为了为旗下热门社交游戏发掘新市场，美国社交游戏开发公司Zynga最近在日本发布了FarmVille的本地化版本Farm Village。12月，这款全球规模最大的社交游戏日本版将登陆日本最大的手机社交网站Mixi。

近来，Zynga将拓宽公司的全球运营范围作为防止过分依赖Facebook社交网站的主要策略。因此该公司开始多方冒险，并不断向新市场拓展。上周，Zynga发布了拥有5种系统语言的新款社交游戏CityVille。

farmville-japan

自创建后的4年来，私人创办的社交游戏开发公司Zynga以惊人速度告诉发展，目前公司有员工近1300人，旗下的社交游戏月活跃用户总计高达2亿1500万。此外，该Zynga公司还从DST, SoftBank和Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers等主要投资商获得了上亿美元投资。今年，二手交易市场SharesPost提出Zynga公司的估值将超过56亿美元，预计2010年Zynga公司的年收入将超过5亿美元。

然而过分依赖Facebook社交网站无疑是对Zynga未来发展的一大威胁。每次由于Facebook网站的调整，zynga的用户流量可能在一夕之间大起大落。这也正是为什么Zynga十分看重日本市场。

2009年6月发布的FarmVille是一款每天只需几分钟经营的休闲游戏。然而由于用户基础的不稳定性，FarmVille的月活跃用户从今年初的最高峰8300万下降至5370万。此前，Zynga面向FarmVille用户开发了其他几款社交游戏，以此确保玩家在厌倦FarmVille后会转向投入其他zynga游戏。Zynga游戏都无需付费，主要依靠玩家购买游戏虚拟商品的消费实现盈利。

然而，没有人能保证Zynga进军日本市场就一定能取得成功。日本有许多当地的大型手机社交游戏公司，如DeNA等。为了取得成功，Zynga从SoftBank获得资金，并创办了合资企业Zynga Japan以加速进军日本市场。

Zynga Japan的首席执行官Robert Goldberg表示，Farm Village侧重于让玩家与现实朋友，而非仅仅是虚拟朋友一起游戏。(本文由游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译 转载请注明：游戏邦)

In a bid to find new markets for its blockbuster social game, Zynga is announcing a localized version of its FarmVille game in Japan today.

Called Farm Village, the Japanese version of the world’s largest game — which has 53.7 million monthly active users on Facebook — will be available in early December on Mixi, Japan’s largest social network which runs on feature phones.

Zynga has made global expansion a big priority as it searches for ways to become less dependent on Facebook. The company has to diversify its risks and expand to new markets. Last week, the company announced that it would launch its newest game, CityVille, in five different languages.

Zynga is a privately held San Francisco company with more than 1,300 employees. It has seen extremely fast growth in nearly four years, with more than 215 million monthly active users playing its games. The company has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from major investors such as DST, SoftBank, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Secondary trading on SharesPost (where employees sell their stock to cash out early) pegs Zynga’s value at $5.6 billion. Revenue for 2010 is expected to surpass $500 million, according to Inside Network. Roughly 10 million Americans play FarmVille every day.

But the dependency on Facebook is a big risk for Zynga. In any given week, Zynga can lose 10 million users or gain that many (based on what I’ve seen eyeballing the numbers over time) That’s why the Japanese launch is so important.

Launched in June, 2009, FarmVille itself is a casual game that users play for minutes a day. The players have been fickle; FarmVille’s audience has shrunk from 83 million monthly unique visitors earlier this year to 53.7 million. Along the way, Zynga markets its other games to FarmVille players. So even if those players stop playing FarmVille, they may move on to other Zynga games. The game is available for free, but users pay real money for virtual goods such as tractor fuel.

Victory in Japan isn’t guaranteed. There are a lot of big Japanese mobile social game companies, such as DeNA, which have entrenched positions. U.S. rivals such as CrowdStar are also moving into the Japanese market. To ensure success, Zynga raised money from SoftBank and created a joint venture, Zynga Japan, to accelerate its entry into the market.

Robert Goldberg, chief executive of Zynga Japan (and a VentureBeat veteran), said that Farm Village will focus on social play where users will play with their real friends, not just virtual friends. （source:venturebeat）