游戏邦注：本文作者为Martin Bryant，文章主要探讨如何推出颇受青睐的社交游戏。

《Farmville》、《黑手党战争》和《宠物社区》……融合微交易和社交互动的在线游戏是个不容小视的业务，据悉，社交游戏市场2014年的估值有望增至15亿美元。

FarmVille from reviewstoday.org

目前Zynga和EA之类的美国公司主导这片市场。但业内人士表示，这片市场仍旧完全开放。

小团队 大抱负

掌机游戏开发成本如今已同好莱坞电影制作不相上下，这表示早期居家办公时代叱咤英国游戏行业的“双人组合”开发团队已不复存在。

但由于社交游戏无需复杂画面、管弦乐音效以及大牌演员配音，这给小团队带来重生机会，特别是如今他们能够自主于互联网发行游戏，无需借助其他更大型公司。但这并不表示小型公司无需应对任何挑战，Enda Carey对此有自己一番见解。

Carey是Vision+Media游戏、数字和创造服务主管（游戏邦注：Vision+Media主要开拓英格兰西北部数字和创意业务）。他表示，“我们发现游戏开发者擅长设计和美工，但在业务方面略逊一筹，而这对独自发行游戏的公司来说至关重要。”

为了应对这个问题，Vision+Media目前针对小型游戏开发商开设相关课程，传授他们参与全球竞争所需的技能。

那么，如何把一款社交游戏转变为成功的业务呢？Carey课程提供如下建议：

1. 瞄准游戏核心建立业务。制作含有内置付费功能的延续性游戏，把玩家转换成消费者（游戏邦注：有效完成该步骤是《Farmville》之类游戏长盛不衰的关键所在）。

2. 游戏永不止步，适时做出相应调整。由于社交游戏采用在线形式，并非以盒装形式上架，它们无需以终结状态问世。这就好比网站，能够快速添加新功能或者调整提供必要游戏体验。Carey表示，“研究社交游戏体验的相关分析数据十分重要。”游戏首次投放市场也许尚有不足，但如果开发商密切跟踪数据，采取适当措施，定会获得成功。

3. 采取明智营销策略。小公司只能通过微薄预算推广游戏。（游戏邦注：Vision和Media课程教授大家如何高效使用社交媒介，追踪投资回报）。Carey表示，“很多游戏开发商认为发行商分成利润却贡献不大。开发商只有充分领会营销，才会意识到发行商在推动游戏成功方面的重要性。”

全球发展机会

那么，英国或者其他国家能否拥有自己的一片市场？Carey表示，“社交游戏领域是个完全开放的市场。没有哪个国家存在明显优势。虽然美国目前处于领先地位。但英国公共部门尚有机会通过提供游戏分析数据协助当地开发商，帮助他们打入国际市场。这就是开发商如何摆脱技术视角转而以商业角度思考发展问题典型例子。”

谈及庞大国际市场，以英国公司或者美国公司角度思考问题并非明智选择。Carey表示，“如果我打算进入社交游戏领域，我会希望迈入国际市场。我会选择驻扎某个国家，但我会在世界各个角落设立开发工作室。”

将职员分派至不同地区不仅可以减少开发成本，同时能够获悉不同地区玩家的需求。举个例子，Carey称，“如果我推出了一款农场游戏，让玩家种植草莓。游戏在那些玩家不熟悉草莓的市场就没有吸引力。我们需要以全球视角思考问题。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Secrets of Social Gaming – How to build the next Farmville

By Martin Bryan

Farmville, Mafia Wars, Pet Society, the list goes on; online games that combine social interaction with micropayments are big business and the social games market could be worth $1.5bn by 2014.

At present American companies like Zynga and Electronic Arts dominate. However, the market is still wide open says one industry expert who is working with UK-based developers to help them grab a bigger slice of the pie.

Small teams, thinking big

The price of developing console games has skyrocketed to Hollywood movie levels in recent years, meaning the ‘two-man band’ development teams that were a huge success for the UK games industry back in the early days of home computing had all but disappeared.

Because social games don’t require complex graphics, orchestral soundtracks and big-name actors to provide voiceovers, those small teams have a chance at success again, especially as thanks to the Web they can publish their own games without having to hand control to a bigger company. That doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges for these small businesses and that’s where Enda Carey comes in.

Carey is head of games, digital and creative services at Vision+Media, an organisation charged with helping to develop the digital and creative industry in the northwest of England. “We were finding that games developers were great at design and art but not so good at the business side, and when you’re self-publishing that’s the most important thing”, he says.

To combat this problem, Vision+Media is currently running courses for small games developers that should give them the skills they need to compete on a global level.

So, how do you transform a social game into a business success story? Carey’s course looks at how to:

1. Build business right into the core of the game itself. Make a never-ending game that features in-game purchases to convert players into customers. Doing this well is the key to a long-running hit game like Farmville.

2. The game is never finished – change it as needed. Because social games are online, not sold in a box on a shelf, they don’t need to have a finished form. Like a website, they can be rapidly updated with new features or tweaked to improve the in-game experience as needed. “Understanding the analytics of how your social game is being used is vital”, says Carey. You might not get it right first time but if you monitor usage closely and take appropriate action, you’re more likely to succeed.

3. Use smart marketing. Small businesses may have to promote their games on a shoestring budget. Vision and Media’s course  looks at how to use social media effectively while tracking value and return on investment. “Many games developers think publishers just take a cut of their profits for nothing. It’s only when they start to understand marketing that they realise just how important a publisher’s role is in making a game a success”, says Carey.

Global opportunity

So, does the UK, or any other country, have a chance of carving out big piece of the market for itself? ”It’s wide open”, says Carey. “No country has a particular advantage. The US is currently ahead but there’s a real opportunity for the public sector in the UK to help British developers with support for their in-game analytics and to help open doors for them. It’s a case of developers moving from thinking in a technical way to being business-minded.”

When it comes to such a huge, global market, it may be that thinking in terms of “UK businesses” or “American businesses” isn’t be the best approach. “If I was starting out with a social games business, I’d want it to be global”, says Carey. “I might be based in one country but I’d have distributed development around the world.”

Having staff in different locations may help cut down on development costs but could also provide a useful perspective on what players in different parts of the world want. To give a basic example, Carey notes “If I have a farming game and let players grow strawberries, I’m alienating players in countries that aren’t familiar with strawberries. You have to think globally.”（Source：thenextweb）