1）据gamasutra报道，休闲游戏公司Big Fish日前关闭温哥华工作室，并裁员49人（占公司总人数的9%），另外70人将被“重新分配”工作。

该公司这一举措意在合并其西雅图工作室业务，此举还将影响到该公司爱尔兰工作室。

big_fish_games(from allthingsd.com)

Big Fish首席执行官Paul Thelen还宣布公司首席执行官兼总裁John Holland将辞职，由前总裁Dave Stephenson接替其职位。除此之外，Big Fish还将停止运营其付费云传送项目，称公司将通过“评估”再决定将支持哪种语言的本土化服务。

2）据pocketgamer报道，NHN公司日前宣布旗下通信应用LINE注册用户已达2.3亿，在日本有4700万用户，在泰国有1800万，在台湾有1700万，在印度尼西亚有1400万，在西班牙也有1500万注册用户。

line-messenger(from teknologi.co)

该公司还宣布将在日本和台湾推出预付费卡，方便该地区用户购买游戏IAP和虚拟商品。2013年第二季度，该公司有53%收益来自游戏内部交易。

3）App Annie和IDC最近报告指出，今年第二季度Google Play游戏收益已经超过掌机游戏。Google Play全球游戏中多数来自亚洲，尤其是日本和韩国。

Q213_Spotlight_Biz(from App_Annine)

iOS和Android两个平台的用户游戏消费额已经是掌机游戏的4倍；该季度游戏在在App Store和Google Play这两个平台的下载量中占比40%，在这两个平台应用收益中占比70%。

但报告也发现，西欧用户在掌机游戏上的投入有所增长，其中最为领先的是任天堂3DS平台。

4）据venturebeat报道，Konami日前宣布将于9月4日向iOS和Android平台发布《Star Wars:Force Collection》卡牌战斗游戏。

Star Wars(from boxyblogs.com)

这款游戏反映了《星球大战》IP所有者迪士尼更开放式的授权策略（游戏邦注：迪士尼会向更多希望制作基于《星球大战》游戏的公司开放授权），含有来自《星球大战》各系列超过230个的英雄、坏蛋和交通工具，具有堪比电影的震撼场景和音效。

5）据insidesocialgames报道，迪士尼旗下工作室Playdom在今年6月底发布了新款Facebook游戏《Kitchen Scramble》，让玩家在游戏中管理自己的餐车，四处贩售健康食物。

kitchen-scramble(from insidesocialgames)

这款游戏最近获得显著发展，目前月活跃用户超过330万，在过去七天中新增160万用户。（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） Big Fish closes Vancouver studio, lays off 49 staff

By Kris Ligman

Casual games developer Big Fish is shuttering its Vancouver studio, reports GamesIndustry International. 49 workers — nine percent of the company’s workforce — have been let go, while a further 70 or so are to be “realigned.”

The Vancouver studio closure is part of a move to consolidate under its Seattle office. The consolidation may also affect its Cork, Ireland office “subject to a 30-day consultation that we are entering into with employees.”

In a letter to the company, Big Fish CEO Paul Thelen also announced that John Holland would be stepping up as president and chief operating officer, while previous president Dave Stephenson would be taking a position outside the company.

“We had to make some very hard choices about these business areas that are not growing or profitable,” Thelen tells employees in his letter to staff. “I want to stress that our decisions are not based on our company-wide performance or that of the people working on those initiatives — both of which are strong — but because of where the market is growing, and quite frankly, where it is not.”

“The most significant decision we are making today is that we are discontinuing our premium cloud delivery business,” Thelen continues, adding that the company “will evaluate” which languages to continue to support through localization.

“We are making these adjustments from a position of strength, not weakness, and I am confident that our best days are ahead,” Thelen concludes. （source：gamasutra）

2）LINE messaging service now has 230 million registered users

by Chris Kerr

At an annual event for its LINE messaging app, NHN has revealed that the service is gaining strong momentum in various territories outside of its Japanese heartland.

According to NHN, LINE now has roughly 230 registered users.

The company proceeded to break that figure down, revealing that they have 47 million users in Japan, 18 million in Thailand, 17 million in Taiwan, and 14 million in Indonesia.

Outside of the Asian market the app is gaining a respectable following, having amassed 15 million registered users in Spain.

Convenient revenue

It was also revealed that as of August 2013, approximately 7 billion messages and 1 billion stickers have been sent and received by LINE users.

The release of these figures coincides with the announcement that LINE users will soon be able to buy pre-paid cards at convenience stores in Japan and Taiwan.

The company hopes this will make it easier for customers to buy stickers and other virtual goods -including game IAP.

During Q2 2103, 53 percent of revenue was from in-game transactions.

Global language

Speaking about the service’s popularity, company CEO Akira Morikawa suggested that one reason behind the growth is that “information with high public value can be disseminated faster and more widely on LINE.”

More obviously, such services are free to use on wifi, contrasting with the cost of using mobile data services.

“It is starting to become a sort of infrastructure. We’d like to turn like into a common language across the world, and our growth strategy is based on this,” concluded Morikawa.（source：pocketgamer）

3）Chart of the Week: Android game revenue now bigger than 3DS and PS Vita

by Matthew Diener

Back in the beginning of 2013, App Annie’s Bertrand Schmitt was frank in talking about the ‘crazy’ growth of Google Play – and now we have some idea of why.

In the 2Q13 Portable Gaming Spotlight, App Annie and IDC have noted that game spending through Google Play now surpasses gaming-optimised handhelds globally.

Not surprisingly, the majority of the global Google Play game revenue came from Asia, specifically Japan and Korea.

Moreover, when iOS and Android are combined consumer spending on games for the two mobile platforms is now four times that of gaming-optimised handhelds.

Looking at the combined iOS and Android ecosystem, the Q213 Portable Gaming Spotlight found that games represented 40 percent of app downloads across platforms and represented 70 percent of app revenue in both the App Store and Google Play.

Down but not out

But the picture isn’t all grim for the 3DS, Vita, and others in the gaming-optimised handheld category.

The report also found that spending on gaming-optimised handhelds grew in Western Europe.

Unsurprisingly, Nintendo’s 3DS continued to lead in gaming-optimised handheld spending – buttressed by the breakout success of its social StreetPass games .（source：pocketgamer）

4）Konami unveils Star Wars card battle game for mobile devices

Dean Takahashi

Konami is announcing today that it is publishing the Star Wars: Force Collection card battle game for iOS and Android the devices.

The game will be available simultaneously on both mobile platforms on Sept. 4. The title reflects the strategy of the new owner of the Star Wars franchise, Disney, which has been much more open to licensing other game companies to make Star Wars titles. Japan’s Konami, a console publisher that wants to break into new digital markets such as tablets, is one of the beneficiaries of that strategy.

Star Wars: Force Collection joins a long list of card battle games that are popular on iPads and other tablets. In the game, you replay the experience of the six Star Wars movies in one continuous story. You can collect cards, build combat devices such as spacecraft, and battle in asynchronous multiplayer combat.

The free-to-play game will have more than 230 heroes, villains, and vehicles from Star Wars Episodes I-VI. The characters are rendered in a realistic style — not animated like most card battle games. I played a couple of rounds of the game, and its mechanics are pretty standard. You collect character cards such as Luke Skywalker that you keep on a permanent basis. But you also collect “stack” cards that represent combatants that you can actually lose in card battles. You go on quests, explore areas, battle creatures such as Sand people, and collect the spoils. You can upgrade your cards. As you play, you can decide on the fly if you want to fight on the light or the dark side of the Force.

“We saw great potential in the story to delight fans around the world with a deep game experience on mobile devices,” said Tomoyuki Tsuboi, president of Konami Digital Entertainment, in a statement. “Konami’s proven capabilities in mobile game development and publishing, particularly in the card battle genre, are the perfect fit for Star Wars, and we’re very pleased to bring this new experience to players around the globe.”

The title has authentic scenes from the movies and sound effects as well. It uses memorable quotes to keep you entertained. The free-to-play mechanic is based on energy. If you run out of crystal energy points, you can no longer fight. So you can either wait or purchase them in micro-transactions. You can win energy in your battles, so you’re never forced to make purchases.

In the card battles, you can arrange your heroes in formation on a grid and set up their order of attack or defense. Some characters fight at long range, others at short range. They have varying levels of attack and defense points, as well as costs and sale prices. You’ll have six planets to explore. I didn’t see much here that impressed me, as it seemed like a standard card battle game. But there’s no arguing that it has the right brand to attract the attention of tablet and smartphone gamers.（source：venturebeat）

5）Disney, Playdom find growing success with Kitchen Scramble on Facebook

Brandy Shaul

Disney’s Playdom has created a new hit on Facebook with Kitchen Scramble, a game that capitalizes on the growing popularity of food trucks by allowing players to take over their own food truck, bringing healthy food to people all around the world.

The level-based time-management game is comparable to games like Sandlot Games’ Cake Mania or PlayFirst’s Diner Dash, as players are challenged with creating dishes based on customer orders in a step-by-step process. Some dishes are cooked on a stove, others in an oven, and so on.

Depending on their speed, players are rewarded with different tips during each stage. These tips are spent on new appliances and upgrades for the food truck, which unlock new recipes and customers to match.

At the beginning of each stage, players are given the opportunity to spend premium ingredients, making their matching dishes worth more coins, while action chains can boost profits even more as players complete the same action more than once in rapid succession.

Players are limited in each gameplay session via the amount of “supplies” or energy they have on hand, with supplies recharging over time. Supplies, along with coins, premium cash and more can be purchased with real money, bringing the expected revenue streams to the game.

Kitchen Scramble launched on Facebook in late June, but has recently experienced monumental growth, reaching over 3.3 million monthly active players, with 1.6 million new players added in the last seven days alone. You can try the game for yourself for free on Facebook.（source：insidesocialgames）