Papa Pear Saga review
Papa Pear Saga is a new Facebook release from King, currently in open beta and available for everyone to play on the social network. The new game’s launch coincides with King’s 10-year anniversary and rebranding from King.com to just King. It’s also set to hit iOS and Android mobile devices “soon.”
Papa Pear Saga is a new take on King’s previous Web-based game Papa Pear, itself inspired by Japanese pachinko mechanics. The game also has more than a few similarities to PopCap’s popular casual game Peggle, and this is firmly in keeping with King’s track record of taking well-established, familiar casual game mechanics (match-3 in Candy Crush Saga, bubble shooting in Bubble Witch Saga and so on) and putting their own twist on them. Adopting this approach rather than creating completely original, potentially complex mechanics gives King’s games a strong sense of “pick up and play” immediacy which has doubtless contributed considerably to the strong success of titles such as Candy Crush Saga, which is currently the top game on Facebook.
The basic mechanics of Papa Pear Saga involve aiming a cannon at the top of the screen using the mouse, then firing out objects (here crash helmet-wearing pears) which subsequently bounce off an arrangement of pegs on their way down the screen. The bottom of the screen houses several buckets, and dropping the pears into the buckets scores points, as does bouncing off pegs. Other bonuses are provided for special moves such as lots of bounces in rapid succession or eliminating all of a particular type of peg off the screen, and occasionally special pegs appear that confer benefits ranging from increasing the score multiplier to making the bouncing pears increase in size. In a slight twist on Peggle’s formula, it’s possible to fire up to three pears at once instead of just one, and certain special pegs cause additional pears to appear.
King.com’s Pet Rescue Saga is once again the top gainer among the fastest-growing Facebook games by daily active users, bringing in 386,040 DAU for a 7 percent gain.
Social Point’s Dragon City took the top spot on this week’s list of the fastest-growing Facebook games by monthly active users, up 2.61 million MAU for a gain of 13 percent. Since Dragon City launched in May 2012, the game’s gradually climbed the traffic charts, though it looks like the gains are slowing down to the point of plateauing in the near future.
One of the ongoing issues we hear about from developers is how difficult it is to monetize the free players who don’t convert. While in-game ads are often the default solution, it can be difficult to manage the content provided by ad services, especially if more than one network’s been partnered with. Mobile and web ad monetization group Supersonic Ads Media Group is looking to streamline the experience with its newly-launched 
King.com today announced it’s expanding its global presence by bringing localized versions of its most popular “Saga” games to both Japan and South Korea.
SponsorPay also took a look at who plays the more popular social mobile games. Over half of Zynga’s Texas Holdem Poker’s players are older than 26, and 75 percent of users are male. FarmVille 2, meanwhile, has a 68 percent female player base and 80 percent of users are older than 25. Words With Friends’ audience is 63 percent female, with 70 percent being older than 24-years-old. King.com’s Candy Crush Saga had the largest percentage of women playing its game, 72 percent of users are female and 66 percent of users are over 26-years-old. Rovio’s Angry Birds Star Wars may have 60 percent of its players above the age of 25, but 50 percent of its players are men.
