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每日观察:关注美国妈妈用户的游戏习惯(5.8)

1)EA高管Peter Moore在最近的分析师电话会议中表示,公司计划于第一财季末(截止6月30日)发布一款“重磅社交游戏”,但没有透露具体项目名称;有人猜测这或许就是传说中的Facebook版《模拟城市》。

simcity(from venturebeat)

simcity(from venturebeat)

EA旗下社交游戏《模拟人生社交版》去年问世后迅速发展为仅次于《CityVille》的第二大Facebook游戏。

2)据gamezebo报道,Zynga上周起诉法国开发商Kobojo,声称后者社交游戏《PyramidVille》所带的“Ville”后缀是“有意侵犯Zynga商标权”的行为,其做法可能会误让用户以为该游戏也是Zynga产品,但Kobojo拒绝了Zynga提出的更名要求。

pyramidville(from blog.games.com)

pyramidville(from blog.games.com)

值得注意的是,Kobojo并非一家小型独立开发商,它在巴黎、柏林和马德里都设有工作室,其董事长是前EA国际发行副总裁Gerhard Florin。《PyramidVille》不但名称与Zynga产品相仿,连玩法和美术风格都颇为相似。

观察者认为,除非Kobojo直接盗用了Ville游戏代码,不然Zynga就很难以对方使用了Ville后缀,并采用相似的卡通风格和城建机制而胜诉,否则《模拟城市》设计师Will Wright也有充分理由指责Zynga山寨了自己的作品。

3)据venturebeat报道,Zynga最近承认旧款社交游戏《YoVille》在4月份曾遭遇黑客攻击,但仅有1000名以下用户受到影响,Zynga已经解决了这一网络安全问题。

yoville(from venturebeat)

yoville(from venturebeat)

该公司首席安全官Nils Puhlmann在采访中表示,当时有一伙自称为The Best YoVille Hackers的游戏玩家入侵其他用户帐户30分钟左右,并删除了这些用户在游戏中的库存内容。这款游戏发布于2008年,目前DAU约23万,MAU为150万。

Puhlmann称虽然该游戏的基础架构遭到攻击,但它并不与用户身份和信用卡帐号等更为敏感的安全系统相挂钩,目前这种情况也没有波及其他Zynga游戏。

4)Capcom日前发布的2011年财报(从2011年4月1日至2012年3月31日)显示,公司手机内容(包括社交及非社交内容)在2010财年(截止2011年3月31日)净销售额为402.8亿日元,营业收入为136.6亿日元,营业利润率为33.9%;在2011财年(截止2012年3月31日)净销售额则是630.8亿日元;营业收入为238.5亿日元,营业利润率为37.8%。

social-games-capcom-fy2011(from Serkantoto)

social-games-capcom-fy2011(from Serkantoto)

5)据serkantoto报道,日本政府部门尚未正式宣布规范社交游戏中利润极高的gacha机制,该行业上市公司的股市行情就已经开始应声而跌。

japan-social-games-regulation-gree-dena-mobage(from serkantoto)

japan-social-games-regulation-gree-dena-mobage(from serkantoto)

近日股市下跌最严重的8家公司均是日本社交游戏行业前11强企业,Drecom在一天内的市值蒸发将近四分之一,紧随其后的则是GREE。

japan-social-games-regulation-gree-dena-mobage(from serkantoto)

japan-social-games-regulation-gree-dena-mobage(from serkantoto)

日本游戏资讯博客Inside Games指出,有12家运营社交游戏项目的日本公司在一天内流失的市值合计达38亿美元。

GREE及Mobage平台运营者DeNA合并流失市值达25亿美元,这二者将在近两日公布最新财报结果值得期待。

6)《超级食肉男孩》开发者Edmund McMillen最近表示,他认为当前大量手机及社交游戏所操纵的微交易模式是不尊重玩家的行为,也是对真正游戏设计的不敬。

super meat boy ios(from theverge.com)

super meat boy ios(from theverge.com)

据其所言,这些公司所采取的行为好比是套用一个基本的电子游戏外壳,然后在玩家面前悬挂一个诱饵驱使其付费,玩家得到了这个诱饵后就再抛出另一个诱饵,不断促使玩家掏钱消费。

他声称自己的开发团队即将推出的手机版《超级食肉男孩》不但不会操纵玩家的消费行为,还将让他们见识什么是真正的挑战和满足感。

7)由GameHouse委托Harris Interactive执行的最近调查结果发现,68%的上班族母亲会抽空玩电子游戏,而家庭主妇中的这一比例仅为30%。

妈妈用户平均每周至少玩四至6次游戏,以便暂时从繁忙的生活中获得解脱。

45%以上的妈妈认为体验有趣、休闲的电子游戏可以让她们感到开心并变得更灵活;Facebook游戏在美国南部的妈妈群体中最有人气,玩Facebook游戏的妈妈比在手机、平板电脑上玩游戏的妈妈多两倍。

60%的妈妈表示自己是在孩子上床后,或者晚上8点后玩游戏,45%的游戏妈妈拥有13-17岁的子女。

但玩游戏并不会让这些妈妈放弃其他活动,有80%以上的妈妈声称她们常在网上或下线时间与好友联系。

mom gamer infographic(from GameHouse)

mom gamer infographic(from GameHouse)

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)EA planning to release a big social game this quarter

Dean Takahashi

Electronic Arts’ No. 2 executive Peter Moore said that the company plans to release another “big social title” during the current first-fiscal quarter ending June 30.

In a conference call with analysts, Moore said that EA will release the game this quarter, but he declined to name it. Rumors have persistently circulated that EA is working on a Facebook version of SimCity. That title could stir excitement for SimCity (pictured right), which is coming out on the PC later this year as a full-fledged disk-based game.

EA’s last big social title, The Sims Social, soared to tens of millions of users on Facebook last year and temporarily took the No. 2 rank on the social network, second only to Zynga’s CityVille.

The social title is part of EA’s push into digital gaming, which accounted for $1.2 billion of EA’s $4.1 billion in revenues during the past year.

Social is not yet a huge contributor to EA’s bottom line, but it is strategically important because of EA’s competition with Zynga. In terms of contributing to net income, EA chief executive John Riccitiello said on the call that “social is moving to a good place.”(source:venturebeat

2)Kobojo’s PyramidVille forces Zynga to visit LawyerVille

By Nadia Oxford

You’ve visited FarmVille, and you’ve built a thing or two in CityVille. Think you might want to strip down to your loincloth and visit PyramidVille? Whoa, a word of warning. If you play

PyramidVille on Facebook or mobile, you are exiting Zynga’s territory and entering a digital country that’s actually owned by French studio Kobojo. If you’re confused, that’s understandable: PyramidVille looks quite a bit like Zynga’s handiwork, to say nothing of its name, which is why Zynga is taking Kobojo to court.

Zynga sued Kobojo last week for “willful trademark infringement” and accused the Paris-based company of exploiting Zynga’s “hard-earned reputation in the social gaming space” by tacking “Ville” onto the end of PyramidVille. Kobojo’s game, according to Zynga, may cause confusion, and Kobojo has reportedly resisted pressure to change its game’s moniker.

Zynga is suing to force Kobojo to stop using the name PyramidVille, and it’s also suing for damages “including without limitation three times the amount of any and all profits realized” by Kobojo for utilizing the “Ville” extension.

That’s a lot of drama over some pointy triangles!

Then again, none of this is surprising. Kobojo surely knew what it was doing: it’s not a small indie dev that just got into the game. It has offices in Paris, Berlin, and Madrid. The company’s chairman is Gerhard Florin, who was EA’s vice president of international publishing before he signed up with Kobojo. And PyramidVille doesn’t just sound like a Zynga game; it looks and plays like one, too. The title is obviously meant to lure players into thinking they’re playing another Zynga game.

On the other hand, unless Kobojo is directly lifting code from the established “Ville” games, can Zynga make a legal claim to the “Ville” suffix, cartoony visuals, and city-building mechanics? If so, Sim City’s Will Wright wants a word with you, Zynga.(source:gamezebo

3)Hackers disrupt the gameplay of Zynga’s YoVille social game

Dean Takahashi

Hackers broke into one of Zynga’s older social games, YoVille, and they were able to disrupt the gameplay for a group of fewer than 1,000 players. The social-game company acknowledged the security problem but said it had addressed it.

While the damage is contained, the idea of a security flaw in a Zynga game is scary, since all of them are digital, and protecting them is essential to the company’s livelihood. Nils Puhlmann, chief security officer at Zynga, said in an interview that sensitive information about players was not compromised.

“Credit card numbers are not an issue here,” said Puhlmann. “It is more a case of YoVille players disrupting other YoVille players.”

The incidents occurred over the course of a couple of weeks during the course of April, and Zynga essentially had the problem solved after that, Puhlmann said. In the incidents, some players were able to break into the in-game accounts of other players and deplete their inventory of belongings in the game in a matter of 30 minutes or so, according to one of the players affected.

YoVille has about 230,000 daily active users, or 1.5 million monthly active users. The game was originally posted in 2008 and once had millions more players.

“We detected unusual activity in YoVille, and it coincided with reports from a small number of users,” Puhlmann said. “We analyzed the reports. We found that a small number of vulnerabilities that contributed to the unusual activity. The game team patched these vulnerabilities immediately.”

Zynga had to go through a couple of rounds of iteration before it was able to close off the exploits that players used to attack other players. This naturally caused a lot of consternation inside the game, where players complained about the attacks in forums and felt like Zynga wasn’t doing anything. For a time, players were angry because Zynga had not solved the problem. A group that allegedly took credit for the hacks went by the name The Best YoVille Hackers.

“[Zynga] support often doesn’t help them and give them their stolen items back,” said one player who contacted VentureBeat. “This is a major problem in the gaming world.”

Puhlmann said the infrastructure that was vulnerable and exploited was separate from the security systems that protect more sensitive information such as player identity or credit card information. Puhlmann said the company has investigated the thefts of digital goods and restored them to everybody who lost something at this point. At least that is the case where losses have been verified, Zynga said.

Puhlmann said the malicious activity was limited to YoVille and did not extended to other games. During the process of patching, the game was not taken down. During the course of the investigation, some players were banned, Puhlmann said.

In a statement, Steve Lurie, general manager for YoVille, said, “First and foremost, we want to thank our YoVille players and ensure they have the best experience possible. Since we first identified abnormal activity a few weeks ago, securing YoVille and restoring the games of the affected players have been our top priorities. We quickly searched for and identified the vulnerabilities we believe attackers used to harass our players and patched them immediately. Fortunately, no sensitive player information was at risk, and our assessments indicate that fewer than 1,000 YoVille players were impacted. We will remain vigilant in our ongoing security efforts.”(source:venturebeat

4)Capcom’s Financial Report: Social And Online Games Seem To Be Their Future [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Capcom issued their financial report for fiscal 2011 yesterday, and the company is making it clear it sees its future in two areas: online and social games. I have heard that before.

All IR material can be downloaded in English from here.

Things aren’t looking too rosy overall:

Here are the key parts of the report with regard to social/mobile games.

Capcom says that they ”aim for a total of 45 million overseas social game downloads by fiscal year end”:

For that, they use their own brand for social games using Capcom characters (targeting core users) and the Beeline brand for third-party IP (targeting light users):

At some point in the annual report, Capcom president Tsujimoto says his company is the only Japanese maker that can boast a hit mobile social game, Smurf’s Village for iOS, published using the Beeline brand. And he is absolutely right.

In Japan, Capcom is publishing mobile social games on both GREE and Mobage (see here).

This is how Capcom has done in the mobile content business (social and non-social content combined)(source:serkantoto

5)Overview: Social Game Makers Lose US$3.8 Billion In Market Cap Today Due To Impending Regulation [Social Games]

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Japan’s National Consumer Affairs Agency hasn’t even officially confirmed plans to regulate the lucrative gacha mechanism in social games, but listed companies in this industry in particular are already suffering.

The list of the biggest losers at the Tokyo Stock Exchange today reads like a who’s who of Japan’s social gaming world.

A total of 8 of the biggest losers among the top 11 today are part of the social gaming industry. Drecom lost almost a quarter of its market cap in a single day, with GREE close behind:(graph via Twitter user @dfnt)

Japanese games news blog Inside Games points out that a total of 12 Japanese companies that operate in the social gaming industry (to a certain extent, at least) lost a combined US$3.8 billion in market cap today.

GREE and Mobage operator DeNA alone lost US$2.5 billion (combined). Their stock prices and those of Crooz, CyberAgent and Axel Mark hit the limit-down mark today.

Inside Games’ list:

What’s interesting is that GREE will issue their financial report tomorrow, DeNA the day after tomorrow: these reports should better contain some very, very good news for their shareholders.(source:serkantoto

6)Manipulative game monetization shows gamers no respect, says Super Meat Boy dev

by Mike Rose

A large number of mobile and social gaming companies treat their customers with a complete lack of respect, with business tactics that are “a slap in the face to actual game design,” says Super Meat Boy developer Edmund McMillen.

As part of a blog post discussing the upcoming mobile version of Super Meat Boy, co-creator McMillen discussed what he believes to be wrong with a large portion of mobile games at the moment, and how he plans to show respect to mobile players with his upcoming release.

“There is a whole shit load of wrong out there these days, from abusive and manipulative money making tactics, to flat out stealing,” he says on the Super Meat Boy blog.

“To us the core of what is wrong with the mobile platform is the lack of respect for players; It really seems like a large number of these companies out there view their audience as dumb cattle who they round up, milk and then send them on their way feeling empty or at times violated.”

He continues, “There is an ongoing theme these days to use a very basic video game shell and hang a ‘power up carrot’ in front of the player. The player sees this carrot, and wants it! All the player needs to do is a few very rudimentary repetitious actions to attain it, and once they get to it, another drops down and asks them to do more.”

“But then the catch… instead of achieving these ‘goals’ by running on the treadmill, you can instead just pay a single dollar and you instantly get to your goal! Better yet pay $10 and unlock all your goals without even having to ever play the game!”

This approach, says McMillen, is one that Team Meat is looking to stay well clear of with the mobile Super Meat Boy, “not only by not manipulating [players], but also by understanding they want a real challenge and they want a real sense of fulfillment.”

“Words cannot express how fucking wrong and horrible this is, for games, for gamers and for the platform as a whole,” he continues. “This business tactic is a slap in the face to actual game design and embodies everything that is wrong with the mobile/casual video game scene.” (source:gamasutra

7)Why and how moms are major Facebook game fans [Infographic]

by Matt Hulett

Moms. Throughout history mothers seem to never get enough credit, yet as eloquently said by President Theodore Roosevelt, “for upon her time and strength demands are made not only every hour of the day, but often every hour of the night.”

President Roosevelt made that statement in a speech in 1905 but more than a century later, any comment can put “mommy wars” in the news as evidenced by the firestorm that democratic strategist Hilary Rosen created when she commented that Ann Romney “has never worked a day in her life.”

So, as the political season heats up and presidential candidates fight for womens’ votes, we found that moms – working and stay and home – frequently escape into the world of online games. A recent study with Harris Interactive found that 68% of moms who worked found time to play video games, compared to only 30 percent of homemakers. And for GameHouse, we could care less if they are working or stay-at-home moms–we’re just happy busy moms have an escape. The survey also found that moms are playing games at least four to six times per week to escape from life’s never-ending demands. It might seem nominal to hardcore gamers who spend countless hours on their Xbox 360, but moms seem to get plenty of satisfaction from a brief getaway on a computer screen playing social games like Collapse! Blast and Bayou Blast.

In fact, the study found that more than 45 percent of moms say that playing fun, casual video games make them happier and feel smarter. And Facebook games seem to be the favorite among women with children, especially in the Southern parts of the U.S. Twice as many moms play Facebook games than games on their mobile phone or tablet, the study reported.

So when do these busy moms find the time to login and play social games? Of those surveyed, about 60 percent of moms said they played games after the kids were tucked into bed or after 8 p.m. Nearly half (45 percent) of these moms had children between the ages of 13-17.

And don’t be quick to think these moms are giving up any other activities like working out, meeting with friends or having sex. More than 80 percent of moms indicated that they socialize with friends online and offline, the study claimed. And the passion for playing games seems to spark some passion in the bedroom. About 61 percent of moms who play games reported that they have sex at least one time per week–more than moms who don’t play video games.(source:games


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