New Harvest Moon announced for 3DS

by James, Pure Nintendo, Posted Oct 9th 2013 5:55PM

Famitsu has revealed "Harvest Moon: Linking (Connecting?) the New World" for the 3DS. Due out in February for 5,040 yen ($50) in Japan, the game is produced by Yoshifumi Hashimoto, with character designs by Igusa Matsuyama.

"As the first new Harvest Moon release in two years, the game's subtitle translates to something like "Connecting New Lands." Series producer Yoshifumi Hashimoto explained to Famitsu that "connecting" has a dual meaning here. "One meaning of that lies in the connectivity functions we use," he said. "The game supports StreetPass and Wi-Fi; you can trade assorted data with friends and you can also visit each other's farms. It also refers to connecting with the world, making connections to other countries via trade." Polygon reports.

Though there's no word yet on a U.S. release for the new Harvest Moon, check out more details about the game HERE.

Tags: 3ds, 3DS XL, 3ds-xl, 3dsXl, announced, announced-date, announced-titles, Famitsu, harvest, Harvest Moon, harvest-festival, Harvest-Moon, Harvest-Moon-DS-Island-of-Happiness, HarvestMoon, Igusa Matsuyama, Japan, nintendo, nintendo 3ds, Nintendo DS, nintendo wii, nintendo wii u, Nintendo3ds, NintendoDs, NintendoWii, NintendoWiiU, screenshot, screenshot-plus, screenshots, yoshifumi hashimoto

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Happy Harvest developer ELEX ramping up cross-platform, self-publishing

Chinese developer ELEX wants to expand its social and mobile game business to cross-platform publishing and ramp up its independent games portal in 2012, the company tells Inside Social Games.

The social games industry knows ELEX primarily from farming sim Happy Harvest (????), which is the second-best performing Chinese-language social game on Facebook in terms of daily active users. The Beijing-based developer currently has 300 employees and raised a single $3 million round of funding from Tencent in March 2009. Coming up on its second birthday in February, our AppData traffic tracking service reveals that Happy Harvest still enjoys 2.2 million monthly active users and 860,000 daily active users on Facebook alone with a retention rate at around 40 percent (compared to most games that are lucky to see 20 percent). Worldwide via other social networks, ELEX says that Happy Harvest broke 10 million MAU in December 2011. Across all its games on Facebook, the developer sees 4.4 million MAU and 1.4 million DAU.

ELEX was one of the first Chinese games developers to cash in on the under-served Chinese-speaking Facebook audience in 2009 when the platform was still young and the developer was only a year old. In most cases, we see Chinese developers take an existing game that saw success in local Chinese games networks (e.g. Tencent, RenRen, etc.) and port it to Facebook more or less exactly as it is. This doesn’t always result in a hit game, however, as the Chinese-speaking audience on Facebook is limited and most Facebook-focused publishers won’t pick up Chinese games because they’re hard to localize in a way that appeals to a Western audience. See 6waves Lolapps’ approach to its Smartron5 acquisition as an example.

Though ELEX built up a global audience on social and mobile game networks in Russia, China, Taiwan, the United States, Latin America and Europe over the past two years, the developer wants to focus on its own platform services in 2012. The XingCloud service, first announced in June 2012, is an all-in-one platform for developers to create, publish, localize and distribute games across a variety of platforms — including mobile and PC download.

ELEX CEO Binsen Tang tells us that XingCloud’s real value is in providing developers with data analysis — an area where he thinks most developers make mistakes.

“Data analyzing is different for Chinese developers,” he explains. “The details in games are often unnoticed. [In] the last few years, Chinese developers have focused more on customer experience, and thinking from the point of view of the player. This is why we’re investing a lot in XingCloud.”

The company is also using 2012 to focus on its own games portal, 337.com. This is a move some Western social game developers like Kabam are making, whenever they reach a certain critical mass of users. Though maintaining an independent platform can be expensive — and risky, if their audience will not follow the game off of Facebook onto a new platform — some developers see it as the best way to maximize profit because they don’t have to pay out fees and revenue shares to platform operators.

In ELEX’s case, this is not quite true as its games see the highest average revenue per user rates on Facebook. (For context, Tang tells us that Happy Harvest is its best monetized game at $1 ARPU.) ELEX reports that in the past two years, its signed over 20 publishers to the platform and enjoys over 10 million MAU and 500,000 daily user visits. Tang claims the platform is popular with Latin American and European players thanks in part to its focus on more “hardcore” games like shooters, racing games and action games. Interestingly, the 337.com interface currently looks a lot like Facebook’s canvas app interface:

The largest opportunity for ELEX in 2012, however, may prove to be mobile as the developer is only just getting its footing on iOS and Android with a Happy Harvest sequel and several original titles. Tang says that though Facebook has been a good investment for ELEX, it’s important for all Chinese developers to keep a second eye on the local market, which is continuing to grow.

“Facebook is already a very successful SNS platform,” he says, “but it is still mainly for English speaking countries.”

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'FarmVille for Dummies' is ready for harvest, but is it ripe for the picking?

by Jenny Ng, Posted Feb 28th 2011 5:00PM

Following up on last November's announcement, FarmVille for Dummies is now done with pre-orders and ready for the picking and perusal of the aspiring virtual farmer. The paperback and Kindle version of this book came out on Amazon last week, at a respective $19.99 USD and $9.99 USD, though Amazon currently has the paperback on sale for $12.35 USD.

The book is the culmination of the hard work and good humor of FarmVilleFreak.com's Angela Morales and our colleague Kyle Orland, so expect some bias when I tell you that this book is an A+ job, and even fun for those who don't play FarmVille. Aside from teaching you how to play, offering advice on the best ways to play, and general troubleshooting of the game, the book also has a chapter on how to recognize scams and tips to avoid addiction. Moreover, the book's final section offers the publisher Wiley's classic "Part of Tens", and for this, the authors have decided to go with "Ten Farming Personalities", "Ten Most Wanted FarmVille Items", and "Ten Go-To Crops". And it does all this while being, as the cover says, "IN FULL COLOR!"

While there's always the initial concern that a book on a social game could be outdated since the medium moves so quickly, Wiley's series of 'for Dummies' books are aimed for beginners, so if you're starting from scratch, FarmVIlle for Dummies has all the fundamentals you're looking for, plus more.

But like Levar Burton always said, you don't have to take my word for it. FarmVilleFreak.com has a PDF sample of the book where you get to read the Introduction and look at the Table of Contents. Additionally, you can preview it through the "Search inside this book" feature on its Amazon page where you'll also find the index. And if you ever do need more info about FarmVille or the workings of another social game (and you most certainly will if you play) that's what FarmVille online guides and the upcoming CityVille for Dummies book are for.

Currently, the book is rockin' 6th place in the "Internet Games" category under "Books" at the Amazon store. If you need an offline alternative, you can also purchase the book off a real shelf at a Barnes & Noble. Bookmark this site!

Tags: angela morales, AngelaMorales, farmville, farmville for dummies, FarmvilleForDummies, FarmvilleFreak, kyle orland, KyleOrland, wiley, zynga

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