游戏邦在:
杂志专栏:
gamerboom.com订阅到鲜果订阅到抓虾google reader订阅到有道订阅到QQ邮箱订阅到帮看

每日观察:关注Mark Pincus对游戏创新与模仿的看法(2.1)

发布时间:2012-02-01 13:53:20 Tags:,,,

1)Zynga首席执行官Mark Pincus近日终于针对NimbleBit、Buffalo Studios指责其游戏内容涉嫌抄袭一事作出回应,并在媒体采访中表示许多游戏都是通过在其他作品的基础上进行创新而诞生,例如《Bingo Blitz》(游戏邦注:Buffalo Studios旗下的博彩游戏)就与早前的《Poker Blitz》极为相似,而《Tiny Tower》(NimbleBit开发的iPhone游戏)也难免与90年代初的《SimTower》等各种塔楼类游戏相近,《FarmVille》和《Farm Town》、《My Farm》、《开心农场》等游戏也有异曲同工之处。

Mark Pincus(from games.com)

Mark Pincus(from games.com)

Pincus称Zynga关注的是首次用户体验,即用户了解游戏内容之前需经历多少次点击操作,或者多少秒时间。他表示Zynga并不需要成为“首个进入市场”的公司,但立志成为市场上“最好”的公司。

2)Zynga设计师Brian Reynold日前也针对公司受到的抄袭指责表示,他并不认为游戏“模仿”现象是当前行业的一大问题,那些获得成功的游戏一般都是通过添加新元素进行创新的作品。

3)紧随Mark Pincus的回应,手机游戏开发商NimbleBit成员Ian Marsh立即通过Touch Arcade表示,他不能认同Mark Pincus将所有名称含有“Tower”一词的游戏划为彼此相互借鉴的同类游戏。

dream-heights-tiny-tower(from games.com)

dream-heights-tiny-tower(from games.com)

例如,《Tower Bloxx》与Mark Pincus所指称的《Sim Tower》就具有本质上的区别,前者是一款基于时间和分值的游戏,而后者则是真正的“模拟”类游戏,它采用的是宏观管理建筑物的游戏机制。但Zynga游戏《Dream Heights》不但玩法机制与游戏规则与《Tiny Tower》雷同,甚至连其中的一些细节也如出一辙(例如,游戏中也有5种不同的建筑类型、每套公寓容纳5个居民、VIP电梯扶手的功能、每个企业有3名员工并生产3个物品、游戏开始之初的新手教程步骤设置)。

4)据路透社报道,Facebook可能于本周三上午进行价值50亿美元的IPO,如果这一情况属实,那么这一IPO数据远低于外界原先的预期(游戏邦注:之前有传闻称Facebook将进行价值100亿美元的IPO,其公司估值达1000亿美元)。

facebook-actions(from venturebeat)

facebook-actions(from venturebeat)

5)Viximo和Superdata Research调查结果表明,非Facebook社交游戏市场仍有许多发展空间,以下是西班牙社交网站Tuenti的相关情况:

名称:Tuenti

国家:西班牙

成立时间:2006年

所属公司:Telefonica

特色:社交网站、游戏(休闲及社交)、视频内容

员工:200-500人

工作室:马德里、巴赛罗纳

会员制度:仅限受到邀请的用户

支持语言:西班牙语、加泰罗尼亚语(西班牙某地语言)、巴斯克语(通用于西班牙北部和法国南部)、加里西亚语(西班牙加利西亚自治区语言)、英语

年龄政策:面向13岁以上用户

用户规模:1200万

用户群体:学生/青年用户

游戏数量:20款社交游戏、60款休闲游戏

虚拟货币:Tuenti Créditos

前5名热门游戏:《Backyard Monsters》 (Viximo/Kixeye), 《Fitness City》(Pyro Studios/iZ), 《Texas a lo Grande》(Metrogames/Viximo),《Parchis》(Playspace), 《Millionaire City》(Plinga/Viximo)

开放政策:封闭性平台

开发商盈利分成:70%

支付选项:信用卡/借记卡、手机、PayPal、Paysafecard、赞助性服务

其他相关信息:其条幅广告极为有限(该网站主张提供简洁优化的用户体验),正逐渐引进视频广告。

6)日本社交游戏公司DeNA最近反诉竞争对手GREE(游戏邦注:GREE曾在2011年11月起诉DeNA禁止第三方社交游戏开发商在GREE运营项目,只能向Mobage平台发布游戏,这一情况导致GREE遭遇损失,并向DeNA索赔1300万美元),声称已诉诸法律行动,要求GREE首席执行官Yoshikazu Tanaka向DeNA致歉,因为其产生的消极评论给DeNA造成了恶劣影响,并要求GREE补偿其损失。

7)DeNA中国子公司上海纵游网络技术有限公司(通称:DeNA China)与百度达成合作,在百度智能移动终端软件平台——“百度•易”上开设“梦宝谷游戏专区”,将支持搭载百度•易平台的终端用户在第一时间接触到由DeNA引进的手机社交游戏。

应用分类

应用分类

用户通过智能手机主屏上配置的官方应用商店“易商店”,添加梦宝谷游戏中心的安卓游戏目录,只需两次轻点屏幕就能轻松体验高品质游戏。

8)在本周MAU增长最快的Facebook榜单中,Zynga寻物解谜游戏《Hidden Chronicles》(目前MAU为1760万)超越《Words With Friends》(目前MAU为1890万)成了榜单之首。

Top Gainers This Week(from AppData)

Top Gainers This Week(from AppData)

排名第三的是Wooga游戏《Diamond Dash》(MAU为1370万),第六和第七也分别是Zynga游戏《Empires & Allies》(MAU为1510万)和《Texas HoldEm Poker》(MAU为3160万)。(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)Zynga CEO: ‘Be careful not to throw stones when you live in glass towers’

by Joe Osborne

Those are Zynga CEO Mark Pincus’s words to those that accuse the FarmVille creator of copying its game ideas, namely Tiny Tower creator NimbleBit and Buffalo Studios, the team behind Bingo Blitz. In an interview with VentureBeat, the Zynga head went into great detail regarding the recent allegations made against the company over Dream Heights and Zynga Bingo, respectively.

Pincus suggested that those who believe that Zynga copied Buffalo Studio’s Bingo Blitz in making Zynga Bingo should look to the developers now-defunct Poker Blitz. “It was a little ironic to look at Bingo Blitz. Pull that lens back. Look at our game Poker Blitz, and then Bingo Blitz, you see striking similarities in those pictures,” Pincus told VentureBeat. The San Francisco-based Zynga chief even addressed allegations regarding the developer’s most iconic game, FarmVille.

“You can go back to FarmVille. Look at Farm Town and say, ‘Those pictures are troubling. They look too similar.’ But you pull the lens back again, and you see Farm Town next to My Farm, and next to Happy Farm, and next to YoVille,” Pincus said to VentureBeat. “What you see is a series of games innovating on top of each other. You see Farm Town had a very similar avatar to YoVille.”

Pincus said that, as far as innovation is concerned, Zynga focuses on first-time user experience: how many clicks or how many seconds it takes for the player to understand what a given game is all about. The company also claims to have pioneered with features such as mystery crates and its clever money-making techniques. “We don’t need to be first to market. We need to be the best to market,” Pincus wrote in a confidential memo to employees addressing NimbleBit’s cheeky accusations this month.

“You should be careful not to throw stones when you live in glass towers,” Pincus said to VentureBeat. “When you pull the lens back, you saw that their tower game looked similar to five other tower games going all the way back to SimTower in the early 1990s.” Check out the telling interview (and memo) in full right here.(source:games

2)FrontierVille creator Brian Reynolds: Copycatting hasn’t been a problem

by Joe Osborne

The issue of copycatting in social games has been put under the microscope this month, thanks to accusations thrown at Zynga for copying both NimbleBit’s Tiny Tower and Buffalo Studio’s Bingo Blitz. (Let’s not forget that 6waves Lolapps is looking at an infringement suit from Triple Town’s maker.) Who better to address the arguable plague of the social gaming world than Brian Reynolds, one the visionary designers behind the classic Civilization and, more importantly in this case, FrontierVille?

“So the thing is, in the course of the industry, it doesn’t feel like to me that it’s usually been a problem, that basically the people that add stuff and innovate and make the best games are usually the ones that succeed,” Reynolds told Gamasutra, referring to rampant copycatting in social games. “I can’t think of an obvious example where somebody made a worse game, and profoundly beat out somebody who made a better game. Can you think of an example?”

To which Gamasutra’s Kris Graft responded, “I’m sure once I quote you on that in the article, I’ll get a whole bunch of comments answering that question.” And judging from what’s visible on the website’s comment section of as this writing, Graft was about on the money. Does anyone else get the feeling that this is far, far from over?(source:games

3)Tiny Tower drama continues as NimbleBit responds to Zynga’s… response

by Brandy Shaul

And the war of words continues this week, as NimbleBit and Zynga’s battle over the similarities between the former’s Tiny Tower and the latter’s Dream Heights has set the industry ablaze with talks of what is and isn’t appropriate in the world of design inspirations.

After calling out the Big Z via illustrated letter last week, NimbleBit is now pointing a proverbial finger at Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, who today warned companies like NimbleBit against “throw[ing] stones when you live in glass towers.” NimbleBit’s Ian Marsh didn’t take too kindly to his statement, and has issued one of his own. While speaking to Touch Arcade, Marsh had this to say:

“It is a smart idea for Mark Pincus and Zynga to try and lump all games with the name Tower together as an actual genre whose games borrow from each other. Unfortunately sharing a name or setting does not a genre make. The games Pincus mentions couldn’t be more different. Sim Tower is a true “sim” with macroscopic management and fine tuning of a buildings facilities. Tower Bloxx is a timing based high score game.

If you take a quick look before “pulling the lens back” as Pincus suggests, you’ll find an innumerable number of details in the game that were painstakingly crafted to be identical to Tiny Tower. These are core gameplay mechanics and rules, not similar settings or themes that games in the same genre might share.

Why are there 5 different business types like Tiny Tower? Why do 5 people fit in an apartment instead of 4 or 6? Why are there VIP elevator riders that perform the same functions as Tiny Tower? Why do businesses employ exactly 3 workers and produce exactly 3 products that are stocked in exactly the same way as Tiny Tower. Even the tutorials at the beginning of the game follow the exact same steps.

All of these things are poorly hidden underneath an uninspired veneer which has become Zynga’s trademark.”

It doesn’t take examination under a microscope to see the similarities between Dream Heights and Tiny Tower, and it also doesn’t seem like either developer is going to back down anytime soon. If this ever becomes more than just a war of words, we’ll make sure to let you know.(source:games

4)Facebook said to be filing $5B IPO, Morgan Stanley selected to take lead

Sean Ludwig

Social network king Facebook will likely file its first papers with regulators on Wednesday morning for a $5 billion initial public offering, “sources close to the deal” have told Reuters subsidiary IFR.

We heard at the end of last week that the social network could file papers for its initial public offering as soon as Wednesday, so it’s not unexpected that more details are leaking like a well-worn faucet. The timing aligns with a recent report that suggested that Facebook would like to make its stock market debut in May. In order to comply with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s guidelines, Facebook would need to file its papers soon.

If IFR’s report holds true, the $5 billion IPO would be looked at as smaller than expected. Rumors had been swirling that Facebook would be putting up a $10 billion offering on a $100 billion valuation. IFR suggests that if Facebook sees higher demand (which it most certainly will), it could raise its offering to a higher amount.

Facebook has selected five bookrunners to help get its offering processing, and it has put Morgan Stanley in the lead-left role. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital, and JP Morgan will also help with the deal. The bank in the lead-left role typically earns a larger share of fees collected for handling an IPO.(source:venturebeat

5)Social Networks in Focus: Tuenti

By Sebastian Sujka

Facebook currently represents only about a third of worldwide traffic for social networks, according to a recent white paper released by social games and apps platform Viximo and Superdata Research. The non-Facebook category of social gaming will represent the bulk of worldwide revenue generated in the social gaming market, the study states.

Further, the study found that non-Facebook platforms in Western markets will be responsible for nearly one-quarter of worldwide social gaming revenue within the next three years and that

the majority of social gaming revenue is made on other platforms, beyond the borders of North America, where Facebook is the clear market leader.

These recent findings as well as strongly increasing user acquisition costs on Facebook are reason enough for us to examine international social networks that might offer opportunities to social game developers. In the second part of our weekly series we present the key facts on the biggest Spanish social network Tuenti.

•  Name: Tuenti

•  Country: Spain

•  Founded in: 2006

•  Owned by: Telefonica

•  Specifics: Social networking, Games (casual and social), Premium video content

•  Employees: 200-500

•  Offices in: Madrid and Barcelona, Spain

•  Membership: Invite only

•  Languages available: Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Galician, English

•  Age restrictions: 13+

•  Audience: 12 million

•  Audience demographics: Students/young people

•  How many games live: 20 social games, 60 casual games

•  Own virtual currency: Tuenti Créditos

• Top5 Games: Backyard Monsters (Viximo/Kixeye), Fitness City(Pyro Studios/iZ), Texas a lo Grande (Metrogames/Viximo), Parchis(Playspace), Millionaire City(Plinga/Viximo) -based on Tuenti rankings for social games

•  Open/closed for developer: Closed

•  Revenue share for developer: 70%

• Payment systems: Credit/debit cards, Mobile phone, Landline phone, PayPal, Paysafecard, Offers

• Other relevant info: Very little banner advertising (the site aims for a clean, curated experience); video ads have been introduced over time(source:socialgamesobserver

6)DeNA Takes Legal Action Against GREE [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

As expected, DeNA is striking back in the ongoing lawsuit with GREE: to recap, in November 2011 GREE sued their rival, seeking damages of US$13 million. In the lawsuit, GREE stated that DeNA has been pressuring third-party game developers in Japan into exclusively offering social games on Mobage (background).

Now DeNA, which said it thinks about suing back GREE in December, announced it is taking legal action against GREE. In the curt statement, the Mobage operator is asking GREE CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka to apologize for several publicly stated (negative) remarks about DeNA.

DeNA is also seeking compensation for the financial loss it saw through Tanaka’s comments and GREE’s actions.(source:serkantoto


上一篇:

下一篇: