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分析农场类游戏的原型及其获得成功的原因

发布时间:2011-05-24 15:54:12 Tags:,,,

作者:Kai Lukoff

农场游戏在全球社交网络中风行,但此类游戏最初的发展想法为人们所误解。农场游戏的发展史反映出社交游戏行业仍显稚嫩,充斥大量复制品和误解。

原型

多数社交游戏并不具有原创性,农场游戏也是如此。据作者所知,1993年Maxis发布的《SimFarm》是最早的农场游戏。1996年,Victor Interactive Software发布《牧场物语》,使得这个题材更为流行。而现在,社交游戏的传播完全得益于营销行为,而并非其玩法。

SimFarm(freegameempire.com)

SimFarm(from freegameempire.com)

多数人把中国当成首款社交农场游戏的发源地,这并非完全正确的想法。2008年11月,五分钟(游戏邦注:中国社交游戏开发商)发布《开心农场》。《开心农场》的开发灵感来自于日本早期控制器游戏《牧场物语》。前者在中国异常流行,并由此萌生大量复制品。

Facebook开发商克隆了《开心农场》这种常见的说法实际上并非事实。《开心农场》在中国发布的同时,美国公司playSocial和Take(5)Social在Facebook上发布首款农场游戏《myFarm》。Take(5)Social总裁Tom Hansen这样写道:“《myFarm》是Facebook上农场游戏的原型。我们于2008年11月1日发布这款游戏。公司开发此作的想法来源于Lil的《Green Patch》及其所取得的成功。如果人们想在小绿地上收集或互赠宠物和花卉,那么接收并饲养赠予的动物肯定也能受到大家欢迎。很显然,在自己的‘农场’上饲养这些动物是最佳选择。当然,收获作物以赚取资金可以完美地融入农场主题中。于是,游戏的想法就这样诞生了。”

Slashkey的《Farm Town》和Zynga的《FarmVille》复制的是《myFarm》,而不是《开心农场》。

myfarm(from wingdamage.com)

myfarm(from wingdamage.com)

《开心农场》和《myFarm》的玩法有显著的差别,《开心农场》的玩家关注的只是几块地,而《myFarm》是个范围更大的沙盘式游戏,其中有动物、礼品和建筑。五分钟联合创始人徐城(游戏邦注:他是《开心农场》的开发者)这样写道:“《myFarm》、《Farm Town》和《FarmVille》不同于《开心农场》,以及所有的《开心农场》克隆版游戏。《Farm Town》和《开心农场》二者的玩法大不相同,他们在创新方面做得很好。他们发明出新式农场游戏,《开心农场》并非《FarmVille》的原型,后者的原型是《Farm Town》。”

简单地说,《开心农场》和《myFarm》这两款社交农场游戏几乎同时在中国和美国两地开发和发布。二者都借鉴自早期的游戏,分别是《牧场物语》和Lil的《Green Patch》。

该题材发展的两大启示

1、首创不一定能带来财富

《myFarm》并非特别成功,像《Farm Town》和《FarmVille》之类的竞争者已经超越。Hansen写道:“那些复制产品的开发公司有大笔广告资金,这让我们在市场上的竞争显得无力。”

2009年4月,Slashkey发布《Farm Town》。这款游戏在2010年5月时是Facebook上前20大最受欢迎的游戏,日活跃用户达200万(游戏邦注:本文所涉数据和排名为2010年5月状况,下同)。追随《Farm Town》成功的脚步,Zynga于2009年7月发布《FarmVille》。本作将农场游戏带向新高潮,日活跃用户达2700万。

《开心农场》的表现也不错,但还比不上前两者。其日活跃用户估计在2300万左右(所有平台总数据),但从中国用户身上盈利似乎较为艰巨,而且社交网络只给开发商提供极少的盈利分成。

首创不一定能带来财富。Zynga的价值能攀升至50亿美元不是因为旗下均为首创游戏,而是因为他的广告宣传和进取性病毒式营销做得比别人都好。再次强调,社交游戏的传播完全得益于营销行为,而并非其玩法。

2、农场游戏获得成功的原因

中国城市居民为何回归刚刚摆脱的田园时代,评论员很喜欢对此发表看法。《新闻周刊》的Isaac Stone Fish这样说道:“该游戏的成功勾起中国人对传统农业生活的回忆。游戏还利用了许多城市中产阶级心中的忧虑,他们觉得经济性种植已经使国家环境不堪重负。空气质量和食物质量都是人们主要的关注点,《开心农场》让中国人回想起农村的生活,充满浪漫的农场生活不受此类问题的干扰。”

但这种说法无法解释《FarmVille》在美国的盛行,因为美国的农业人口并不多。除了农场外,难道社交游戏的作用就是勾起人们对烙饼、淘金、养鱼和黑帮战争的回忆吗?

农场游戏的成功之处在于为自然且易接受的主题添加沉迷性的游戏机制。农场游戏中最为普遍的是“约定”式机制,玩家需要每数个小时登录游戏来种植、灌溉、照看或收获他们的作物。这个游戏机制为现在许多顶级社交游戏所采用,运用到照看鱼类、宠物、餐馆和城市等等项目中。但农场作物仍然最适合这些机制。而且每种文化对农场的看法都不同,细节处可能有细微的差别。

最后,这些游戏能够同时在中国和美国开发、发布并最终流行,当然与开发商的能力有所关联。农场游戏的普及也显示出游戏主题和机制在全球的通用性。得益于中国和Facebook用户的心理共鸣,养鱼、宠物和餐馆游戏自此都在世界流行起来。每个国家都在进行数字农业变革。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Before FarmVille: Origins of The Digital Agricultural Revolution

Kai Lukoff

Farm games are a craze on social networks worldwide, but its origins are mistaken. The story of farm games is a reflection of the young social games industry: rife with copycats, riches, and misunderstandings.

Origins

Most social games are far from revolutionary: farm games pre-date their social network successors by 15 years. SimFarm, released by Maxis in 1993, is the earliest to this author’s knowledge. Harvest Moon, released by Victor Interactive Software in 1996, further popularized the genre. To date, the spread of social games is all about distribution, not original gameplay.

China is most often cited as the source of the first social farm game, which is half-true. Happy Farm was released by Five Minutes in “November 2008″ (China Social Games is waiting to receive confirmation of an exact date). The inspiration for Happy Farm was Harvest Moon, the earlier cited Japanese console game. It went on to become massively popular in China, attracting litters of copycats.

But the frequent claim that Facebook developers copied this game is false. At the same time, US-companies playSocial and Take(5)Social released myFarm, the first farm game on Facebook. Tom Hansen, President of Take(5)Social, writes: myFarm was the original farming game on Facebook. We launched Nov 1st 2008. My team came up with the concept based on Lil’ Green Patch and the success that it was having. If people wanted to collect and gift pets and flowers for their little green patch, how cool would it be to take animals gifted to you and raise them. Being able to raise them on your own ‘farm’ was the obvious choice. Then of course harvesting crops to earn cash fit perfectly with the farm theme and voila the concept was born.

Farm Town by Slashkey and FarmVille by Zynga copied myFarm, not Happy Farm.

Gameplay between Happy Farm and myFarm is significantly different: Happy Farm zooms in on a few plots while myFarm is a more expansive sandbox-style game with animals, gifts, and buildings. Season Xu, co-founder of Five Minutes (developer of Happy Farm), writes: myFarm, Farm Town, FarmVille, are different from Happy Farm and all Happy Farm copies. The game play between ‘Farm Town’ type and ‘Happy Farm’ type is very different… [they] did a good job of innovation. They invented a new type of farm game… Happy Farm is not the original Farmville Farm Town is.

In short, Happy Farm and myFarm—the first two social farming games—were independently developed and released in China and the US at almost exactly the same time. Both borrowed from earlier games, Harvest Moon and Lil’ Green Patch, respectively.

Two Lessons from the Field

#1) Being First is No Guarantee of Riches

myFarm enjoyed modest success, but bigger competitors like Farm Town and FarmVille have blown it up. Hansen writes, “We have since been inundated with copy cats that have big advertising budgets, so competition has since diluted the market.”

Slashkey released Farm Town in April 2009. It remains the 20th most popular game on Facebook with 2 million DAU (daily active users). Following Farm Town’s success, Zynga released FarmVille in July 2009. The game we all know (and love?) took farming to another level, with 27 million DAU today.

Happy Farm has done well, but not great. It remains massively popular with an estimated 23 million DAU (includes clones across all platforms), but China’s users are challenging to monetize and social networks are closed or offer poor revenue share.

Being first is no guarantee of riches. Zynga has a speculative $5 billion valuation not because its “_Ville” games were first or original, but because it executes aggressive advertising and pushy virality (inundating friends with requests) better than anyone else. Again, the spread of social games is all about distribution, not original gameplay.

#2) Why Farm Games?

Commentators like to pontificate on how Chinese city-dwellers are “returning” to the farms they only recently left. Isaac Stone Fish at Newsweek waxes poetic: The game’s success reflects a deep and growing nostalgia for China’s traditional agrarian way of life… the game also taps into concerns among many members of the urban middle class that economic growth has far outpaced the country’s environmental standards. Poor air and food quality are both major concerns, and Happy Farmer reflects a wistfulness for a rural China that at least in the romantic image does not suffer from such problems.

But these claims are farfetched and fail to explain FarmVille’s popularity in America, hardly a nation of farmers. In addition to farming, are social gamers also nostalgic about flipping burgers, hunting treasure, raising fish, and fighting mafia wars?

Farm games succeeded by crossing addictive game mechanics with an intuitive, accessible theme. Farm games popularized “appointment” game mechanics, in which players need to check-in every few hours to plant, water, tend, or harvest their crops. This game mechanic is dominant across the top social games today, having been applied to “growing” fish, pets, restaurants, cities, et al. But farming crops is still the best fit with these mechanics. And every culture has a concept of farming, though specifics may differ slightly (China’s version lacks tractors).

Lastly, there is certainly also an element of serendipity, that these games were independently developed and released in China and the US at the same time and then grew to popularity.

Farm games also demonstrate that game themes and mechanics are universal. Fish, pet, and restaurant games have since gone on to become global hits, with cross-pollination between China and Facebook. Every country is at play in the digital agricultural revolution. (Source: China Social Games)


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