

Generally speaking, most genres that are popular in the US, Europe and other places, are popular in Japan, too:

farming (Rekoo Japan’s Sunshine Ranch, etc.)

pet-breeding (DeNA’s Aquarium Collection)

restaurant management (Synphonie’s Boku No Restoran 2)

city building (Zynga Japan’s Machitsuku)

etc.

But there is a number of genres that are very special to Japan or are especially popular over here. Here’s a quick list (all of these titles are available on either DeNA‘s Mobage, Yahoo Mobage, Hangame, Mixi or GREE – or all).

1 Social horse-racing games (players train horses and jockeys or become managers and run races against other users)

Example: Koei-Tecmo’s 100man Nin No Winning Post on GREE

2 Host and hostess club simulations (players take on the roles of hosts or hostesses)

Example: KLab’s Koi Shite Kyaba Jo on GREE, Mixi, Mobage and Yahoo Mobage (well over 3 million users)

3 Manga-based social games

Example: Bandai Namco’s Gundam Royal on Mobage

4)Social RPGs

Example: Square Enix‘ Gleipnora on Mobage

5 Social dating and love simulations

Example: Andamul‘s Delicious Kiss on GREE, Mixi and Hangame

6 Social idol- (star) raising games

Example: Willark’s Love Kyun! Idol Battle on GREE

7 Social collectible card games

Example: Konami’s Dragon Collection on GREE

Quite a few games in these genres are actually mashups, for example mixing card-collecting with role-playing elements (i.e. Dragon Collection). Among the listed, card games are – by far – the most popular genre.

Besides these unique genres, there’s also a whole bunch of unique individual titles (that can’t be listed under a specific genre). Examples include Capcom’s survival horror action game Biohazard (Resident Evil) on GREE or Polygon Magic’s “Kabu x Kuwa Battle Masters”, a battle game with insects as the protagonists (on Mobage, pictured below).（source:serkantoto）

5）Gamers Help Discover New Potential Planets Using NASA Data

by Mike Rose

University researchers have identified what may potentially be two planets outside of our solar system, thanks to users taking part in an online gaming experiment.

A number of organizations, including The University of Oxford and Yale University, set up a browser game called Planet Hunters, which allows players to look through data supplied by the Kepler public archives and search for potential planets.

Players are able to observe the light emitted by stars, and seek out periods during which the light curve for particular stars dips in signal, suggesting that a planet may be moving across the face of the star.

The team is then able to use the collected data to search for planets in potential areas, rather than having to sort through over 150,000 individual stars amongst a small group of scientists.

Every user who helps to discover a planet is then named in the acknowledgements as part of The Royal Astronomical Society monthly notices.

“Planet Hunters is a new citizen science project, designed to engage the public in an exoplanet search using NASA Kepler public release data,” explains the official report [PDF].

“In the first month after launch, users identified two new planet candidates which survived our checks for false-positives.”

The team described the involvement of citizen scientists as “a valuable and reliable tool.” （source:gamasutra）

6）GREE Starts Doing Ads In The US [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Truth be told, I don’t know what GREE International is thinking here, but it appears GREE‘s US-based subsidiary has bought advertising space on billboards on Highway 101 in San Francisco.

It’s just one for the time being, but the company already announced more billboards via Twitter.

This is the billboard currently on display (picture taken from GREE International’s blog):

What’s interesting is that this seems to be a job recruiting ad (not one for games) and that GREE put its own brand (and not Openfeint) on the billboard.

Again, I don’t get how GREE expects to attract “great talent” in the US with billboards, but that’s OK. These billboards aren’t cheap by the way, and Zynga did something similar in 2009.（source:serkantoto）

7）CityVille, Bubble Witch Saga Top This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Games by DAU

By AJ Glasser

CityVille leads our list of fastest-growing games by daily active users this week even as its overall traffic for the month falls. Two new games, Bubble Witch Saga and Adventure World, round out the top three.

The Sims Social falls off the rankings in DAU this week after a sharp decline that started September 25th. It’s the first such shift in traffic the game has experienced since its mid-August launch. Monthly active users still appear to be on the rise, however, suggesting that the DAU drop may be due to long-time players hitting a wall in the late gameplay experience.（source:insidesocialgames）