来自印度班加罗尔的消息，正当zynga游戏在facebook整体活跃用户数趋于下滑的现在，印度游戏公司ibibo却正在迎来新的发展机遇。ibibo公司首席执行官Ashish Kashyap表示该公司的活跃用户正在经历一个相对强劲的增长期。

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在印度，ibibo公司是拥有用户人数最多的社交类和角色扮演类游戏公司。

和所谓的电视肥皂剧（一般来讲剧情简单但是能不断延伸，剧目相对很长）相比，社交游戏在故事脚本的延伸度上也具有相似的功能，因此一般来讲拥有更长的生命周期（诸如zynga旗下的游戏，不断有新的补丁和产品细节更新，用于留住用户继续游戏下去）。

ibibo公司在开拓用户方面做得不错，同时他们还是印度首家将社交游戏带到手机平台的游戏公司。

Bangalore: Zynga, the largest developer of social games on sites like Facebook, may be facing a decline in the number of users — from 245 million monthly active users to 215 million, according to online traffic tracker AppData — but ibibo, the India-based gaming and social networking site, has seen a growth in user base, says Ashish Kashyap, CEO of the company.

“In India, ibibo has the largest IP of social multi-player and role-playing games. I cannot comment on Zynga, however, we have consistently seen a growth in usage,” says Kashyap.

This, he says, is largely driven by two factors: firstly, the social graph along with the social game sites on ibibo. Secondly, local social gaming content, which Indian youth can relate with — such as ibibo’s role playing game the Great Indian Parking Wars, which is based on the story of the struggle for finding parking space in everyday life.

“The game has assets that one can easily relate with, like cows that you can put on your friend’s street, autorickshaws, trucks etc. The game also incorporates issues such as politician’s statues on one hand and petrol thefts on the other hand,” says Kashyap.

Similarly, ibibo also offers multiplayer social games such as Teen Patti, which is based on a popular Indian card game. “Six friends can play this game live online while sitting anywhere in India. It is this local social gaming content that enables us to differentiate ourselves and hence, enable users to create their social graphs around each of these contexts,” he says.

Though the site offers blogs and other networking features, social gaming is the most dominant activity on ibibo. “Social games act as an important catalyst for the users to form relationships. At the same time, activities on these games create a strong conversation starter amongst the community members. The core demographics are 15 to 24 years, with 70% males,” Kashyap adds.

Games, like most commodities, have an expiry date and it is very common for gamers to move on when they get bored. But ibibo believes this issue can be solved by updating games frequently.

“The best way to understand this is to draw parallels with a TV soap. Social games that can constantly evolve with new stories and twists have a longer life. Further, by putting in elements that are topical inside the social games further adds constant interest and engagement level. For example, cheerleaders on your parking streets, new variations on Teen Patti… usually, a strong social game has a 6-24 months life cycle. But some games like Poker and Teen Patti are evergreen,” says Kashyap.

To further engage users, the site recently tied up with Aircel to enable its games on mobile phones. “Ibibo is the one of the first players in India to have launched social games on mobile. We are shortly introducing many more social games specifically for mobiles. Parking Wars is the most popular social game on ibibo’s mobile platform,” says Kashyap, who believes 3G will further encourage users to embrace social games.