1）据《华尔街日报》报道，知情人透露Facebook将选择摩根斯坦利为主承销商，或于周三进行IPO，其身价可能达到750亿至1000亿美元。

dollar bill facebook(from games)

不过知情者表示，Facebook仍在讨论具体上市时间，该公司有可能通过IPO获得100亿美元，但Facebook和摩根斯坦利均拒绝作出回应。

2）据TechCrunch报道，“社交搜索”网站Tagged收购社交网站Hi5仅一个多月就宣布将关闭后者的第三方游戏平台，仅发布Tagged内部开发的游戏。

据Tagged营销副总裁Steve Sarner所称，此举原因是Hi5第三方游戏平台“并不像他们所想象的那样充满发展潜力”。尽管Tagged掌握了Hi5及其资产的所有权，但这项在12月中旬的收购交易并不包括后者的员工，Tagged计划将Hi5转变为一个与Tagged.com更为相似的平台，但目前会保持两个品牌的独立发展。

3）据insidesocialgames报道，Zynga新项目《Zynga Bingo》最近开始内部测试，它取材于经典的博彩游戏，支持实时聊天、主题房间等功能，允许用户直接从该游戏跳转至《Texas HoldEm Poker》等其他Zynga Casino游戏；《Zynga Bingo》是该公司在2012年第二款Facebook游戏（其2012年第一款游戏是《Hidden Chronicles》）。

Zynga Bingo(from insidesocialgames)

比起扑克或老虎机等其他博彩游戏，bingo游戏起步和发展较缓慢，Facebook平台上较有影响力的此类游戏是Buffalo Studios推出的《Bingo Blitz》。

4）Namco Bandai近日宣布基于动漫作品《海贼王》的社交游戏《One Piece Grand Collection》在Mobage平台上线4天收购100万用户，该游戏是Namco Bandai第四款用户突破百万的社交游戏。

5）Facebook最近在News Feed栏目的社交游戏名称下显示游戏类型（如下图所示），但观察者认为这种调整的装饰作用大于实用功能，因为它无法帮助用户通过这种归类查看更多Facebook游戏，另外有些游戏含有多种风格，不可简单归为某种类型。

game category(from insidesocialgames)

例如，图中的《CastleVille》和《Zoo World》都被划入“模拟游戏”类型，但实际上两者玩法异很大，前者更像是角色扮演游戏，后者才能算是模拟游戏；而《祖玛闪电战》既是街机游戏又属于益智游戏。

6）EA旗下社交游戏公司Playfish总经理及副总裁John Earner最近离职加入风险投资机构Accel Partners团队，在此之前数周，另一名EA老将Barry Cottle也离开EA Interactive加入Zynga。

在去年3月，Playfish两名联合创始人、前首席技术官Sami Lababidi和EA Interactive副总裁、前Playfish首席运营官Sebastien de Halleux也离职，但仍担任EA顾问。

在Playfish任职期间，Earner曾负责监管《FIFA Superstars》及《模拟人生社交版》的开发工作，后者目前已是Facebook第五大社交游戏。

7）硬核社交游戏开发商Kabam最近收购独立游戏工作室Fearless Studios，后者由前Lucasarts制作人Haden Blackman、工程主管Cedrick Collomb成立于2010年，这两者即将加入Kabam团队。

Fearless Studios(from gamesindustryblog)

但Kabam并未公布这项交易的具体细节，Blackman表示两家公司联手有助于增强Fearless开发“以故事为主的动作游戏”的实力。

8）据gamasutra报道，韩国科教技术部（简称MEST）最近正准备出台一项旨在禁止未成年人连续玩2个小时以上游戏，或者1天内至少玩3个小时游戏的新政策。

korea gamers(from massively.joystiq.com)

该国之前已有法律明令禁止未满18周岁的少儿在深夜玩游戏，但MEST认为对游戏成瘾的判断取决于少儿玩多久的游戏，而非何时玩游戏。

但舆论认为这项新政与之前的政策一样并非根治游戏成瘾现象的良药，有游戏产业代表认为，假如游戏产业是个祸害，韩国政府就应该对此推出相应的指导方针，由三个部门（游戏邦注：另外两个部门是韩国女性家庭部、韩国文化体育观光部）推出不同版本的禁令并无多大意义。

9）独立手机游戏开发商Nimblebit（游戏邦邦注：该工作室仅有三名成员）最近声称社交游戏公司Zynga上周于加拿大App Store发布的《Dream Heights》抄袭了自己旗下热门游戏《Tiny Tower》。

Nimblebit成员Ian Marsh在Twitter发布了两款游戏的截图，指出了两者在游戏玩法和界面上的相似之处，并称Zynga曾打算收购Nimblebit但未能如愿。

twitter-Nimblebit(from venturebeat)

（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: Facebook readies IPO filing, looks to make up to $10 billion

by Joe Osborne

That’s, like, ten thousand millions, right? Anyway, Facebook could file for its long-awaited initial public offering (IPO) as early as next Wednesday, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), choosing Morgan Stanley as its lead underwriter. Here’s the clincher: According to “people familiar with the matter,” the social network looks to be valued between $75 and $100 billion.

And you thought the Zynga IPO was huge for a tech company. However, the timing for the filing is still a discussion, according to WSJ’s nameless sources. Facebook looks to make up $10 billion from the IPO alone, WSJ reports, but both the social network and Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

Facebook going public would only further solidify its dominance as a social gaming platform, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see a nice chunk of that $10 billion go toward social game efforts. Why? We can’t imagine how much Facebook makes from its 30 percent cut of all Facebook Credits, but recent reports put it in the $470 million range. So yeah, definitely expect Facebook to throw some more cash social games.（source:games）

2） Hi5′s new owner shuts down its third-party dev platform

by Tom Curtis

It’s been just over a month since “social discovery” network Tagged bought the assets for the gaming-focused Hi5, and already some major changes are coming to the newly acquired platform.

Most notably, Tagged plans to shut down Hi5′s third-party game platform, replacing the current games roster with titles developed internally at Tagged.

Speaking to TechCrunch, Tagged’s VP of sales and marketing Steve Sarner said that Hi5′s third-party program “wasn’t nearly as vibrant as we felt it could be or should be.”

Along with these new changes, Tagged hopes to transform Hi5 into a site that more closely resembles the existing Tagged.com. In fact, Sarner said that the site will become “a Tagged.com experience with a Hi5 wrapper” within six to eight weeks.

Currently, Tagged positions itself as a social networking service that helps users meet new people through social games, customizable profiles, virtual gifts, and other services. Tagged has not specified exactly which of these features Hi5 will adopt.

Though the two sites will become even more similar, however, Sarner said the brands will remain separate entities — at least, that’s the plan for the foreseeable future.

“We think that in the short- and mid-term, running two separate brands makes sense,” Sarner said. “We don’t want to completely alienate the current userbase. In the long-term, there’s certainly an opportunity for merging the brands.”

While Tagged owns the full rights to Hi5 and all of its assets, its purchase in mid-December did not include any of the company’s previous staff, though a number of Hi5 veterans are still working for the company on a contract basis. （source:gamasutra）

3）Zynga Bingo enters closed beta today

AJ Glasser

Zynga kicks off a closed beta today for the next title in its Casino franchise, Zynga Bingo.

The game is a recreation of the classic gambling game where players receive cards with numbers placed along a grid and each column is identified by letter. A “caller” draws numbers at random from a pile, calling out the letter and number while players search for the corresponding spot on their cards. Should a player find the number called, they place a “dauber” token on the number; if they fill an entire line of numbers with daubers, they have a “bingo” and can claim a prize. Other winning conditions include filling up an entire card with daubers, placing daubers on each of the four corners of the card or completing specific number sequences that have been marked for prizes by the organizers.

Zynga’s main update to the game comes from power-up and bonus items, which are either bought, earned or gifted from friends. The power-ups are unlocked and used during the actual game of bingo; a boost bar fills up with each play, and once full, the player can click it to activate whatever power-up item they have queued. The power-ups available at launch are limited to placing down a dauber on certain numbers as if they had been called in normal play or increasing the number of bonus items received at the end of a game. Bonus items include soft currency, tickets (which are used to purchase bingo cards), mystery crates and keys to unlock said crates. The crates can contain power-ups, soft currency or tickets.

Other features in Zynga Bingo include real time chat, themed rooms that sometimes draw from Zynga’s own games and a Zynga Casino navigation bar above the canvas that presumably allows players to jump easily from Zynga Bingo to Texas HoldEm Poker or other Zynga Casino games as they are released. During a press demo, a Zynga spokesperson declined to discuss any upcoming features related to the Zynga Casino interface beyond what had already been revealed at Zynga’s 2011 Unleashed preview event.

Among social games, bingo has been slower to catch on than other casino titles like poker or video slots. It wasn’t until the beginning of 2011 that Buffalo Studios’ Bingo Blitz began to gain traction, hitting 2.8 million monthly active users and 930,000 daily active users before the end of the year. Other bingo games have since launched on Facebook to more modest success and some virtual casinos have added it to their lineup of games.

Zynga Bingo is the developer’s second Facebook title of 2012. Its first 2012 game, Hidden Chronicles, launched in the first week of January and currently enjoys 12.5 million MAU and 6.1 million DAU as recorded by our AppData traffic tracking service.（source:insidesocialgames）

4）One Piece Social Game On Mobage Gets 1 Million Users In 4 Days [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

It seems Namco Bandai just added quite a few social gamers to its member base of 10 million: One Piece Grand Collection, the social game based on the wildly popular anime the company

released last week, boasts one million registered users on Mobage.

What’s amazing is that it took just 4 days to reach this milestone, highlighting that turning the right IP (One Piece is currently one of the most famous manga and anime series worldwide) into a social game does have potential.

Namco Bandai hasn’t released details, but I am assuming releasing the title on feature phones and smartphones at the same time helped them getting so many users in such short time, too (Namco Bandai is also DeNA‘s partner, and as a game company, it never hurts to be on the side of the platform provider).

One Piece Grand Collection is Namco Bandai’s fourth social games topping one million users.（source:serkantoto）

5）Facebook game categories make it easier to identify games, but not to find them

AJ Glasser

Facebook now displays genre categories below game names in News Feed stories.

The change is mostly a cosmetic one as there is no way to view Facebook games by category. Even so, just seeing the word “Puzzle” below a game may help users navigate toward new games that they have a higher chance of liking because they know what to expect from it.

Game genres are a tough subject for some game developers as some descriptions are too broad to accurately target a game at its intended audience. For example, in the screen above, both CastleVille and Zoo World are tagged as “Simulation” — but the two games play very differently, to the point where it might make more sense to call the former a role-playing game and the latter a simulation. Another challenge is that some games fall under more than one genre; like how Zuma Blitz is both an arcade game (because it’s based on speed of reaction) and a puzzle game (because players have to match colors).（source:insidesocialgames）

6）Report: EA loses another social gaming head

by Eric Caoili

Electronic Arts’ social games subsidiary Playfish has reportedly lost John Earner, its London headquarters’ general manager and vice president, who is joining venture capital Accel Partners.

Earner’s departure follows weeks after the resignation of Barry Cottle, another key executive at EA. Cottle led the publisher’s EA Interactive mobile, social, and casual online group, which recently restructured as he left to join FarmVille/CityVille developer Zynga.

And last March, two of Playfish’s co-founders, former CTO Sami Lababidi and EA Interactive VP Sebastien de Halleux (previously Playfish’s COO), also left the company, though both continue to serve as consultants for EA.

When EA acquired Playfish for $300 million in late 2009, Earner was the vice president of product management at PlayFish, and helped build titles like Pet Society and Restaurant City, which are still two of Electronic Arts’ most popular games on Facebook.

As he was promoted to general manager of the London studio, he oversaw development for FIFA Superstars and The Sims Social — the latter of which is Electronic Arts’ biggest title on Facebook, and has the fifth largest audience on the social network out of any game.

Earner is leaving Playfish today, and will take on an entrepreneur in residence role at Accel Partners, according to a report from TechCrunch. （source:gamasutra）

7）Core-focused social dev Kabam acquires Fearless Studios

by Frank Cifaldi

Core-focused social game developer and publisher Kabam has acquired independent studio Fearless Studios, the company revealed Friday.

Employees of Fearless, which was founded in 2010 by former Lucasarts producer Haden Blackman (writer and producer of its Force Unleashed series) and engineering director Cedrick Collomb, will immediately join Kabam’s staff.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed by Kabam.

When we last heard from Fearless, the company was creating a game for HP’s doomed WebOS platform. The company has been silent since that announcement.

Fearless’ project or projects for Kabam were also not disclosed, though the company stressed in a statement that the acquisition would strengthen the company’s place in an online gaming market as it “transitions to higher fidelity, 3D gameplay.” As well, Blackman said that the marriage will enhance Fearless’ “vision for creating story-driven action games.” （source:gamasutra）

8）Korea considers blocking minors from playing online games for over 3 hours

by Eric Caoili

South Korea’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technology is reportedly reviewing a policy that would ban minors’ accounts if they played online games for more than two hours consecutively, or a total of three hours in a day.

While there is already a shutdown law in place preventing children aged under 18 years old from playing online games during a late-night six-hour block, MEST’s rationale for the policy is that game addiction comes from how long kids play games, not when they play them.

Critics are arguing that this new policy, along with the existing shutdown law and the recently implemented selective shutdown law, constitutes a “triple regulation” of the game industry in Korea — and that MEST’s theories on game addiction haven’t been medically proven.

“If the game industry is really a troublemaker, then the related government [groups] should discuss it and provide guidelines to instruct us,” said an unnamed game industry representative, according to a report from Korean industry news site This Is Game.

The official added, “Making similar policies from three different ministries does not make any sense at all. The two shutdown systems of the [Ministry of Gender Equality and Family] and the [Ministry of Culture Sports and Tourism] should be repealed if MEST’s regulation is reasonable.” （source:gamasutra）

9）Zynga accused of cloning hit indie iPhone game Tiny Tower

by Kris Graft

San Diego, CA-based independent iPhone game developer Nimblebit is accusing social games giant Zynga of ripping off its popular mobile title Tiny Tower.

Zynga last week launched on the Canadian App Store Dream Heights, a free-to-download tower-building game with in-app purchases that has clear similarities to summer 2011′s Tiny Tower, which received Apple’s 2011 iPhone Game of the Year.

“Clones” of games are a common occurrence on mobile platforms, but the Tiny Tower versus Dream Heights conflict has gained quick notoriety on the web due to the David and Goliath scenario of a massive public company allegedly copying the ideas of a three-person team.

Nimblebit’s Ian Marsh got word out about the similarities between Dream Heights and Tiny Tower with an image that’s still making the Twitter rounds. The image is made up of screenshots showing how Dream Heights’ interface and gameplay mechanics appear strikingly similar to Tiny Tower’s.

“We noticed you are about to launch a new iPhone game called Dream Heights! Congratulations!” reads the image, which was addressed to “all 2,789″ of Zynga’s employees. “We wanted to thank all of you guys for being such big fans of our iPhone game of the year, Tiny Tower!”

The sarcastic statement continues, “Good luck with your game, we are looking forward to inspiring you with our future games! Sincerely, (all 3 of us) — Nimblebit.”

Marsh also said on Twitter that Zynga “did try to go the honest route and try to acquire us first.” He added that inside Dream Heights’ app binary, the Zynga project “is named ‘TowerVille’ and its inhabitants are named zitizens” — Tiny Tower’s are called “bitizens.”

Nimblebit and Zynga did not immediately reply to Gamasutra’s requests for further comment. （source:gamasutra）