1）据Inside Social Games报道，近日有匿名知情者透露社交游戏开发商Meteor Games已大幅裁减90%的员工，原因是该公司无法找到对其有意的买主。

Meteor Games axes almost all staff(from games)

除此之外，该公司还关闭了《Neopets: Treasure Keepers》这款游戏（游戏邦注：据AppData数据显示，该游戏目前MAU仅3万，DAU为300），在该项目闭门谢客之前，Meteor Games向玩家赠送了一些道具。

报道称这款游戏在9月份时的用户达到高峰，MAU为30万，DAU为3.5万，但很快就严重下滑，目前该公司所有玩家基数仅为90万左右，其首席执行官Zac Brandenberg已在11月份离职。

2）据彭博社报道，网游公司Nexon在东京上市第二天就遭遇股价下跌现象（该公司于本周二上市，原先每股价格为1307日元，但收盘时已下跌2.3个百分点，每股降为1270日元）。

nexon stumbles on first day trading(from games)

不过Nexon仍已通过IPO募资11.7亿美元，略低于上周预估的12亿美元。观察者认为，Nexon这个免费增值游戏领域的巨头都难以保证一天之内的股价稳定，这种情况不禁让人替即将在本周四上市的Zynga捏了一把汗。

3）《百战天虫》开发商Team17 Software最近宣布收购独立工作室Iguana Entertainment（最近正投入开发《Worm Social》），后者将有大量人员加入Team17的韦克菲尔德工作室。

banana-boy-worm-from-worms(from blog.games)

Team17已向多个掌机及PC平台推出《百战天虫》系列，并对社交及Facebook游戏开发领域表现出极大的兴趣，将扩展其数字、移动和网页游戏开发计划。

4）日本DeNA公司最近宣布与阿里巴巴集团旗下的阿里云计算有限公司合作，将把手机社交平台Mobage预装到于明年初发布的阿里云智能手机K-touch W800。

除此之外，阿里云与DeNA还瞄准了中国社交游戏开发商，向后者推出DeNA的ngCore和阿里云数据中心等平台的服务。

5）据《华尔街日报》报道，社交搜索网站Tagged近日宣布收购社交网站Hi5，但并未公布具体成交金额。

hi5 logo(from blog.games.com)

Tagged计划通过这次收购“统领社交搜索领域”，该网站的定位是成为让新用户通过社交游戏、个性资料、虚拟礼品及其他功能结识新友的在线社区。

Tagged原先已有1亿注册用户（其中有1000万活跃用户），而Hi5已有2.3亿注册用户（其中有2000万活跃用户），据该公司所称，Tagged与Hi5之间仅有10%的重叠用户。

Tagged有30%用户位于美国，而Hi5在美国本土的用户覆盖面并不广，其用户主要来自南美、东南亚，西班牙、葡萄牙和罗马尼亚等欧洲国家。

该公司声称将实现Tagged和Hi5的独立运营，持续提升两个产品的质量，但没有提及两个品牌是否最终会合并，也没有透露是否将进行人员重组。

Hi5已经在9月份裁员28人，而Tagged则通过收购WeGame工作室，使其人员规模从年初的50多人扩大至目前的200多人。

6）Zynga近日宣布将与加拿大艺人麦克布雷（Michael Bube）合作，将在《CityVille》中推出与该艺人为主题的游戏元素，支持玩家与布雷的虚拟形象进行互动，加入他的乐队篝火派对，解琐与其音乐专辑相关的内容，但并未明确这些游戏内容问世的具体日期。

buble-zynga(from mashable.com)

最近刚满一周年的《CityVille》目前MAU超过4900万。（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）Meteor Games axes almost all staff, shutters social Neopets [Report]

by Joe Osborne

And the company couldn’t have better timing. Inside Social Games reports that Meteor Games, the social game developer behind Facebook games like Island Paradise and Serf Wars, has laid off 90 percent of its staff. Anonymous sources told the website that the terribly unfortunate move was made because the company couldn’t raise funding for find an interested buyer.

Along with loosing nearly all of its staff, Meteor Games also opted to shut down Neopets: Treasure Keepers, which as of this writing welcomes just 30,000 monthly players and 3,000 daily players, according to AppData. Meteor Games made the announcement on the game’s Facebook Wall just yesterday that the game would close today. As an apology for the short notice, Meteor Games gave players some items to use within the game before it closes.

ISG reports that the game peaked in September to the tune of 300,000 monthly players and 35,000 daily players, but it plummeted soon after. Sadly, Meteor Games isn’t looking so hot across the board, as its total monthly player base is a hair above 900,000.

The website also confirms that company CEO Zac Brandenberg, left 4-year-old Meteor Games in November. Our best wishes go to those that may have lost their jobs at such an unfortunate time.

We’ve reached out to Meteor Games for comment.（source:games）

2）MapleStory maker stumbles on first day trading, bad news for Zynga?

by Joe Osborne

Well, it could certainly scare the hell out of potential investors. Bloomberg reports that Nexon, creator of hit free-to-play and social games like MapleStory and Zombie Misfits, has already seen its stock price decline after its first day of publicly trading in Tokyo. When the company went public on Tuesday, its stock was priced at 1,307 yen–by day’s end it dropped 2.3 percent to 1,270 yen.

Still, Nexon managed to raise $1.17 billion in its initial public offering (IPO), just a hair shy of its $1.2 billion goal marked last week. The CityVille creator is said to go public as soon as Thursday, looking to raise $1.15 billion on the Nasdaq as “ZNGA”. It’s almost no doubt that Zynga will get at least close to its goal, but if the pioneer of free-to-play games in the Western world can’t keep its stock price steady for a single day, investors might wonder the same for the company behind FarmVille.

Keep in mind, however, that Nexon debuted in an entirely different market. (Though, the company offered shared in the US, too.) What’s most worrisome is that Nexon is far older, and you’d imagine more experienced, than Zynga, but still couldn’t hang on the first day of trading.

Despite its dependence on Facebook, Zynga’s CEO Mark Pincus told investors that it could double its base of paying players in 2012. And while he seems to have made no effort to explain how, CrowdStar CEO Peter Relan seems to agree. We’ll whether Zynga’s efforts on its IPO roadshow were enough by Friday, or so they say.（source:games）

3）Worms Studio Team17 Amps Up Social Strategy With Iguana Acquisition

by Eric Caoili

Worms developer Team17 Software has absorbed the assets and the staff of independent studio Iguana Entertainment, the studio developing the upcoming Worms Social.

The move both bolsters Team17′s social game abilities, and adds notable industry veterans Jason and Darren Falcus to its staff.

Effective immediately, a number of Iguana Entertainment employees will join Team17′s Wakefield office. In addition to Worms Social, the team is also developing three other unannounced social games and an unannounced multiplatform console title.

“Jason and Darren will play a key part in fulfilling our future plans for the company, with their industry and gaming knowledge,” says Team17′s managing director Debbie Bestwick. “They bring a wealth of cross-platform knowledge across an array of genres.”

Team17, best known for releasing the Worms series across various consoles and PCs, is particularly interested in the studio’s experience in social games and Facebook development. It says the group will complement its plans to “expand further into digital, mobile, and web development.”（source:gamasutra）

4）DeNA Inks Deal With Alibaba In China [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

DeNA is already active in China, one of their three self-defined core markets, but it looks like Chinese users will hear more from Mobage soon. The company today announced it has entered a strategic partnership with the Alibaba group, specifically Alibaba Cloud Computing (AliCloud).

Under the deal, Mobage will be pre-installed on the K-touch W800, a smartphone powered by Aliyun (which is Alibaba’s own mobile OS) early next year.

In addition, Alicloud and DeNA target China-based social game developers that want to use the Chinese company’s cloud computing services:

For China-based game developers, AliCloud and DeNA will leverage mutual resources to provide ngCore, DeNA Group’s cross-device mobile game development engine for Mobage, through AliCloud’s cloud services. Using ngCore on the cloud will allow for high efficiency development through AliCloud’s data centers in China.（source:serkantoto）

5）Social Gaming Network Hi5 Acquired By Discovery Company Tagged

by Eric Caoili

“Social discovery” site Tagged announced and completed its purchase of Hi5, the Alex St. John-led site that spent the past year trying to position itself as a major social gaming network.

The firm did not disclose financial terms for the deal.

With this acquisition, Tagged aims to “dominate the social discovery category” — the network bills itself as an online community for meeting new people through social games, customizable profiles, virtual gifts, and other features.

Tagged is joining its 100 million registered users (10 million active) with Hi5′s 230 million registered users (20 million active). The company claims that only 10 percent of its userbase overlaps with Hi5′s, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It also points out that while 30 percent of Tagged’s users are in the U.S., Hi5 has a very small Stateside presence. Hi5 is mostly popular in South America, Southeast Asia, and European countries like Spain, Portugal, and Romania.

The firm says that it will initially operate Tagged and Hi5 as “two independent and freestanding brands”, continuing to update both products. Tagged hasn’t disclosed when or if it will eventually merge the two sites into one network.

Hi5 spent the last year attempting to transform itself into an alternative to Facebook for social gaming, bringing in Alex St. John, the outspoken founder and former CEO of WildTangent, to lead that charge as president and chief technology officer.

The company raised $14 million for this initiative and built up its social game offerings by acquiring developer Big Six, enticing developers with free marketing and access to viral channels, and building its upcoming SocioPath platform.

Though Tagged hasn’t said if it’s planning future staff changes with this acquisition, Hi5 did lay off 28 workers in September following infrastructure adjustments meant to “significantly reduce the number of positions required.”

Tagged’s headcount, however, has grown from some 50 workers at the beginning of 2011 to now 200 after purchasing social game discovery firm WeGame, and launching a new in-house game development studio earlier in the year.

“Hi5′s global footprint complements Tagged’s and instantly builds on our leadership position as the world’s first, largest and best social network to meet new people,” says Tagged cofounder and CEO Greg Tseng. （source:gamasutra）

6）Michael Buble crooning his way into CityVille this Christmas

By Andrew Webster

Michael Buble’s new Christmas album is topping the charts and to celebrate the Canadian singer is coming to CityVille.

Zynga has announced that Buble will be following the likes of Enrique Iglesias and Michael Jackson, both of whom previously made appearances in Facebook’s biggest game. To coincide with Buble’s Christmas album, the singer will be making his appearance in the game closer to the actual holiday, though an exact date has yet to be announced.

Players will be able to interact with a Buble avatar and even party with his band around a holiday bonfire. There will also be a number of new quests to play through when the update hits, which are centered around some of the singer’s favorite things: namely hockey, Segways, sushi, and fashionable ties. And, as per usual, fans will also have the opportunity to unlock an exclusive video of Buble in action.

CityVille currently has more than 49 million monthly active users and recently celebrated its first birthday.（source:gamezebo）