1）据日经新闻报道，日本社交平台GREE在上一季度（截止12月31日）销售额可能达到了5.2亿美元，预计其营业利润高达2.6亿美元。

GREE-logo(from buzzom.com)

如果该数据准确，那么GREE额售额则同比去年增长180%，营业利润同比增幅高达300%。该报道指出，GREE在整个财年的营业利润有可能达到9.1亿美元。

该平台上一季度的ARPU（每用户平均收益）同比去年增长100%，已达400日元（约合5.2美元），据称该公司仅靠《doliland》这款热门RPG游戏就创收2600万美元。

2）据gamasutra报道，Zynga上市以来发布的首款手机游戏《Scramble With Friends》登陆App Store之后，该公司股价仍在下挫，在1月5日收盘时每股为8.91美元，比前一天收盘时的9.19美元还低3个百分点。当天最低售价为8.82美元，接近于其最低点时的8.75美元。

zynga-logo(from next-gen)

观察者称，Zynga近日才刚发布Facebook新款寻物解谜游戏《Hidden Chronicles》，一周内连续发布两款游戏却仍在股市遇冷的情况颇令人意外。

3）硬核社交游戏开发商Kixeye最近任命在线营销元老Neil Shepherd任公司客户副总裁，Shepherd将带领团队深入挖掘用户数据，分析玩家行为，以便优化公司产品。

Shepherd之前是在线营销公司Quinstreet高管，并拥有咨询公司McKinsey and Company工作背景。

4）Kixeye(《Backyard Monsters》开发商）创始人及首席执行官Will Harbin在最近媒体采访中表示，Facebook游戏无法吸引硬核玩家的一大原因是这个平台的多数策略游戏、城建游戏、黑帮游戏都大同小异，如出一辙，但他驳斥了新兴社交游戏公司Rumble Games日前提出的Kixeye游戏与Kabam、Zynga游戏相同的说法，他称EA、暴雪的硬核游戏在风格上也基本上没有差别。

Backyard Monsters(from insidesocialgames.com)

Pocket Games公司首席营销官Ben Liu认为，如果要彻底杜绝模仿、雷同现象，那就只有让大家都不断进行创新。

5）据gamasutra报道，Windows游戏《Flight Simulator》系列新游戏《Microsoft Flight》将采用免费增值模式并于今年春季发布。

microsoft-flight(from en.wikinoticia.com)

这是首款采用免费模式的《Flight Simulator》系列游戏，将支持玩家从游戏中的商店购买飞机、地区及各种个性化装饰选项，设计了方便新手玩家使用的操作方式。（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）Report: GREE’s Profit For The Last Quarter To Grow 300% Y-O-Y [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

The Nikkei just reported in its online edition that GREE will probably hit US$520 million in sales last quarter (three months through December 31). As if this wasn’t impressive enough, the paper says GREE is expecting operating profit to balloon to US$260 million.

If the report turns out to reflect the real numbers, GREE’s sales have shot up 180%, while profit even grew by about 300% year-on-year. GREE’s financial year ends in June, and according to the report, a record operating profit in the range of US$ 910 million is possible (for the full fiscal).

What’s also interesting is that ARPU last quarter apparently grew 100% year-on-year to 400 yen/US$5.20. (For a recent comparison of the ARPU between DeNA’s Mobage and GREE, click here.)

GREE is currently boasting a number of hit first-party titles that are generating healthy sales. The company is said to make US$26 million in revenue with popular RPG doliland alone.（source:serkantoto）

2）Zynga stock dips as company debuts second post-IPO game

by Tom Curtis

Newsbrief: Shares for social gaming giant Zynga dipped today after the debut of Scramble With Friends, the company’s first mobile title since going public last month.

Shares closed today at $8.91 per share, down 3 percent from yesterday’s close of $9.19. Shares were traded for as little as $8.82 during the day, nearing its all time low of $8.75.

Just yesterday, the company debuted Hidden Chronicles, a new Facebook-based “hidden object” title. With two new releases arriving just this week, the company’s sudden drop on the NASDAQ was a bit unexpected.

Zynga officially went public in mid-December, and despite a rough debut, has thus far seen fairly consistent performance on the stock market.（source:gamasutra）

3）A new head of player analytics for social dev Kixeye

by Frank Cifaldi

Newsbrief: “Core”-focused social game developer Kixeye is putting more focus into analyzing its players’ behaviors with the appointment of a new VP of Customer Insights.

Neil Shepherd, an online marketing veteran, will lead a team focused on mining player analytics and data to bolster the Backyard Monsters developer’s audience acquisition.

Shepherd comes to Kixeye after a stint as VP of paid media at online marketing company Quinstreet. Prior work includes a position at global management consulting firm McKinsey and Company.（source:gamasutra）

4）Will copycats run the Facebook games industry into the ground?

by Joe Osborne

We sure as hell hope not. (We like having a job, thank you very much.) It’s a common complaint lobbed at the social games industry: It’s all the same games. If you ask this writer, the complaint isn’t entirely unfounded, but does it spell the end of what would be a short-lived genre? Gamasutra posed that question to a few notables in the social games world recently.

“Part of why we’re not attracting the hearts and minds of the core gamer on Facebook is that a lot of these games are kind of the same,” Kixeye founder and CEO Will Harbin told Gamasutra. “There are a ton of strategy games, there are a lot of city building games, there are now a ton of mafia games again. It’s just kind of more and more of the same.”

Harbin recently defended his company from accusations by new studio Rumble Games that all of Kixeye’s games are the same as well as Kabam and Zynga’s. “You criticize us for that, then you can criticize EA, Blizzard, Activision and all of the guys for the same thing,” Harbin told us. “There are only so many genres that have proven to work time and time again, and it’s based on what consumers want.”

Other executives echoed Harbin’s sentiments, like Pocket Gems COO Ben Liu, but said that there’s only one way to prevent copycatting from effectively destroying the industry. “Emotionally it bothers us [when we see copycats] but we feel like our best defense is to continue to be innovative,” Liu said to Gamasutra.

A number of start-ups have promised a new era, a renaissance of Facebook games in 2012 that will not only bring new types of games to the social network, but new types of gamers, to boot. The question is, however, when the most guilty culprits are those with the most pull, how much good will that do? Check out the in-depth feature in full right here.（source:games）

5）Microsoft’s Flight Simulator revival operates as free-to-play

by Eric Caoili

Microsoft Flight, the latest entry from the popular and long-running Flight Simulator series for Windows, will feature a new free-to-play business model when it releases in spring.

This new release is not only the first Flight Simulator game in five years but also the first one in the series to adopt the free-to-play approach. Microsoft Flight will feature a store for purchasing and downloading extra content like new aircraft, regions, and customization options.

The microtransaction-based, free-to-play model has brought new life to several dormant franchises in recent years, like Shadowrun, Ultima, and Shenmue. Microsoft recently released a free-to-play edition for another one of its PC series, Age of Empires, in November 2011.

Microsoft’s immersive but complex Flight Simulator franchise, which has developed a dedicated following over the last 30 years, seemed in trouble when the publisher closed ACES Game Studio, its development house for the titles, in 2009 to “align [its] people against [its] highest priorities.”

The company announced Microsoft Flight last year, however, as an internally developed continuation of the series that takes place in Hawaii. It’s designed to be more approachable to novice players, and to introduce “a new perspective to the long-standing genre.”

“Aviation can be incredibly technical, but we’ve taken great care to build an experience that makes taking to the skies thrilling and accessible for everyone,” says Microsoft Flight’s executive producer Joshua Howard.

Along with its marketplace for buying additional content, Microsoft Flight features heavy integration for Games for Windows Live for updates (e.g. daily challenges), achievements, and playing with others.（source:gamasutra）