用你最精湛的演技来扮演一个电影预告片的画外音艺术家，说：“《FarmVille 2》，这一次，体验农业文明。”

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没错，如同老派的好莱坞工作室、如同此前寻常的单机游戏制造商一般，曾发行过诸如《CityVille》、《Mafia Wars》、《FrontierVille》及《FarmVille》等作品的旧金山社交游戏公司Zynga，如今也无可避免地开展续集业务。

据游戏邦了解，持续的发展、惊人的利润、大量玩家的资金投入已经使Zynga成为了一个非凡的成功传奇。如果保持这种势头，它将很快成为最有价值的游戏公司——尽管它仍需和公开上市的EA公司和动视暴雪竞争。撇开某些吹毛求疵的细节不谈，Zynga的成功是理所应当的，因为它发现了休闲游戏新纪元的两条规则：通过虚拟商品交易增加游戏性，与朋友进行异步合作的游戏玩法。

Zynga在它的作品中展现了惊人的游戏天分，虽然也有失策的作品如《Treasure Isle》，但它从开山之作《FarmVille》到《CityVille》逐步形成并完善了游戏设置，后者在用户倾斜与月活跃用户方面是一款更为成功的游戏，在短短43天中用户数量就达到了一亿。然而，该游戏在初期成长后颓势骤显，单二月份便流失了近500万月活跃用户，此时距其发布时间仅三个月。CityVille的日活跃用户数量仍在持续增长，但结局已经写在了墙上：它将步FarmVille的后尘，并且衰退速度只会更快。

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从某种意义上说，每一款模拟游戏都将走到终点，农场或城市的规模会变得过大而难以经营。Zynga一直通过不断向市场投放新的模拟游戏来走在这个问题前面，但我们已经十分接近即便转向另一款模拟游戏也变得厌倦的临界点。正如1990年代的模拟游戏大潮一般，从云霄飞车到铁路再到模拟人生，最终逐渐消失。

娱乐就是娱乐，就算是好莱坞电影也会经历这样的起伏。据游戏邦了解，在上世纪80年代末90年代初，好莱坞曾掀起过一波赞美竞赛行业的电影风潮。开风气之先的是刻画跑步运动员的伟大电影《烈火战车》，而后演变为讲述自行车手的普通电影《银色快手》，此后更迅速退化为《飞跃巅峰》，在该片中西尔维斯特·史泰龙（Sylvester Stallone）饰演的是一位职业扳手腕选手。从这个圈子摆脱出来之后，好莱坞后来的主要作品又回到了褒赞警察、消防员和律师等循环中。

那么，Zynga现在该怎么做呢？它已经完全精通了社交游戏的游戏设置和新社交游戏的推出。它的游戏即便正在衰退也在社交游戏领域占据主导地位，旗下四款游戏每月用户总量高达2.02亿。然而，依照CityVille在三个月内完成从发布到暴增再到衰退的快速周期来看，或许另一款模拟游戏也难以提供足够的动能维持Zynga的发展。

正如我在去年五月指出的一样，答案是游戏的版本。观察上几代娱乐公司是如何处理这个问题的，这对计划将来十分有益。比起发明另一款第一人称射击来，动视暴雪选择了以新的视觉效果和游戏设置改进现有的游戏版本，《使命召唤：现代战争2》在三个月内销售额便突破了十亿美元。

Zynga的许多游戏版本都严重需要更新游戏的画面及玩法：《Mafia Wars》、《FarmVille》以及《Texas Hold ‘Em Poker》。这些游戏每一款都拥有大量受众，他们此前曾玩过这个游戏并且十分愿意体验新的版本。当你觉得《FarmVIlle》即将退场时，《FarmVille 2》将接棒继续。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

FarmVille 2? Why Zynga needs to start making sequels, fast

Do your best impersonation of a movie-trailer voice-over artist and say it: “FarmVille 2. This time, it’s agricultural.”

That’s right: Like the Hollywood studios of old, like the stodgy makers of console games before it, Zynga, the San Francisco-based publisher of social games like CityVille, Mafia Wars, FrontierVille, and FarmVille, is inevitably going to get into the sequel business.

Zynga has been a phenomenal success story with continuing growth, incredible profits, and big investments from major players. If things continue, it will soon be the most valuable gaming company — even though it’s still privately held and rivals like Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard are publicly traded. Despite the carping from some corners, Zynga’s success is well deserved, as it figured out the twin precepts of the new era of casual gaming: incremental gameplay through virtual-good acquisitions and asynchronous cooperative gameplay with friends.

Zynga has added phenomenal gaming talent to its ranks, and although it had some missteps such as Treasure Isle, it evolved the gameplay from FarmVille, its first breakout hit, into CityVille, an even more successful game in terms of user ramp and monthly active users. CityVille reached 100 million users in just 43 days last month. However, CityVille is now quickly peaking after its stellar initial growth, and lost almost 5 million monthly active users in February alone, just three months after launch. CityVille is still increasing daily active users, but the writing is on the wall: CityVille will follow FarmVille’s decline, only faster.

At some point, each simulation game hits an end. A farm or city becomes too large to manage. Zynga has stayed ahead of this problem by continually feeding new simulation games to the market, but we are very close to the point where moving on to yet another simulation becomes tiresome, just as the wave of simulation games in the 1990s ranging from roller coasters to railways to the Sims eventually faded away.

Entertainment is entertainment. Even Hollywood movies go through waves like this. In the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a wave of movies glamorizing competitive professions. What started out as great movies like Chariots of Fire that featured runners moved on to average movies like QuickSilver that featured bike messengers, and then quickly degraded into Over the Top, with Sylvester Stallone starring as a professional arm wrestler. After shaking itself off, Hollywood went back to the staples with movies featuring cops, firemen and lawyers.

So what should Zynga do now? It has completely mastered social gameplay and the launch of new social games. Its titles, even after declining, dominate the social gaming scene, with four of its titles totaling up to 202 million monthly users. However, as the fast cycle on CityVille from launch to massive growth to decline, all within 3 months shows, perhaps another simulation game will not maintain sufficient momentum to sustain Zynga’s growth.

As I pointed out last May, the answer is gaming franchises. It is useful to see how previous generations of entertainment companies handled this problem for a taste of the future. Rather than inventing yet another first person shooter, Activision Blizzard revamps an existing franchise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, with new graphics and gameplay, and hits $1 billion in sales within three months.

Zynga is sitting on multiple gaming franchises that are seriously due for graphics and gaming refreshes: Mafia Wars, FarmVille, and Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. Each of these games has an audience that has played it before and would be very willing to check out a new version. Just when you thought FarmVIlle would go away, here comes FarmVille 2!（source：venturebeat）