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每日观察:关注Zynga或推《FarmVille 2》的传闻(4.17)

发布时间:2012-04-17 11:58:11 Tags:,,

1)据MCV报道,旧金山广告机构Isobar文案Alex Harvey手上的资料显示,他在2011年1月至2012年2月期间为客户Zynga制作了“FarmVille 2”项目提案。

farmville 2(from games)

farmville 2(from games)

不过Zynga并未确认是否将发布《FarmVille 2》的消息,最近也有传闻称Zynga将发布新游戏《Pirate Island》(或称《Rogues & Royals》)。

2)位于伦敦的社交及手机游戏公司Zattikka最近在伦敦证券交易所上市,其股票每股售价1.58美元,公司市值达3480万美元,将通过IPO筹资2000万美元。

该公司表示将利用这笔资金收购三家游戏工作室,其中包括足球管理游戏公司Hattrick Holding,休闲游戏工作室Sneaky Games,美术及设计工作室Concept Art House。Zattikka已向欧洲、美国和中国多个数字平台发布游戏,计划进行更多收购交易。

3)据techcrunch报道,有知情者透露社交及手机游戏开发商Funzio打算融资5000万美元,该公司融资前估值为3.5亿美元(游戏邦注:上市企业Glu Mobile目前市值约2.818亿美元,Gameloft则是4.776亿美元),但Funzio拒绝回应此事。

Funzio拥有一支精英团队,其首席执行官Ken Chiu之前曾向Zynga出售了一个初创企业,并在Zynga短暂担任该工作室总经理。他和Ani Dharni都有Storm8背景,这两者后来一起成立了Funzio,并从EA挖走了第三方发行业务高管Jami Moledina。

crime-city(from slidetoplay.com)

crime-city(from slidetoplay.com)

Funzio旗下社交游戏《Crime City》在Facebook最高峰时的MAU为730万(目前为160万MAU),在今年初有两款iOS游戏跻身美国营收榜单前50名。

4)由The Method根据电视剧《豪斯医生》(House)而改制的社交游戏《House M.D. – Critical Cases》日前在Facebook上线。

House MD(from insidesocialgames)

House MD(from insidesocialgames)

该游戏与育碧之前发布的另一款电视剧题材社交游戏《CSI:Crime City》在风格上拥有许多相似之处;后者由独立工作室Area/Code(即后来的Zynga纽约工作室),在Facebook平台最高峰时的MAU为230万,DAU为42万,但后来降至160万MAU和12万DAU。

观察者认为,《House M.D. – Critical Cases》的发展将更为坎坷,因为《豪斯医生》虽然仍是热门电视剧,但现在已经播到了最后一季,它在过去几年的收视率已经开始下降,5月21日的大结局之后,该游戏将无法再得到电视剧的跨媒体推广支持。

5)TBG Digital最新报告指出,Facebook广告CPM(每千人印象成本)在过去一年中增长41%,Facebook广告商将面临以更高的成本换取更低广告效能的处境。

facebook-ad-header(from fultiltblogging)

facebook-ad-header(from fultiltblogging)

TBG Digital在2011年第1季度至2012年第1季度分析其235家客户的3720亿次广告印象并发现,这些广告商的CPM平均增长15%,CPC(每点击成本)价格在上一季度就增长23%。

与此同时,这些广告今年第一季度在在美国用户中平均CTR(点击率)下降了8%。而新领域的广告商点击率在2011年第4季度至2012年第1季度间却飙升了196%,

从总体上看,广告商获取Facebook粉丝的成本超过以往,平均每名粉丝的获得成本(即“赞”一下Facebook Page的用户)在今年第一季度增长43%。

尽管广告成本上升,广告效能不甚明朗,但零售商仍热衷于投放Facebook广告,零售商投放的广告在第一季度的Facebook广告印象中占比高达23%。(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)Is Zynga working on FarmVille 2?

By Jim Squires

While they’ve been king of the Facebook hill for quite some time now, Zynga hasn’t forgotten where their success started. The social farming simulator that could, FarmVille topped more than 80 million monthly active users as its peak, and has seen countless expansions and tie-ins ever since. It should come as little shock, then, that the big Z are looking to repeat their success with FarmVille 2 – at least if the rumors are to be believed.

News broke this morning when MCV reported on the discovery of a resume for one Alex Harvey. Alex is a copywriter that had worked with Isobar, a communications firm that counts Zynga as one

of their many clients. Mr. Harvey claimed that he was involved in a successful pitch for FarmVille 2, and considering the work history on his CV, it would have been sometime between January 2011 and February 2012.

As you can probably guess, any mention of this has since been removed from Harvey’s curriculum vitae.

My gut reaction is that Harvey may not have understood that an expansion like ‘Lighthouse Cove’ or ‘English Countryside’ isn’t the same thing as a sequel. But then the speculative part of my brain kicked in, and the more I thought about it, the more a proper sequel to FarmVille made a lot of sense.

At one time FarmVille hit nearly 84 million monthly active users. Today that number has dropped to 26 million. It’s still the kind of number that other developers dream about (even Angry Birds on Facebok only has 22.7 million MAU), but its miles from where it once was. Maybe a full on reboot is just what the franchise needs – FarmVille for today’s Facebook gamers. The social scene has changed a lot since FarmVille’s 2009 debut, and a new game that takes that new landscape into consideration could do huge numbers.

It’s also not like Zynga’s averse to doing sequels. Mafia Wars 2 rethought their social mob formula to meet 2011’s demands – so why not do the same with FarmVille in 2012?

Of course this is just one in an endless series of rumors about what Zynga might be working on behind closed doors, and like all rumors, should be taken with a grain of salt. Lately we’ve been hearing everything from rumors of a new cooking game to talk of high seas adventure in a new game called either Pirate Island or Rogues & Royals – but as of yet, none of these games have actually materialized. Still, that said, Zynga’s a big enough company to easily be working on all of these games in secret, and maybe a dozen more.

Whether the rumor proves true or not, FarmVille 2 would make a lot of sense. Then again, so would localizing Montopia. Come on, Zynga – forget the farms for a minute and give me my pocket monsters!!(source:gamezebo

2)Social mobile game maker Zattikka goes public on London Stock Exchange

Dean Takahashi

Zattikka, a London-based maker of browser and mobile games, has gone public on the London Stock Exchange.

The company is a social game developer that is making a Monty Python game in collaboration with the Ministry of Silly Games. Zattikka listed with a price of $1.58 a share and a market capitalization of $34.8 million. It is trading under the ticker code ZATT. Proceeds from the public offering will be $20 million.

The company said it is acquiring three game studios with the money. The deals include the acquisition of soccer management game specialist Hattrick Holdings, casual gaming studio Sneaky Games, and art and design house Concept Art House. Zattikka now plans to expand its publishing operations and offer a wider range of games on digital platforms in Europe, the U.S. and China. It also plans more acquisitions.

Mark Opzoomer, CEO of Zattikka, told Gamasutra, “We are delighted to list on AIM to provide the capital base and incentivise the entrepreneurs joining our group.”

He added, “We begin with a strong group of companies with operations in key gaming centres in the USA, China and Europe, a mix of revenues across subscriptions, virtual goods and work for hire with an exceptional team of talent. We have a great opportunity before us to accelerate the growth of this initial group across multi-platforms to create a world class games entertainment group.”

Zattikka previously raised $5.5 million in a venture capital funding in 2010. Notion Capital led that round and it was joined by individual angels including Harald Ludwig, co-chair of Lionsgate Entertainment. The company was founded in 2009 by Opzoomer and Tim Chaney, two former Virgin Games executives.(source:venturebeat

3)Mobile Gaming Startup Funzio Is Raising $50M At A $350M Valuation

Kim-Mai Cutler

In what will be a bellwether for the mobile gaming industry after Zynga’s deal to buy OMGPOP, Funzio is looking to raise $50 million at a $350 million pre-money valuation, according to sources familiar with the talks. The company declined to comment.

Funzio is the maker of Crime City and Modern War, both graphical RPGs that have held top ranks on the grossing charts on iOS. Their vision is to offer true cross-platform games that work across the web and mobile devices.

So here are pluses: Funzio has a hungry and experienced team. The company’s chief executive Ken Chiu previously sold a startup to Zynga and served as a general manager there for a little under a year. Both he and Anil Dharni were behind Storm8, another mobile gaming company with several top-grossing Android games under its belt, before they split with the other co-founders and started Funzio. The company’s roadmap and traction were compelling enough that they were able to poach Jamil Moledina, an executive who spearheaded third-party publishing efforts for Electronic Arts.

Funzio has a proven ability to launch games on Facebook and mobile platforms. At its peak, Crime City had 7.3 million monthly active users on Facebook, according to AppData. (It now has 1.6 million monthly active users.) The company’s two iOS games have managed to keep grossing rankings in the Top 50 in the U.S. since the beginning of the year. (See the charts below from rankings tracker App Annie.)

A $400 million post-money valuation is not unreasonable when benchmarked against publicly-traded mobile gaming companies. This isn’t a perfect comparison since every gaming company has a slightly different model and target market, but Glu Mobile, a publicly-traded company that has some decently ranked titles but is also saddled with a declining featurephone business, has a market capitalization of $281.8 million. Gameloft, a French mobile gaming company with a similar target demographic as Funzio, has a market capitalization of 365.5 million euros ($477.6 million).(source:techcrunch

4)Ubisoft’s House M.D. now live on Facebook

Mike Thompson

Facebook users can now hang out with Dr. Gregory House thanks to Ubisoft’s newest social title, House M.D. – Critical Cases.

Developed by The Method, House M.D. – Critical Cases is based on the popular medical drama House. Players are cast as a new member of House’s diagnostician team, alongside doctors Foreman, Taub and Thirteen. The game is divided into episodic cases with characters and plots reminiscent of the source TV show, complete with references to storylines from earlier seasons.

The core gameplay consists moving around a cartoony Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, spending energy to play minigames in order to prove or disprove medical theories about the current case. Provided the minigame is completed successfully, players are rewarded with clues that further the story.

Aside from the main cases, the game also provides optional side quests to play through. Players can treat patients waiting in the clinic area, which requires users to complete more minigames with the chance to earn rewards of virtual goods. Leveling up populates the hospital with new characters wandering the halls and new areas to explore and utilize in future cases.

House M.D. – Critical Cases has a lot in common with CSI: Crime City, another Ubisoft game based on a popular investigative TV series. That game was developed by independent studio Area/Code, which has since become Zynga New York.  CSI: Crime Scene Investigation was just renewed for its 13th season and its ratings have consistently placed it among the top 20 TV shows on the air. While CSI: Crime City isn’t exactly a monster hit by Facebook standards, the 2010 game is still around, thanks in part to receiving on-air cross promotion — including a week where the TV episode’s case tied directly into the game.  At its peak, CSI: Crime City had 2.3 million MAU and 420,000 DAU, though it’s since dropped to 1.6 million MAU and 120,000 DAU.

By comparison, House M.D. – Critical Cases will likely have a much more difficult time attracting and retaining users on Facebook. House is still a popular TV show, but it’s also in its final season and its ratings have dwindled over the past few years. That means it’s not likely to receive much (if any) on-air support before the show’s May 21 series finale, which will leave the game with the challenge of representing a brand that’s no longer active.(source:insidesocialgames

5)Facebook’s ad business booming as advertisers clamor to pay more for less

Jennifer Van Grove

Here’s some news Wall Street is sure to “like.” Facebook’s major money-maker is looking sexier than ever to advertisers despite higher costs and drop-offs in performance, according to newly published research.

The social network’s advertising business, which contributed $3.1 billion to the social network’s bottom line last year, is booming. Facebook’s CPM (cost per thousand impressions) rate has ballooned by 41 percent in the past year, according to a report from social agency TBG Digital.

TBG Digital, which analyzed 372 billion impressions for 235 of its clients between the first quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, found that the average CPM has increased by 15 percent. Cost per click (CPC) prices have leapt 23 percent in the last quarter alone, meaning that the value of Facebook’s ad units are rising with each passing quarter as demand outweighs supply.

For advertisers choosing to fork over more for their social initiatives, the measured success of their Facebook ad buys was a mixed bag in the last quarter. The average click-through rate (CTR), or the rate at which users actually click on ads, dropped by 8 percent in the first quarter of this year for U.S.-based Facebook users. Advertisers in the news category, however, showed massive gains in the click-through department. In fact, the CTR skyrocketed by 196 percent between the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012 for those in the news sector.

On the whole, advertisers are finding it far costlier to recruit a Facebook fan, TBG Digital found. The average cost per fan, or the amount an advertiser spends to get a “like” for their Facebook Page, rose by 43 percent in the first quarter of this year. “This is no great surprise with increased ad costs, reducing click through-rates, and an increase in competition,” TPG concluded. “Brands will have to work harder to be heard.”

Ultimately, regardless of the higher costs and questionable performance, retailers are still quite keen on Facebook advertising right now. Advertisements from retailers accounted for 23 percent of all ad impressions during the first quarter, making the retail category, which added roughly 10 percent share in one quarter, the most served ad type on the popular platform.

What do all these statistics mean? Facebook ads are commanding high premiums and demand is at an all-time high, even as units are delivering less engagement. Perhaps the latter troubling fact will catch up to Facebook in the long-term. But for now, the social network is sitting pretty as it prepares to go public.(source:venturebeat


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