1）数字市场营销公司iCrossing高级分析师Gregory Lyons最新报告预测，Facebook将在2012年8月达到10亿，覆盖全球14%的人口。目前Facebook用户为8亿，但其英美注册用户已经趋于饱和，所以这两国新用户增幅正在减缓。

Facebook users(from iCrossing)

而数据分析师Paul Allen的报告显示，Facebook竞争对手Google+发展速度惊人，在6个月内收获6200万用户。该平台仅历时2个月就获得1000万用户，而Facebook之前历时38个月才实现这一目标。

google plus growth(from Paul Allen)

Allen预测由于在Android平台注册用户增长，Google+用户有望在2012年底达到4亿。但尼尔森最新报告表明，Facebook才是Android平台最热门应用，排名仅次于Android Market。

2）据insidesocialgames报道，International Game Technology最近以高达5亿美元的价格（游戏邦注：包括2.5亿美元、8500万美元人员留存费用、1.65亿美元额外对价）收购社交游戏《DoubleDown Casino》开发商Double Down Interactive。

doubledown casino(from thecouponess.com)

《DoubleDown Casino》是一款类似于Zynga《Texas HoldEm Poker》的博彩类游戏，发布于2010年，在2011年迅速跻身Facebook平台该类游戏的前列。据AppData数据显示，该游戏目前有470万MAU，以及130万DAU。该公司计划在未来数周发布一款手机版游戏。

3）据techcrunch报道，Zynga最近再将一名前EA高管收入囊中，聘请EA Interactive执行副总裁Barry Cottle任公司运营和企业发展执行副总裁。后者将向John Schappert（他也是前EA高管）述职，其工作职责包括发展Zynga新项目，建立新合作关系，有可能协助Zynga收购更多新公司。

ea-games-logo(from zippycart)

4）据gamasutra报道，EA进入2012年之前已进行数次重大团队重组，最近将其社交及手机游戏部门EA Interactive与其他部门合并，这些合并部门原先的主管分别是EA Labels总裁Frank Gibeau、首席运营官Peter Moore、首席技术官Rajat Taneja以及数字执行副总裁Kristian Segerstrale。

EA报告称其数字业务在2011年收益超过10亿美元。

5）日本视频游戏公司Cave近日预计其本财年（截止2012年3月31日）营业利率仅为65万美元，远低于原先预计的400万美元，并宣布将以社交游戏为今后关注重心。

该公司已有18年的视频游戏开发历史，之前主要锁定硬核游戏玩家群体，现已重整业务，叫停相关项目，并将更多资源分配到社交游戏部门，已发布数款社交游戏，包括GREE平台的《Fist of The North Star》和Mobage平台的城建游戏《Shirotsuku》。

castle_creator_from Cave(from siliconera)

Cave已在东京证券交易所上市，GREE在去年8月以220万美元收购了该公司5.1%的股份（游戏邦注：这也有可能是Cave转向社交游戏领域的一大原因）。

6）Playdom设计副总裁Raph Koster最近在其博客中指出，免费增值模式并不“邪恶”，它与传统游戏运营模式并无本质区别，都是让用户付费购买自己想要的内容，与其他商业项目一样，它也只是一种将用户转变为消费者的手段。

Raph Koster(from plus.google.com)

他还表示，鲸鱼玩家并非免费增值模式的产物，购买每件限量版内容包的狂热传统游戏玩家一年累积起来的开销也有成千上万美元。（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）Facebook to reach 1B active users in August, that’s 14% of the world

Meghan Kelly

Facebook is soon to have 14 percent of the world’s population all to itself. A new study says the social network will hit one billion users this year.

Gregory Lyons, a senior analyst at digital marketing firm iCrossing, ran the numbers based on Facebook’s past growth and found that Facebook will probably hit the milestone in August 2012.

Currently, it has 800,000 users. He found that Facebook initially grew at an exponential rate, but then went through a slow down in progress, which caused it to grow more linearly. The slow down was a result of the United States and the United Kingdom tapping out at 49 and 47 percent of the population respectively. New signups from those countries have “slowed or stopped”.

It seems that Facebook’s Google adversary, Google+, is still in exponential growth mode, reaching the 62 million mark in six months, according to statistician Paul Allen. It took Google+ only 2 months to reach 10 million users, a milestone that took Facebook 38 months. However, Google+ has been born in the age of social. It’s not creating anything new by way of industries. Facebook still remains the ultimate social player outside of Silicon Valley.

Allen suspects that Google+ will hit nearly 400 million users by the end of 2012, due to accelerated Android sign-ups. However, according to a recent study by analyst firm Nielsen, Facebook’s application is the most popular on Android devices, falling second only to the Android Marketplace. The study takes into account users from 18-44 years of age and found that roughly 80 percent of these people are using Facebook’s app more than any other app on the device.

The push to one billion active users will come from developing countries, according to Lyons. Specifically countries such as India and Brazil, which are poking their heads out as late adopters. In the last nine months, India has grown from 22 million users to 36 million. Brazil is following close behind at 30 million, up from 13 million nine months ago.

The growth is just more support for Facebook’s potential 2012 debut as a public company, which some are saying will be a $10 billion IPO. Only three other US companies have had $10 billion or more IPOs — AT&T at $10.6 billion, GM at $18.1 billion and Visa at $19.7.

The timing of the offering is still up in the air, though an August projection is starting to look pretty good.（source:venturebeat）

2）International Game Technology buys Double Down Interactive for $500M

AJ Glasser

International Game Technology has acquired DoubleDown Casino developer Double Down Interactive for $500 million, made up of $250 million in cash, $85 million in retention payments for the next two years and a $165 million earnout payable over the next three years.

DoubleDown Casino started off in 2010 looking like another pretender to Texas HoldEm Poker’s crown as top casino/gambling-themed game, but rapidly scaled in 2011 to become one of the top games in the genre on Facebook. According to our AppData traffic tracking service, the game currently enjoys 4.7 million monthly active users and 1.3 million daily active users. The developer plans to release a mobile version in a matter of weeks. Read our review of the Facebook version here.

With Facebook potentially allowing real money gambling in certain parts of the world (like in the United Kingdom, where it’s legal), gambling-themed social games like DoubleDown are well-positioned to access a new audience segment that wants to play with real money. Games that already have established audiences may also be able to convert existing players that use only in-game currency to real money players, given that people are more likely to trust a developer they know rather than new social game developers that build games only for real money gambling.

We’ve contacted DoubleDown Interactive for additional information on the acquisition. A conference call is also being held for the media tomorrow morning. We’ll update this story as necessary.（source:insidesocialgames）

3）Zynga Scores Another EA Exec, Interactive Head Barry Cottle

Eric Eldon

Zynga has already hired quite a few senior leaders out of rival Electronic Arts, and today the evisceration continues with one of its biggest pick-ups yet: EA Interactive executive vice president Barry Cottle. Among a long list of other accomplishments, Cottle has been behind the acquisitions of social game developer Playfish, casual gaming leader PopCap, and mobile developer Chillingo — deals that allowed EA to quickly gain top spots in these new markets, in direct competition with Zynga.

As Zynga’s new EVP of business and corporate development, Cottle will be reporting to chief operating officer John Schappert (who also previously held the same position at EA). Cottle’s duties will include: growing Zynga’s new businesses, developing more partnerships, and one assumes, buying more companies. Zynga has no doubt been eyeing Cottle for a long time, as they’ve lost some of the acquisitions to him that I previously mentioned.

Here’s a feel-good statement from Zynga chief executive Mark Pincus on the hire: “It’s rare that you find someone who possesses a deep operational background and also has the vision to see where your business and your industry are headed. Barry is one of those executives, and I’m very excited to have him join the team. His skill set, combined with his deep understanding of the games, technology and entertainment spaces will help us accelerate our mission of connecting the world through games. On a personal level, Barry is a great person who brings humility and curiosity, and I’m confident he will fit in well with Zynga’s culture.”

Some more detail on what Pincus is saying: Cottle has been in charge of the 2500-person Interactive division of EA, which includes social, mobile and casual games… he has the perfect experience for Zynga, which at nearly 3,000 social-and-mobile-focused employees, is of roughly the same size and scope as his old job.

The company, which went public last month, is currently trading at $8.45 a share, down from its initial price of $10.（source:techcrunch）

4）EA reorganizes after a landmark $1B digital year

by Tom Curtis

Moving into 2012, Electronic Arts has made some key organizational changes to its internal structure in hopes of better executing its digital initiatives.

Following the launch of the MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, the online service FIFA Ultimate Team, and the company’s Origin distribution platform, EA says it hopes to make digital goods a larger part of its overall strategy.

To help facilitate these changes, EA has chosen to fold its social and mobile-focused EA Interactive (EAi) division into other organizations throughout the company, specifically those divisions led by EA Labels president Frank Gibeau, COO Peter Moore, and CTO Rajat Taneja, and EVP of digital Kristian Segerstrale.

Coinciding with EAi’s reshuffling, the division’s former head, Barry Cottle, has left Electronic Arts to join Zynga, where he will serve as its new executive vice president of business and corporate development.

EA also reported that its digital business brought in more than $1 billion in 2011, which company CEO John Riccitiello called an “incredibly important milestone” for the company.

In August, EA made even more organizational shifts, kick-starting the EA Labels division and spinning off the BioWare name into an even larger organization that now covers social games, traditional games, and beyond.

EA plans to further outline its most recent internal changes in an upcoming town hall meeting, to be held on February 2.（source:gamasutra）

5）Cave Isn’t Making Enough Money, Wants To Focus More On Social Games [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Following a disappointing financial report, Japanese video game maker Cave announced it will focus more on social games going forward. The company has an 18-year old history and is especially famous for its shoot’em ups aimed at a hardcore gamer audience (personally, I am a big fan).

Currently, Cave is offering various titles on consoles, the PC, and mobile devices (here’s a list of their smartphone apps, for example).

The company is expecting an operating profit for the current fiscal (which ends on March 31 this year) of just US$650,000, following weak consumer game sales. This is down from US$4 million Cave projected in an earlier forecast.

Cave now says that as a reaction, it has restructured its product pipeline, stopped some projects and will allocate more resources to the (potentially) more lucrative social games segment from now on.

The company already released a few social games, for example Fist Of The North Star on GREE or geo-aware castle-building game Shirotsuku on Mobage.

Cave is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. In August last year, GREE acquired a 5.1% stake in the company for $2.2 million (which might be a reason for the decision of the management to go social).（source:serkantoto）

6）Playdom’s Raph Koster: ‘Free to play is not evil, it’s just different’

by Joe Osborne

If you’re surprised at the fact that people out there think social games are evil, than you must not talk to many gamers. Much of that popular opinion points toward the business model social games

employ: free to play. Many knock the genre for celebrating games that work painstakingly to create paying players. But Gardens of Time maker Playdom’s Raph Koster asks, “What’s your beef, really, yo?” (paraphrased, of course) in an informative if lengthy post on his blog.

Koster points out that, while the free-to-play business model (selling virtual goods to players in games that are free to play) social games is seen as predatory and exploitative, it’s not much different from those almost everywhere else, even in traditional games. “These people only pay because they really want to, by and large, though of course, like any business, there are many tricks used in order to get people to convert to payers,” Koster writes.

Which leads Playdom VP of design to “whales”, a casino term used to describe social gamers that pay enormous sums of money to get ahead in their favorite social games. (So much so that they collectively keep most social game makers afloat.) Koster argues that whales aren’t a product of the free-to-play model, citing fans of traditional games that purchase every limited edition package and spend thousands on enthusiast conventions annually.

It’s true: Some social games allow those that pay to get ahead, but Koster points to industries surrounding other competitive sports or hobbies: “This is not a new debate-we have seen it in everything from sleeker swimsuit fabrics for competitive swimmers, to horse breeders with dough getting access to the right bloodlines, to salaries for Major League Baseball teams,” Koster writes.

“Free to play is not evil, it’s just different,” Koster concludes. “If you’re freaked out by seeing business practices nakedly, realize that what’s changed is that you can see them. And to my mind, that’s actually better for you than blissful ignorance.” For those interested in a take on the larger debate revolving around the merits of how social games handle virtual goods, this is a read you cannot miss out on.（source:games）