为什么Zynga的休闲游戏获利丰厚，并且拥有庞大的用户规模呢？

《财富》网站的一名作者JP Mangalindan最近撰文自称他上个月也成了《CityVille》玩家群中的一员，并通过Facebook的News Feed功能不断向好友发出“JP需要提供甜甜圈给饥饿的警察！”或者“JP要给鸽子喂鸟食！”等惹恼他们的救助信息。

Mangalindan认为在这个网站发表这类言论，比要他承认是Facebook的狂热图片编辑者还要令他尴尬，因为告诉别人你是《CityVille》的粉丝，这和标榜自己是布兰妮的歌迷一样值得怀疑。

他最好的朋友曾严肃表示，“如果你邀我加入，我会拒绝。”这位朋友虽然面带微笑，但似乎一点儿也没有开玩笑的意味。Mangalindan表示他的一些同事也都持有类似的态度，有的木然望着他，有的默然评判，附带类似的话：“哦，那你好好玩吧”（意思等同于“真是怪人”）。

CityVille

Mangalindan称自己并没有怨朋友的意思，只是表示作为传统硬核掌机游戏玩家，他从不玩休闲游戏，但有写相关的文章，甚至还相当尊重这类游戏，他认为能够带来新用户的游戏都是好游戏。游戏邦获悉，Mangalindan在几个礼拜前通过玩《CityVille》才开始接触休闲游戏。

当时Mangalindan需要写一篇有关Yick Kai Chan的文章（游戏邦注：Yick Kai Chan在过去12年从事现实世界的建筑设计，但如今他开始为《CityVille》设计虚拟建筑），为了深入了解Chan的作品，他才开始玩起了《CityVille》。

他称自己平均每天花1个小时建设自己的虚拟城市，刚开始玩的时候，他就被这款游戏所吸引，并带着无限的宿命感体验各个奇妙的游戏环节。

不久之后，Mangalindan就开始不满足于免费模式的缓慢进程，打破了自己制定的铁律，购买了5美元的虚拟商品来加速游戏进程。他自嘲道，虽然5美元并不算多，但这就像毒瘾一样，一开始可能是1克，后来就会变成5克。

Mangalindan曾发誓自己永远不会去玩休闲游戏。从小到大，他就是硬核游戏的忠实玩家，从1989的Game Boy开始，所有在美国本土推出的游戏机他都有买。他表示自己花了很多的时间在游戏玩家称之为“消磨时光”的活动中，体验冗长的游戏设置机制，或者在同样的赛道疯狂冲刺以破记录，开启新功能，使自己更有竞争性。

作为一个纯游戏玩家，Mangalindan希望高性能的硬件设备能够提供震撼的视觉效果，同时让控制器的15个按钮全部连接到宽大的屏幕。他表示自从成了《CityVille》玩家之后，其曾经挚爱的游戏掌机——Wii，Playstation 3和Xbox 360都只能搁置一边，落满灰尘。

在不知不觉中，他地游戏的偏好发生了变化。他自称现在已没有足够的空闲时间和耐心玩硬核游戏。年轻的时候，他曾花大把大把的时间玩各类新出品的掌机游戏。同时由于大学采用的是区块时间表，他每天同样有很多的时间玩《侠盗猎车手》之类的游戏。

但如今情况不同了，他的空闲时间已不再像以前那么多。游戏邦认为，这就是为何休闲游戏越来越受欢迎，同时吸引了曾经的“非游戏用户”和所谓的硬核游戏玩家。要知道，休闲游戏既无华丽的画面，也没有复杂的游戏设置。

但这并不是真正的重点，玩《侠盗猎车手》对于有大量空闲时间的骨灰级玩家来说可能很有趣，但对初学者或者是时间很紧迫的用户来说，像《CityVille》之类的简单游戏可能是更好的选择，它们不需要游戏指南或者辅导教程，用户可以在闲暇时候消遣几分钟，离开游戏时仍能充满成就感。休闲游戏简单易懂，而且还是免费的。

休闲游戏的画面有吸引力吗？游戏设置有新意吗？是不是完全原创或者具有创新性？没有。它们只是十分简单有趣。

休闲游戏显然取得了成功，《CityVille》打破记录，成为拥有9200万月活跃用户的最大在线游戏，用户规模几乎占全球2亿休闲游戏玩家的一半。游戏邦了解到，Zynga每天的营收超过100万美元，去年的营收高达6亿美元。

所以Mangalindan表示自己并不避讳告诉别人他在玩休闲游戏，因为他不过庞大用户群中的一员。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Confessions of a CityVille addict

Why Zynga’s casual gaming is minting money and hooking so many people — including yours truly.

I’m taking a break.

Right about now, I take a few minutes to harvest crops, put up several small businesses, collect rent, and hire Facebook friends to work at community halls. That’s because last month, I joined the legions on CityVille, the city-building simulation game from Zynga that annoys Facebook users with News Feed updates like, “JP needs donuts to feed hungry cops!” or “JP needs bird seed to feed pigeons!!”

Confessing as much by way of Fortune.com is even more embarrassing than the time I came out as a feverish, freaky-deaky photo-shopping Facebook addict. While many readers at the time identified with the notion of wanting to be liked, telling someone you’re a CityVille fan seems as dubious a distinction as announcing yourself a Britney Spears fan.

“If you ask me to join, I’ll block you,” my best friend mused. She said this with a smile, but I got the sense she wasn’t joking. Reactions from some colleagues were similar, from blank stares to silent judgment, followed by something like, “Oh, good for you.” (Translation: “freak.”)

I don’t blame them. As a hardcore traditional console gamer, I used to avoid casual gaming. Oh, sure, I wrote about it, and even respected it to an extent — any kind of gaming that brings in new players is a good thing — but I never really got it until my first chance encounter with CityVille a few weeks ago.

That’s when I wrote a story about Yick Kai-Chan, the game’s resident architect who spent over 12 years designing buildings in the real world but now designs all the virtual buildings in CityVille.

To better understand Chan’s achievements, it only made sense to give his work a spin — of course, the problem is I never stopped.

Altogether, I spend at least an hour a day on my virtual city. When it first started, I went through fugue-like gaming sessions, seemingly struck by this inflated, screwed up sense of manifest destiny — it was my god-given right to build the largest self-sustaining virtual community possible one corn crop at a time!

And not long after, dissatisfied with the relatively slow progress enabled by the game’s free mode, I broke another self-imposed cardinal rule and bought $5 worth of virtual goods to speed things up. Granted, it wasn’t much, but that’s like a lapsed drug addict saying he only had one gram of narcotics as opposed to five.

Sad, sad, sad.

It’s all sorts of embarrassing because I swore to myself this day would never come. Growing up a hardcore traditional gamer, I’ve owned almost every gaming console released stateside since the first Game Boy in 1989. I’ve logged thousands of hours doing what we gamers call “grinding,” engaging in redundant gameplay mechanics like boss battles or driving on the same courses over and over to up our stats, unlock features, and make ourselves more competitive.

As a gaming purist, I wanted high performance hardware spitting out zillions of anti-aliased polygons (the building blocks of 3-D graphics) for impressive eye candy and vibrating controllers with 15 buttons all hooked up to a big flat screen. Yet, here I am a CityVille player while my once-beloved game consoles — a Wii, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360 — rest under my flat screen gathering dust.

Without my knowing it, my priorities had changed. I don’t have the same free time and patience. When I was a teen, I could devote chunks of time to playing the latest console release, and thanks to block scheduling in college, I had equally long stretches during the day to dedicate to games like Grand Theft Auto.

That’s not the case anymore, which is not to say I don’t have free time, I just don’t have as much as I used to. And I think that’s why casual gaming has taken off, both with people who don’t call

themselves “gamers” and hardened gaming vets. The genre doesn’t offer gorgeous graphics or complex gameplay. (Far from it, actually. Nintendo’s Game Boy Color circa 1998 could probably handle CityVille in some form without a problem.)

That’s not really the point. Playing Grand Theft Auto might be fun for a thumb-callused gamer with ample free time, but for newbies or even just gamers with tight schedules like me, something like CityVille in all its simplicity lets users wade in at their leisure, no manual or tutorial required, for a few minutes, then walk away feeling like they made some serious headway. It’s so much more accessible – oh, and it’s free.

Is it graphically ambitious? Nah. Does it have innovative gameplay? What about being wholly original and innovative? Nope and nope. But they are incredibly simple and fun.

The approach is obviously working. CityVille broke all sorts of records to become the biggest online game ever with 92 million active monthly users, nearly half of the 200 million casual gamers around the world. And Zynga isn’t hurting. The company reportedly makes over $1 million in sales a day and pulled in $600 million last year.

So when I tell people what I’m playing these days and I get judgmental looks, that’s OK. Clearly, I’m not alone.
（Source：CNNMoney.com）