Bungie's Destiny could still come to PC

by Matt Liebl, GameZone, Posted May 28th 2013 11:20AM

Although Destiny has only been announced for current- and next-gen consoles, Bungie hasn't completely ruled out a PC release. In fact, speaking to IGN, Bungie actually discussed the possibility of a PC version, but acknowledged they don't want to "compromise the core experience."

"We haven't said yes, and we haven't said no," Bungie senior writer Eric Osborne told IGN. "The more platforms we take on, the more work it ultimately becomes, and what we don't want is to compromise the core experience on any platforms.

"We have a lot of people who play on PCs. We have a lot of appetite to build that experience. We haven't announced it yet, but we're looking forward to talking more about that kind of stuff in the future," he said.

As of right now, Destiny is due out for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, and PS4 sometime at a future date that we know will not be 2013. You'd think the game's persistent world and co-op gameplaywould increase the likelihood of a PC version. Looks like someone needs to get on that petition to bring Destiny to PC... because those always work.

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Spades: Still Growing After 75 Years!

What's the most popular four-player card game in the United States? On college campuses, in the military, and on the Internet, the answer is the same: Spades. Over 100,000 people now play Spades online every day, more than all the online Bridge and Hearts players combined.

Spades is newer than most other popular card games, although its main features-partnerships, bidding, and trumps-derive from older games such as Bid whist, Bridge, Pinochle, and Euchre. George Coffin, a card game expert best known for his prolific Bridge writings, determined that Spades was introduced in Cincinnati between 1937 and 1939. From there it spread to other Midwest cities, college campuses, and the military, where it was played extensively during World War II. Since that time, it has continued to grow steadily, even as contract bridge-which was developed from auction bridge by Harold S. Vanderbilt in 1925-has declined in popularity in the United States during the past two decades.

The appeal of Spades lies in its combination of a simple bidding system, the opportunity for partnership play, and fast-paced action. Despite its deceptively simple rules - much simpler than those of Bridge, - the game of Spades requires months or even years of experience in order for its players to become accomplished. There is also fertile ground, here, for advanced technique. Having a good partner can make a big difference!

The basic rules of Spades are relatively simple. There are many variations, however, and it will undoubtedly take some time before the game becomes standardized.

The preferred game is four-handed, with two competing partnerships. Partners sit across the table from each other.

A standard 52-card deck of playing cards is used. Aces are high, followed in rank by king, queen, jack, ten, and so on - down to the deuces (twos). To start, the deck is shuffled and dealt out completely, each player receiving 13 cards.

The object is to score the most points; usually, a limit of 500 points is set, so that the first team to reach 500 wins. A negative limit of -250 is also standard; a team whose score falls to -250 or below loses. In "live" tournament play, a game limit of 12 hands is used to control the time each round takes.

Beginning with the player to the left of the dealer and proceeding clockwise, each player makes a bid indicating the number of tricks (defined below) that he or she expects to take for that hand. There is only one round of bidding. In most instances, the total of the four bids adds up to less than 13, as players tend to be conservative. In general, each partnership aims to take the same number of tricks during the play of the hand as the total of their two bids.

"Nil," a bid of zero, is different from other bids in that it is an individual contract rather than simply part of a partnership bidding total (see "Scoring").

After the bidding, the player to the left of the dealer chooses any card except a spade and plays it faceup on the table. This card is the opening lead. In some circles, whoever has the deuce of clubs must lead it to start the first trick.

Each of the other players in turn, moving clockwise around the table, also plays one card, which must-if possible-be of the same suit that was led. The four cards played constitute a trick, which is picked up by the winner of the trick and placed facedown on the table. The winner of the trick leads the first card to the next trick, and play continues until all 13 tricks have been completed.

A trick that contains no spades is won by the highest card of the suit originally led. Spades are always trump; therefore, any spade will beat any non-spade, regardless of rank. A trick containing more than one spade, of course, is won by the highest spade.

No player may lead a spade until spades have been "broken"-that is, until at least one spade has been played. There's one obvious exception: A player on lead who only has spades may (and must) lead one.

If a partnership takes at least as many tricks as it bids, it scores 10 points for every trick bid plus one point for every additional trick taken, if any. Except when there is a nil bid, it makes no difference whether individual partners make their individual bids; if one partner bids 2 and the other bids 4, and each of them takes three tricks for a total of six, they have made their combined bid of 6 and earn 60 points.

If a partnership takes fewer tricks than its combined bid, it loses 10 points for every trick bid. Bidding a total of 7 and taking anywhere from zero to six tricks would result in a score of -70. Making your team's bid is imperative, as a "Set" (defeat) will cost you points!

A nil bid is an individual contract to take no tricks. A nil bidder scores 100 points if successful, -100 if unsuccessful (regardless of how many tricks are taken). In either case, the nil bidder's partner scores separately on the hand, based on only the partner's bid and tricks taken only by the partner. Tricks taken by a nil bidder do not count toward his or her partner's total.

"Blind nil" (sometimes called "double nil") is a bid that should be reserved for desperate situations. It's a nil bid that a player makes before seeing his or her hand. If successful, it scores 200 points; if unsuccessful, -200. "Bags" (or "sandbags") are the single points scored for each trick taken in excess of what was bid. As a penalty for overly conservative bidding, an accumulation of 10 bags results in a penalty of 100 points.

On line Spades is an ideal way to play. There is no shuffling, dealing, or scoring. The computer does it for you!

Some groups prefer to play with the rule that spades can be led at any time. The Jokers are also used. Three handed "Cut throat" Spades has a large following, and appeals to those to those who like a non - partners game. Future columns will review other variations, and "live" tournaments.

Enjoy Spades and have fun!

Copyright 2000, 2012 by Joe Andrews.
For more information on "The Complete Win At Spades" (Book) -
please send an email to: heartsmoon@aol.com

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Facebook ads can still lead to specific tabs, even with default feature gone

Advertisers can still run Facebook campaigns that drive to third-party tab applications, even though pages lost the ability to designate a default landing tab in the latest redesign.

We confirmed with Facebook that ads do not have to lead to the main Timeline view. Advertisers can select a destination tab from a drop down menu in the self-serve ad dashboard as they did before. However, “Wall” has been renamed “Timeline” and “Info” is now called “About.” Currently, the system allows advertisers to select “Messages” or “All Activity” as destination tabs, even though these are only visible to page admins and should not be used as landing pages for ad campaigns.

As has always been the case, the destination tab feature is only available for traditional Facebook ads, not Sponsored Stories or ads from page posts. Advertisers can create ads that direct people to custom tabs by selecting “Facebook Ads” and “New ad message,” as seen below. These tab applications will continue to support fan-gating — hiding content from non-fans in order to encourage users to Like the page — however, there is currently a bug preventing pages from refreshing and revealing content after users click Like.

This type of ad can be used to drive traffic to promotions or commerce features within tab applications. Facebook, however, is making a push for advertisers to focus on “stories” — paying to promote page posts and fan activity rather than creating traditional ads with a headline, image and body copy. A 2011 study by TBG Digital found that Sponsored Stories had 46 percent higher click through rate than traditional Facebook ads. Marketers who want to develop and promote Facebook applications might want to consider testing “App Used” Sponsored Stories, as seen below.

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Facebook for iPhone 3.5 Hitting 50M DAU, Ports Recent Privacy Changes, Still Includes Check-Ins

Facebook yesterday released version 3.5 of its Facebook for iPhone mobile app. The update includes many of the new privacy, friend tagging, and location features that were added to the web interface two weeks ago. Users can also now post rich feed stories with thumbnails and captions by copying links into the publisher or tapping “Share” in the web view.

Despite Facebook saying it would shift Places from focusing on check-ins to applying location as a layer, users can still view the Places check-in feed and map. However, now these features show all friends who’ve recently tagged a Place in an update, even if they were discussing somewhere they’d been or plan to go and not their current location.

On August 23rd, Facebook announced an overhaul of its privacy settings, bringing controls in-line with content. The changes have since rolled out to the web interface for most users, but now Facebook has begun porting the changes to its mobile interfaces starting with its most popular mobile app. Facebook for iPhone grew 2.4 million daily active users this month and today will  reach 50 million DAU.

The mobile site m.facebook.com now includes the revamped publisher, and an updated privacy settings page. The iPhone app offers access to the privacy setttings page through its internal browser so users can set default post privacy, past post privacy, and whether they must approve tags before they appear on their profile. The Android, BlackBerry, and other mobile apps still lack the new publisher.

When iPhone users go to add a status update, they’ll see their city-level location as determined by their IP and other signals at the bottom left of the publisher. They can tap this or the Places button to reveal the option to remove city-level location, tag an existing Place, or add and tag a new Place. Specific location tags are appended to the end of the update as “- at [Place]“. Photos can also be added to any update.

Previously a major deficiency of the iPhone app compared to the Android app was the inability to tag friends in updates. Now users can select to tag friends in posts by tapping the friends button, with the tags appended to the update as “- with [name]“. Upon opening the tag selector they’re first presented with “Recents” for easy access to their closest friends, as well as a search option and a browsable list of all their friends.

A gear icon reveals the audience the post will reach, whether thats “Public”, “Friends”, a custom audience, or one of their friend lists. This feature is very streamlined, and actually requires several fewer clicks than the web interface to select to post to a friend lists. It should make it easier for users to share wider variety of content by being able to restrict its visibility to those for whom its relevant and appropriate.

The update notes for Facebook for iPhone 3.5 note that this version “Added the ability to share external links from a web view.” This means that when users are browsing the internet through the app’s internal browser, the can now tap a forward and then a Share button to initiate a status update linking to the currently viewed URL.

What’s more interesting is how Facebook now formats these links. Previously, links posted through the iPhone publisher appears as simple hyperlinks. Now, whether through the Share button or by copying and pasting a URL into the publisher, Facebook converts URLs into rich feed posts that include a headline, caption, and thumbnail image the same way URLs are formatted when pasted into the web interface’s publisher. This lets users create much more compelling stories out of URLs that attract more clicks. This could help Facebook drive more referral traffick and become more important to web publishers.

After a year of users announcing their current location as verified by GPS proximity through check-ins, Facebook confirmed with us that it would scrap the check-in feed and map. This was because users would now be able to any add location to any post no matter their current coordinates. We criticized this decision because the feed and map of just current locations had made it easy to find nearby friends and arrange meet-ups.

In this iPhone update, the check-in feed and map are still available, except now they feature any friend who’s added location to a post, regardless of whether they were currently at that Place or not. If users click the Check-In button or go to tag a Place in a status update, they’re prompted “Where are you”, indicating that Facebook hasn’t quite sorted out whether location tags and check-ins are the same thing.

As users change their behaviors and start tagging Places they aren’t currently at, the feed and map will become confusing because it will show a friend at local restaurant when they’re actually across the country but had just posted a recommendation tagging the eatery. While its value will diminish as users adopt the new location capabilities, this stay of execution of the Places feed and map should come as good news to those like me who use the features to find clusters of friends on the weekends.

With the 3.5 update, Facebook for iPhone now approaches parity with most of the web interface’s core features. Of the recent privacy changes, the only thing noticibly lacking is the option to change the privacy settings of previously published content on a post-by-post basis. With the basic functionality, Facebook can now concentrate on prepping the iPhone app to be compatible with its HTML5 mobile site that could offer gaming that is expected to launch at the f8 developer conference later this month.

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Get Nintendo 3DS for ultra-cheap ($150) on eBay while you still can

What, so an $80 price drop still wasn't enough for you? Fine, then have the Nintendo 3DS for $100 less, you cheapskate. TechCrunch reports that MacMall is offering a limited number of 3DS consoles in both blue and black for just $150 with free shipping. (Seriously, folks, it does not get better than this ... period.)

While the newly announced red model isn't a part of the deal, I sincerely doubt color is an issue when the thing officially (or unofficially?) costs as much as its predecessor, the DSi. While there is no time limit on this deal nor is it an auction, this offer can't last forever, so you better whip out the plastic soon. As of this writing, already 222 were sold. The clock is a'ticking.

While the 3DS suffered more lows than highs since its release this March, it's an impressive piece of hardware regardless, for what it does. While you won't find as robust an online service for gaming or downloading on arguable competitors like iOS and Android devices, it's still pretty mind-blowing to see some of its games in 3D without the need of any accessory.

And besides, more games are on the way, and we seriously doubt Nintendo is going to drop this enormous project anytime soon. So, go on and pick one up. Think of it this way: This will probably be the cheapest, coolest Christmas gift you've ever gifted--and one less to worry about. We knew that would sell you. You can buy the little handheld that could right here.

[Image Credit: Reuters]

Are you going to rush for a 3DS before this deal dries up? Do you believe the 3DS will live on beyond its price drop woes? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

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Sims Social and Smurfs Still Battling it Out on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Games by MAU

The Sims Social and The Smurfs & Co. are still in the lead on this week’s list of fastest-growing games by monthly active users. Zynga’s Texas HoldEm Poker winds up just behind them thanks to a daily active user spike begun August 25.

Zoo World 2, meanwhile, drops off the rankings this week as RockYou’s sequel slows down in growth. As of today, its MAU peaked at 9.4 million while DAU reached an all-time of 943,523 before stabilizing between 650,000 and 740,000 at its present-day levels. Note that Zoo World 2 appears as “Zoo World” on account of the sequel running via the original game’s app ID.

Top Gainers This Week – Games

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned for our look at the top weekly gainers by daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday.

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Sims and Smurfs Still Ahead on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Games by MAU

The Sims Social and The Smurfs & Co. switch places in the top two, while The Pokerist Club edges past Zoo World 2 for a spot in the top three on this week’s list of fastest-growing games by monthly active users.

There’s not much in the way of newcomers to talk about this week, but we observe two Chinese-language games — FarmVille Chinese and Happy Elements’ My Kingdom — squeezing into our top 20. This is something of a rarity as most Chinese-language games only turn up in our rankings by daily active users, never quite reaching the size needed to claim spots on our top 20 rankings by MAU. FarmVille Chinese is still the largest Chinese-language game on Facebook to date:

Top Gainers This Week – Games

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned for our look at the top weekly gainers by daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday.

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Aquarium Games Apparently Still Get Growth on This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Games

Peak Games‘ Turkish-language aquarium sim, Akvaryum, tops this week’s list of emerging Facebook games just one week after debuting at number two. And here we thought the genre was saturated with well over 30 different variations on the theme logged in our traffic tracking service, AppData. Of that list, Akvaryum is already at number five in terms of monthly active users.

Getting back to our list of emerging Facebook games, we see several newcomers to the list including several Spanish-language Social Point-developed games that also appeared on our top 20 fastest-growing games by daily active users this week. We also see The Sims Social still ramping up in users despite the fact that the game isn’t even to the closed beta phase yet so far as we know. At number two is inFamous Anarchy, Mob Science’s tie-in game for the recently-released PlayStation 3 game, inFamous 2.

At number six and seven this week are two games we had the opportunity to review recently. First up is Planet Domo, an adventure/treasure-hunting game from Barn Buddy developer TheBroth based on the popular Japanese TV mascot. The game features a player-versus-player mode that adds a layer of depth to the core gameplay.

Next is HotShot, an arcade-type game from developer PlayQ that is notably similar to PopCap Games’ popular casual title, Peggle. In both games, players shoot a ball from the top of the screen into a cluster of “pegs” arranged below the cannon. The goal is to strike certain-colored pegs with the ball to clear them from the board. At present, PopCap does not have a version of Peggle available on social networks.

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Come back next week for our top weekly gainers by monthly active users on Monday, our daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday.

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Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet v1.0.5 Adds Video Uploads, Still No Events

BlackBerry released an update this week of its Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet mobile app that gives uses the ability to upload videos, select albums to add photos to, and improves the interface for search, Pages, and the news feed. The app still lacks Events, which we see as a glaring omission for any somewhat-mobile Facebook app, even if you don’t consider tablets truly mobile.

BlackBerry released the first iteration of its Facebook app for PlayBook at the beginning on May, about two weeks after the launch of the device itself. Some reports and BlackBerry have said sales are healthy, including one estimating 250,000 units sold in the first month. A conflicting report from a source at Best Buy stated that sales had missed goals by 90% and the return rate was high.

Facebook apps have been pegged as big drivers of engagement on mobile devices, so a strong and innovative version for PlayBook could help sales of the device that analysts say is crucial to the future of Blackberry developer Resarch In Motion (RIM).

Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook v1.0.5's ability to upload video to Facebook is unique amongst official Facebook mobile apps. This, along with its multi-pane Chat interface from the initial version, help it stand out from Facebook for Android and iPhone (also used for iPad). The PlayBook’s video recorder shoots in 1080p, so users could easily record and upload a high-def video of a demo at business conference.

Other improvements bring the PlayBook app’s design in line with that of iPhone and Android devices. Pages can be accessed from a button in the Friends section, users can filter search by friends, everyone, or Pages, and a ‘+’ button beside news feed stories allows users to quickly add Likes or comments without leaving the news feed view. Photos can be uploaded to a specific album, and links to settings and the Help Center are readily available.

The most recent version of Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones allows users to choose when they delete Messages whether to delete them from just their device, their Facebook account, or both. The PlayBook update allows for Message deletion, but only from both your device and account at the same time.

V1.0.5 does not resolve the app’s lack of Facebook Groups or Events. With the PlayBook catering to business networkers who often attend business conferences and mixers, the omission of Events is difficult to understand. The feature’s presence in even the earliest iterations of most Facebook mobile apps would suggest it isn’t a difficult technology problem to solve. While unique features may attract attention, a Facebook mobile app needs to cover the basic Facebook experiences, and the PlayBook’s doesn’t yet.

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Some Casino Games Find a Home on Facebook but Zynga Still Runs the House

The casino genre is a fickle field for social games. With the exception of Zynga’s Texas HoldEm Poker, which seems to have a death grip on a spot in our top games on AppData, not many other ever break 1 million monthly active users or 200,000 daily active users. Those that do are often alternative language variants of Texas Hold ‘Em poker. Here’s a quick look at the top casino games by size and their overall growth trends.

#1 in MAU and in DAU
MAU: 35.9 million
DAU: 7 million

Zynga cornered the market on poker games early with Texas HoldEm Poker hitting Facebook in 2008. Since that time, the game grew steadily through early 2010 and then jumped 10 million users to an all-time high of 38 million MAU in August of that year. The DAU graph shows a similar climb toward a high of 7.7 million in February of this year. Interestingly, despite the game’s semi-permanence on our top games list, Texas HoldEm Poker has been losing users in both MAU and DAU over the last 30 days (pictured above). Zynga recently hired a team from poker industry service provider MarketZero to improve Texas HoldEm Poker.

#2 in MAU, #3 in DAU
MAU: 3.7 million
DAU: 353,000

This is a Chinese-language version of Texas Hold ‘Em poker and we’re not surprised to see it on our top casino games list given the steady increase of Chinese games on Facebook. Interestingly, it’s one of three Texas Hold ‘Em poker games from developer Boyaa — the other two being English-language and Spanish-language versions of the same game with much smaller audiences. Boyaa’s Chinese Texas Hold ‘Em debuted almost a year ago to 1.5 million MAU and 500,000 DAU, growing to all-time highs of 7.8 million MAU and 1.3 million DAU in January 2011. Since that time, the game’s been in decline, losing around 1 million MAU and over 200,000 DAU in the last 30 days.

 

#3 in MAU, #2 in DAU
MAU: 3.1 million
DAU: 460,000

This is a Turkish-language game that appears to be another Texas Hold ‘Em poker title; however, the language barrier and the spam-heavy nature of the game where it wants permission to access your information even when you’re not using the app make it difficult for us to confirm this. The game hit Facebook in July of last year and has kept its MAU on a steady rise toward a high of 3.2 million last week, while DAU fluctuated sharply in the past two months, maxing out at 788,000 in mid March.

#4 in MAU, #6 in DAU
MAU: 2 million
DAU: 223,000

This is one of only three casino games in our list that’s not a Texas Hold ‘Em game. Rather, it’s more of a builder sim where players run their own casinos, however the gambling component applies in the form of a straightforward slot machine simulation you play when visiting friends’ casinos. The game turns a year at the end of this month, but experienced its all time highs of 2.4 million MAU and 356,000 DAU in February 2011. In the last 30 days, Casino City’s seen a modest decline of around 200,000 MAU and over 70,000 DAU.

#5 in MAU, #3 in DAU
MAU: 1.6 million
DAU: 386,000

Slotomania is a straightforward slot simulation with a cartoon art style. The game launched late last year and so far shows a steady growth patter in MAU and DAU.

*Note: Due to a miscategorization, Slotomania was previously left off this list.

#6 in MAU, #5 in DAU
MAU: 1.2 million
DAU: 326,000

Of all the top casino games, DoubleDown presents the most interesting picture between its growth pattern and gameplay design. At just over a year old, we can see that DoubleDown got off to a slow start, only reaching it’s stride in February and so far continuing to grow in MAU and DAU. The audience is largely female and the gameplay offers several different types of casino games, including virtual poker, slots, blackjack and roulette. In the last 30 days, the growth pattern continues for both MAU and DAU.

Those are the top casino games by size in terms of MAU and DAU. If we were to look at casino games in terms of DAU divided by MAU to see which ones retain the most users, we come to the interesting conclusion that only DoubleDown Casino and Slotomania break 20% retention. As for how well each of these games monetize, Inside Virtual Goods: The U.S. Virtual Goods Market 2010-2011 tells us that poker games tend to monetize incredibly well, with a successful title hitting an average revenue per users of $2 to $3. A simulation/city-builder like Casino City, meanwhile, has an average ARPU of $1 to $2.

All data for this article was collected from AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that none of these games broke the 20% mark of DAU/MAU.

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Wooga’s Diamond Dash Still Leads This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Games by MAU

Wooga maintains its top spot on this week’s leaderboard of fastest growing Facebook games by monthly active users with Diamond Dash, a variation on the match-3 gameplay made popular by Bejeweled. Interestingly, Bejeweled Blitz fell out of the top 20 this week.

According to AppData, our traffic tracking service for the top games on Facebook, Diamond Dash is on a steady increase that doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. Hot on its heels, however, are gainer list favorites FarmVille, Zoo World, and Monster Galaxy.

Returning to this list after a long absence is Jersey Shore, the TV show tie-in game for MTV’s popular reality series. This may or may not have something to do with the end of the show’s third season; we’ll keep an eye on this and other TV tie-in games to see if fans are more likely to return to a game when a show isn’t actively airing as a way to stay engaged with the brand. Read our review of the game here.

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