1）据games.com报道，EA日前通过Playfish论坛宣布将于8月17日关闭社交游戏《Monopoly Millionaires》。这款大富翁社交游戏上线一年多，目前MAU为38万左右。该游戏玩家将无法把游戏中的付费货币用于其他游戏，但EA为这些玩家提供了1万个虚拟货币，鼓励他们将这些货币用于公司另一款社交游戏《Lucky Gem Casino》（由PopCap开发）。

monopoly-millionaires-on-facebook(from games)

2）社交游戏开发商Kixeye首席执行官Will Harbin在最近的GamesBeat大会上表示，公司即将推出手机版《Backyard Monsters》，但这只是Kixeye试水手机游戏市场的一个举措，因为手机屏幕尺寸较小，开发者一般难以针对这种设备创造真正具有沉浸性的游戏体验，但他也表示Kixeye看好手机游戏领域的发展前景。

Backyard Monsters(from games)

Harbin还透露公司将于10月份向Facebook发布一款3D角色扮演游戏，并将于下个月推出自己的游戏平台。据其所称，Kixeye推出游戏平台并不意味着他们将摆脱Facebook，而是为了服务不想登录Facebook玩游戏的用户。

3）据games.com报道，Zynga日前宣布与国际野生生物保护学会（Wildlife Conservation Society ，即WCS）合作，将在《Bubble Safari》中通过出售特殊道具包，为玩家提供向野生动物保护活动捐款的机会。

bubble safari(from games)

这些道具包即将在该游戏中发售，但目前暂无法得知其具体内容。Zynga承诺将把100%的销售额直接捐献给WCS。

4）据美国顾客满意度指数模型（American Customer Satisfaction Index ，即ACSI）数据显示，Google+在今年美国用户中的满意度指数为78%，而Facebook的这一指数却仅为66%。

google-facebook(from venturebeat)

ACSI指出“Facebook刷新了社交媒体类型的用户满意度指数的低分纪录”，并且是ACSI评估的230多家公司中的五大最低得分企业之一。

social-networks-customer-satisfaction(from ACSI)

观察者认为Google+满意度高于Facebook的原因可能在于，Google+活跃用户仅1.5亿，相对Facebook庞大的用户规模，Google+更易取悦小规模用户群体。另一个因素就是，Google+目前尚未通过用户盈利，而Facebook最近却将每页广告增加到10个左右，此举可能引起用户不快。

还有一个原因可能是，Google+用户多为技术领域的人员，他们可较能适应Google+的功能更新或调整，而Facebook功能或政策的任何调整总是引起用户不满（游戏邦注：ACSI指出Facebook用户最不满的是用户界面的调整，例如最近引进的Timeline功能）。若Google+也向父母、祖父母等更广泛群体普及之后，其用户满意度也将有所下降。

5）据socialtimes报道，AppsBlogger博客主Jeanne Pi曾于上月指出，40%的Kickstarter大众融资项目无果而终，最近Pi又补充表示，来自宾夕法尼亚大学的Ethan Molick教授等人指出其数据分析有误。因此Pi又与Molick合作深入调查统计了Kickstarter融资项目的成功率，主要结果如下：

*25%项目融资额未超过其设定目标的3%，50%成功达标项目的融资额也仅超过设定目标的10%。

*仅有3%失败项目最终融资额实现一半目标，10%失败项目实现30%的目标融资额，其余失败项目融资额不足设定目标的30%。

*仅有25%达标项目最终能够准时推出产品。75%项目延迟了8个月才问世，大型项目更可能延期完工。

*硬件、软件、游戏、产品设计这四个领域的大型成功融资项目所筹资金超过其设定目标的10倍。

*融资数额越大，成功率就越低。融资目标为1万美元的项目成功率为38%，目标为5万美元的成功率为18%，目标为10万美元的成功率为7%。

*对于融资1万美元的一般项目来说，如果获得Kickstarter推荐则可能实现89%的成功率，而未获得该网站推荐的项目成功率仅为30%。

Kickstarter-Stats-Infographic(from AppsBlogger.com)

（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）Monopoly Millionaires goes bankrupt, has its last roll of the dice on August 17

by Brandy Shaul

While Playfish might have had the best of intentions with its release of Monopoly Millionaires on Facebook, it’s safe to say that this streamlined social version of the classic board game wasn’t exactly what fans wanted from a virtual Monopoly experience. The game lasted for over a year with questionable success, but the folks at Electronic Arts have announced that Monopoly Millionaires will go offline on August 17.

If you’re still a fan of Monopoly Millionaires, you’ll unfortunately lose any Monopoly Gold you still have in your balance, without any ability to transfer the premium currency to another game. Players are being offered a parting gift, however, in the form of 10,000 coins and access to the Monopoly Party themed area within PopCap’s Lucky Gem Casino, another Facebook game.

Monopoly Millionaires currently sits at 380,000 monthly users, according to Facebook’s own data, but apparently those players weren’t forking over enough literal green to keep the game active. EA’s official statement has been posted on the Playfish forums, and it comes in the form of a “reallocation of resources” excuse, but whether or not that’s really the case is up for debate. All we know is that Monopoly Millionaires fans have a month to say their goodbyes before the game is shut down for good.（source:games）

2）Backyard Monsters to scare up mobile devices ‘relatively soon’

by Joe Osborne

Facebook real-time strategy game fans could be in for a treat “relatively soon,” according to Kixeye CEO Will Harbin. The chief of the Backyard Monsters and War Commander maker revealed during a talk at the recent GamesBeat conference in San Francisco that a mobile version of Backyard Monsters will land shortly.

“We have a mobile version of Backyard Monsters coming out relatively soon. But it’s really just dipping our toe in the water,” Harbin told VentureBeat. “Part of finding the intersection between accessibility and fidelity relies on creating an immersive experience, and when you have a small form factor device like a cellphone, it’s hard to develop a truly immersive experience.”

While the mobile version of Backyard Monsters will largely be a test of whether Kixeye (and its existing games) has the chops for mobile, the developer is nevertheless bullish on the area.

Harbin also talked up its upcoming 3D role-playing game on Facebook, which is now slated for an October launch, and its imminent games platform heading our way next month. Harbin’s words on the state of hardcore gaming on Facebook sum up the CEO’s mobile and platform ambitions pretty effectively.

“This isn’t a means for us to leave Facebook, but we’ve definitely discovered that there’s a large segment of users that just refuse to play any kind of game on Facebook. They refuse to recognize that there are games worth their while on Facebook,” Harbin admitted to VentureBeat. “The waters on Facebook have been tainted a bit for our audience. We will still continue to operate on Facebook, purchase traffic and release our games on Facebook, but we’re not expanding that way.”（source:games）

3）Zynga partners with Wildlife Conservation Society in Bubble Safari

by Brandy Shaul

While Zynga has never shied away from charitable donations across its many Facebook games, these charity programs are normally reserved for games like FarmVille or CityVille. Now, Zynga has announced a partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) that will see Bubble Safari players being given the chance to donate to protect and even save real world animals through the purchase of special starter packs.

These packs will start rolling out to Bubble Safari players soon, so we don’t know the full details of their costs and contents just yet, but we do know that packs of Safari Cash, coins and power-ups will be available to purchase. Plus, 100% of the proceeds of each sale will go directly to the WCS, where it can immediately be put to good use!

Since its release last Spring, Bubble Safari players have dropped and popped 498 billion bubbles, accumulated 670 million stars and have activated fire mode 1.1 billion times. This proves that players are dedicated to saving animals virtually, so why not help save real world animals as well?

We’ll bring you the complete details of these starter packs in Bubble Safari just as soon as we know more. Stay tuned!（source:games）

4）Google+: Those who try it, like it (more than Facebook, apparently)

John Koetsier

The internet’s favorite red-headed stepchild of social media, Google+, is getting some good news today: Americans like it, more than the social network that forever transformed the meaning of the English word “like.”

It seems that those who try it, like it.

At least, that’s what the statistics say. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI),Google+ scored a 78 percent customer satisfaction rating. Facebook, on the other hand, languished below the rest of the social media competition at just 61%.

In a statement, the ACSI said that Facebook set ”a new record-low score for the Social Media category,” and that the company place among the “five lowest-scoring companies of more than 230 measured.”

It’s a little oranges and apples, of course. Facebook is on a seemingly inexorable march to be the first billion-user network, while Google+ has perhaps a quarter of that, with 150 million of them active. It’s arguably easier to satisfy a smaller number of people.

One major advantage that Google+ continue to have over Facebook in terms of user satisfaction? No need to monetize.

As recently reported, Facebook is now testing up to 10 ads per page … a significant increase from the three to six it’s had recently. Google+, comfortably ensconced in a Google buoyed by the AdSense money machine, still remains delightfully unmonetized:

Of course, one could argue that internal ads for services like creating an event (see bottom right of the Google+ side) count. Still, the ad count is far below Facebook’s.

One other advantage for Google+: its audience is significantly more technical. So its users may be more used to constant change and updating online, whereas Facebook’s users famously complain whenever anything changes.

The ACSI agrees, saying, ”the most frequent complaints about Facebook are changes to its user interface, most recently the introduction of the Timeline feature.”

If, however, Google+ ever does become the network our mothers, fathers, and grandparents live on, expect the ratings to even out.（source:venturebeat）

5）75% Of Kickstarter Projects Don’t Deliver On Time [Infographic]

Megan O’Neill

Last month we shared an infographic from Jeanne Pi of AppsBlogger that revealed that 40 percent of all Kickstarter projects fail.

This week, Pi has published an addendum to last month’s post, delving into Kickstarter stats on a much deeper level.

Pi explains of her previous post, “I was wrong.  I received much feedback on my article, chief among them from Professor Ethan Mollick of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.  He basically said the analysis I did was wrong.  That ‘I can’t simply compare the percent of projects in a category that are successful without also controlling for the size of the project.’” Additionally, Pi found that people were more interested in understanding how many funded projects actually delivered, rather than how many failed.  She teamed up with Mollick to get some real insight about Kickstarter stats and they made some pretty interesting discoveries:

•“Projects that successfully fund tend to do so by relatively small margins.”  Pi and Mollick found that 25 percent of the projects they crawled funded at 3% or less over their set goals.  50 percent exceeded their goal by only 10 percent.  What can you glean from this?  Set realistic goals!

•“Projects that fail to fun tend to fail by large margins.”  Only 3 percent of failed projects made it to half of their goal.  10 percent managed to reach 30 percent of their goal.  The rest didn’t even reach 30 percent.

•“Increasing goal size is negatively associated with success.”  Again, what can you glean from this?  Set realistic goals!

•There is definitely a correlation between how popular (read: influential) a Kickstarter project founder is and the success of the project.

•Only 25 percent of Kickstarter projects that reached their goal actually delivered on time!  75 percent of projects finished after 8 months of delay.  Larger projects are more likely to be delayed.

The infographic below reveals more of the details from Pi and Mollick’s research.  I also highly suggest you read the AppsBlogger post, as it’s filled with a whole lot of great tips and interesting information.（source:socialtimes）