本文是主流社交游戏开发商在去年三月份的Flash游戏峰会上的谈话内容。

主持人：Sana Choudray（Traffichoney）

受访者：Dan Fiden（Playfish），David Stewart（Playdom），Gavin Barrett（Crowdstar），Mark Skaggs（Zynga）。

Sana：开发一款成功的社交游戏的关键要素分别是什么？

Dan:社交性——为重要的互动提供了环境；关联性——挑选可以理解并令人向往的主题和技巧；奖励性——情感上的回报、社交和游戏进程安排以提高用户粘性；紧凑的游戏设置——易操作但是有突变的复杂性和游戏深度。

David: 吸引力——游戏必须对玩家有吸引力，这样才能轻易的获得更多新玩家，而能够吸引那些休闲游戏玩家却更加重要。令人上瘾——你必须留住已经被吸引住的用户，开发游戏重要的一点就是要让玩家还想再玩；社交性——这就是Facebook能够取得成功，并区别于其他平台的秘诀。趣味性——一款无趣的游戏是不可能获取赢利的。

Gavin: 盈利——如果游戏无趣，开发者就赚不到钱；质量——观察市场上现有的游戏，了解游戏的可玩性和审美标准等等。

Mark: 大众市场——如果游戏不能吸引到足量的玩家，那么它也就不会如你所愿获得成功；投入——玩家要对这个游戏感到兴奋，并愿意花时间玩这一游戏；表达——游戏要让玩家们想要表达自己的感受；关系——允许玩家建立一个新的关系网或培养已存在的关系网。

Sana: 一些休闲游戏开发者正向Facebook或者社交游戏领域进军，你们对此有什么看法？

Dan: 那要看他们的目标到底是什么，像《宝石迷阵闪电战》就是一款成功之作。社交机制使《宝石迷阵》的核心机制比以往更加有趣。所以如果那是你成功的基础，那么他们可以算是已经成功了。作为一个玩家，我很喜欢这款游戏。它为我创造了很有意义的社交互动。

Gavin: 不少公司带着自己的原创作品进军这一市场，认为他们可以创造出一个了不起的社交游戏，然后大赚一笔。但到目前为止，成功移植品牌的案例并不多见，《宝石迷阵》可以说是一个最成功的案例。

Sana: 为什么很多休闲游戏公司未能在Facebook上获得成功？

Mark: 《Guild of Heroes》是《Diablo 2》的克隆版本，在我加入公司时它就已经开发完成。当时要解决的问题是，如何将它社交化。团队想在开发之后加入社交元素，但是没有成功。他们其实在开发游戏之前就该考虑到这个问题。

David: 我同意Mark的观点，有很多这样的例子。如果不是投放到了Facebook平台，很多游戏原本其实有可能更为成功。投放于Facebook上的游戏必须从一开始就植入社交机制。同时，很多社交游戏用户的具有随意性的游戏特点，所以《宝石迷阵》的零碎时间玩法对他们来说很合适。最后，还需要理解每个平台上的应用接口。例如，你必须知道用户对用户涂鸦墙信息和普通信息有什么区别。了解这些细节是非常重要的。

David: Facebook已经限制了信息通告功能。Facebook撤销了一对多的通告，转向更慎重的一对一通告，也就是用户对用户，应用对用户的通告。

Dan: Facebook的这一行动目前对我们的游戏并未产生影响，可以说他们的这个决定是非常中立的。如果你提供给用户一个非常有意义的游戏体验，他们将可与其他远距离的用户进行沟通交流。而切断那些平淡无奇的交流内容对我们来说也没有什么影响。

Gavin: 我认为这是一个巨大的变化。其他公司已经很难取得我们这种成就，也很难超越我们了。你得改变推广游戏的方式。对于很多业界人士来说，他们必须更仔细的思考如何做才能更好地发展游戏，同时也必须投入更多的金钱来推广产品。

Sana: Crowdstar和其他公司想通过交叉推广获得什么样的成效？

Dan: 这并不是高雅的艺术或乐曲，而是完美的游戏体验，简单的进入游戏，了解游戏任务。产品质量只是其中的一部分，但开发者很容易误将用户并不是很在意的内容当成关注重点，你得站在终端用户的角度考虑问题。

David: 我们想从自己的游戏中得到的，也正是我们希望从其他游戏中获取的东西。我们对合作和收购都很感兴趣。在新的环境中，想要在Facebook上播下一颗种子就收获大片森林已经不太可能了。

Mark: 这个平台和行业总是变化无常，你需要经常优化游戏，确保游戏能够吸引大量的回头客。我们可以让用户玩你们的游戏，但是如果你不能留下他们，那也就没什么意义了。

Sana: Zynga和Playfish正在寻找合作开发商吗？

Dan: 是的。

Dan: 我们想要收购团队。

Gavin: 我的部分工作职责就是在欧洲寻找外包合作伙伴，但是没有找到。如果你在这个Facebook这个平台上崭露头角，将有可能吸引大量的合作伙伴。

Sana:在今后一年内，你们有什么计划呢？

Dan: 在接下来的12个月里我们的任务会变得更加困难，我们有可能与其他公司合作，将在今后的一两年中推出更多的品牌内容。

David: 产品质量和玩家期望值都会再上一个台阶。现在一款开发了6个星期的游戏要大获成功已不像过去那么容易了，游戏开发成本还会上升。

Gavin: EA和《Playfish》的合作一定非常有趣。你们已经公布了关于《Madden》的消息了吗？

Dan: 还没有。

Gavin: 我是在网络上知道这个消息了。

Dan: 那大概是真的了。

Mark: 技术和游戏制作水准的竞争还会持续下去。但是有了社交性这么一个新的矢量，人人都想在这一点上胜过对方。

Sana: 你们游戏的关键指标是什么？我们都知道DAU, ARPU等等。

Mark: 我们查看DAU、MAU和留存率。我们试图将用户留存率保持在30%以上。如果你的游戏每天都有二分之一的玩家返回，那么你的游戏就是成功的。

Gavin: 每个DAU的收入都是很多的。游戏团队每天都要密切关注可能带来收益、影响留存率的用户游戏行为。

Sana: 你们大多数都使用2种游戏虚拟货币，对吗？

David: 我们有2个PHD来管理游戏虚拟经济系统。

Gavin: 我听说Playfish每天要处理十亿条数据。

Mark:Zynga每天都搜集5万亿的数据，我们有专门的团队把它转换为报告，并对其进行追踪。

David: 这和我所看到的其他行业非常不一样。我来自谷歌和YouTube，原本以为它们是以数据为驱动的公司，但是事实却并非如此。你可以在数分钟之内就做出一个重大的决定，因为每个人每时每刻都是登录状态。信息的质量远远高于信息记录程序。

提问：我们有活跃用户留存率的收益基准或目标吗？

Gavin: 我建议你去谷歌搜索下Justin Smith，他有很多很棒的基准。

David: 用户留存率对我们来说很重要，我们需要观察游戏收益与传播效能和用户留存率是否相匹配。

Mark: 要确保游戏的收支平衡，每位玩家的用户获取成本没有超过其创造的收益。

Sana: 你们都有哪些不同的用户获取方法呢？

Mark: 广告、粉丝网页、论坛、播客、朋友的推荐（游戏邦注：这是最有效的方法）。游戏的口碑传播一直是最有效的宣传方式。

David: 我完全同意。在我们的发展过程中，交叉推广是十分重要的方法。不只是朋友和朋友之间的口耳相传，而是如果你创建了一个值得信赖的品牌，那么人们就会想尝试你推出的下一款游戏。

Sana:社群营销对你们来说重要吗？

Gavin: 最重要的是支持你的玩家社群，并经常与他们进行互动。你得让他们知道你重视聆听玩家的心声，然后通过他们的反馈意见，对游戏进行改良和调整。

David: 我们有不同级别的社群营销，比如粉丝网页、铁杆用户博客和论坛，论坛是最深层次的社群营销渠道，那里有小部分但极具价值的铁杆用户。

Dan: 妥善管理玩家社群无异于扩宽你的发展空间。因为这种渠道有利于促使玩家谈论并替你的游戏四处作宣传。

提问：你们认为Fackbook的货币交易平台怎么样？

Gavin:非常好。它是一个值得信赖的品牌。真正在游戏中购买的用户数量其实很少。我们想要逐步增加这个数量，所以如果使用Facebook货币交易平台可以增加这个数量，那就太好了。如果它能使更多人在Facebook上消费，那就再好不过了。

David: 我们也曾和Facebook合作过，它已经表现出要减少支付障碍的迹象，这一点让我们看到了希望。所有开发者致力于解决的一大问题就是，如果在游戏中植入Facebook虚拟货币，同时又保持自身的独立性（游戏邦注：例如采用自己的付费虚拟货币）。

Mark: 我的想法是Facebook确实在努力维护自己建立的生态系统。如果你有自己的虚拟货币，你可以放弃它。但如果采用的是他人的虚拟货币，那就很麻烦。我想Facebook会处理好这一点，因为它知道开发商的价值。

提问：游戏获得成功的最低标准是什么？

Mark: 500万的DAU。

David：一个也没有

Dan: 这是有所区别的，用户反馈参数非常重要，但同时我们也想完成一些富有创造性的事情。

提问：如果今天发布游戏，那么它们成功的机会在哪？

David: 如果你确定这个游戏质量很过硬，那就得考虑自己是否拥有足够的资源和合作伙伴。

Gavin: 现在想要成功越来越难了。

Mark: 如果是模仿他人，那么你只是在做以前大家都做过的事。只有创新你才有机会成功。

提问：关于对投资者的回报……你们是否可以提供良好的回报？

大家的答案都是肯定的。

提问：这些游戏不都是高档的老虎机游戏吗？

Mark: 《FarmVille》是老少皆宜，可以让全家人一起分享的游戏。例如，妈妈会和她4岁的孩子一起玩。

Sana: 很多用户都通过Facebook给你们发送邮件？

Dan: 是的，我们正在开始使用这个方法，如果你和终端用户关系很好，那就最好了。

David: 我们有很高的用户粘性，我们在这一点上非常成功。

Mark:电子邮件这个沟通途径如果使用得当，就可以创造你和玩家互动的新机会。我们不用担心其中的词汇被过滤或者Facebook是否支持这种做法，总之你可以通过电子邮件直接和玩家们沟通。

Sana: 你们游戏的每用户平均收益是多少？

无人回答。

Mark: 你可以上网查看，那里的很多东西都是准确的。

Sana: 游戏的用户留存率大概是多少？

Gavin: 在网络上可以查得到，30%是一个很好的基准。

David:我们会追踪第一天，第二天，第三天或者第7天的用户留存率。

Sana: 你们花在新游戏和优化原有游戏的时间分别是多少？

David:当我7月份加入Playdom时有60个人，但是现在我们有300名成员。所以我们现在完全专注于开发新游戏了。

Gavin: 时间都花在创新上了。

Mark: 我100%的时间投入开发原创作品。我曾试着计算Zynga的游戏开发时间分配，估计我们有30%的时间用于创建新作品。

Dan: Playfish也一样。我们团队自成立之初就在不断发展。

Mark：真正的工作其实始于游戏发布之后。我们不能在推出游戏后就停止创新。

David：游戏上线后我们的队伍也在成长，我们不会对游戏的持续发展掉以轻心。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

4 keys to a successful social game that every developer should know

Flash Games Summit, March 8, 2010. Please excuse spelling mistakes as these are pretty much liveblogged. Session ended 5 minutes ago.

Moderator: Sana Choudray, Traffichoney

Dan Fiden, Playfish

David Stewart, Playdom

Gavin Barrett, Crowdstar

Mark Skaggs, Zynga

Sana: What are four words that are the keys to successful social games?

Dan: Social – provide a context for meaningful interaction, Relatable, pick themes and mechanics that are understandable and aspirational; Rewarding, emotionally rewarding and socially, reinforcement schedules to keep players engaged, Emergent gameplay, easy to pick up but emergent complexity and depth

David: Appealing- people have to be attracted to the game and able to acquire new users easily, making something that appeals to a casual user is critical; Addictive – once you’ve acquired user, you need to retain them – important to make a game that makes users come back; Social – that’s the secret sauce about Facebook and what makes the space different – need to have users want to share what they’re doing with their friends; Fun – if something isn’t fun, it won’t monetize…

Gavin: Monetizable – if it’s not fun, you won’t make money out of it; Quality – look at games in the market and know the benchmarks for playability, aesthetic quality, etc

Mark: Mass Market – if it doesn’t appeal to enough ppl, it won’t be as successful as you want; Invest – ppl need to be excited about investing their time in it,

Express – needs to be a game that ppl want to express themselves in; Relationships – allow ppl to create new relationships or nurture existing relationships

Sana: How well do you think some of the casual game devs are doing with moving to Facebook/social games?

Dan: Depends on what you’re objectives are, but Bejeweled Blitz is successful. Social mechanic makes the core Bejeweled mechanic even more fun than it used to be. So if that’s your basis for success, they’ve been successful. As a player, I enjoy it. It’s created meaningful social interactions for me.

Gavin: Lot of ppl knock on your door with IP and think they can create a great social game and make lots of money. To date, there’s been limited use of existing brands in the space. Bejeweled is probably the best example.

Sana: Why do you think those casual game companies don’t experience the same success on FB?

Mark: Guild of Heroes was a Diablo 2 clone – I joined the company as it was finishing up. The question was how is it social – and it wasn’t. The team thinking was that they’d add the social afterward. And it doesn’t work. Needs to built from ground up.

David: I agree. So many examples of that. Lots of examples of games on FB that would be big if they weren’t on FB… FB games need to be social from the ground up.

Also, lots of the users in the social gaming space are REALLY casual, so Bejeweled did it right with short play sessions, accessibility. Lastly, understanding all the API tie-ins on each platform – i.e. you should know what a user-to-user wall feed is vs a general feed is. Really important to understand these details.

David: Notifications have gone away. FB is moving away from one-to-many notifications and toward more deliberate, one-to-one notifications. User to User, App to User.

Dan: This move by FB has not had an effect on our games so far – it’s been net neutral. If you’re giving users a meaningful experience, they will go the distance to communicate. Cutting out the spammy communications has not affected us.

Gavin: I think this is a pretty profound change. Makes it increasingly difficult for other companies to reach the same success we have. Will be very difficult for other companies to get where we have. Changes way you’re going to distribute your game. For business people, it’s something they need to look at closely to see how they’re going to grow their game. You’re going to have to spend more money to launch something.

Sana: What is the quality that a Crowdstar or another company would look for to choose to cross-promote, etc.

Dan: What it isn’t is amazing incredibly high polish art or sound. It’s a polished game experience… getting into game easily and understanding objectives. Production values are part of it, but it’s easy to mispend focus on things that aren’t super important to the end consumer. Make sure that you’re thinking about your end user.

David: Things we look for in our own games are what we look for in others. We’re interested in partnerships and acquisitions. With new environment, it’s becoming harder and harder to expect to plop something into FB and experience explosive viral growth.

Mark: The platform and industry is always going to change. You will always need to evolve. Make sure your game is a game that ppl will want to come back to play. We can send players your way, but if you can’t keep them it’s pointless.

Sana: Are Zynga and Playfish looking for developer partnerships?

Dan: Yes.

Mark: We tend to acquire teams.

Gavin: Part of my job is to find outsource partners in Europe and there wasn’t any. If you can do it right in this space, there are great opps for partner services or be acquired.

Sana: What should we expect a year from now?

Dan: Over the next 12 months it will get harder… there will be consolidation. More branded content over the next 12-24 months.

David: Production values and player expectations will go up. Not as easy for one person’s 6-week game to take off. Cost of entry will increase.

Gavin: Interested to see how EA gets involved with Playfish. Have you made an announcement about Madden (to Dan)?

Dan: No.

Gavin: Oops. I read it on the internet.

Dan: Then it’s probably true.

Mark: Technical and gameplay production value arms race will continue. But with a new vector: social: Everyone will try to one up each other there. NYT was talking about FB Connect and how everyone wants to take their experience with them outside of the ecosystem.

Sana: What are the key metrics you look at for your games? We all know DAU, ARPU, etc.

Mark: We look at DAU, MAUs, retention. We try to get retention above 30%. If you have a game where 5 out of 10 ppl come back every day, then you have a good game.

Gavin: Revenue per DAU is a great one too. Games team should be looking every day at actions that can drive revenue and retention.

Sana: Most of you have two currencies, right?

David: We have a couple PHDs helpding to manage our economies.

Gavin: I heard one of the Playfish guys saying they deal with a billion pieces of data a day(?).

Mark: Zynga collects 5TB of data per day and we have a team that turns that into reports we can track.

David: Very different from any other industry I’ve seen. I came from Google and YouTube and thought those were data driven companies, but this is way beyond that. You can make valuable decisions within minutes because everyone is logged in all the time and the quality of the info is so much higher than worrying about cookies, etc.

Question: Do we have benchmarks or targets for revenues for active users?

Gavin: I direct you to Justin Smith – Google him – he has a lot of good benchmarks.

David: How leaky is your bucket… retention is big for us. Need to look at how the revenue piece fits into virality and retention.

Mark: Make sure expenses don’t exceed revenues… user acquisition costs don’t exceed lifetime revenue per player, etc.

Sana: What are the different user acquisition methods?

Mark: Ads, fan pages, forums, podcasts, recommendations from friends (these work best). Word of mouth always works best.

David: Totally agree with that. As we’re all growing, cross promotion is really important. Not just friends to friends or word of mouth, but if you can build up a trusted brand, then people want to try the next game you put out.

Sana: Is community marketing important to you guys?

Gavin: Support of your community and the interaction with them is the most important thing you can do. They need to feel that you’re there and listening. You need to find a way to feed what you’re getting from your community back into the game.

David: We have different levels of community marketing. We have fan pages, blogs for more hardcore users, and forums are the deepest – for a smaller number of really dedicated users.

Dan: Managing your community is really curating your space. All of it goes toward getting players to the point where they will promote your game for you.

Question: What do you guys think of the FB currency platform?

Gavin: Positive thing. It’s a trusted brand. The amount of ppl who actually make purchases in our games is quite low. We want to build up that number. So if FB currency increases that number, then great. If it gets more ppl used to spending money on FB, awesome.

David: We’ve been working with FB a lot as well and it is already showing signs of reducing friction in payment, so it’s promising. One of the challenges all devs are working on is trying to figure out how to fit it into the game while having the same freedom we did in the past (in terms of seeding premium currency, for example).

Mark: My sense is FB is really working hard to take care of their ecosystem. If you have your own currency, you can give it away. But with someone else’s you can’t.

However it plays out, I think FB will get it right as they know the value of developers.

Question: What is the minimum bar for success?

Mark: 5M DAU

David: Don’t have one.

Dan: It varies. Metrics are important, but we also want to accomplish something creatively.

Question: If games come out today, what chance for success do they have?

David: If you’re really sure you have a hit, do you have the resources or partnerships in place to make it a success.

Gavin: The ladder is going away… getting harder to succeed.

Mark: If you copy, you’re doing what everyone has done before. Innovate and you might have a chance to be successful.

Question: Returns for investors… do you think you are providing good returns?

YES ALL AROUND, of course.

Question: Aren’t these games just sophisticated slot machines?

Mark: Farmville brings families together. Moms play with their 4 year olds, etc.

Sana: Are a lot of people opting in to giving you their emails on FB?

Dan: Yes… we’re just starting to use it, but if you have a positive relationship with your end user, then it can be great.

David: We’re getting high engagement. It’s been very successful.

Mark: Email, used right, opens new possibilities for interacting with players. We don’t have to worry about feed phrasing or whether Facebook likes it – you can

communicate directly with players.

Sana: What is the ARPU across all your games.

NO ONE ANSWERS, of course.

Mark: Look it up on the web – lots of what’s out there is accurate.

Sana: Retention rates across games, what are they?

Gavin: Available on the web, but 30% is a good benchmark.

David: We track 1-day, 2-day, 3-day, 7-day retention rates.

Sana: Percentage of time spend on new IP versus optimizing old?

David: Playdom was 60 ppl when I joined in July, but now we’re 300. So we’re really focused on new games now.

Gavin: It’s all about innovation.

Mark: I spend 100% of my time on new IP. I was trying to calculate this across Zynga and I suspect it’s about 30% spend on new IP.

Dan: Same at Playfish. Teams grow at launch, of course.

Mark: Real work starts after launch. Can’t discount the innovation that happens after launch.

David: Our teams grow when a game goes live – we don’t pull away from it.（source:freetoplay）