在日前的洛杉矶游戏大会上（L.A. Games Conference），来自PlayFirst、Idle Games等游戏公司、Hi5、myYearbook等社交网站的行业代表针对Facebook是否是游戏运营的理想平台展开了激辩。

正方的观点是，Facebook是一个游戏平台，而反方的辩题则截然相反，双方各有3分钟时间陈述观点，并有1分钟的自由辩论时间驳斥对方观点，这场辩论根据现场观众投票结果决出胜负。

正方代表1：Mari Baker （PlayFirst总裁兼CEO）

“Facebook是游戏开发商不可错过的平台。”

Facebook发展势头不减，为游戏开发商提供了大量机遇——它可以让游戏开发实现最佳的投资回报率。

Facebook拥有2亿的每月活跃游戏玩家，其庞大的用户规模证明它是一个游戏运营的理想平台。

Facebook在社交网络占市场份额已增长至76%–90%左右，我们还有必要针对剩下10%的市场运营项目吗？

反方代表1：Geoff Cook（myYearbook网站CEO）

“我们认为Facebook的社交版图并不适合游戏项目的发展。”

Facebook是世界上最重要的网站，也是最有影响力的社交网络，但我们不能将其它的成功要素与任何在线活动混为一谈。

Facebook的社交版图非常特别——它主要针对人们生活中真正相互认识的群体，但这些人群并非我们最佳的游戏玩伴。Facebook的社交版图的覆盖范围还不够广泛，它无法与游戏玩法完全兼容。

正方代表2：Rick Thompson（Idle Games董事长及联合创始人）

“Facebook为社交游戏提供了高保真、值得信赖的社交版图。”

Facebook就是社交版图，它是好友相互沟通的桥梁。

用户愿意为好友而非陌生人购买虚拟商品，并总是希望在现实好友面前表现得更“了不起”而花钱买道具提升游戏技能和表现。

Facebook对社交游戏的管制，相当于谷歌推出Panda Update调整搜索算法痛打作弊网站、“内容农场”（conent farms）的举措，所以这一点并没有什么不妥。

反方代表2：Alex St.John（Hi5网站总裁兼首席技术官）

“Facebook成为游戏平台只是一个巧合。”

Facebook的在线游戏营收仍然很少，但游戏行业的总收益已达500亿美元，所以Facebook游戏只不过是“沧海一粟”。

游戏平台的起起落落，潮去潮来的现象并不罕见。在2008年，雅虎是全球头号游戏网站，但最终赢家却是Big Fish和Wild Tangetnt，因为它们更擅长运营在线游戏。

对扎克伯格来说，游戏只是其社交网站的一个不受欢迎的入侵者，所以他才关闭了病毒式传统渠道，他排斥游戏。

正反代表2 Rick Thompson反驳：

当然，Facebook并非专为游戏而生，游戏只是偶然在这个开放式应用平台中崛起的现象。

但游戏真的令人讨厌吗？我看未必。游戏已成为Facebook最主要的营收来源，并且在未来五年内仍将保持这种趋势。

Facebook通过Facebook Credits可获得30%的虚拟商品交易抽成，所以它会为游戏留下更多发展空间，更何况它还向游戏开发商出售许多广告位置。

Facebook将因支持游戏行业而让自己受益无穷。

反方代表2 Alex St.John反驳：

Facebook对游戏公司并不友善，否则就不会出现“Facebook封杀LoLApps游戏”、“Zynga欲自立门户，发布Zynga Live与Facebook分庭抗礼”的传闻了。

你无法在一个随时会将你扫地出门的平台上建立庞大而稳定的项目。

正反代表1 Mari Baker反驳：

PC是专为游戏而设计的平台吗？当然不是！

iPhone是专为游戏而研发的手机吗？当然也不是！

但是PC和iOS平台上是否有无数游戏在运行？当然没错！

微软、苹果等公司也会将游戏开发商拒之门外，这并不是Facebook一家独有的现象。

反方代表1 Geoff Cook反驳：

Facebook的三大政策已经让这个平台的游戏难获成功：

1.病毒式传播渠道：该平台限制游戏信息的发布；

2.Facebook限制交叉推广行为；

3.广告营销：该平台的用户获取成本只升不降。

所以开放式的网络才是创建游戏项目的理想平台。

最后的辩论结果是，多数现场观众支持的是反方观点，虽然Alex和Geoff成功地亮出了自己反对Facebook的原因和道理，但有观察者认为，他们获胜的原因在于现场的300多名观众中，多数人是拥有自主经营网站的游戏行业高管，他们当然不希望将自己的业务拱手让给Facebook。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Gaming Veterans See More Facebook Cons Than Pros

Apparently Facebook has a lot work to do to satisfy gaming gurus: A very heated debate at the L.A. Games Conference revealed more negative opinions about the social network than positive ones among audience members and panelists alike.

This all arose during a panel of industry veterans — Alex St. John, president and chief technical officer of Hi5; Geoff Cook, chief executive officer of myYearbook; Mari Baker, president and chief executive officer of PlayFirst; Rick Thompson, chairman and co-founder of Idle Games; and Mike Vorhaus, president of Magid Advisors, moderating it all.

Alex and Geoff argued against Facebook, Mari and Rick argued for Facebook as a gaming platform.  Mike moderated them in 15 minutes of debate team style arguments. Each debater was given 3 minutes to argue their side, and then 1 minute for rebuttals of the other side’s arguments. An audience vote was taken before and after the debate to determine the effectiveness of each side’s arguments.

Alex set a confrontational tone prior to the debate by saying to the audience: “So you all want to be Facebook’s bitch? We’ll take care of that.”

Highlights from the Debate

Mari Baker

President & CEO

PlayFirst

“Facebook is the place you have to be.”

Mari’s “Pro” Argument:

Facebook has the growth, momentum and opportunity – it is where you will get the best ROI on the games that you develop.

Facebook has 200 M active game players. Facebook has a growing, massive audience and is proven as great platform for gaming

Facebook has grown 76% to 90% of market share in social networking. Are you really going to target the remaining 10% market share and build a business on that?

Geoff Cook

CEO

myYearbook

“We think Facebook has the wrong social graph for games.”

Geoff’s “Con” Argument:

Facebook is the most important site in world.  Facebook is the social plumbing of the web.  But don’t confuse Facebook’s success with Facebook being the right platform for everything we do online.

Facebook’s social graph is very specific – the people you know in real life, but that’s not necessarily the people you would want to play games with. Facebook’s social graph is not wide enough to really accommodate game play.

Rick Thompson

Chairman & Co-Founder

Idle Games

“Facebook is a high fidelity, reliable social graph for social games.”

Rick’s “Pro” Argument:

Facebook is the social graph. Facebook is where friends are connected and are connecting.

People buy the most virtual goods when being generous with their friends, not strangers. People spend the most money to enhance their game play when looking “awesome” in front of their real friends.

Think of Facebook’s moves to control games like Google’s “Panda Update” to its search algorithm, when Google penalized “content farms” because those kinds of sites were hurting Google’s search user experience.

Alex St. John

President & CTO

Hi5

“Facebook is an accidental game platform”

Alex’s “Con” Argument:

Facebook is still small fraction of revenue in online games. And the game industry has 50B in revenue overall. That makes Facebook still a “pimple on a flies ass”.

I’ve seen accidental gaming platforms arise. They come and go. Up until 2008, Yahoo! was the #1 game channel on earth. But new companies like Big Fish and Wild Tangent won the market – because they specialized in online casual games.

For Zuckerberg, games are parasites that invaded his social network. After games sneaked in, Zuckerberg turned off viral channels that made games successful. Games are a nuisance to Mark.

Rick Thompson’s Rebuttal

Sure, Facebook did not design for games. Games fortuitously sprang out of the launch of an open app marketplace.

Are games a nuisance? Hardly. Games are responsible for the majority of Facebook’s revenue and will be for the next 5 years.

With Facebook Credits, Facebook will get 30% of virtual goods revenue. Facebook will give games a lot of real estate as a result. And Facebook sells a lot of ads to game companies.

Facebook will direct a lot of revenue to themselves by supporting the game industry.

Alex St. John’s Rebuttal

Facebook is not friendly to game companies. (Alex then waved press clippings in air). Look at what is happening to major game companies: “Facebook disables all LOL Apps”… “Zynga gunning up for war against Facebook with Zynga Live”.

You can’t build a huge, sustainable business on a platform where they can ban you and shut you down.

Mari Baker’s Rebuttal

Was the PC designed as a platform just for games? Hell no!

Was the iPhone designed as a platform just for games? Hell no!

Are there 100s of millions of games played on the PC and iOS? Hell yes!

Microsoft, Apple and others all shut people down. It’s not just a Facebook thing.

Geoff Cook’s Rebuttal:

All 3 pillars of game success on Facebook are increasingly difficult:

1. Virality: games can no longer publish to feed stories.

2. Cross promotion is being restricted.

3. Advertising: the cost of acquiring users is only going up.

The open web is a better place to build a games business.

Debate Summary

So, The Cons Really Won?

When I say the “cons won”, I’m talking about audience votes before and after the debate. The cons went from 5% to 10% of the room – votes against Facebook increased 100% from 15 to 30 people out of 300.

Kudos to Alex and Geoff for successfully arguing against Facebook. I think they won because they struck a chord with the audience of game executives who control destination sites, game properties and media companies –- all of whom don’t want to cede control of their businesses to Facebook.

Let’s be clear though: Rick and Mari successfully argued Facebook’s merits. The vast majority of people walked away thinking Facebook is a great choice for developing a games business.（source:allfacebook）