1）据TouchArcade报道，DeNA旗下的美国手机游戏开发商ngmoco日前通过博客宣布，将于3月31日关闭《We Rule Deluxe》、《Touch Pets Cats》、《Touch Pets Dogs 2》以及《GodFinger All-Stars》这四款游戏。 值得注意的是，《GodFinger All-Stars》这款游戏出自英国开发商Wonderland之手，后者于2011年被Zynga收购时更名为Zynga Mobile UK，但现在也已经关门歇业。

这些游戏将于2月1日起从苹果App Store以及Google Play撤出，其后端服务器则在3月份才正式关闭。ngmoco将专注于DeNA的Mobage社交游戏网络中更具盈利性的硬核游戏产品。

2）Adfonic Global AdMetrics最近报告显示，2012年第四季度平板电脑广告印象在所有广告印象总量中所占比例，已从2012年第二季度的9%上升至14%（游戏邦注：其数据取自1000亿以上的月广告印象）。

在圣诞期间，平板电脑广告请求量增长40%，其中Kindle Fire HD在所有Android广告请求中所占份额双倍增长；苹果设备广告点击率远超过Android平板电脑和手机。

3）ABI Research最新报告预测，2013年全球投入使用的智能手机将达14亿，平板电脑为2.68亿，Android仍是第一智能手机平台，iOS仍将主导平板电脑市场。

到2013年底，市场上将有4500万部Windows Phone设备，2000万部BlackBerry 10设备投入使用，这两者所占市场份额分别为3.2%和4.1%。同一时期Android智能手机数量则是7.98亿部（占比57%），iOS设备为2.94亿部（占比21%）。

从平板电脑市场来看，ABI预计2013年投入使用的iPad设备将占比62%（1.66亿部），而Android平板电脑仅为7500万部，Windows平板电脑仅为550万部。

4）据insidemobileapps报道，Imangi Studios最近宣布《Temple Run 2》发布两周在iOS、Android以及Kindle平台下载量达5000万次。

这款游戏上线13天即打破《愤怒的小鸟太空版》所创下的纪录（游戏邦注：后者上线35天实现5000万次下载量），成为史上下载速度最快的手机游戏。

据称该游戏在iOS平台发布仅4天即实现2000万次下载量，在上线当日就创造600万次下载量。

《Temple Run 2》本周初在iPhone、iPad和Android三个平台免费应用榜单登顶。

5）据games.com报道，EA日前宣布旗下数字游戏平台Origin注册用户已超过3900万，其中包括1700万移动用户，并与86家独立开发商签署合作协议。

观察者分析称，Origin竞争对手Steam平台最近采用新功能Steam Greenlight支持用户投票选择独立游戏，若某游戏得票数量较多，就可以在Steam平台出售。Origin如果能采取对独立开发者更为友好的政策，或许就有希望吸引更多独立开发者。

6）IDC最近数据显示，2012年第四季度全球平板电脑出货量为5250万部，同比上年增长75.3%，比上季度增长74.3%，与此同时，PC出货量在过去5年来首次下滑。

苹果iPad出货量达2290万部，比去年同期增长48.1%，但其市场份额连续两个季度出现下滑（从上一季度的46.4%降至43.6%），而第二大平板电脑制造商三星旗下的Android和Windws 8平板电脑该时期出货量将近800万部，增幅达263%，市场份额为15.1%。

亚马逊在该季度平板电脑出货量超过600万部，市场份额从原来的8.3%增长至11.5%，同比上年增幅为26.8%；Barnes & Noble平板电脑出货量将近100万部，市场份额从上一季度的0.7%增长至1.9%，但同比上年下降27.7%。微软Surface平板电脑出货量仅为90万部。

7)应用追踪服务Onavo最近发布的游戏使用率数据显示，美国12月份用户活跃度最高的游戏包括Zynga的《Words With Friends》、Imangi Studios的《Temple Run》，以及来自Flipside5的《Touch Hockey》、Big Duck Games的《Flow》，Rovio游戏《愤怒的小鸟》。

如果从用户规模来看，位居第一的开发商是Zynga（游戏邦注：该公司在7月份拥有3300万日活跃用户，虽然《Draw Something》流量下滑，但其首席执行官Mark Pincus曾表示公司拥有西方市场最大的Android和iOS游戏网络）；其次是Imangi Studios（苹果曾宣布该团队游戏去年下载量超过7500万次），第三是Flipside5，令人意外的是其排名甚至超过了EA。

8）据insidemobileapps报道，Facebook日前宣布有iOS营收榜单前100名应用中，有20%的应用采用Facebook移动应用安装广告以提升下载量。

Facebook于2012年10月中旬向iOS和Android开发者发布移动应用安装广告单位，支持后者在News Feed中推广自己的原生移动应用。

手机社交游戏开发商及发行商Cie Games使用Facebook移动应用安装广告提升《Car Town Streets》下载量，从而使该游戏跻身多个地区的iOS平台前十大游戏榜单之列，而其每安装成本却比Cie Games所使用的其他广告渠道低40%。

Facebook广告公司Nanigans曾在圣诞假期，使用Facebook移动应用安装广告为一家电子商务公司开展营销活动，使后者的应用在为期10天的营销活动中，从原来的第253名跃升至第5名，平均点击率为0.74%，在10天中新增2万4300次安装量，该营销活动成本为32.5万美元，产生了3250万次广告印象。

Facebook还指出其移动平台的日活跃用户已突破6.18亿，首次超越其网络平台的日活跃用户数量。（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）It’s game over as ngmoco’s shuts down first gen F2P titles We Rule, Touch Pets and GodFinger

by Jon Jordan

The iOS gaming world is whirlygig of activity, but was it really three years ago that ngmoco released We Rule?

I played it the weekend it was released, and would have put it further back into the midst of time, but my brain is long past its sell-by date.

Anyhow, while the social kingdom-building game wasn’t the first free-to-play game released for iPhone, it was one of the most high profile, and one of the first to demonstrate how developers could make lots of money.

But time moves on, and now it, and a couple of other of ngmoco’s pioneering games, are being closed.

It’s all over

According to a blog post from the US developer – now a subsidiary of Japanese giant DeNA – We Rule Deluxe, Touch Pets Cats, Touch Pets Dogs 2 and GodFinger All-Stars are being shut down on 31st March.

Ironically, GodFinger outlasted its developer, UK-based Wonderland, which became Zynga Mobile UK in April 2011, but has since also been shut down.

Mobile games… It’s a difficult business dontchaknow!

All over

New in-app purchases in all the games have been disabled, although if you have spare currency, you can still spend it.

The apps themselves will be removed from the App Store and Google Play on 1st February, with the backend servers being switched off two months later.

And that’s game over

As for ngmoco, it’s focused on DeNA’s Mobage social gaming network, which has found success with more hardcore fare such as the very lucrative card-battlers Rage of Bahamut and Marvel War of Heroes.

Brutally put, those first generation games haven’t been generating cash for over a year, so the business is putting its resources into games that do.（source：pocketgamer）

2）Tablets account for 14 per cent of mobile ad impressions

by Zen Terrelonge

Share on LinkedIn Share almost doubles in the space of six months.

The new Adfonic Global AdMetrics Report shows that tablet advertising is on the rise, accounting for nine per cent of total ad impressions in Q2 2012 to reach 14 per cent in Q4 – the equivalent of almost one in seven click-throughs.

The number of brands requesting tablet ads rose by 40 per cent over Christmas, with the Kindle Fire HD almost doubling its share of Android ad requests.

The figures come from more than 100 billion monthly impressions, with the iOS share two per cent lower than leading Android at the end of 2012. That said, Apple devices experience a higher click-through rate (CTR) across tablets and phones than Android.

Victor Malachard, Adfonic’s CEO and co-founder, said: “Major tech brands such as Google, Samsung, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are jostling for supremacy in the tablet space, with significant devices launched in the run-up to Christmas.

“We know that tablets perform well for advertisers and publishers alike so a combination of more devices, with superior advertising performance, can only be good news for mobile advertising in 2013.”（source：mobile-ent）

3）1.4B Smartphones In Use By 2013; Only 45M Windows Phones, 20M BB10s As Android, iOS Lead In ‘A Race Of Two Horses And Two Ponies’

Ingrid Lunden

ABI Research has put out its latest projections on the lay of the land for smartphones and tablets worldwide in 2013. According to the firm, there will be 1.4 billion smartphones and 268 million tablets in active use this year, with Android keeping its lead in handsets and iOS continuing to dominate in tablets. Microsoft and BlackBerry will remain in the smartphones game with small shares of the market — but big enough to keep developers interested. In other words, it won’t be a two-horse race, ABI tells me: “Maybe a race of two horses and two ponies.”

What’s different about ABI’s figures compared to, say, those of IDC, Strategy Analytics or Gartner, is that ABI focuses on the number of devices in active use, rather than the number of devices getting shipped for sale. And in that regard, ABI says that Microsoft’s Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10 will be small, but still competitive enough to stay in the game.

By the end of 2013, there will be 45 million Windows Phone devices, and 20 million BlackBerry 10 devices in use worldwide, ABI predicts. These respectively work out to 3.2 percent and 1.4 percent shares of the market. That may sound like peanuts compared with Android’s 798 million handsets (57 percent share) or iOS’s 294 million devices (21 percent share). But this will continue to remain just enough to keep a critical mass of developers interested in the platform — significant because apps will continue to be one of the main drivers for why consumers buy phones, says ABI.

“The greatest fear for both Microsoft and BlackBerry is that the initial sales of their smartphones will disappoint and thereby kill off the developer interest, which then would effectively close the window of opportunity on further sales success,” writes Aapo Markkanen, ABI analyst. “Our view is that the installed bases of this scale would be large enough to keep these two in the game.”

This should come as mixed news to both Nokia (the dominant handset maker on the Windows Phone platform) and BlackBerry. It’s a sign of hope that things can turn around, but given the momentum of Android right now, it could be some time before those market shares move into double-digit percentages. That, in effect, means more hard work and investment keeping investors patient and developers interested over time.

“Based on our current shipment forecasts, we don’t see the installed base of either BB or WP reaching the double-digits within the next five years,” Markkanen told TechCrunch. “It’ll be a slow climb, since if they both stay in the game they’ll be kind of eating into each other’s success. It won’t be that much-touted two-horse race, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it a three- or four-horse race either. Maybe a race of two horses and two ponies.”

ABI has also put out some figures on how it sees the active user market in tablets in 2013.

While IDC earlier today noted that in tablets just over half of the devices shipped in the last quarter were iOS devices, and Android makers accounted for most of the rest, ABI’s figures indicate that the installed, active base continues to remain largely Apple’s to lose. iPad devices accounted for 62 percent of the market, or just over 166 million devices, and only 75 million Android tablets. There will be just 5.5 million Windows-powered tablets in use this year, it notes.

The window of opportunity for companies like Microsoft and BlackBerry to extend use of their platforms comes down to growth rates for smartphones and tablets. These will be 44 percent for handsets and 125 percent for tablets this year compared to 2012, ABI says.（source：techcrunch）

4）Temple Run 2 runs to 50 million downloads in two weeks, shatters previous record

Scott Reyburn

Temple Run 2 ran up 50 million downloads in two weeks since it released on iOS, Android and Kindle devices, Imangi Studios says.

The runner game actually reached the milestone in 13 days, shattering the record for the fastest downloaded mobile game previously held by Angry Birds Space, which reached 50 million downloads in 35 days.

We recently reported that the Raleigh, N.C.-based studio’s Temple Run sequel reached 20 million downloads for iOS in four days, with six million downloads on release day alone.

Earlier this week, Temple Run 2 was No. 1 app on all three top free apps charts — iPhone, iPad and Android. According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Temple Run 2 is currently the No. 2 app on the top free iPhone apps chart, No. 1 on the top free iPad apps chart and No. 1 on the top free Android apps chart.（source：insidemobileapps）

5）EA’s Origin going strong with an increasing user base

by Mike Splechta

While Steam is still the top dog when it comes to purchasing digital content for your PC, EA’s answer to that, Origin, isn’t lagging that far behind. As more and more EA games are being migrated from Steam to Origin, it’s easy to see why some people don’t have a choice in where to purchase their games digitally. Origin has to this date registered over 39 million users, including 17 million mobile users. On top of that, EA has signed agreements with 86 independent developers for Origin.

It will be interesting to see how exactly this indie deal will work out on Origin. Steam has implemented the new Steam Greenlight feature which allows users to vote on select indie games. If enough votes pass, the game is cleared to be sold on Steam. If Origin turns out to be much more indie friendly, we could see a big shift from indie devs switching over to EA’s downloadable platform over Steam.（source：games）

6）IDC: Worldwide Tablet Shipments Hit A Record Total Of 52.5M Units In Q4 , Including 22.9M iPads

Catherine Shu

Apple’s iPad led the charge as total worldwide tablet shipments hit a record 52.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to IDC’s preliminary data from its Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker, but its market share continued to slide due to competition from Samsung. Meanwhile, PC shipments declined during the quarter for the first time in more than five years. The tablet market grew 75.3 percent year-over-year, and increased 74.3 percent from the previous quarter’s total of 30.1 million units, helped along by holiday purchases, lower average selling prices and a wider range of products.

“We expected a very strong fourth quarter, and the market didn’t disappoint. New product launches from the category’s top vendors, as well as new entrant Microsoft, led to a surge in consumer interest and very robust shipments totals during the holiday season,” said Tom Mainelli, tablet research director at IDC.

Apple shipped a total of 22.9 million units, boosted by the launch of the iPad mini, as well as the fourth-generation full-sized iPad. But while Apple’s iPad shipments grew 48.1 percent over the same quarter last year, Apple’s market share slipped for the second quarter in a row (down to 43.6 percent from 46.4 percent last quarter) as No. 2 vendor Samsung continued to nip at the Cupertino company’s heels. Samsung enjoyed 263 percent, shipping nearly 8 million combined Android and Windows 8 tablets durings the quarter. It still holds 15.1 percent of the market, the same as from the previous quarter.

Competing vendors like Amazon and Barnes and Noble both saw an uptick in their market share thanks to the holiday season. Amazon shipped more than 6 million tablets during the quarter, increasing its share to 11.5 percent from 8.3 percent the previous quarter, with year-over-year growth of 26.8 percent. Barnes and Noble shipped almost a million units, increasing its share up to 1.9 percent from 0.7 percent, but its total dropped by 27.7 percent year-over-year. Microsoft’s new Surface with Windows RT tablet failed to reach the top five with just short of 900,000 units shipped. IDC said that Microsoft and its partners may need to create smaller devices and lower prices in order to compete because consumers are shying away from more expensive tablets with desktop operating systems.

“There is no question that Microsoft is in this tablet race to compete for the long haul. However, devices based upon its new Windows 8 and Windows RT operating systems failed to gain much ground during their launch quarter, and reaction to the company’s Surface with Windows RT tablet was muted at best,” said Ryan Reith, program manager, Mobile Device Trackers at IDC.（source：techcrunch）

7）The Surprising iOS Games That Saw The Most Active Usage In The U.S. Last Month

Kim-Mai Cutler

Because of the rankings, the top-grossing games and the ones that get the most downloads are known. But Apple and Google are much more conservative with what they reveal about apps and their active usage. And active usage is a far more important metric than the download, because the more retention and engagement an app has, the more opportunity there is for users to transact inside of it.

Onavo, a Sequoia-backed company that tracks active app usage for millions of users through its data compression products, took at a look at the most used games in the U.S. in December. What Onavo calls “market share” below is the percentage of U.S. iPhone owners that used the game that month.

Some of them are surprising. The top few like Zynga’s Words With Friends and Imangi Studio’s Temple Run are not. But the next one is — Touch Hockey from Flipside5. Flow by Big Duck Games comes after that. Following that is Rovio’s Angry Birds – an obvious candidate for one of the top 10 apps.

If we look at the reach of developers, you’ll see that Zynga is in the lead (again not surprising given that they said they had 33 million daily active users on mobile platforms in July). While mobile daily actives likely declined in the third quarter because of Draw Something’s decline, CEO Mark Pincus said on the last earnings call that the company definitely had the largest mobile gaming network in the West on Android and iOS.

They’re followed by Temple Run-makers Imangi Studios. Apple said the husband-and-wife team behind Temple Run saw their game downloaded more than 75 million times last year.  They’re followed by Flipside5, which is ahead of Electronic Arts, the $4.6 billion gaming company that said it brought $1.18 billion in fourth-quarter revenue in its earnings release today.

Is it weird that totally bootstrapped teams like Imangi can outrun (hah!) multibillion dollar companies like EA on iOS? Yes, but this is the nature of the iOS platform, with its comparatively low barriers to entry — at least relative to the packaged goods world.

Time and time again, we’ve seen small teams like Angry Birds-maker Rovio in 2009 come out of nowhere and build businesses that gross near or more than nine-figures in revenue per year. Last month’s breakout dirtyBit’s FunRun is from a hobbyist team of computer science students from Trondheim, Norway.

Just for background on methodology, Onavo has two products: Extend, which helps consumers save on their mobile bills by compressing data usage and Onavo Count, which tells you how much data you’re using.

Because they have single-digit millions of users, they can peek into daily mobile traffic to different apps. On top of that, because Onavo creates consumer-facing products and doesn’t work directly with developers, the company can publish data on active usage for specific apps. This is unlike other mobile analytics companies like Flurry, which can’t really disclose performance of specific apps because developers would probably not work with them.（source：techcrunch）

8）Facebook mobile app install ads used by 20 percent of the top 100 grossing iOS apps

Scott Reyburn

About 20 percent of the top 100 grossing iOS apps are using Facebook’s mobile app install ads to drive more downloads, said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg during the company’s Q4 2012 earnings call yesterday.

Facebook first launched its mobile app install ad unit in mid-October 2012 for iOS and Android developers that have integrated Facebook into their apps. The ad unit allows developers to promote their native mobile apps in the News Feed of Facebook’s mobile app. An “Install Now” prompt in the ad unit sends users to an app’s landing page in the Apple App Store or Google Play.

Mobile-social gaming developer and publisher Cie Games used Facebook’s mobile app install ads to drive installs to its new game, Car Town Streets. As a result, it made the top 10 games chart on iOS in multiple countries with a 40 percent lower cost per install compared to its other advertising channels, Sandberg said. Sandberg believed that Facebook’s mobile app install ad units will help retail, travel and financial services transition their business into mobile.

Facebook advertising company Nanigans ran a successful campaign for an unnamed e-commerce company during the holidays using Facebook’s mobile app install ads. The app moved from the No. 253 spot to the No. 5 spot at the end of the 10-day campaign. Naningans found an average click-through-rate (CTR) of 0.74 percent, and the app acquired more than 24,300 new installs in 10 days. The campaign cost $325,000, delivering 32.5 million impressions.

Sandberg cited ComScore research in December, which found that Facebook aided the app discovery process for new mobile apps. Among the users who discovered new apps from Facebook, 48 percent clicked directly from the Facebook app to download the new apps.

Facebook now takes 23 percent of all time spent on mobile apps in the U.S., according to ComScore, a point Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reiterated in the company’s earnings call yesterday.

Facebook also reported in its quarterly earnings that its mobile daily active users (DAUs) count exceeded 618 million, surpassing the social network’s web DAUs for the first time ever.（source：insidemobileapps）