1）据gamasutra报道，Facebook技术通信经理Tera Randall就EA日前关闭多款Facebook社交游戏一事表示，这并不意味着Facebook游戏已经毫无出路，该平台游戏玩家和盈利潜力均胜过以往。

与去年同期相比，Facebook网页游戏安装量增长了75%，截止今年3月份，Facebook社交游戏每月用户达2.5亿，超过去年10月份时的2.35亿。

社交游戏玩家在Facebook日活跃用户中占比20%，并且愿意为游戏掏钱的用户同比上年增长了24%。

2012年Facebook向游戏开发商支付收益超过20亿美元，至少有100家开发商在Facebook创收超过100万美元。

Randall还指出绑定Facebook的手机游戏也在增长，在iOS收益榜单前400名的应用中（多数为游戏产品），有55%以上绑定了Facebook功能。Facebook在三月份为iOS和Android引进了超过2.63亿次的点击量。

2）据pocketgamer报道，社交手机游戏发行商Pocket Gems日前宣布其发行的第三方游戏《Amazing Ants》上线两周收获220万次下载量，在36个国家/地区的免费应用榜单名列第一。

另一款第三方游戏《Chasing Yello》表现略佳，上线两周下载量为230万次。但这两款游戏都没有跻身营收榜单前列。

3）据Venturebeat报道，谷歌最近调查数据显示，当前的网速明显加快，移动网络及美国地区表现最为明显。

桌面网页平均每页加载时间仅为6秒左右，而去年每页加载时间将近7秒。移动网络速度则比去年加快了30%，平均每页加载时间为7秒，去年则超过10秒。

尽管在尼日利亚网页平均加载时间超过10秒，但也已经优于去年的水平。日本网页平均加载时间为3秒，快于去年时的3.5秒。

美国最为领先，从2012年4月至2013年4月，其移动网页加载速度提升了40%，其次是芬兰，速度加快了37.97%，第三是德国，加快了36.17%。

移动网页加载速度提升最明显的国家分别如下：

1.美国–40%

2.芬兰–37.97%

3.德国–36.17%

4.匈牙利–33.96%

5.中国–33.93%

6.墨西哥–33.82%

7.新西兰–32.69%

8.加拿大–31.48%

9.菲律宾–28.74%

10.阿根庭–21.51%

4）法国发行商Gameloft最近宣布，公司在2012年销售额达2.083亿欧元，同比上年增长27%。

移动业务在销售总额中占比51%（去年占比34%），而智能手机和平板电脑游戏销售额则同比上年增长90%。北美市场在2012年销售额中占比31%，EMEA地区占比27%，亚太地区占比22%，拉美占比20%。

Gameloft在iOS、Android的免费和付费游戏下载量已超过5.15亿次，在过去30天中的游戏用户为7500万。

5）据ShackNews报道，Dontnod Entertainment公司即将面世的游戏《Remember Me》创意总监Jean-Maxime Moris最近透露，开发团队是根据这款游戏主题来选择女主角，而不仅仅是“凭感觉”。

Moris称该游戏主题并非男女平等，而是因为游戏世界本身的设置，决定了女性角色占有关键地位。这款游戏中的主角Nilin不同于其他当代游戏中的那种吸引男性玩家群体的女性角色，在Moris看来，这是为了尊重大众用户，而不只是迎合男性玩家的喜好，这种与众不同的做法最终也会让开发者受益。（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）As EA bows out, Facebook says games are strong as ever

By Mike Rose

Electronic Arts made the big decision earlier this week to back away from social games on Facebook, stating that “the number of players and amount of activity has fallen off” from its

Facebook games.

But do EA’s numbers reflect the Facebook social game sector as a whole, or is there still space for developers to make some real money on Facebook?

Facebook’s technology communications manager Tera Randall shared some stats with me today, to allay fears that the sky is falling on the social network — she claims that Facebook has more players, and the potential for monetization, than ever.

Web game installs on Facebook are up 75 percent compared to this time last year, she says, while as of March more than 250 million Facebook users are currently playing games on the social network each month, up from 235 million last October.

This figure represents 20 percent of all daily Facebook users, she notes. And these users are now more willing to put money down for in-app purchases in Facebook games — year-over-year growth of the total number of payers on Facebook has increased 24 percent.

More than $2 billion was paid out to game developers during 2012, according to Facebook, while a good portion of Facebook’s top developers generated record revenue last year. More than 100 developers on Facebook generated $1 million+ each alone.

Facebook on mobile

Although Facebook is having a hard time of translating its games platform to mobile, Randall’s figures state that integration of Facebook into mobile games is still chugging along nicely.

For example, more than 55 percent of the top 400 grossing iOS apps, most of which are games, are integrated into Facebook. In fact, Facebook drove more than 263 million clicks to iOS and

Android games during March.

Notably, the popularity of King’s popular web and mobile game Candy Crush Saga, which has previously been the number one most played game on both Facebook and iOS, is down to the level of engagement that those users who play on both platforms show, says the company. （source：gamasutra）

2）Pocket Gems scores 2 million downloads with each of its first 2 published titles

by Jon Jordan

One of the first big social mobile developers, Pocket Gems is now in publisher mode.

The first third-party game it released was Twyngo’s Amazing Ants on iOS, which was followed by Dreamfab’s Chasing Yello on Android.

And now it’s prepared to release some numbers.

Amazing Ants gained 2.2 million downloads in 2 weeks, hitting the #1 on the free apps chart in 36 countries.

And Chasing Yello did slightly better, gaining 2.3 million downloads in 2 weeks.

That said, neither game ranked consistently highly in terms of the all-important top grossing chart.

Gimme more

Still, the reason for Pocket Gems’ move is that with over 100 million downloads across its portfolio of 25 titles, it has plenty of expertise in terms of design, cross-promotional marketing, analytics, QA and especially in terms of ongoing game operations.

Certainly, given that Amazing Ants was Twyngo debut, it’s unlikely the US start-up would have experienced such success from the get-go.

“Pocket Gems was instrumental in helping us see the benefit of the freemium model,” said Twyngo CEO Unni Narayanan.

“They really understand the value of customer retention and longer term monetisation strategies.”

Developers interested in working with Pocket Gems can get more information via its publishing page.（source：pocketgamer）

3）U.S led the world in mobile web speed boosts last year, according to Google

John Koetsier

San Francisco, CA Early Bird Tickets on Sale Google says it’s passionate about speed: the web getting faster. That’s very appropriate for a company that to this day, in spite of its minimalist design, still tells web searchers how long their query took for every single search.

But it’s hard to make the web  faster when web pages are growing in size: 75 percent bigger for e-commerce sites.

So Google checks, periodically, to see if the web is getting faster as our web browsers get better, mobile carriers continue LTE roll-outs, and mobile devices get more powerful. And apparently, in spite of the fact that e-commerce sites are perhaps over-indulging in images and complex Javascript and overall page size across the entire web is up 56 percent over the past year, the web is actually getting faster.

Especially on mobile. And especially in the U.S.

Desktop access is up only marginally, at average load time of just over six seconds per page, compared to almost seven seconds per page last year. Mobile access, however, is 30 percent faster than last year, with an average page load time of just over seven seconds, up from over 10 seconds last year.

That phenomenon is visible all over the globe, Google says, from countries with poor mobile internet infrastructure such as Nigeria, Egypt, India, and Brazil, to those countries with the fastest mobile internet, such as Japan, Sweden, Poland, the U.S., and Germany. In spite of the fact that page load times in Nigeria, for example, are over 10 seconds, they’re faster than last year’s. And Japan’s speedy three-second page loads this year are faster than its 3.5 second page loads last year.

Interestingly, the U.S. seems to be getting better, faster than the rest of the world.

The U.S. had a massive 40 percent mobile speed bump between April 2012 and April 2013, trailed by Finland with a 37.97 percent jump, and Germany, with a 36.17 percent increase. That’s impressive — apparently all the LTE roll-outs in the U.S. are having an impact. And it’s a major role-reversal, as we’re very used to hearing about how expensive and slow U.S. wired networks are in comparison to countries like Japan and South Korea.

Fastest-improving countries in terms of mobile browsing:

1.U.S. – 40%

2.Finland – 37.97%

3.Germany – 36.17%

4.Hungary – 33.96%

5.China – 33.93%

6.Mexico – 33.82%

7.New Zealand – 32.69%

8.Canada – 31.48%

9.Philippines – 28.74%

10.Argentina – 21.51%

All of those improvements add up to faster pages, a faster web, and — hopefully — less impatient mobile surfers.（source：venturebeat）

4）Gameloft annual sales climb 27 per cent year-on-year to hit €208.3m

by Zen Terrelonge

Studio attributes the growth to the success of its mobile division and a focus on freemium.

Digital games publisher Gameloft develops titles for smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes, connected TVs, and the company claims 2012 sales rose by 27 per cent year-on-year to reach €208.3 million.

In fact, mobile is powering 51 per cent of total group sales, which is up from 34 per cent the previous year, while smartphone and tablet game sales rose by 90 per cent year-on-year.

Sales rose as Gameloft bagged licensing deals for the likes of The Dark Knight RIse, My Little Pony, Littlest Pet Shop and The Amazing Spider-Man. In addition to the franchises helping growth, the firm made a big play for the freemium market last year, and hired almost 800 employees to help the space grow.

In terms of region, North America accounts for 31 per cent of all 2012 sales, followed by EMEA with 27 per cent, APAC with 22 per cent and LATAM on 20 per cent.

The studio, said: “Gameloft has secured the worldwide rights to several major new franchises in recent months. These agreements with some of the most prestigious players in the entertainment industry illustrate once again the reputation for quality of our development studios as well as the unparalleled distribution reach put in place by Gameloft around the world.

The company is in particular very proud to announce its first ever licensing deal with Disney Interactive.”

The Disney deal will see Gameloft produce Monsters University for feature phones and Cars for feature phones, smartphones and tablets. Meanwhile, a Universal deal secured Despicable Me for smartphones and tablets, and a Marvel contract will launch Iron Man 3 for feature phones, smartphones and tablets.

And by the numbers, games are launched in 13 different languages on 1,500 smartphone models and 300 feature phone models, with Gameloft adding: “There is, to our knowledge, no equivalent even remotely close in the industry.”

Furthermore, 515m freemium and paymium titles have beem downloaded to iOS and Android, 75m users have played a Gameloft game over the past 30 days.（source：mobile-ent）

5）’If you respect your public, eventually it pays back’

By Kris Ligman

“If you respect your public, and you refuse to dumb your work down, eventually it pays back, because what you do is different.”
-Dontnod Entertainment’s Jean-Maxime Moris, on creating female leads.

Speaking with ShackNews, the creative director of the upcoming Remember Me revealed that the team’s decision to opt for a female protagonist was more than about ‘just feeling right.’ It was about echoing one of the game’s themes.

“We didn’t think of gender equality being a major theme in the game, but thinking back on the world we designed, it is true that women have key positions in its governance,” said Moris.

The game, which is set in 2084 Paris, will feature a setting that is “very different from usual cyberpunk themes,” Moris said. Dontnod “recruited a team of experts in their field” including two award-winning science fiction authors, Alain Damasio and Stephane Beauverger, as well as concept artist Aleksi Briclot, to develop a bottom-up futuristic world. “[They] did an amazing amount of research on every single detail of the Neo-Paris landscape, from architecture to what people eat for breakfast.”

But it’s the lead character Nilin who may set Remember Me apart from its contemporaries the most. “You have to avoid the pitfalls of making her just a damsel in distress or a sex bomb, [just] because that’s what you think would appeal most to the hordes of men that constitute your fan base,” Moris said. “If you respect your public, and you refuse to dumb your work down, eventually it pays back because what you do is different.”

“I’m not saying we’re the only ones,” Moris added. “I’m quite happy to see that more and more games feature female protagonists.”

Still, Remember Me seems poised to make an impact in an industry where marketing is heavily slanted toward men. Dontnod Entertainment previously shared that the game’s female protagonist resulted in them being turned away by several publishers.

“In 2013, we have a long way to go in terms of gender equality,” said Moris. “So take this as a subconscious militant act.” （source：gamasutra）