1）据彭博社报道，英国达特茅斯大学教授Sydney Finklestein最近评选了2012年最糟糕的5名CEO，Zynga首席执行官Mark Pincus因公司股票严重下跌及人才流失情况，与百思买首席执行官Brian Dunn、雅芳首席执行官Andrea Jung等人同时上榜，并且位居榜单第四名。

zynga-ceo-mark-pincus(from blog.games.com)

2）日本游戏行业博客Serkantoto最近发布了GREE、Zynga和DeNA在业务运营上的数据对比图表：

gree-mobage-dena-zynga-sales(from serkantoto)

从营收来看，上一财季GREE的收益为4.67亿美元，DeNA为6.27亿美元，Zynga仅为3.17亿美元；

gree-mobage-dena-zynga-profit(from serkantoto)

从营业利润来看，上一财季GREE利润达1.97亿美元，DeNA为2.54亿美元，Zynga却亏损了5300万美元；

gree-mobage-dena-zynga-market-cap(from serkantoto)

截止2012年12月18日，GREE市值为39亿美元，Zynga是19亿美元，DeNA为52亿美元。

3）eMarket最新报告预测，今年美国移动广告（包括展示性广告、搜索广告和短信广告）投入将超过40亿美元，同比上年增长180%（游戏邦注：eMarket在9月份预测的数据是26亿美元）

US mobile ad spending(from eMarket)

这一增长情况主要归功于基于Facebook和Twitter的“本地”社交媒体移动广告格式（Facebook今年第三季度有14%的广告收益来自移动平台）。

预计到2013年，美国移动广告投入将达71.9亿美元，预计到2016年将增长至210亿美元。

4）据mobile-ent报道，Rovio最近推出了一首愤怒的小鸟圣诞歌曲《Fly Me Home Tonight》（在iTunes售价0.79便士），并表示将把用户下载这首歌所获的收益捐献给儿童公益组织。

Angry-Birds-Christmas-Song-Rovio(from angrybirdsclub.ru)

5）据insidemobileapps报道，手机社交游戏公司GREE日前宣布已在12月6日向独立手机游戏工作室MunkyFun投资300万美元。

MunkyFun由一批前LucasArts开发者成立于2008年，其代表作包括与NaturalMotion合作推出的iOS免费游戏《My Horse》；在此之前，该工作室从未接受过外部资金。

munkyfun(from gamesindustry.biz)

该工作室目前下载量为1500-2000万次，计划在2013年第一季度向GREE平台推出一系列新游戏。

6）据insidemobileapps报道，手机游戏盈利解决方案平台PlayHaven最近报告指出，相比在自己游戏中植入不同类型的游戏广告，植入同类游戏广告的开发商更能够在不影响用户留存率的前提下，显著提升游戏广告收益（甚至可能提升高达196%的收益）。

Ad-Retention-Graph-1(from PlayHaven)

PlayHaven指出其平台的一名合作伙伴通过植入同类型游戏广告，在iPhone平台的eCPM提升了85%，在iPad平台则增长了174%，并且仍可保证用户留存率不受影响。虽然该公司拒绝透露合作伙伴名称，但补充表示其游戏属于博彩类型（老虎机、Bingo或扑克游戏）。

总体上看，同类游戏广告可提升105%的广告收益，而不同类型游戏广告所提升的比例仅为39%。从留存率来看，同类游戏广告的留存率为83%，不同类游戏广告留存率为80%。

PlayHaven表示，手机游戏开发商通常不愿植入同类游戏广告主要是出于两种考虑，一是不愿意向同类游戏竞争对手贡献自己的用户，二是担心同类游戏会抢走自己用户。而PlayHaven的报告则表明，开发者的这种顾虑是多余的。

Ad-Retention_Graph-2(from PlayHaven)

PlayHaven报告还指出，开发商植入广告的最佳时机是在用户完成游戏指南或者特定关卡之后，而非用户刚开始游戏或首次启动游戏的时候，因为这种设置会破坏用户粘性。

例如，PlayHaven平台上有某款游戏是在游戏刚开始启动时就展示广告，结果相比等待用户融入游戏后再植入广告的同类产品，其留存率要比后者低36%。不具粘性的用户留存率为58%，而参与度较高的用户留存率高达91%。

7）IHS iSuppli最新报告预测，三星在2012年全球移动设备出货量中将占比29%，超过2011年时的24%，打败称霸14年的诺基亚，成为全球头号手机品牌。

samsung_logo(from celularis.com)

诺基亚今年的市场份额则将降至24%，低于去年时的30%。苹果位居第三，预计其市场份额占比10%。

预计今年全球智能手机出货量将增长35.5%，而总体手机出货量增幅仅为1%左右。2012年全球智能手机普及率将达47%，超过2011年时的35%。

IHS预计今年三星在全球智能手机出货量中将占比28%，超过2011年时的20%；诺基亚智能手机市场份额将降至5%，远低于去年时的16%。HTC和RIM智能手机市场份额也将降至5%左右（去年两者分别占比9%和11%）。（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）Bloomberg: Zynga’s Mark Pincus one of ‘the worst CEOs of 2012′

by Joe Osborne

Ranked among the likes of former Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn, Avon chief Andrea Jung and more is Mark Pincus in Bloomberg’s list of the five worst CEOs of 2012. The Zynga commander-in-chief made the not-so prestigious list, curated by Dartmouth professor Sydney Finklestein, for his company’s stock plummeting 75 percent (so far) in 2012, coupled with talent drain issues.

Bloomberg’s Business Week, attributing Finklestein, also lists Pincus’s “illustrious pedigree,” but notes that the guy has made some “rookie mistakes.” Namely, founding Zynga on such a dependent relationship with Facebook was no-no, according to the professor, not to mention that time when he unloaded 16 million shares after Zynga’s IPO lockup period ended.

Frankly, it’s not terribly surprising to see Mr. Pincus make this year’s list. The gaming and business worlds alike watched Zynga like hawks in 2012 not only because it was one of the only gaming companies to go public this year, but because the company arguably blazed the trail in a nascent genre of games up until now.

That Zynga didn’t exactly knock its public stock debut out of the park only exacerbates the realization that social gaming might not be the savior of the (financially) ailing games business. Now, if Pincus makes the list next year, then we’ll have a little more to talk about.（source:games）

2）Sales, Profit And Market Caps: GREE vs. Zynga vs. DeNA (Overview)

by Dr. Serkan Toto

The following charts are part of a presentation I recently gave on Japan’s social gaming industry, highlighting the differences between GREE, Zynga, and Mobage operator DeNA in terms of financials.

What many people outside Japan don’t realize is that when it comes to business, both Japanese powerhouses absolutely crush Zynga.

This chart shows the sales the three companies saw in their last financial quarter:

Observe the substantial differences in profitability (GREE and DeNA regularly see 40%+ profit margins):

These two key indicators are part of the reason why GREE is currently about twice as big and DeNA even is 2.5 times as big as Zynga:（source：serkantoto）

3）Facebook powers increase to total US mobile advertising spend

by Zen Terrelonge

‘Native’ ad formats drive wider reach across multiple platforms.

A new eMarketer report says that the American spend on mobile ads (including display, search, and messaging ads) will pass $4 billion, a 180 per cent year-on-year. The forecast is an adjustment on one made in September, when the analyst predicted an 80 per cent growth to $2.61bn.

The surge is largely attributed to ‘native’ social media mobile ad formats like Facebook’s newsfeed-based ads and Twitter’s Promoted Products, what with the design enabling a ‘seamless experience’ across platforms for consumers.

Indeed, Facebook generated 14 per cent of total ad revenues from mobile in Q3 (a trigger behind eMarketer’s revision) despite being slow out of the starting blocks to monetise with mobile, further enhancing the platform for advertisers last month by allowing them to choose their mobile ad destinations – OS, devices et al.

Meanwhile, the US mobile ad spend is set to hit $7.19 billion in 2013, continuing to almost triple by 2016 to hit $21 billion.（source：mobile-ent）

4）VIDEO: Rovio releases Angry Birds Christmas song

by Zen Terrelonge

Profits from downloads will be donated to charity.

Unsatisfied with its finger in the gaming and film pies, Rovio has moved into music. Don’t fret, the move isn’t permanent.

Seemingly feeling festive, the publisher has launched an Angry Birds Christmas song entitled ‘Fly Me Home Tonight’.

Rovio, said: “We’re donating the profits from downloads of the song to Save the Children and their efforts to establish clubs for schoolchildren in developing countries.

“These clubs encourage kids to play and have fun while also learning key life skills that will improve the quality of life for them and their families. It’s a great cause, and we’re proud to support it.”

The charity support follows Disney’s decision to donate £1 for each download of its new 69p Fairies game.

Download ‘Fly Me Home Tonight’ from iTunes for £0.79p.（source：mobile-ent）

5）GREE invests in mobile game developer MunkyFun

Scott Reyburn

Mobile-social gaming powerhouse GREE recently announced on Dec. 6 that it invested $3 million in independent mobile game studio MunkyFun, a partnership, MunkyFun believes, that aligns with the direction both the companies plan to pursue.

“MunkyFun is about making fun above all else and connecting people,” said Nick Pavis, CEO and co-founder of MunkyFun. “We see that connecting people through games is where things are going and this is where GREE has made a lot of success in Japan and foreign territories. We are very much in alignment with where things are going.”

MunkyFun, which was founded in 2008 by a group of former LucasArts developers that worked on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, had developed notable titles for MunkyFun so far including free-to-play iOS title My Horse under the guidance of developer NaturalMotion, who’s known for CSR Racing, and FPS Archetype for iOS.

“Back in 2008, we decided we wanted to do something a little bit more interesting than ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ repeatedly,” Pavis said.

Pavis told Inside Mobile Apps that although the indie developer consider multiple companies to partner with, GREE stood out to MunkyFun the most. The Tokyo-headquartered company is moving toward building more technologically advanced games, he added, which aligns with MunkyFun’s plans as well. GREE, who’ve been in talks with MunkyFun for quite some time, will also bring its expertise in user acquisition, marketing and monetization to MunkyFun.

“Another thing that GREE brings to the table for a small developer like ourselves is cash-flow,” Pavis said. “This investment is allowing us to expand in line with the industry. The industry is exploding and there’s just a wealth of opportunity. It’s moving quite fast. It’s good to get an injection of cash to help us expand at the rate that we need to in order to take full advantage of this growth in this industry at this time.”

MunkyFun also plans to expand its team out in which its actively looking for a 2D/UI artist, analytics/data jockeys and a senior game designer. The company is also moving its office to a former Ghirardelli Chocolate factory at Jackson Square in San Francisco.

The studio, which has 15 to 20 million total game downloads to date, plans to launch a couple of new games in early Q1 2013 on GREE’s platform.

MunkyFun has been independently and privately funded company up to this point until GREE’s recent investment.（source：insidesocialgames）

6）Exclusive: Mobile game developers allowing ads for games of the same genre can increase ad revenue without loss in retention, says PlayHaven

Scott Reyburn

Mobile game developers that allow ads for games of the same genre can increase revenue by up to 196 percent without loss in retention when compared to only displaying ads from games of different genres, according to a report from PlayHaven.

Mobile game lifetime value (LTV) maximization platform PlayHaven said one of its partners increased net eCPMs (effective cost per thousand impressions) on iPhone by 85 percent and iPad by 174 percent by allowing same genre ads, while still maintaining the same level of retention. PlayHaven vice president of business operations Brian Doxtator couldn’t name the game in question, but he did add that the game fell under the casino genre — slots, bingo or poker. For PlayHaven’s “largest” games in its portfolio, ad performance for same-genre advertisers was 166 percent higher, with user retention remaining very much the same.

Overall, same genre ads increase ad revenue by 105 percent, while ads of different genre games increase ad revenue by 39 percent. Retention-wise, ads of the same genre was at 83 percent and 80 percent for different genre.

Doxtator told Inside Mobile Apps that mobile game developers have two fears when it comes to allowing ads for games of the same genre in their games. The first is that developers don’t want to send their users to any competitors. The second is that their user base will be cannibalized by a game of a similiar genre.

“This report is what were trying to refute — that second part,” he says. “There will always be competitive advantages or disadvantages to promoting your competitors’ games, but the relationship to actual retention and the data we’re seeing, a lot of it doesn’t really play out.”

PlayHaven also gave some insight into the best time to place ads promoting other games of the same genre, while still keeping retention high. Doxtator said the best place is typically whenever a developer can qualify an engagement such as after a tutorial or a particular level, not at the beginning of a game or when a user first opens an app.

In contrast, one particular game on PlayHaven’s network displayed ads immediately on game launch, without waiting for users to pass any engagement threshold, so retention was 36 percent lower than that of similar games that place ads after engagement markers. According to the report, non-engaged users have a 58 percent retention rate while engaged users have a 91 percent retention rate.（source：insidemobileapps）

7）Nokia’s Loss Is Samsung’s Gain: Top Global Cellphone Brand Won’t Be Finnish For First Time In 14 Years

Natasha Lomas

Nokia’s once cluttered mobile trophy cabinet hasn’t had much silverware to boast of in recent years — as the company has been moving from its legacy smartphone OS to Microsoft’s Windows Phone — shedding massive amounts of marketshare in the process, and watching fleet-of-foot Android OEMs expand to fill the gap. Despite this smartphone switch, Nokia has continued to sell a lot of basic mobile phones — running its S40 OS (it shipped 76.6 million mobiles in its Q3, for instance) – which has helped it stay on top of the annual global cellphone rankings. But no longer.

This year will be the first time in 14 years Nokia’s name is not top of the list, according to analyst IHS iSuppli. That honour will go to 2011′s runner up: Samsung.
IHS says Samsung is expected to account for approaching a third (29 percent) of worldwide mobile shipments in 2012, up from 24 percent in 2011. While Nokia’s share this year is expected to drop to 24 percent, down from 30 percent last year — so it’s pretty much a straight marktet share swap. Apple is third in IHS’ preliminary 2012 forecast, predicted to take 10 percent of the market this year.

The analyst notes that its the first time Samsung has achieved top billing in the mobile table — although Nokia has been the runner-up before — back in 1998.

Smartphones are the fastest-growing segment of the cellphone market — accounting for nearly half of all wireless handset shipments for all of 2012 — and with Android and Samsung taking the lion’s share of smartphone sales per quarter (Android took a 75 percent of the global share in Q3, according to IDC) it’s no surprise the Korean mobile giant finally gets to take the overall, annual mobile crown too.

IHS predicts global smartphone shipments will rise by 35.5 percent this year, while overall cellphone shipments are expected to rise by only around 1 percent. This rapid smartphone growth will push 2012 smartphone penetration to 47 percent, up from 35 percent in 2011, it predicts.

IHS says Samsung’s success has been built on its ‘fast follower’ strategy for design and manufacturing — which sees it fire out myriad devices across the price spectrum to build volume. The analyst said it expects Samsung’s share of global smartphone shipments to rise 8 points to 28 percent this year, up from 20 percent in 2011. In contrast, it said Nokia will suffer the biggest decrease: with its share forecast to plunge by 11 points to 5 percent in 2012, down from 16 percent in 2011.

Beyond Nokia, there’s cold comfort in IHS’ rankings for smartphone makers HTC and RIM: both are predicted to slip to just a five percent share apiece of the 2012 smartphone handset market, dropping from nine percent and 11 percent respectively in 2011.

HTC has suffered by having to compete in an Android landscape that is so dominated by Samsung, while RIM has spent the year undertaking its own platform transition — and won’t have any handsets running its next-gen BlackBerry 10 OS in the market until 2013.（source：techcrunch）