1）据venturebeat报道，社交游戏开发商RockYou日前泄露的一份内部文件称公司准备进行一轮大规模裁员，届时将有55名员工失业，将团队规模缩减至87人。

该文件称为保持团队精简状态，公司将于11月3日宣布裁员决定，但RockYou现在尚未对此作出回应，因此无法证实最终结果。

RockYou之前收购了竞争对手Playdemic和Tirnua，曾在2010年10月进行一轮裁员；在2011年4月，Lisa Marino接替前首席执行官Lance Tokuda任公司掌门人，最近旗下热门游戏《Zoo World》开发者Johnathan Knight则奔向了Zynga公司。

RockYou成立于2005年，至今已通过红杉资本、Partech International、Lightspeed Venture Partners、DCM和软银等投资者融资1.29亿美元。

Cloudforest Expedition(from games)

（游戏邦注：TechCrunch报道则称RockYou总共将精简100名成员，其首席执行官Lisa Marina表示公司去年的目标是找到合适的运营模式，今年则是确保公司的健康发展及盈利性，所以将把1月份收购的Playdemic工作室（包括其开发的Facebook游戏《Gourmet Ranch》以及40名成员）回售给后者原来的卖主。RockYou有可能取消发布《CloudForest Expedition》这款游戏，观察者认为RockYou取消发布该游戏的原因是它将丧失这款游戏的控制权。）

2）Insomniac Games公司首席执行官Ted Price在最近的媒体采访中表示，从他们深入社交游戏领域的情况来看，社交圈、用户覆盖面以及AAA级游戏体验，是开发社交游戏的关键所在。

Ted Price(from games)

他称通过开发社交游戏，他们学到了之前在掌机游戏领域无法接触的知识；团队成员仍在寻找自己在社交游戏领域的切入点，但这个领域每天都会产生许多试验性内容，并不存在标准的正确方法。

3）Kingslsle公司（MMO游戏《Wizard 101》开发商，该游戏每月独立用户为1300万）创意总监Todd Coleman在近日的媒体访谈中表示，Zynga游戏是公司旗下在线塔防游戏《Grub Guardians》的灵感来源，该游戏同时也是《Wizard 101》的衍生产品。

wizard101(from digestspyeye.info)

他称通过Zynga游戏攻略，他们发现玩家喜欢通过自己顺手的设备掌握Zynga游戏发展动向，而《Wizard 101》玩家如果想与游戏同步发展但身边没有顺手的电脑可用时，就可以通过任何浏览器先玩几个回合的塔防游戏，获取可在《Wizard 101》中使用的新道具和经验值。

Coleman称玩家有时候会在《Wizard 101》中玩15分钟、2小时或者30秒不等的游戏，开发团队依此认为不如提供更精简的切入点，方便玩家按自己的节奏推动游戏发展。但他同时也表示，Zynga根据反馈数据设计游戏的方法并不适用于公司的游戏，毕竟MMO游戏机制远比《FarmVille》这类游戏更为复杂，有时候开发者自己的勇气和信心更为重要。

4）据Fusible报道，社交游戏开发商Playdom于10月26号在美国商标局注册了“City of Warfare”这个商标。

虽然Fusible推测此举或暗示Playdom准备开发一款新游戏，但games.com观察者却认为Playdom可能只是打算把即将发布的《City of Might》更名为《City of Warfare》。

city of might(from games)

从今年E3展会的预告片来看，这是一款风格类似于《Empires & Allies》的硬核策略社交游戏，原计划在今年夏季发布，但目前尚未结束内部测试。Playdom不久前刚宣布将推出两款新游戏《Galaxy of Wonder》和《Secret Agent X》，前者有可能是环境有所不同，但玩法相似的《City of Wonder》，而后者则采纳新游戏创意。

5）Richard Garriott（经典RPG游戏《创世纪》系列开发者、社交游戏公司Portalarium联合创始人）在IndustryGamers的采访中声称，Zynga之所以有今天的成就，主要是因为EA、暴雪等大型公司举步不前，暴雪之类的大型网游公司正遭遇“以Zynga为代表的游戏世界”的威胁。

Richard Garriott(from games)

他认为由于休闲游戏无需付费体验，并且具备病毒传播条件，以及大型网游用户正流向他处等原因，休闲游戏将给传统大型网游带来挑战。

6）据games报道，Zynga最近发布的《CastleVille》48秒钟预告视频采用了3D动画效果，该游戏将包含Tom Dragonslayer、Rafael the Playboy和Yvette the Fair Maiden等角色，玩家在游戏中将白手起家地建设自己的王国，并开始踏上“史诗般的快乐之旅”。

CastleVille character(from games)

7）在本周DAU发展最快的Facebook游戏榜单上，《Ravenskye City》位居榜首，《Bubble Witch Saga》和《PetVille》分列第二、第三席位。

Top Gainers This Week-Games(from AppData)

宠物题材游戏是该榜单主流，除了《PetVille》之外，EA Playfish的《Pet Society》和Crowdstar旗下游戏《Happy Pets》和《Happy Aquarium》也同样榜上有名。宠物是Facebook平台历史最悠久的游戏题材之一，其渊源最早可以追溯到2007年5月Facebook刚向第三方开发商开放服务时问世的《 (fluff)Friends》。在本榜单上最早面世的是2008年9月出炉的《Pet Society》，《Happy Aquarium》和《Happy Pets》分别于2009年10月和11月登陆Facebook，《PetVille》的发布时间则是2009年12月。

8）据insidemobileapps报道，DeNA旗下公司ngmoco首席执行官Neil Young针对外界认为Android版手机社交平台Mobage缺乏竞争力的看法作出回应，指出公司已调整这个Android版社交平台，提升了多款游戏在Android游戏榜单的排名（游戏邦注：据其竞争对手木瓜移动高管所称，Mobage移植引进的《僵尸农场》等游戏之前在Android平台的装载量仅5000至1万次左右），《僵尸农场》目前已是美国Andorid Market排名第三的免费游戏，装载量为50万至100万次左右，而《口袋青蛙》上周末已实现10万至50万次下载量。

rollout of mobage global(from DeNA)

DeNA最近的季度财报中指出，Mobage全球平台的目标是每季度达到1亿美元的Moba-coin（该平台虚拟货币）销售额，并将2012年第一季度（截止明年3月份底）实现5000万美元的Moba-coin销售额作为首要目标，计划在今年11至12月期间发布Mobage的iOS版本。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Game maker RockYou to cut staff by 40% just weeks after launching two new games

Chikodi Chima

Game-maker RockYou is set to announce major layoffs tomorrow just weeks after launching two new games, Galactic Allies and Hooked, VentureBeat has learned. Redwood City, CA.-based, RockYou makes games for social platforms like Facebook, and is responsible for popular titles such as the Zoo World franchise.  As many as 55 employees will lose their jobs, according to a leaked copy of an internal document we have seen.

The news, to be announced on Nov. 3, is meant to bring the company’s overall size down to 87, and weed out those  ”‘those that really arent “all in,”‘ according to the memo. The document appears legitimate, although RockYou did not return multiple calls to comment, so we were unable to verify its authenticity. According to the document:

[G]oing forward we will need to be much more focused and lean in order to ensure we keep hitting these success milestones. Unfortunately, that means that over then next week or so the management team will need to make some very tough decisions that will result in an overall reduction of our workforce.

RockYou, which bought up rival game makers Playdemic and Tirnua previously announced  a round of layoffs in October of 2010, and the company’s CEO resigned in late 2010. In April 2011, the promoted Lisa Marino to the position of CEO, after former CEO Lance Tokuda left the company in November of 2010. RockYou recently lost Jonathan Knight, the creator of Zoo World, to San Francisco-based Zynga, which is gearing up for an initial public offering.

The confidential draft document shows that roles the company eliminates in order to “focus on the long term vision” will not be back-filled, unless business circumstances change. The company plans to “stay lean,” according to the documents, but will move to replace employees who may quit after the announcement, though no effort will be made to re-hire former employees.

RockYou was founded in 2005 and has received more than $129 million from investors Sequoia Capital, Partech International, Lightspeed Venture Partners, DCM and Softbank. Partech is also an investor in VentureBeat.（source:venturebeat）   http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/02/rockyou-layoff/

RockYou to lay off 100 staff, will not publish John Romero’s CloudForest Expedition on Facebook

by Brandy Shaul

Hard times have come to Facebook game developer RockYou, as the company has announced that it will lose 100 of its staff, leaving it with about 90 employees in all. As told to TechCrunch, CEO Lisa Marina says that this move will allow for the company to become profitable. “Last year was about finding a business model. This year, it’s about making the company healthy and profitable,” Marino says. With that profitability comes sacrifices, one of which will be the Playdemic studio that RockYou acquired back in January.

Playdemic will be sold back to its original owners for an undisclosed amount of money, and the Facebook game Gourmet Ranch, along with around 40 employees will go with it. As for what remains (after RockYou itself loses 56 employees), Marino has stated that RockYou will not be publishing CloudForest Expedition, the John Romero game we brought you a preview of earlier this year.

While Marino didn’t give an exact reason for why Cloudforest Expedition is being shuttered (we could assume the worst – that RockYou no longer contains the manpower to develop it), she did state that perhaps RockYou had been a bit too creative in its past endeavors. “We went too far down the creative path and lost our way in terms of being a profitable organization.”（source:games）

2）Quote of the Moment: ‘There is no right way to do [social games]‘

by Joe Osborne

That’s what Insomniac Games CEO Ted Price (pictured) said to GameSpot during an interview. The company has recently created Insomniac Click, its very own social games studio. But forming a social games wing has had deeper effects than simply making executives see green. Social gaming has apparetly permeated how the studio approaches its core game franchises like Resistance and Rachet & Clank on the PS3.

“What we are learning as we get further into social game development is the importance of on-boarding, the importance of social hooks, and reaching the broadest audience possible while delivering a AAA experience,” Price told GameSpot. “These are things that we of course considered in console development, but as we are building social games we have to be even more focused on particular aspects of development, and because of that, we are learning a lot that also applies to our console games. And as a result, we are learning lessons that we probably wouldn’t have learned if we were purely focused on our console games.”

In other words, social games have had a visible effect on how the studio creates and maintains its existing console games. No, you won’t come across farms to grow as you fend off the alien invasion, but you might “share” the fun with your friends. Price went on to say that the existence of Insomniac Click has led the studio to consider a bigger focus on community in its games. Then, the Insomniac head gets even more real for a second.

“Well, most of us are trying to figure out exactly where we want to focus in terms of making our mark in social games, because there is so much experimentation happening every day, and there is no right way to do it,” Price said. “That’s what is exciting about it.” (And we seriously doubt Insomniac Games is alone there.)（source:games）

3）How FarmVille-maker Zynga is changing the game industry

by Libe Goad

Some might say Hollywood has had the biggest influence on gaming, and others will argue that the late Steve Jobs is one of the most important figures in gaming. FarmVille-maker Zynga is also wielding a pretty big hammer, though you might be hard pressed to find many game makers who will freely admit to it.

Save for MMO maker Todd Coleman. The KingsIsle creative director, responsible for the kid-friendly MMO Wizard 101, says that Zynga games were a major inspiration for Grub Guardians, an online tower defense game that also serves as a companion game to Wizard 101.

“We’re taking a trick from the Zynga playbook,” he says. “The trick is that players like to connect to a game’s advancement curve, they like to make forward progress from whatever device they have handy.”

In this case, players who want to get ahead in Wizard 101, but don’t have a computer handy, will be able to do so by playing Grub Guardians. Play a few rounds of the tower defense game in whatever browser you have handy (and later on iOS and Android devices), then score new items and experience for your pet in Wizard.

“Sometimes players take 15 minutes, sometimes two hours, sometimes just 30 seconds to play Wizard. We thought it would be interesting to expose smaller, more digestible entry points to make advancements in the game,” Coleman says.

The one way Zynga isn’t influencing this MMO developer? Metrics. Zynga is notorious for crunching numbers and then using them to drive the game making process. Coleman maintains that when it comes to making games with more complexity than, say, FarmVille, you can’t just rely on data to make decisions. Sometimes, he says, you just have to go with your gut.

Coleman and crew’s guts seems to be leading down the right path (Wizard 101 has 13 million unique users a month, according to the Gamasutra article), though it’s also hard to argue with Zynga’s number crunching ways when a simple game like FarmVille brings in 28 million players a month. In the battle of gut vs. numbers — numbers win. Or do they?（source:games）

4）What’s in a name: Playdom rebrands City of Might as City of Warfare?

by Joe Osborne

Not much, apparently. Fusible reports that Gardens of Time maker Playdom filed for the trademark “City of Warfare” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Oct. 26. While the website seems to think that the developer is creating a whole new game, we’re thinking that Playdom might simply be rebranding its upcoming City of Might as City of Warfare.

Regardless, the game will almost certainly center around the same premise that we caught a glimpse of at this year’s E3. When we last saw City of Might, it looked to build a franchise out of Playdom’s existing City of Wonder and enter new genres. However, the game appeared to be terribly reminiscent of competitors like Empires & Allies and perhaps more hardcore social strategy games.

The game was expected to launch this summer, but has yet to leave its closed beta test. Since then, Playdom has teased two more games, Galaxy of Wonder and Secret Agent X. The first of which sounds like it will take the familiar City of Wonder gameplay into a new environment, while the latter appears to entertain new gameplay ideas.

Regardless, City of Migh–er, Warfare should be close to release, if the company was willing to show it in action months ago. Fusible mentions that it nailed the Gnome Town trademark right on the nose, only for Playdom to release the game days later, so perhaps we’re even closer. The developer also plans to release games focusing on Disney brands–it’s about time.（source:games）

5）Ultima’s Garriott: Zynga only exists because EA, Blizzard didn’t step in

by Joe Osborne

On the streets, we call that “finders keepers.” Richard Garriott, creator of classic PC RPG (role-playing game) series Ultima and co-founder of social game maker Portalarium, said that Zynga merely beat the big time game creators to the punch. Speaking to IndustryGamers, Garriott said, “The only reason Zynga exists is because people like EA, people like Blizzard, failed to step in.”

Well, we’re sure the 200 million player-strong company sees this as a complement to its industrial skills. Garriott believes that the creator of World of Warcraft–the most successful massively multiplayer game, um, ever–faces a greater threat from “the Zyngas of the world.” And while Portalarium has since created casual casino games, Garriott says that its next game, Lord British’s New Britannia (working title) will go straight for that audience.

“I think you’ll see that the quality level that comes up through the casual games will rival the quality of traditional massively multiplayer games and then, because it’s not something you have to subscribe to, because it’s something that virally spreads, and especially because, as people churn out of a big MMO they’ve got to go somewhere,” Garriott told IndustryGamers.（source:games）

6）Shrek would fit right in with CastleVille’s characters [Video]

by Joe Osborne

Zynga sure knows how to hold onto a good thing when it has one. The company has released the teaser trailer for CastleVille, the next game in its famed ‘Ville franchise. And this might be the most well-produced Zynga game trailer to date. It’s on the short side at just a mere 48 seconds, but touts some 3D animation that, while not on a Dreamworks level, certainly looks the part.

In fact, we were almost expecting an ogre-like creature to appear on-screen at some point. Of course, that doesn’t happen. But what we do get to see is a few of the characters that we’ll meet in CastleVille like Tom the Cupcake Dragonslayer, Rafael the Playboy and Yvette the Fair Maiden. The gameplay in CastleVille, based on what’s shown in the trailer, has players build their kingdoms from scratch and embark on “an epic quest for true happiness.” (Whatever that means.)

CastleVille was revealed at the recent Zynga Unleashed press event, and boasts a soundtrack recorded by a full orchestra, a first for a Zynga game … and likely any social game, for that matter. Before the game hits, you can “Like” its Facebook page to have a say in how much the company donates to Direct Relief, Save the Children and Water.org. Of course, there are some unlockable in-game goodies for you, too. The next ‘Ville is almost here, but can it top the last?（source:games）

7）Ravenskye City, Bubble Witch Saga on Top in This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Games by DAU

AJ Glasser

Ravenskye City tops our list of fastest-growing games by daily active users this week with Bubble Witch Saga and PetVille rounding out our top three.

Pets seem to be the keyword to this week’s list with PetVille competitors Pet Society (EA Playfish), Happy Pets and Happy Aquarium (both Crowdstar) appearing on the rankings. The pet genre is one of the oldest on Facebook, dating all the way back to (fluff)Friends, which launched almost right when the Facebook platform was opened up for third party developers in May 2007. Of those on our list this week, Pet Society was first out of the gate in September 2008 with Happy Aquarium and Happy Pets launching back-to-back in October and November of 2009 and finally PetVille launching around December 2009.（source:insidesocialgames）

8）Ngmoco’s Young Gives a Saucy Rejoinder to Mobage Critics as Android Gaming Network Comes Out of Beta

Kim-Mai Cutler

Days after DeNA’s new Android mobile-social gaming platform Mobage came out of beta, the company’s U.S. subsidiary ngmoco:) is coming out swinging against critics who are skeptical that the Japanese gaming giant can make its business model work globally.

Early on, while the Mobage platform was still in beta in the U.S., several bonafide hits from the iOS world like Zombie Farm were seeing between just 5,000 and 10,000 installs on Android — a point competitors like China’s PapayaMobile were more than happy to jump on.

But ngmoco:) chief executive Neil Young pointed out that the company has tweaked its platform enough that its games are now rising up the Android charts. Zombie Farm is now the #3 free game in the Android Market in the U.S. and has between 500,000 and 1 million installs while Pocket Frogs cracked the 100,000 to 500,000 install range over the weekend.

“That criticism is coming from a competing platform with a whole bunch of shitty games,” Young said. “What PapayaMobile said was a little bit mean-spirited, whereas my statement about them having shitty games is just fact.”

Young said the company had made more than 100 changes to the Mobage product since it entered beta in July. He said user flow was initially a challenge as users had to download a Mobage app before they could play the game. Now, he says there’s a Mobage service application embedded inside of all of the games on the network. When users download a game on the platform now, there’s a shortcut inside to the Mobage network.

He added that just because Japanese consumer spending habits on mobile games are still fairly different from behavior in Western markets, it doesn’t mean that users here won’t follow the same arc.

“It’s easy to say that Japan is like the Galapagos Islands and that it has no bearing on what will happen in the U.S.,” he said. “But if you look at U.S. behavior, it looks eerily similar to what happened to Japan in the mid-2000s.”

ngmoco:) is under pressure to deliver this quarter. One hundred million dollars of the $403 million maximum acquisition price DeNA agreed to pay for the company last year is contingent on its performance by December.

On top of that, DeNA said in its most recently quarterly earnings report that its goal for the Mobage global platform was to reach $50 million in Moba-coin consumption during the quarter ending in March of next year. Ultimately, it wants to see $100 million in Moba-coin spending per quarter and an iOS version of the network should be out by November of December. Moba-coins are Mobage’s cross-game currency. (When Mobage comes to iOS, Mobacoins will only work with the game that the user purchased them with, since Apple doesn’t allow cross-game currencies.)（source:insidemobileapps）