By Malathi Nayak
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Social games publisher Zynga Inc confirmed on Monday that it has carried out 11 of the planned shutdowns of 13 game titles, with “Petville” being the latest game on which it pulled the plug.
Zynga in October said it would shut down 13 underperforming titles after warning that its revenues were slowing as gamers fled from its once-popular titles published on the Facebook platform in large numbers and sharply revised its full-year outlook.
The San Francisco-based company announced the “Petville” shutdown two weeks ago on its Facebook page. All the 11 shutdowns occurred in December.
The 11 titles shut down or closed to new players include role-playing game “Mafia Wars 2,” “Vampire Wars,” “ForestVille” and “FishVille.”
“In place of ‘PetVille,’ we encourage you to play other Zynga games like ‘Castleville,’ ‘Chefville,’ ‘Farmville 2,’ ‘Mafia Wars’ and ‘Yoville,'” the company told players on its ‘PetVille’ Facebook page. “PetVille” players were offered a one-time, complimentary bonus package for virtual goods in those games.
“Petville,” which lets users adopt virtual pets, has 7.5 million likes on Facebook but only 60,000 daily active users, according to AppData. About 1,260 users commented on the game’s Facebook page, some lamenting the game’s shutdown.
Zynga has said it is shifting focus to capture growth in mobile games. It also applied this month for a preliminary application to run real-money gambling games in Nevada.
Zynga is hoping that a lucrative real-money market could make up for declining revenue from games like “FarmVille” and other fading titles that still generate the bulk of its sales.
Zynga shares were up 1 percent at $2.36 in afternoon trade on Monday on the Nasdaq.
(Reporting By Malathi Nayak; Editing by Leslie Adler)
A frozen rescue at an icy California lake almost turned tragic when many of the people attempting to help the first victim also fell in the water.
Instead, the incident made for one hysterical video
The incident began on Christmas day when one man sledding on Lake Jackson, a largely frozen lake in Wrightwood, Calif., fell into the water, inspiring onlookers to come to his aid, the Telegraph reported.
It’s New Year’s Eve which means you probably spent the majority of your day sitting around in your boxers, possibly watching Netflix, and waiting for the start of tonight’s end-of-the-year festivities to begin. While you were sitting around doing nothing, the Curiosity Rover has been preparing a special message for us Earthlings to be broadcast later today in Times Square.
What the message will be is beyond us as NASA’s Curiosity Rover made his way to his Twitter profile to announce the upcoming “special message from Mars” will be broadcast in Times Square on giant Toshiba screens located in the area.
We’re hoping whatever the message the Curiosity Rover has to share with us is one of peace and harmony and not one of news of Martians hijacking the Curiosity Rover for their own personal use. I mean, a robot like the Curiosity Rover should be worth something on Mars, right? Or maybe it’s just to gloat once again that it’s currently the mayor of Mars and will probably continue his mayorship for some time to come.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Send Your Christmas Tree Into Space, FCC Eases Rules For Quicker In-Flight Internet Deployment,
OK, 2012 wasn’t the greatest year for tech, but it wasn’t a total bust either. Wade through the glut of comically oversized phones, tiny tablets and fruit company refreshes, and you’re bound to come across a few shiny needles in that crummy haystack. Here, in no particular order, are the 10 most important gadgets of the year. More »
Now that the Wii U is here, we need some games to play on it. Many publishers have decided to port their older games instead of developing all-new ones in these early days of the console, but Capcom is saying today that it will be focusing on new games when it comes to Wii U development. Sorry Resident Evil fans, but it looks like you won’t be getting Resident Evil 6 on the Wii U.
In fact, Capcom’s Christian Svensson was answering a fan question about Resident Evil 6 and Lost Planet 3 potentially making it to the Wii U when he revealed the company’s plan. “With regard to WiiU, in general we’re looking forward, not back so late ports are generally not on the table,” Svensson said. So, don’t hold out any hope of seeing your favorites from Xbox 360 and PS3 make the jump to Wii U.
Of course, this is something that will probably please a lot of fans, as early Wii U owners haven’t exactly taken kindly to the number of ports that were on the system from launch. If we were to hazard a guess, we’d say that Wii U owners want new experiences to break in their consoles, rather than ports of games that have been out for a year or so. Interestingly enough, the only game Capcom has announced for the Wii U is Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, which could be considered something of an “enhanced” port of the original Wii game.
In any case, we’ll have to wait and see what Capcom has planned, because aside from Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Capcom hasn’t made any Wii U announcements. Capcom usually doesn’t have any problem releasing new versions of old games over and over again, so the idea that it won’t be releasing many older games on the Wii U is something of a surprise. Still, we have a feeling that Wii U owners will be happy Capcom is looking to offer new experiences on their console. Stay tuned.
[via Siliconera]
Capcom planning to release new games for Wii U rather than ports is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Set-top boxes have been, for the most part, devices cable companies have stuck into our living rooms in order for us to access their content without a lot of bells and whistles to go along with. Sure, we can use our set-top boxes as a DVR, watch shows and movies on-demand and even be told the time when it’s off, but our set-top boxes need a little more pizazz. And maybe a little more Android, too.
The Tronsmart Prometheus is an Android-powered media player that resembles the ship that was featured in the film, Prometheus and comes with a ton of bells and whistles that will put your current set-top box to shame. The Prometheus runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core processor that features 1GB of RAM, 4GB of internal flash storage and an SD card slot. It also has Wi-Fi, an Ethernet port, three USB 2.0 ports and an HDMI and composite output.
Tronsmart’s Promethus will set you back $99, which is an absolute steal when you consider just how sleek the device looks as well as the fact that it runs Android. This is one set-top box we can’t help but geek over just a little bit.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: HiSense Pulse Google TV Going For $99 , Pintofeed Pet Feeder Does The Wi-Fi Jig,
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover will deliver a “special message” in Times Square tonight
Posted in: Today's ChiliNASA’s Curiosity rover has already reached a few milestones, including being the first ever to check in using Foursquare on another planet. Tonight, however, the Mars rover will make an appearance at tonight’s New Year’s celebrations in New York City’s Time Square, where millions will watch the ball drop. The rover is planning to deliver a “special message” on the big screens.
Curiosity announced the news via her Twitter account, where she tells her followers to “look for a special message from Mars on the giant Toshiba screens” in Times Square in New York City. Sadly, that’s all the information that we were given, other than it’ll be a “video greeting” and if you can’t make it to NYC for New Year’s, the rover will tweet the greeting later today anyway.
We’re not sure exactly what Curiosity has up her sleeve for tonight. It could be a live stream of Mars or just a quick pre-recorded video of the rover prancing around on the Red Planet. It would be awesome if NASA used the opportunity to announce a new discovery of the planet, but we’re guessing that the “special message” will merely just be a cheesy greeting from the rover.
The Toshiba big screens in Times Square will display the official New Year’s Eve countdown, since they’re the exclusive sponsor for the Official Countdown of the Times Square 2013 New Year’s Eve Celebration, and the company estimates that more than one billion people around the world will be tuning into the broadcast this evening.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover will deliver a “special message” in Times Square tonight is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
At the start of 2012 the folks at Google were seeing their beloved Android mobile operating system being used on more iPhone clones than we’d care to discuss – near the turn-over to 2013, big manufacturers like Samsung and HTC have made their own hero lines the likes of which Android has never known. What we saw in 2012 was recognition of the model that has worked for Apple extremely well since all the way back in 2007 – a focus on the ecosystem rather than on the individual specifications of any one device. This will continue in a very big way through 2013 with manufacturers holding up a single torch – like the Motorola RAZR brand – to keep themselves lit up brightly.
Motorola will continue to produce devices exclusive to Verizon with the DROID RAZR name attached: this branding has kept them in the limelight for the past couple of years. Samsung will stick with the Galaxy branding (as they have for more than just a couple of years) and will continue to run with the branding (and with the iPhone mocking) through the foreseeable future with both the Samsung Galaxy IV and the Samsung Galaxy Note III. HTC brought the fire in 2012 with their HTC One series (starting with the hero HTC One X) but didn’t exactly see the massive sales they’d hoped for – because of this, HTC’s strategy for 2013 remains a bit hazy.
LG made two fantastic decisions – or were granted the ability to go through with them, however it ended up going – the first being a team-up with Qualcomm for the Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor for their Optimus G smartphone. While they’ve not reported extensive numbers for the sales of this machine quite yet, it’s clear that the ultimate victory was the modified version of the handset in the Google Nexus 4. This machine has most of the features that the Optimus G does, but rounds its corners and makes its Android perfectly pure with a Google-only vanilla flavoring – this means that LG didn’t modify the software for their own, just Google. Because of the feature set and the surprisingly low cost off-contract this device came with (though a T-Mobile version does exist, mind you), it’s been a massive hit (or supply blunder, however you want to see it) compared to the rest of the Nexus devices Google has released in its lineup history.
That machine came with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean+, that being an updated version of the same Android revealed earlier this year – that was also code-named Jelly Bean. This version had a collection of new features that included quick-access to basic settings as well as connectivity that didn’t even exist yet for most users – wireless projection with Miracast.
In 2013 we’ll continue to see the change-over from a specifications race in hardware to a more solid offering in software with brand ecosystems at the heart of the race. Samsung took this battle to heart in 2012 with the Samsung Galaxy S III – see the Chris Davies article by the name of The Galaxy S III is Samsung’s Coming of Age to see what this release was all about. More evidence that the Galaxy Note and S lines are doing stellar: the response to flip covers and TecTiles given away by the OEM for free.
Manufacturers aside, Google will be making at least one big unique push to stand out on their own as a force in mobile. Not just as a creator of Android will Google be pushing, but as a service provider for mobile devices. Google has confirmed their once-axed phone service plans already, and we’ve had Chris Davies’ column making it all too clear, as well: “A Google plan to kill carriers with wi-fi is all too believable”. Google won’t purchase T-Mobile as our good pals at [Android Community] suggest, they’ll continue to tie close bonds between themselves and wi-fi hotspot companies – or something to that effect – that’ll allow their smartphones to function completely independent of the mobile carriers.
See the column “Smart device specs are over: Long live the Ecosystem!” for a good look at 2013.
Making Android smartphones (and tablets) affordable by everyone in the world will continue to be Google’s goal through 2013, rest assured.
Predictions for Google’s Android in 2013: Freedom for All! is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
WASHINGTON — One of the remaining sticking points holding up a fiscal cliff deal appears to have been resolved, as negotiators have decided to extend unemployment benefits without offsetting the cost.
A source familiar with negotiations told The Huffington Post that lawmakers would treat the provision as “an emergency measure that shouldn’t be paid for.” A Senate Democratic and Republican source each confirmed the plan.
What that means is that the $30 billion pricetag for a year-long extension will simply be added to the deficit. Republicans have in the past objected to reauthorizing federal unemployment compensation because of its impact on the deficit, though in recessions since World War II Congress has generally added extra weeks of benefits without paying for them.
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Best Latino Athletes of 2012: Lionel Messi, Ryan Lochte, Danell Leyva And More Shinning Stars
Posted in: Today's ChiliThis year was marked by the 2012 London Olympics, where Latino athletes were some of the most successful players bringing glory in the shape of gold, silver and bronze medals.
Athletes like swimmer Ryan Lochte and gymnast Danell Leyva, both of Cuban descent, as well as Puerto Rican-American football player, Victor Cruz, and Venezuelan baseball player Pablo Sandoval, shone in their respective sports, becoming icons in the process.
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