游戏邦注：本文由Charles Hudson和Justin Smith联合撰写。

Charles Hudson是SoftTech VC的风投伙伴，同时是旧金山手机游戏公司Bionic Panda Games的首席执行官和联合创始人。他早前曾担任主流社交游戏发行商Serious Business的业务拓展副总裁。Serious Business于2010年2月被Zynga收购。他最早还曾任职于Gaia Interactive、谷歌、IronPort Systems和In-Q-Tel。Hudson曾自己创建会议活动筹划公司Third Power LLC，该公司后来被WebMediaBrands收购。Charles还获得斯坦福大学授予的MBA和文学学士双学位。

charles hudson from insidesocialgames.com

Justin Smith是Inside Network的创始人，Inside Network是首家致力于提供Facebook平台和社交游戏新闻及市场调查资料的公司。Justin主要负责Inside Network分析和AppData服务，他同时是Inside Facebook和Inside Social Games的合作编辑。Inside Network于2011年5月被WebMediaBrands（纳斯达克代码：WEBM）收购。Justin此前曾担任Facebook主要开发商Watercooler（现称Kabam）的产品主管。更早之前，他还是大型社交玩家工具开发商Xfire的早期员工，该公司于2006年被Viacom收购。Justin获得斯坦福大学的计算机系统工程学位。他被授予Mayfield Fellow称号，同时还荣获特曼工程奖。

Justin Smith from insidesocialgames.com

我们日前曾发布了研究报告《Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Habits of the Social Gaming Audience 2011》，今天我们将深入挖掘报告中的有趣内容。

这份瞄准近2000位Facebook活跃玩家的报告覆盖众多主题，包括玩家发现游戏的途径和玩家时间支配和消费行为，同时还深入分析了“鲸鱼”玩家（游戏邦注：即社交游戏的主要消费者）的消费和体验习惯。

2011年7月1日起，Facebook将强制实行Facebook Credits货币，那么就让我们来看看这些极富粘性的社交玩家对Facebook Credits的熟悉度如何。报告中，我们通过系列问题了解玩家目前对Facebook Credits的熟悉度和使用度，以便在货币强制实行前，获取基本信息。下面我们将陈述调查中的有趣发现。

我们提问调查对象的首个问题是：是否听过Facebook Credits。记住这里的调查对象是每日体验数款社交游戏的活跃玩家：

Have You Heard of Credits Pie from insidesocialgames.com

总体来说，2/3的调查者表示听过Facebook Credits，这听起来似乎合情合理，因为Facebook Credits虽已出现于许多游戏当中，但还尚未在Facebook平台强制实行。

深入研究该数据，我们发现Facebook Credits辨识度存在地理差异。不出我们意料，Facebook Credits在北美市场的辨识度最高，其市场份额十分庞大。

Have You Heard of Credits from insidesocialgames.com

针对那些熟悉Facebook Credits的玩家，我们提出下个问题：是否使用过Facebook Credits购买商品。其中只有近一半的玩家表示曾使用过该货币：

Have You Used Credits Purchase from insidesocialgames.com

我们再次对此数据进行地理分析，发现北美市场依旧占据主导地位（游戏邦注：调查结果显示Facebook Credits虽在北美市场表现杰出，其在全球其他市场却不尽如人意）。

我们最后抛给熟悉Facebook Credits玩家的问题是：Facebook Credits系统是否方便他们展开虚拟交易活动：

Credits Make It Easier To Buy from insidesocialgames.com

除提问题外，我们还给予他们自由回答的机会，主要是就是否使用过Facebook Credits及是否认为Facebook Credits方便交易活动两大方面。以下是些有趣的回答：

13-18岁葡萄牙男性：“是的，因为FB Credits方便我们在各种游戏中进行交易活动，我们无需另外购买货币，这很实用、很经济。”

37-42岁美国女性：“我偏向使用指定游戏货币。我个人认为这更方便。”

37-42岁美国女性：“我只使用Facebook Credits，我不希望把自己的信用卡信息透露给各个游戏公司。如果游戏不能使用Facebook Credits支付，我就不会买。”

43-48岁美国女性：“只用过1次，还是免费得到的。我不会花钱买这个玩意儿。”

37-42岁美国女性：“第一次使用时，我被操作流程弄糊涂了。梳理清楚后，我发现其实用起来很方便。我想我会继续买这个货币。”

除上述陈述外，还有很多玩家在自由回答时表示，他们很高兴能使用免费Facebook Credits进行消费，但他们无力购买该货币，或者他们对Facebook游戏的虚拟交易毫无兴趣，不论流程多么便捷，多么契合游戏。

总体来看，Facebook Credits的核心价值主张是通过统一平台支付方式帮助开发商提高游戏转换率和营收。就研究结果来看，Facebook Credits辨识度和使用度显然还处在初级阶段。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Inside Virtual Goods: Facebok Credits Gaining in Popularity, But Still New to Many

By Guest Post

[Editor's note: Charles Hudson is a co-author on our Inside Virtual Goods series of industry reports, a Venture Partner with SoftTech VC, and the CEO and Co-Founder of Bionic Panda Games, a mobile games company based in San Francisco, CA.]

In May 2011, the Inside Virtual Goods team conducted our second annual survey of social games players. Yesterday we released the findings of the report, “Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Habits of the Social Gaming Audience 2011.” Today’s post is intended give you a sense for some of the more interesting findings in the report.

The 2011 survey, which reached out to nearly 2,000 active social games players on Facebook, covers a wide variety of topics, from how players discover games, how players spend their time and money across games, and a deeper dive on the spending and gameplay habits of “whales,” or the top spenders in the social gaming ecosystem.

With the impending mandatory implementation of Facebook Credits coming on July 1st, 2011, we wanted to get a sense for how familiar the most engaged social games player were with Facebook Credits. As part of this year’s survey, we asked players a number of questions about their familiarity with and usage of Facebook Credits to date so as to have a baseline prior to the switch. We thought it would be interesting to share some of this data with you as we found it interesting.

The first question we asked the survey respondents was whether they had heard of Facebook Credits. Keep in mind that the survey population here was people who are generally active social games players, playing multiple games on a daily basis:

Roughly two thirds of the audience we surveyed was familiar with Facebook Credits, which seems appropriate given that Facebook Credits are available in a number of games but are not yet mandatory across the Facebook social games landscape.

Slicing the data a bit further, we were able to get a sense for how Facebook Credits awareness varies by geography. Not surprisingly, Facebook Credits has the greatest awareness in North America by a fairly significant margin.

Of those who mentioned familiarity with Facebook Credits, we asked them a follow-up question as to whether they had actually made a purchase using Facebook Credits. Of those who were familiar with Facebook Credits, nearly half of them reported having actually used Facebook Credits to actually make a purchase:

Again, we took a look at the data on a regional basis and found that North America once again was the dominant region in which we found users who had used Facebook Credits to make a purchase in a game. Results show that Facebook Credits is beginning to get a good beachhead in North America, with less traction in the other major geographies around the globe.

Finally, we asked those survey respondents who had familiarity with Facebook Credits whether the Facebook Credits system made it easier to buy things in games:

In addition to the question, we also gave them the opportunity to provide us with some free-response feedback on whether they’ve used Facebook Credits and whether they think Facebook Credits make it easier to make purchases. We’ve included some of the more interesting free-response quotes below:

“Yes, because with FB Credits, it’s a lot easier to buy things in different games without having to buy cash to each game individually: it’s more practical, and economical.” – Male, 13-18, Portugal

“I prefer to use the [company-specific] game cards. It’s just easier for me personally.” – Female, 37-42, United States

“I only use Facebook Credits: I wont give my credit card info to individual game companies. If they don’t allow FB credits, I won’t buy” – Female, 37-42, United States

“Only did it once, because I got the credits free. Would not spend money on them.” – Female, 43-48, United States

“The first time I used them it was a bit confusing on how to start the process. Once I figured it out, it was pretty easy. I doubt I will purchase them however.” – Female, 37-42, United States

In addition to the quotes above, there was a steady stream of people who used the free-response section to make it very clear that they were happy to use the Facebook Credits that they were given for free but they either didn’t have the means to pay for additional credits or they didn’t have any interest in actually paying for things in Facebook games, no matter how easy and seamless the process might be.

Overall, the core value proposition for Facebook Credits is that it should improve conversions and monetization for developers by standardizing on a platform-wide payment system common to all games. Based on the results of our survey, it’s clear that we are still in the early stages of Facebook Credits awareness and adoption among active social games players.

The complete results of our study are available in the full report, Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience 2011.

About the Report

Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience 2011 gives you an inside view of the market at this critical juncture in the intersection of social networking and online games.

We have surveyed nearly 2,000 players of social games on Facebook from around the world and across the demographic spectrum. Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience 2011 is the most in-depth independent survey of player behavior and spending patterns in the social gaming market.

About the Authors

Charles Hudson

Venture Partner, SoftTech VC, CEO and Co-Founder, Bionic Panda Games

Charles Hudson is a Venture Partner with SoftTech VC and the CEO and Co-Founder of Bionic Panda Games, a mobile games company based in San Francisco, CA.

Until February 2010, he was the VP of Business Development for Serious Business, a leading producer of social games. Zynga acquired Serious Business in February of 2010. Prior to Serious Business, Hudson worked at Gaia Interactive, Google, IronPort Systems, and In-Q-Tel. Hudson also founded Third Power LLC, a conference and events company that was acquired by WebMediaBrands. Charles holds an MBA and BA from Stanford University.

Justin Smith

Founder, Inside Network

Justin Smith is the founder of Inside Network, the first service dedicated to providing news and market research to the Facebook platform and social gaming ecosystem. Justin leads Inside Network’s analyst services, manages Inside Network’s AppData service, and serves as co-editor of Inside Facebook and Inside Social Games. Inside Network was acquired by WebMediaBrands (NASDAQ:WEBM) in May 2011.

Prior to Inside Network, he was Head of Product at Watercooler, now Kabam, a leading social game developer on the Facebook Platform. Prior to Watercooler, Justin was an early employee at Xfire, the largest social utility for gamers, which was sold to Viacom in 2006.

Justin holds a degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford University, where he was a Mayfield Fellow and a recipient of the Terman Award in Engineering.（Source：insidesocialgames）