Zynga的《FarmVille》在发布两年之后，每天仍然拥有近1500万的活跃用户，并且在Facebook平台上稳坐社交游戏第二把交椅。

这只是一个典型的个例，但那些知名度较低甚至跌出前十名的社交游戏的运营情况如何呢？

对于这个问题，开发商Meteor Games公司的答案十分出人意料。

Meteor Games坐落于加州的比佛利山庄，该公司旗下发行两年的游戏《Island Paradise》是一棵摇钱树。这款游戏在2009年9月上线，当时《FarmVille》正处于高速发展时期。它们有着相似的主题，玩家的任务就是种植和收获农作物，包括椰子树等。玩家们还可以选择为物品付费来加快游戏进度。

island-paradise

据Meteor首席执行官Zac Brandenberg所称，该游戏在发行三个月后的用户规模达到顶峰状态，直到2010年2月仍然保持相当可观的月平均用户数量。

时隔一年，Meteor现在有打算关闭这个游戏项目了吗？

Brandenberg表示，“绝对不会，无论《Island Paradise》现在是不是已走到生命周期的末端，它的运营情况都让我们很满意，如果再考虑我们在它身上所投入的资源和精力，那就更值得欣慰了。公司目前已将主要精力投入其他的游戏项目。”与此同时，这款游戏仍在继续吸金。

据AppData数据显示，《Island Paradise》每天吸引了大约40万名用户，月用户约为150万，意味着24%的月活跃用户每天都会回到游戏中，这是一个十分乐观的比值。（游戏邦注：相比之下，《FarmVille》的月活跃用户每日返回率仅为3%。）

游戏邦获悉，虽然如今的玩家数量已不再是高峰期时的盛况，但他们的平均消费水平却大幅上扬，因为付费玩游戏的玩家比例提高了。

Brandenberg推断，“付费玩家比例会因游戏的生命周期而发生变化，在游戏发展初期付费玩家比较少，因为玩家总体数量较多，并且他们仍抱有尝试的态度，所以不会轻易花钱。但在一年半载之后，游戏就聚集了一群核心玩家，他们投入游戏的时间较长因此更有可能继续为其花钱。”

社交游戏将如何因时间变化而发展仍然有待观察。现在多数Facebook游戏才刚问世一两年，它们最终会华丽地转身还是因公司的疏于更新而中途夭折？这一切仍然有待观望。

以下是Meteor游戏忠实粉丝的部分特点：

·《Island Paradise》用户一般每月花费5到10美元。注意：这是在游戏发展的历史过程中，为其花过钱的全部用户的平均值。要知道，该游戏活跃用户平均每人每月的消费是35到70美元。

·尽管如此，该游戏仍有将近97%的非付费用户。

·而剩下的3%付费用户，很乐于在游戏中通过比赛，或者直接花钱获取虚拟货币。

·比起通过活动推广赢取虚拟货币，高消费用户更喜欢通过花钱提高游戏体验。

·在游戏中消费超过1000美元的高消费用户在业内被称为“鲸鱼”。在过去的12个月里Meteor游戏拥有“成百上千”的鲸鱼。

·最大方的用户是那些消费超过6000美元的玩家。这一群体多为30到55岁之间、生活在西欧或美国的女性。这一消费层次的人数仅有“一小部分”。

Brandenberg将《Island Paradise》的乐观发展局面归功于公司采取的两种行动。

他表示，在2010年Meteor员工规模翻了一番，雇用了一些核心高管并加大了投资力度。另外，公司还通过对游戏持续更新和改进，不断吸引许多玩家重返游戏。

Brandenberg指出，该游戏主要依靠自动调节运行，不需要太多员工进行维护，他的团队可以抽出身来关注下一款游戏的情况。据游戏邦了解，该公司大部分员工目前都把精力集中于公司的下一款游戏《Serf Wars》，该游戏目前正处于测试阶段。该游戏的背景是一个王国，允许玩家在一片梦幻般的大陆中进行探索甚至战斗，预计在三月初正式发布。

Meteor Games成立于2007年，目前拥有65名员工，由Neopets的创始人创办（Neopets是一个深受儿童欢迎的虚拟宠物社区），目前尚未接受任何风险投资但已经实现盈利。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

How an Older Social Game Keeps Making Money

Tweet SharePrint Almost two years after Zynga launched FarmVille, it continues to attract nearly 15 million users a day and is the second-most trafficked social game on Facebook.

That’s one extreme, but what happens to those lesser-known titles that don’t even break the Top 10 anymore?

We asked Meteor Games this question, and the answer is surprising.

Its nearly two-year-old game, Island Paradise, is a cash cow (and we aren’t talking the virtual kind).

The Beverly Hills, Calif., company launched Island Paradise in September 2009 when FarmVille was all the rage. The themes were similar, with players tasked with planting and harvesting crops, including coconut trees. Players were offered the opportunity to pay for items to speed up the pace of the game.

Meteor’s CEO Zac Brandenberg said the game’s popularity peaked three months after it launched, and it sustained a fairly respectable number of monthly average users until February 2010.

But that’s now a year ago.

So, is Meteor close to shutting the game down?

“Absolutely not,” Brandenberg says. “For where Island Paradise is–and how late in its life cycle–we are very happy, particularly with the level and attention of resources we put into it. A majority of the company is now working on other games.”

Meanwhile, it continues to rake in the cash.

Island Paradise attracts about 400,000 daily users, or roughly 1.5 million a month, according to AppData. That means roughly that Meteor can expect 24 percent of its monthly users to come back every day, a very healthy return rate. (Contrast that to FarmVille, which has only a three percent daily return rate).

While the number of players today has dropped from the peak, their average spend is up tremendously, as is the percentage of players overall who are pulling out their wallets to participate.

“The percentage of spending players will change based on the point in the life cycle,” Brandenberg theorizes. “Early in the game’s evolution, you’ll see fewer players spending because there are more people playing overall, and they are still experimenting and not investing. But after a year and half-plus, a game has a core group of players who have invested a longer period of time into it and therefore are much more likely to spend.”

How social games will evolve over time is yet to be determined. Today, many of the games on Facebook are only hitting the one- or two-year mark as it is, so it’s still up in the air as to whether they will age gracefully or die on the vine as companies neglect to update them.

Here’s some attributes of Meteor’s most dedicated players:

The average person playing Island Paradise, who pays anything at all, spends $5-$10 a month. Correction: That’s the average from overall users, who have ever spent money in the history of the game. Whereas, the average active user, who pays anything at all, spends $35 to $70 a month.

Still, a large majority, close to 97 percent, don’t pay anything.

Among the three percent who do, players participate in offers, such as sweepstakes, to earn coins, or pay hard cash.

The high spenders typically always pay cash vs. earning coins through promotions.

The big rollers, who spend more than $1,000, are called “whales” in the industry. Meteor has “hundreds and hundreds” of whales over a 12-month period.

Meteor’s biggest spenders are those in the $6,000-plus range. Most are female between their mid-30s to 55 years old and live in Western Europe or the U.S. There are about a “couple of handfuls” of players who spend this much.

Brandenberg attributes Island Paradise’s happy ending to two developments.

He said in 2010, Meteor doubled the size of its staff, hired several key executives and started investing heavily into the company. The company says it encouraged players to keep coming back because of continual updates and enhancements they made.

Having said that, Brandenberg notes that the game is largely on autopilot and doesn’t take much staff to keep it going, leaving his team free to focus on the next wave of games.

Therefore, the majority of staff is focused on Meteor’s next game, called Serf Wars, which is currently in beta. The game play takes place in a kingdom, and will allow players to engage in quests and even combat in a very fantasy land-type setting. Serf Wars will launch in early March.

Meteor Games, now with 65 employees, was founded in 2007 by the creators of Neopets, the popular virtual pet community for kids. It hasn’t raised any venture capital and is profitable.（source:emoney）