暴雪公司可以称得上是最为著名的“社交游戏”开发商，日前正庆祝其成立20周年纪念日。该公司旗下的角色扮演游戏《魔兽世界》发布于2004年，目前付费玩家已达1200万人，而去年登台的《星际争霸：自由之翼》，在头48小时内的销量就达到了250万份。

游戏邦获悉该公司目前正紧锣密鼓地开发《暗黑破坏神3》，以及一款名为《Project Titan》的神秘MMO游戏，最近还在纳斯达克股票交易中心进行了收盘敲钟仪式。该公司总裁兼首席执行官Mark Morehaime、产品开发执行副总裁Frank Pearce最近在纽约时代广场接受了Games.com的采访，介绍了暴雪公司发展历程，并发表了他们对《FarmVille》等社交游戏的看法。

以下是游戏邦编译Games.com的相关访谈内容：

Mark & Frank

你们正在庆祝公司成立20周年的大事啊。

M：这是我们开发视频游戏业务的第20个年头。回想当初刚创业时，我和Frank实际上才刚从加州大学洛杉矶分校毕业6个月，我们还有一个共同的好友Allen，公司刚起家时就我们三个成员。现在我们在世界各地已经有4600多名员工，我们当初开发的游戏项目远比现在要小得多。但是现在，我们开发一款游戏就需要上百人耗费数年时间共同玩成。

你们之前也开展过相关的庆祝活动吗？

M：是的，在过去十年中我们举办了数千场活动。我们曾为玩家举办了一个BlizzCon年度大会，在去年共出售了2万张左右的门票，这些门票几乎是在短短几秒内脱销。这个活动的参与者都是暴雪的铁杆玩家和游戏粉丝。我们的门票销售得这么快，这就表明所有买票人都非常喜欢参加这种活动。

在过去20年中，你们对《魔兽世界》及公司其他游戏中的社交元素有何看法？

M：我们游戏的社交元素最早起源于《暗黑破坏神》战网平台（Diablo Battle.net）的搜寻好友服务。过去在游戏中，玩家之间并不存在永久的友谊，如果你真想和一个好友共同完成游戏任务，那就得在玩游戏之余就安排好时间。但现在，我们引进了基于现实友情的ID帐号，所以每次我登录游戏时，就可以看到哪些好友在线。我经常登录《星际争霸2》，看到有些好友在玩《魔兽世界》，然后大家就可以迅速相邀组建一支《星际争霸》的作战团队。

world_of_warcraft

社交属性、社交游戏是最近的热门话题，请问你们是否认为《魔兽世界》在当时的情况下也是一种社交游戏？或者这并不是你们的看法？

F：我不觉得我们属于这种游戏，但确实认为《魔兽世界》可以提供非常社交化的游戏体验，社交元素对这款游戏来说也十分重要。

M：没错，我也这么认为。如果有人问《魔兽世界》为何可以长盛不衰，我想这一点确实得益于玩家之间的社交联系。大多数玩家最后都加入了公会，他们在游戏中建立了持久的友情。

暴雪公司对《FarmVille》这类游戏有何评价？

M：我认为它们反映了Facebook确实很受欢迎。有人认为Facebook相当于一个全球的用户数据库目录，我觉得Facebook确实很接近这种服务。很久以来，人们就很喜欢做一些有趣的事情，大家在Facebook上投入了大量时间，也许玩《CityVille》和《FarmVille》等游戏，就是用户在Facebook上的主要活动之一。

F：我觉得Facebook将许多之前没玩过任何游戏的用户引进了游戏世界，消除了原来的非游戏玩家与硬核游戏玩家之间的隔阂，所以我认为社交游戏确实促进了游戏市场的发展。

M：是的，我认为玩家从休闲游戏行列加入硬核游戏阵营，并不是什么重大的飞跃，因为说实话，只要你尝试去接触，《星际争霸2》和《魔兽世界》是非常容易上手的。

在游戏行业存在一种争论，即《FarmVille》这类游戏究竟是否“邪恶”，请问你们的看法是？

M：它们不邪恶。这里面有一个自然发展的过程。从我们的角度来讲，为任何一种游戏添加更有深度的社交联系都是十分必要的。我认为降低游戏门槛、增加易玩性这种社交游戏并不能提供富有深度的游戏体验，所以它们在发展过程中就需要增加一些深度。而硬核游戏的自然发展过程就是，添加更多易玩性，以及社交互动元素。

有人认为社交游戏是专为让人上瘾而设计的，其中有许多强制性的圈套总是诱使玩家在游戏中挥霍金钱。

M：听起来就像是，他们认为开发这种游戏的人很邪恶。我认为问题的关键在于，娱乐价值与金钱消费之间是否成等比。我觉得娱乐价值确实得发挥长期有效的作用才行，不然用户从快乐中清醒过来后就会问：“这真的很好玩，很值得花钱吗？”

还有一些人在免费游戏上过度消费，最近有报道指出有个小女孩在iPad版的《蓝精灵村庄》上花了1.4万美元。请问你们是否认为，游戏公司得为这种用户的无度消费行为负一点责任呢？

M：我们对暴雪游戏用户的做法就是，确保他们付出有所回报，我们希望用户从暴雪买的东西，可以让他们获得高性价比的娱乐体验。所以问题就在于，用户消费了1.4万美元之后，是不是获得了与1.4万美元等价的娱乐体验。

Starcraft II：Wings of Liberty

暴雪对Facebook平台是否感兴趣？

M：是的，我们对Facebook平台的发展动向很有兴趣，也很关注这个平台有哪些可以服务暴雪玩家的社交联系。我们要做的第一件事就是，让已安装了《星际争霸》的用户在创建战网平台帐号后，通过战网平台与Facebook好友进行互动。

我认为，与自己熟悉的人玩游戏更有意思，尤其是你赢过他们的时候。

你们未来是否会绑定Facebook的服务？这是你们的计划之一吗？

M：我们确实在讨论这种可能性，但现在还没有可以对外公布的内容。

对其他平台的看法如何？我知道PC是你们最占优势的平台，那么掌机、手机平台呢？

M：我们在PC平台上的运营一直很不错，也还是认为PC是一个很棒的游戏平台。我们目前正在研究是否开发一个掌机版本的《暗黑破坏神3》，但还只是讨论阶段，没有做出决定。我们公司多数人都有iPhone、掌机和iPad，我们喜欢在各种设备上玩游戏。在开发任何一个项目之前，我们总要先考虑这个项目最适合投放于哪个平台。虽然我们现在的业务重心在PC和PC在线平台，但我们从不将自己绑定在特定平台上，只选择最适合自己的平台，所以我们选了PC。

F：PC是最适合投放我们游戏的运行平台。

你们未来会考虑采用免费模式吗？

M：我们所有的游戏都有免费试玩服务。我认为免费模式只是免费试玩的一种延伸，你现在就可以登录魔兽世界网站，免费试玩这款游戏。

我们还推出了一款单人模式的《星际争霸2》样品，我想下一步还会推出多人模式的免费试玩游戏。如果有人没玩过《星际争霸2》，我们希望他们可以先试玩这个产品，然后再考虑要不要购买完整版的游戏。

这个项目多久会问世？

M：我们还没有排出时间表。

对暴雪今后20年的发展愿景是什么？

M：希望我们可以继续保持在线游戏行业的领先优势。我们很难预估未来，但我相信世界会变成一个大家联系更为紧密的社会，会有更多用户上网与好友体验在线游戏。我们希望继续开发更具社交性、易玩性和便携式的游戏，让游戏成为你和好友加强联系的纽带。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

World of Warcraft-maker Blizzard: FarmVille is ‘not evil’ [Interview]

Blizzard, the company responsible for what some might call the most popular social games of all time (long before FarmVille was a twinkle in Mark Pincus’ eye), is celebrating 20 years in existence.

World of Warcraft, an online role-playing game that launched in ’04, boasts 12 million subscribers and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, released last year, sold 2.5 million copies in 48 hours.

Right now, the company is hard at work on a third Diablo game and a new mystery MMO codenamed ‘Project Titan.’ Recently and was in New York City recently to ring the closing bell at the NASDAQ.

Games.com caught up with Blizzard President/CEO Mark Morehaime and EVP Product Development of Frank Pearce in Times Square to talk about the company’s history and see what these two industry vets think about games like FarmVille and the brave new world of social gaming.

So, you guys are celebrating.

Mark: It’s our 20th year being in business, making video games. When we first started, actually, Frank and I were just six months out of UCLA. We just graduated. We had a mutual friend, Allen, and it was just three of us in the beginning. Now, we’re over forty-six hundred around the world. Games were much, actually, the games we were working on were much smaller back then. And now, it takes us multiple years, over a hundred people…working on a game.

Do you ever just pinch yourself?

M: Yeah, like a thousand times for me over the past 10 years. It’s been pretty crazy. We hold an annual convention called BlizzCon, for players. We sold about, this last year, about 20,000 tickets.

Sold out in literally a couple of seconds. You go out there and it’s just a bunch of Blizzard players. People who play all of our different games and who are really just really passionate about gaming. And really excited to be there. And the fact that we sell out so fast, means you’re only getting people who really, really want to be there.

How would you say, the social elements in WoW and your other games, have evolved over the past 20 years?

M: We started out just very simple with Diablo Battle.net, where Battle.net was really a match-making service. There was no concept of persistent friendship across games. You really had to, if you were going to play with a friend, you had to schedule time outside the game. To now, we’ve introduced the concept of real ID friendships, so every time I log in, I can see which of my friends are online. It’s pretty common for me to log in with Starcraft II and find that some of my friends are playing World of Warcraft. And we’ll just be able to jump out and have a quick Starcraft team match together.

Speaking of social — social gaming is a hot topic these days. Do you consider WoW a social game in that context or is that not really your scene?

Frank: I wouldn’t say we’re one of those, but I definitely think that WoW is a very, very social experience and that the social element is very important to that.

M: Yeah, I’d say absolutely. I think people ask how World of Warcraft has stayed so popular for so long, that I think it really comes down to the social connections that people make inside the game. Most of our players end up joining guilds. They make real, lasting friendships inside the game.

What’s the official company line on a game like FarmVille?

M: I think part of that story is just how popular Facebook is. They talked about Facebook as sort of the directory, the white pages for the entire world. Which I think, it’s real close to being, if it’s not already. And I think for a long time, I think people are really looking for something fun to do. People are spending a lot of time on the network, so I think things like CityVille and FarmVille are filling that niche for now.

F: I think it also brings a lot of people to gaming that might not have otherwise experienced gaming. Potentially bridges the gap between someone not having gamed at all, and someone playing games that are more intense and hardcore like World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2. So I think it really helps grow the market.

M: Yeah, I don’t really think there’s a big jump necessarily from some of these more casual experiences to some of the hardcore experiences. Because honestly, I mean, Starcraft 2 and World of Warcraft are real easy to get into once you decide to try them.

There’s a big debate in the gaming community over whether or not games like FarmVille are “evil.” What’s your take on that?

M: They’re not evil. It’s a natural evolution of things. And I think that, even from a, we’re kind of coming from the other end. I think that adding deeper, social connections to any form of gaming is very important. Lowering the barriers to entry, increasing accessibility. I think these, what people call social gaming aren’t really deep gaming experiences, so the natural evolution is to add depth to the more casual, social games. And the natural evolution of more hardcore gaming experiences is to add more accessibility and more social interactions.

People talk about how these social games are designed to be addictive. There’s a lot of compulsion loops built and and they’re designed to get people to open up their wallets and spend money.

M: Sounds to me like they’re saying the people that make them are evil. I think there’s definitely… it’s a question of values and entertainment value. I think the entertainment value really needs to be there to have long-term success. Because some point people wake up and say, ‘Is this really fun or not?’

Then there’s people who overspend on freemium games. Recently there was a report about a girl who spend $14,000 on Smurf Village for iPad. Do you think companies should, at least, give lip service to this kind of compulsive behavior?

M: One of the things we try to do at Blizzard is make sure that the value equation works. We like people to, when they buy stuff from us, to feel that they got their money’s worth in entertainment value. So after $14,000, it’s kind of questionable that anybody got $14,000 worth of entertainment value.

Does Blizzard have any interest in Facebook?

M. Yeah, we’re very interested in what’s going on, on Facebook. And what kind of opportunities for increased social connection it might help us provide to our players. One of the first things that we do when you install Starcraft and set up your Battle.net account is allow players the opportunity to make Battle.net friendships with their Facebook friends.

I mean, it’s more fun to play with people that you know. (Pauses.)Especially when you win.

Do you guys see any further Facebook integration in the future? Is that something you’re looking at?

M. It’s definitely talked about, but we don’t have anything to announce today.

What about other platforms? I know the PC has been good to you guys, but consoles… mobile?

M: PC has been very good to us. We still think the PC is a great gaming platform. You know, we are currently doing an investigation whether it makes sense to do a console version of Diablo 3. But that’s just in progress, we haven’t made any decisions on it. A lot of us have consoles at home, we have iPhones, iPads, we love gaming on all sorts of different devices. We always, whenever we start work on a project we always look at the available platforms and see which platforms make the most sense for the games. We’ve been focusing on the PC. PC, online. But we really view ourselves as platform-agnostic in our willing to choose the best platform, which is, so happens that we’ve chosen the PC.

F: [PC is the] best platform for the game we’re making. Yes. Most appropriate platform for the game we’re making.

Can you see adopting a free-to-play model in the future?

M: We have free trial for all of our games. I think free-to-play is really just an extension of how much you give away with the free trial. You can go to warcraft.com right now and try out World of Warcraft for free.

Speaking of, we have a single player demo of Starcraft II out. I think the next step for that is free trial for multiplayer. Somebody who hasn’t played Starcraft II before, we’d like them to be able to try out that experience before they make that purchase decision.

When do you expect that to be available?

M: We don’t have a time frame right now.

What’s to look forward to for the next 20 years, for Blizzard?

M: Hopefully, we can continue being a leader in online gaming. It’s really difficult to see that far end into the future. But I think the world is becoming a more connected place. I think more and more people are going online and are going to be interested in online games with their friends. And I think we want to continue to develop our games to be more social, more accessible, and more portable — just being able to game anywhere with your friends.（source:games.com）