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纽约时报:zynga将在游戏领域成为搜索中的google吗

发布时间:2010-07-26 00:48:55 Tags:,,

Zynga是美国知名的社交网络游戏开发商,该公司的远大抱负使得对新员工的培训成为一件令人兴奋的事情,而这一切全部来自Zynga创始人马克· 平卡斯的骨子里。平卡斯近日在给新员工做培训时表示,Zynga已着手打造一个永恒的互联网品牌,这是一个充满乐趣的过程。平卡斯说:“当前的互联网状况已经今非昔比,不仅仅是‘车库销售’、‘书店’、‘搜索引擎’和‘门户’。”平卡斯所指的分别是eBay、亚马逊、谷歌和雅虎。

zynga_logo

zynga_logo

平卡斯说,打造在线娱乐帝国的机会就好比谷歌诞生前的搜索市场的状况。到目前为止,平卡斯的计划似乎正按部就班地进行着。目前,Zynga是继 Facebook和Twitter之后最最手可热的硅谷创业公司。但与Twitter微薄的收入不同,Zynga今年的营收有望达到5亿美元。 Facebook赢得1亿用户用了4年半时间,而Zynga仅用了2年半。

凭虚拟礼物获得营收

Zynga的娱乐帝国由卡通在线游戏组成,让人刮目相看的是,在取得不菲营收的同时,其游戏内容全部是免费的。Zynga通过一少部分游戏用户购买 “虚拟”礼物而获得营收,这些虚拟礼物可以用来升级游戏,或赠送好友。例如,Zynga旗下最受欢迎的FarmVille游戏(类似国内的开心农场),用户可以在土地上种植、收割庄稼,将一块普通的土地变成一个有规模的大农场。对一位出色的玩家,可以通过游戏挣得虚拟货币,用来购买更多的种子、动物和设备等。

当然,玩家也可以利用信用卡、PayPal账户或Facebook支付系统Credits来购买这些上述物品。例如,购买一辆粉色拖拉机需要3.5美元,燃料需要60美分。一匹马4.4美元,4只小鸡5.6美元。虽然单价看起来很少,但Zynga的用户是数以百万计的。

Zynga当前的员工数量已接近1000人,而且还有约400个职位空缺,而一年前仅为375人。Zynga的投资者包括谷歌和Netscape,目前已投资5.2亿美元。尽管其中部分资金用于收购早期投资者的股份,但该投资额在硅谷仍很巨大。

Zynga当前的估值已超过45亿美元,而创始人平卡斯有可能成为硅谷的下一位亿万富翁。不仅在硅谷,平卡斯的名声早已闻名业界。梦工厂动画制作公司CEO杰弗瑞·卡森伯格(Jeffrey Katzenberg)近日在一次业界会议上表示:“如果我要创业,我希望成为平卡斯,他抓住了下一项杀手级应用。”

farmville

farmville

遭遇挑战

当然,平卡斯的成功之路并非一帆风顺。对于FarmVille游戏,当完成一项任务时,如种植或收割庄稼,会向玩家好友发送更新通知。但由于通知过于频繁,导致600万Facebook用户签名反对。于是,Facebook开始限制这些消息,此举导致Zynga流量急剧下滑。有数据显示,FarmVille 7月用户数量从3月份的8300万降至6100万,降幅达26%。

但平卡斯表示,希望通过新游戏FrontierVille重新赢得流量。Zynga投资者表示,流量下滑对公司营收影响并不大,因为流失的这部分用户通常并未购买虚拟礼物。

尽管如此,面对激烈的市场竞争,一些分析师和投资者仍对Zynga持续的游戏开发能力表示担忧。纽约风险投资基金FirstMark Capital经理瑞克·海茨曼(Rick Heitzmann)认为,Zynga已经拥有宠物、农场、饭店和其他类别的游戏,将来拓展空间有限。

拥有2.11亿游戏玩家

但至少到目前为止,Zynga的业绩还是令人满意的。调研公司AppData.com数据显示,Zynga每月拥有2.11亿游戏玩家。尽管该数字包含的是每款游戏的玩家数量,但与最接近的竞争对手EA相比,用户数量仍高出3倍。Playdom排名第三,用户数量为4100万。

32岁的旧金山金融分析师阿莱娜·米克尔(Alena Meeker)称:“我的工作十分紧张,喜欢通过游戏放松。”米克尔正在玩Zynga的多款游戏,每天约1个小时,每周在虚拟礼物上的开支为20美元至40美元。

美国加州奥克兰市的内森·斯里特(Nathan R. Van Sleet)是一名待业青年,每天玩YoVille游戏长达16个小时。YoVille允许用户创建化身,与其他玩家互动。平卡斯也表示,除了娱乐,游戏的更高一层目的是让游戏玩家互动。此外,Zynga还将一部分虚拟礼物营收用于灾难重建,如支援海地地震。

Zynga的风靡同时也威胁了传统游戏厂商。去年11月,EA以4亿美元收购了Zynga竞争对手Playfish。但业内分析师仍认为,在社交网络游戏市场,传统游戏厂商已经落后一步。证券公司Wedbush Securities分析师迈克尔·帕奇特(Michael Pachter)称:“惟一能够赶上趋势的就是EA。”

平卡斯其人

按照硅谷的标准,一个新的互联网王国的缔造者通常都在20多岁,如Facebook创始人马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg),谷歌联合创始人拉里·佩奇(Larry Page)和赛吉·布林(Sergey Brin),而44岁的平卡斯则显得大器晚成。牛仔裤,T恤衫,平卡斯很容易与普通员工打成一片。

平卡斯曾创建一系列公司。第一家是互联网广播公司Freeloader,以3800万美元售出后,开创了第二家公司Support.com。尽管已经拥有多处豪宅和私人飞机,但5年后平卡斯还是创建了第三家公司—社交网站Tribe.net,但后来失败。

直至Zynga,平卡斯认为自己找到了方向,得到了应该得到的东西。与此同时,平卡斯也被业界视为有战略眼光的企业领袖。但平卡斯在穿着上很随意,也经常谈起自己被一家咨询服务公司解聘的事情。

平卡斯不相信风险投资家,不希望成为被他们可怜的对象。他说:“在融资前,我们就已经实现盈利。这样,在和投资者谈判时,就平起平坐,而不是其员工。”

平卡斯还曾阻止Support.com的一名合伙人参加会议,原因是他并未给公司带来任何价值。也曾拒绝过硅谷一家公司对Zynga的投资。如今,Zynga已经是名声远扬,而平卡斯的自豪感也应运而生。在去年的一次业界会议上,平卡斯说:“我知道我想控制自己的命运,因此我选择自主创业。”

遭遇道德危机

平卡斯的一些言论让博客作者感到不满,尤其是在Zynga在游戏中插入欺骗广告后。知名科技博客网站TechCrunch将此举称之为:“ScamVille”,而一些用户则发起集体诉讼。

如今,Zynga已经撤下广告,而平卡斯表示,他也是被误导了。平卡斯说:“这与道德问题无关。”此前,有用户认为Zynga此举缺乏道德标准。平卡斯说:“由于Zynga的成功,我必须要意识到,很多人在关注我所说的话。”

与Facebook关系紧张

目前,Zynga是Facebook上最成功的应用开发商,但两家公司之间的关系越来越复杂。由于通知系统的原因,已经导致Zynga流量下滑。而 Facebook最近又表示,今后所有的应用都将使用虚拟货币Credits,并抽取30%收入。这让两家公司的关系一度紧张,但今年5月有所缓解,签署了为期5年的Zynga游戏使用Credits的协议。

Facebook平台主管伊桑·比尔德(Ethan Beard)承认,两家公司关系一度紧张,但目前合作关系是“相当稳定”。但仍有一些分析师认为,由于实力平衡发生转移,两家公司未来的摩擦可能更多。

Wedbush Securities分析师帕奇特称:“大部分人认为,没有了游戏,Facebook就成了一个空壳。我不这样认为,玩游戏的Facebook用户只占20%至30%。”

当然,Zynga也不会把所有鸡蛋放进一个篮子里。最近,Zynga与雅虎签署了合作协议,将游戏普及到数以百万计的雅虎用户中。此外,Zynga还与苹果合作,为iPhone用户提供FarmVille游戏。

另外,有知情人士称,Zynga还与谷歌展开了谈判。平卡斯最初提出Zynga创业计划时,许多投资者和同行都怀疑游戏会如此火爆,但 FarmVille的成功打破了业界的质疑。风险投资公司Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers合伙人约翰·杜尔(John Doerr)称:“在我们所投资过的创业公司中,在三年的时间内,Zynga是赢得营收最多,用户满意度最高,发展最快的企业。”(据新浪)

ORIENTATION for new employees of Zynga, the fast-growing maker of Facebook games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars, can be a heady affair given the company’s outsize ambitions — all of which are embodied in Mark Pincus, Zynga’s 44-year-old founder.

In a pep talk this month, Mr. Pincus told his company’s newcomers that he had set out to build an enduring Internet icon, one that was synonymous with fun.

“I thought, it’s 2007, and this can’t be all that the Internet is meant to be,” he said. There has to be more than “a garage sale, a bookstore, a search engine and a portal,” he added in a good-natured putdown of the Web giants eBay, Amazon, Google and Yahoo.

And lest there be any doubt which of those giants Zynga aims to match, Mr. Pincus said the opportunity to build an online entertainment empire was “like search before Google came along.”

So far, he seems on track. The Zynga Game Network, as the company is officially called, is the hottest start-up to emerge from Silicon Valley since Twitter and, before that, Facebook. Unlike Twitter, which has meager revenue, Zynga is on a path to pocket as much as $500 million in revenue this year, according to the Inside Network, which tracks Facebook apps.

While Facebook needed four and a half years to reach 100 million users, Zynga crossed that mark after just two and a half years.

Zynga’s empire is made up of cartoonish online games that even Mr. Pincus acknowledges are goofy. And most striking, given its financial success, is the fact that the games are free to everyone.

Zynga makes money, by and large, only when a small fraction of its users pay real money for make-believe “virtual” goods that let them move up in the games or to give their friends gifts.

For instance, in FarmVille, its most popular game, players tend to virtual farms, planting and harvesting crops, and turning little plots of land into ever more sophisticated or idyllic cyberfarms.

Good farmers — those who don’t let crops wither — earn virtual currency they can use for things like more seed or farm animals and equipment.

But players can also buy those goods with credit cards, PayPal accounts or Facebook’s new payment system, called Credits. A pink tractor, a FarmVille favorite, costs about $3.50, and fuel to power it is 60 cents. A Breton horse can be had for $4.40, and four chickens for $5.60. The sums are small, but add up quickly when multiplied by millions of users: Zynga says it has been profitable since shortly after its founding.

The company has ballooned to nearly 1,000 employees, up from 375 a year ago, and now has some 400 job openings. And investors, including Google and the Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, have put about $520 million into the company. Though some of the money was used to buy out early investors and employees, it’s still a huge sum in Silicon Valley.

Zynga has been valued at more than $4.5 billion, putting Mr. Pincus, who has retained voting control over the company, on a path to become Silicon Valley’s next billionaire. And, not surprisingly, Zynga has caught the attention of people beyond Silicon Valley.

At a recent gathering of media and technology moguls, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the C.E.O. of DreamWorks Animation, was asked what he would do if he were to start his career over. “I said I would like to be Mark Pincus,” he recalled in an interview. “He has nailed the next killer app, the next compelling thing that’s going to happen” in media.

THERE have been some bumps on Zynga’s road to success. The games are programmed to send updates to players’ Facebook friends when certain actions are completed, like planting or harvesting crops.

Six million Facebook users, who grew tired of constant updates about their friends’ games, joined a group called “I don’t care about your farm, or your fish, or your park, or your mafia!!!”

Facebook started restricting the messages, and Zynga’s traffic dropped sharply. For instance, FarmVille had a 26 percent drop, to 61 million monthly users, in July from a peak of about 83 million in March, according to AppData.com.

Mr. Pincus says he expects growth to resume with new games like FrontierVille, which a month after its release on June 9 had 20 million players. And Zynga investors say the drop in traffic had little effect on revenue because many players who dropped out didn’t buy virtual goods.

Even so, some analysts and investors question Zynga’s ability to keep producing hit games in an ever more crowded field. “There are only so many potential customers and only so many categories,” says Rick Heitzmann, a managing director of FirstMark Capital, a venture capital firm that has invested in online game companies, though not in Zynga. “And they are burning through categories quickly,” he adds, noting that Zynga already had games for pets, farms, restaurants and other subjects.

For now, however, it is hard to argue with Zynga’s record.

Its games have 211 million players every month, according to AppData.com. Though that figure counts a user for each type of game he plays, it makes Zynga about four times larger than its nearest rival, Electronic Arts. Playdom is third, with 41 million users.

“I have a very high-stress life,” says Alena Meeker, 32, a financial analyst at a major brokerage firm in San Francisco. “I love relaxing with the games.” Ms. Meeker, who plays several of Zynga’s games, says she devotes about an hour a day to them and spends $20 to $40 on virtual goods every week. She says she uses the games to connect with friends, co-workers and family.

Nathan R. Van Sleet, who lives in Oakland and is unemployed, says he plays YoVille, a game in which users create avatars and interact with others in custom-decorated homes, for up to 16 hours a day. Because he is hearing-impaired and doesn’t know sign language, online forums of YoVille players have allowed him to connect with various people.

“If it were not for the forums, I would have missed the opportunity to meet these people,” Mr. Van Sleet said in an e-mail.

Mr. Pincus points to these kinds of testimonials when he says that the games, while simple, have a higher purpose: connecting people. The company also donates some proceeds from virtual goods to earthquake relief in Haiti and other causes.

While some traditional developers grumble about the social-game phenomenon, which they see as a step backward in sophistication, the popularity of Zynga and some of its rivals has made the multibillion-dollar video game industry take notice. In November, Electronic Arts bought the Zynga rival Playfish for as much as $400 million. But some analysts say that most other traditional gaming companies are falling behind the trend that is taking the industry by storm.

“The only one that can catch up is Electronic Arts,” says Michael Pachter, a research analyst at Wedbush Securities.

BY the standards of Silicon Valley, where people like Mr. Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin built Internet empires while still in their 20s, Mr. Pincus is something of an aging whiz kid.

Clad in jeans and a T-shirt, Mr. Pincus could easily blend in with Zynga’s new recruits, a group of hoodie-wearing, 20-something engineers and product managers.

A serial entrepreneur, he sold his first company, Freeloader, an early Internet broadcast service, for $38 million, and took public his second, a business software maker called Support.com. He owns several homes and an airplane. Yet five years ago, around the time his third company, a social network called Tribe.net, was headed for failure, he groused in an interview that he had not yet made Silicon Valley’s “A-list.”

With Zynga, Mr. Pincus believes he will finally get his due. He talks of building a “digital skyscraper,” a company whose services are so indispensable that someday we will look back and wonder how we managed to do without it.

As he has carved his path in Silicon Valley, he has earned a reputation as a visionary leader. Yet he is also known for his sharp elbows and irreverent style, an image he does little to dispel. He often brags about being fired from a consulting firm job for having little patience with his bosses. “I didn’t believe in paying dues,” he said in a public talk.

He’s open about his distrust of many venture capitalists, and doesn’t want to be at their mercy. “We were profitable before we raised any money,” he says. “I think that gives you a better chance to sit at the table with your investors as a peer, not an employee.”

He says he once barred the partners at one firm that had invested in Support.com from attending meetings “because they were not adding any value.” With a touch of pride, he adds that a Silicon Valley firm turned down an investment in Zynga, telling him he was “not coachable.”

Now that Zynga has shone a spotlight on Mr. Pincus as never before, his bravado has come back to haunt him. While speaking to entrepreneurs in Berkeley last year, he said: “ I knew that I wanted to control my destiny. So I funded the company myself, but I did every horrible thing in the book to just get revenues right away.”

Bloggers seized on those comments as an example of questionable ethics at Zynga after critics said the company was allowing deceptive advertisers into its games. Without being clear, some ads, for instance, signed up players for subscriptions to costly text-messaging services. TechCrunch, the technology blog, called the practice “ScamVille,” and some users filed a class-action lawsuit against Zynga. The company has since filed a motion to dismiss the suit, and a hearing is expected in September.

Zynga has since pulled the ads, and Mr. Pincus now says he was misunderstood. He says he was trying to convey to would-be entrepreneurs that they needed to earn revenue quickly to gain independence from investors. “I never meant to imply you should do anything unethical,” he says.

And he says he recognized that with Zynga’s success, he needed to temper his attitude. “As the company has had more exposure and visibility, I have had to realize that more people take what I say seriously,” he says. “I’ve had to grow up.”

AS Zynga has emerged as the most successful maker of Facebook applications, its relationship with the giant social network has become more complicated. First, there was the brouhaha over the notification system and the drop in traffic. Then Facebook said it would push all applications to use a virtual currency, Credits, on the site, and take 30 percent of proceeds. Tensions mounted, but the two companies eventually settled their differences. In May, they announced a five-year partnership expanding the use of Credits in Zynga games.

Ethan Beard, who heads Facebook’s platform team, acknowledged the strains. But he said that the relationship between the two companies now was “very, very strong.”

Still, some analysts predict more friction ahead, as the balance of power between the two companies shifts.

“Most people think Facebook would have been a phenomenon without games,” says Mr. Pachter, the Wedbush Securities analyst. “I am not sure that’s right. Twenty to 30 percent of visits to Facebook are to play games.”

Zynga, which is said to be contemplating a public offering, clearly does not want to have all its eggs in the Facebook basket. It recently signed a sweeping agreement to bring its games to millions of users on Yahoo. And Mr. Pincus shared the stage with Steven P. Jobs, the Apple C.E.O., at the unveiling of the iPhone 4 to announce that FarmVille was available on the handset.

In addition, Zynga’s $520 million in financing includes a recent infusion of $300 million through two, roughly equal investments from Softbank and Google, according to people briefed on the investments who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss Zynga’s finances publicly. Google and Zynga are also in the early stages of exploring a collaboration, these people said. Zynga and Google declined to comment or confirm a Google investment.

When Mr. Pincus first envisioned Zynga, most investors and peers doubted that a gaming start-up could become the next big thing. But the success of games like FarmVille has silenced the critics.

“Zynga has the most revenue, growth and happy customers of any three-year-old venture we’ve ever backed,” says John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venture capital firm that has backed Amazon, Google and Netscape.

Asked how big Zynga can become, Mr. Pincus has a difficult time hiding his ambition.

“I am drinking the Kool-Aid more than anyone,” he says.


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