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每日观察:关注Peak Games游戏DAU超越EA(6.13)

发布时间:2012-06-13 13:53:35 Tags:,,

1)据分析公司Cowen分析师Doug Creutz所称,Zynga游戏在5月份DAU下降8.2%,几乎所有拳头产品的用户都出现下滑趋势。这种现象表明,Zynga加快游戏发布的策略,以及不断流失用户的现象已经给该公司整个业务运营带来了消极影响。

Creutz指出,尽管Zynga正加紧开发手机游戏业务,但其最大的用户规模及交叉推广优势仅明显局限于Facebook平台。除了Zynga,EA和迪士尼游戏DAU也出现下滑,在5月份前20名热门Facebook游戏榜单中,仅有3款游戏DAU出现增长。

Zynga stock(from tommytoy.typepad.com)

Zynga stock(from tommytoy.typepad.com)

(游戏邦注:据venturebeat报道,在Creutz抛出这番言论之后,Zynga股票价格一度骤降13%,当天收盘时每股售价降至4.98美元,比前一天下降10.2%。)

2)据venturebeat报道,瞄准中东市场的土耳其社交游戏开发商Peak Games最近宣布其游戏DAU超越EA,成为DAU排名第三的社交游戏公司。该公司Facebook游戏目前DAU为970万,仅次于Zynga(5600万)和King.com(1200万)。

PEAK_GAMES_INFOG(from gamezebo)

PEAK_GAMES_INFOG(from gamezebo)

在过去一年半中,Peak Games游戏MAU累计达2900万。据该公司所称,Peak发展迅速的一大原因是土耳其约有半数人口是网络用户,其中有相当部分群体是Facebook用户,而Peak旗下的传统土耳其游戏《Okey》则虏获了近半数的本国Facebook用户;公司今年第一季度收益比去年同期增长10倍左右。

3)德国社交网站StudiVZ(最近刚裁员25名成员)日前宣布将重组业务,并更名为Poolworks,将业务重心转向公司旗下教育服务schülerVZ (游戏邦注:现更名为IDPool,锁定校园学生群体,该公司另一项服务是meinVZ),并将把后者打造为一个“基于兴趣的内容分享和技能发展平台”。

studivz(from gigaom)

studivz(from gigaom)

据该公司发言人所称,公司旗下所有网站目前独立用户仅为399万(而Facebook在德国用户近2400万)。

4)谷歌日前宣布Chrome Web Store添加新分类版块,向用户推荐支持离线运行的免费/付费网页应用及浏览器内容。目前获得推荐的多数谷歌产品(例如Scratchpad、Docs、Offline Gamil等),此外还包括Rovio和《纽约时报》等一些第三方开发商的应用。谷歌还宣布,该应用商店还将向土耳其、乌克兰、埃及、沙特阿拉伯、摩洛哥和阿联酋这6个市场开放服务。

开发者可向应用的清单文件添加offline_enabled而获得该版块的推荐,前提是其产品确实支持离线运行。

chrome_web_store_graph(from techcrunch)

chrome_web_store_graph(from techcrunch)

开发者可利用的另一项新功能是查看应用在Chrome Web Store的市场表现(例如应用被浏览次数和下载量),另外还添加了一个新图表以便开发者查看应用在过去90天的下载情况。

5)据英国广播公司Channel 4调查报道,儿童在线社区《哈宝》存在“极具性暗示、堕落、暴力和黄色信息的内容”,这明显不适合该平台瞄准的少儿用户群体。

habbo(from mynorthwest.com)

habbo(from mynorthwest.com)

于2000年上线的《哈宝》原名《哈宝旅馆》,开发商是Sulake工作室,目前注册用户超过2.68亿,每月独立访问用户为1000万。Channel 4报道指出,在记者50次分别访问该网站的过程中,记者常收到其他用户发送来的此类“不良”聊天内容。

该公司投资者Balderton Capital(持有Sulake公司13%的股份)发言人表示,他们将退回在Sulake的所有股份,因为这个消息让他们“十分震惊”,他们已在Sulake投资8年之久,但运行儿童网站的门槛非常之高,他们认为Sulake显然并没有达到这个标准。

Sulake回应称公司正全力避免《哈宝》系统被滥用的情况,并致力于保证用户网络安全,并将为遇到这种不良对话的用户提供快速回应的客服支持。

6)在本周MAU增长最快的Facebook游戏榜单中,Zynga游戏《Bubble Safari》位居首位,新增1060万MAU,增幅高达252%。

Peak Game游戏《Lost Bubble》位居第二,新增MAU达190万,增幅为56%。《Zynga Bingo》排名第三,新增150万MAU,增幅达18%;PlayQ游戏《Bubble Blitz》排名第四,新增MAU达90万,增幅为33%。King.com游戏《Candy Crush Saga》位居第五,增幅为8%。

Top gainers this week-MAU(from AppData)

Top gainers this week-MAU(from AppData)

除了《Bubble Safari》,还有两游戏款增幅也超过100%,它们分别是FreshPlanet作品《Song Pop》,新增66万MAU,增幅达275%。6wave游戏《Ravenshire Castle》,新增MAU为10万,增幅为111%。(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 suffered 8.2% drop in DAUs during May – analyst

by Mike Rose

Social games giant Zynga suffered a second consecutive significant drop in daily active users for its Facebook games during May, with nearly all of its major titles declining in user numbers.

According to Doug Creutz from analyst firm Cowen, Zynga’s DAUs declined by 8.2 percent in May month-over-month, leading Creutz to believe that Zynga’s strategy of accelerated game releases coupled with a churn of its existing user fanbase is having a negative impact on its overall business.

This is all despite the successful launch of Zynga’s latest Facebook title Bubble Safari, which added 5.7 million DAUs to the company’s tally in its first month.

In particular, Creutz says that more casual gamers are migrating from the churn of Zynga’s Facebook games to mobile games, which are more attractive given that the game quality is usually better than that of Facebook games, and that mobile games can be played at any time, anywhere.

“While Zynga is aggressively pursuing mobile game development, its biggest advantages of scale and cross-promotion remain largely confined to the Facebook platform,” notes Creutz.

However, he also says that it isn’t just Zynga who is being affected by the transition. Both EA and Disney also suffered notable month-over-month declines in DAUs, and only three of the titles in the top 20 games on Facebook grew in DAUs during May.(source:gamasutra

Zynga shares fell today as fears about the company’s user base prompted another sell-off. Zynga’s shares dropped as much as 13 percent. That triggered a short-sale circuit breaker, which halts trading in the stock until cooler heads prevail, for the first time.

In a research note, Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote that Zynga’s daily active users declined by 8.2 percent last month, the second month in a row for such a drop. Zynga’s stock closed today at $4.98 a share, down 10.2 percent from the previous day.

“Nearly all of the company’s major titles declined significantly,” he said.

Zynga’s shares have been as high as $15.91 a share on March 2, driven by speculation that the company might benefit from a relaxation of laws that restrict online gambling. Zynga has the world’s largest online poker game, Zynga Poker, but users can’t play for real-money winnings in that game. But Zynga suffered a big drop after Facebook’s IPO got a tepid reception on the stock market. Zynga is Facebook’s largest revenue generator.

The Nasdaq Stock Market halted Zynga trading at 9:59 am eastern time today, after Zynga’s stock fell. Zynga went public in December at $10 a share.

Zynga has been moving to reduce its dependence on Facebook, which accounts for more than 90 percent of Zynga’s revenues. Zynga has launched Zynga.com. Zynga is also spreading out internationally and moving into mobile games.(source:venturebeat

2) Peak Games grows to No. 3 social gaming firm by focusing on the Middle East

Dean Takahashi

Peak Games, a publisher that focuses on emerging markets for games such as the Middle East, says it has become the third-largest social game publisher on a worldwide basis.

On a daily basis, Peak Games has more users than Electronic Arts. That’s a big accomplishment and it shows how big the Middle East has become as a regional gaming market.

The Istanbul, Turkey-based company said it has 9.7 million daily active users worldwide on Facebook, compared with 56 million for Zynga and 12 million for King.com.

In the past year and a half, the company has accumulated 29 million monthly active users. But the numbers don’t show up in AppData, which keeps stats for Facebook games.

That’s because Peak’s numbers include 5.7 million daily active users for its own games on Facebook and nearly 4 million daily active users for its titles published by acquired companies and third parties, said Rina Onur, chief strategy officer, in an interview with GamesBeat.

One of the reasons that Peak has grown so fast is that half of the country’s population has internet access and a significant number of them use Facebook. Onur said that revenues for the first quarter of 2012 were up ten times compared to a year ago.

“Our focus is on delivering culturally relevant games to Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions,” Onur said. “We are positioning ourselves as a company to be a leader in the region and to grab as much of the game landscape as possible.”

Peak Games has also added new talent on board. Ali Kutay, an angel investor and former CEO of WebLogic, has joined the company’s board of directors.

“By tapping into the Turkey and MENA markets, Peak has seen substantial growth rivaling that of top global companies,” said Kutay. “The Peak team recognized a need for culturally relevant games in these regions and is delivering titles that fit local lifestyles.”

Robert Unsworth, formerly vice president of global sales and business development at Digital Chocolate, is also joining the company as director of business development.

Peak has grown on the strength of Okey, its first game and a title that is based on a traditional Turkish tile-based game. About 50 percent of the users in Turkey have played more than 3 billion hands of Okey. Peak recently launched Lost Bubble, an arcade shooter game for iOS. It picked up a million users in just two weeks.

“The Turkey and MENA regions hold huge potential with a burgeoning economy and an expanding, young population,” said Sidar Sahin, CEO of Peak Games.  “Peak Games understands the importance of tailoring games for people in emerging markets and is already continuing this approach across additional high-growth areas around the world.”

Peak Games has more than 170 employees and is funded by Earlybird Venture Capital and Hummingbird Ventures, and other angel investors.

Onur says that mobile has becoming an interesting market in the Middle East, which is home to about 350 million people.

“Monetization is improving fast,” Onur said. “We expect to grow by hiring talent, mergers and acquisitions, and international expansions in social and mobile.”

Peak Games has offices and game studios in Istanbul and Ankara in Turkey and in Amman, Damman, Abu Dhabi, Berlin and Barcelona.(source:venturebeat

3)StudiVZ’s answer to Facebook? Change names, go niche

By David Meyer

It was no secret that German social networking company VZ Networks was in trouble – just this month, the firm said it was laying off 25 developers, amid anecdotal evidence that suggests its flagship StudiVZ service is a ghost ship on the verge of sinking.

There’s no stopping Facebook these days, and it seems VZ Networks has got the message. This morning the company announced a major rebranding of both itself (it will now be known as Poolworks) and what is now its new focus: the company’s secondary education service, schülerVZ (now IDPool).

“We intend to expand our leading position in the market for social youth networks,” Poolworks CEO Stefanie Waehlert said. “For this, we will launch the new platform in the course of the fourth quarter.”

So what’s happening to the venerable StudiVZ — a Facebook clone targeted at college students — and the other service, meinVZ?

“All options are on the table,” a company spokesman told me on the phone. Sounds ominous, if completely understandable.

What StudiVZ is finally realizing is that there’s little need for most people to be on more than one general-interest social network. StudiVZ was supposed to be for students only, which was a huge limitation in itself (as was its German-centric focus), but it also didn’t add much to service its demographic in ways that Facebook could not.

SchülerVZ/IDPool, on the other hand, is for school-age kids, and Poolworks is talking about turning it into “an interest-based content platform for sharing and developing skills”. That’s something Facebook doesn’t do, and it’s telling to hear Markus Schunk, the head of Poolworks owner Holtzbrinck Ventures, saying IDPool “fits very well with our vertical approach”.

Left dangling

It’s hard to say how much of an impact the closure of StudiVZ and meinVZ, which apparently don’t fit with that vision, would have. Poolworks/VZ Networks claims on its site to have 16 million registered users, but the company’s spokesman told me today that the number of (presumably active) unique users across all its sites was only 3.99 million. Let’s be generous and call it four.

Facebook, meanwhile, has just under 24 million users in Germany.

Poolworks won’t break its total figure down to individual services. However, it’s a fair assumption that, if schülerVZ/IDPool is the only platform not to have the phrase “all options are on the table” hanging over it, it accounts for the bulk of the four million.

Personally, I don’t see that many options for the other two. Right now there’s no viable way to compete head-on with Facebook unless you totally clone it (hi there, VK) or have the muscle of Google behind you (greetings, Orkut and Google+, and even you are no sure thing).

It’s not a healthy situation for the social networking market to be in, but it’s where we are at.(source:gigaom

4)Google’s Chrome Web Store Adds Section For Offline Apps And More In-Depth Stats For Developers

Frederic Lardinois

Google just announced that it is adding a few interesting new features to its Chrome Web Store, its store for free and paid web-based apps and browser extensions for its popular Chrome browser. Most interestingly, Google is now adding a section with apps that work offline to its store. Among the apps currently highlighted in this section are some of Google’s own apps (Scratchpad, Docs, Offline Gmail etc.), as well as apps from prominent third-party developers like Angry Birds’ Rovio and the NYTimes. Google also announced that it is bringing the Chrome Web Store to six additional countries: Turkey, Ukraine, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.

Developers can get their apps featuring in this section by adding the offline_enabled flag to their app’s manifest file (Google notes, though, that developers should definitely ensure that their apps really work offline to avoid negative feedback).

Another new feature for developers is the ability to see more in-depth stats about how their apps are doing in the store. Specifically, Google is now giving developers data about how often their apps and extensions are being viewed in the store vs. how often they are being downloaded. This should help developers fine-tune their marketing messages and screenshots in the store.

In addition, Google is adding a new graph view so developers can quickly see how their apps are doing. This data is also available for download and goes back 90 days.(source:techcrunch

5)Habbo investors balk amid child safety concerns – report

by Mike Rose

Paul LaFontaine, CEO at Habbo studio Sulake, has been forced to defend the children’s gaming and chat website, after an investigation by UK broadcaster Channel 4 which has uncovered alleged lapses in moderation.

Habbo, previously known as Habbo Hotel, first launched in 2000 and touts itself as a hangout for teenagers. The service currently boasts over 268 million registered users in total and 10 million unique visitors every month.

Channel 4′s latest report on the social website says that on fifty separate occasions, the reporter was quickly met with chat that was “very sexual, perverse, violent [and] pornographic” in nature, and not suitable for the audience it is aimed at.

The report claims that on numerous occasions, the reporter was asked by other Habbo users for Skype or MSN contact details. John Carr, a child safety expert, noted, “If I was a parent of an 11-year old girl on this site, I would want there to be a moral panic. This should not be happening. What I’ve just seen makes me think this is a dangerous place for youngsters to be.”

As a result of the expose, a spokesperson for Balderton Capital, who owns a 13 percent stake in Sulake, told Kernel Magazine that it will be returning its stake at zero value.

“We were given some information a week ago that profoundly shocked us,” the statement read. “We had to ask ourselves whether we were comfortable being investors in a business where children were not being adequately protected.”

“We didn’t take this decision lightly, as we have been investors in Sulake for over 8 years, but the standards required to run a website that children have access to are very high. We felt the company was not meeting those standards.”

Sulake’s LaFontaine responded to the investigation, stating that Sulake works hard to prevent abuse of the system, and to keep users safe.

“Any online community that allows users to assume virtual identities may be open to abuses, which is why we work hard to keep users safe, filtering content and blocking inappropriate users,” he said. “We also provide education and rapid-response support to users who experience uncomfortable conversations.”

He continued, “Habbo’s moderation and safeguarding procedures includes employing more than 225 moderators, tracking some 70 million lines of conversation globally every day on a 24/7 basis. These moderators cover all time-zones and the multiple languages in which Habbo users converse.” (source:gamasutra

6) Bubble Safari hits top spot on this week’s fast-growing Facebook games by monthly active users

Mike Thompson

Zynga’s Bubble Safari was the big winner on this week’s list of fastest-growing Facebook games by monthly active users, taking the top spot with 10.6 million MAU and a 252 percent increase.

Peak Games’s Lost Bubble held the No. 2 spot with 1.9 million MAU, up 56 percent. Zynga Bingo snagged the No. 3 spot, up 1.5 million MAU for an 18 percent gain. PlayQ’s Bubble Blitz was No. 4 with 900,000 MAU for a 33 percent increase. Finally, King.com’s Candy Crush Saga took the No. 5 position with 700,000 MAU and an 8 percent swell.

Two games in addition to Bubble Safari had gains higher than 100 percent this week. FreshPlanet’s SongPop was up by 660,000 MAU, a 275 percent increase. 6waves’s Ravenshire Castle looks like it’s starting to pick up, gaining 100,000 MAU for a 111 percent growth.(source:insidesocialgames


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