游戏邦注：本文作者是Kabam首席运营官Chris Carvalho。

Kabam利用社交网络创造吸引玩家眼球的作品，借助虚拟交易免费模式，让玩家在获得体验价值后购买自己想要购买的道具，从而改变整个游戏市场格局。

kabam from desinformado.com

Kabam游戏主要通过社交工具（游戏邦注：其借助关系网络）获得曝光度。Kabam利用社交网络基于云端的属性创造无障碍登陆和游戏启动。游戏无需硬件，无需加载或下载软件，也无需预先付费（因为游戏采用免费模式）。简单来说，玩家只需点击便能够开始游戏。

Chart 1 from secondshares.com

登陆游戏后，玩家可以邀请其社交好友共同体验，在当前社交关系中融入社交互动。有趣的是，玩家还能够通过游戏结交新朋友，在其原有社交圈内加入新关系。

社交工具让Kabam能够在游戏中融入结盟元素。玩家能够加入100多人的社区形成同盟关系，及时同其他同盟伙伴进行合作或竞争。结盟伙伴能够在游戏中及时在线碰面，确定策略，承担相应责任，然后实施计划。我们最近调查了《Kingdoms of Camelot》深度玩家：76%表示“我在同盟社区中结交新朋友，享受共同体验”（游戏邦注：这是玩家玩游戏的首要原因）。

Chart 2 from secondshares.com

从商业角度看，创建这种联系密切的社区能够提高用户粘性和留存率。这是决定社交游戏商业价值的重要因素，玩家参与度越高，停留时间越长，其潜在终身价值就越大。

从成本角度看，社交游戏极大降低游戏开发风险性。零售游戏制作和推广成本高（游戏邦注：其制作成本通常在2000-4000万美元之间，有些大制作甚至超过1亿美元），耗时长。游戏一推出便完结所有工序，开发商只能翘首期盼游戏能够一鸣惊人。

Chart 3 from secondshares.com

相反，社交游戏初期制作成本很少（100万美元左右），只需几个月便完工。而作品发行后才是真正乐趣的开始。开发商会不断添加新功能，优化游戏设置，修补通过监测玩家行为发现的漏洞。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Kabam: De-risking video game development

by Chris Carvalho

Kabam is poised to disrupt the overall games market by leveraging the social Internet to create a game experience that keeps users engaged and by utilizing a free-to-play virtual goods model where consumers only pay for what they want once they have derived value from playing the game.

At the top of the funnel, Kabam’s games are discoverable by social tools that leverage relationships.  Kabam leverages the cloud-based nature of the social Internet to facilitate frictionless sign up and game initiation.  There’s no hardware required (just internet access), no software to load or download, no payment upfront (since we are a free-to-play model).  Simply point, click and you’re on your way to playing one of our games.

Once signed in to a game, a player can invite existing friends from their social graph to play online with them, adding to their social interaction with current relationships.  Interestingly enough, it’s also common for players to make new friends within their game play experience and then incorporate these new relationships into their social graph.

Social tools have also enhanced Kabam’s ability to utilize alliances in games.  Users can join with over 100 other players to form alliances to play with and against other real people/alliances in real time.  Alliances can meet online in real time in one of our persistent worlds, establish strategies, assign responsibilities and then go execute their plan. We recently conducted a survey among Kingdoms of Camelot heavy users: 76% indicated “I have made new friends in my Alliance and enjoy playing with them” as the number one reason they play the game.

From a business standpoint, fostering this tight-knit community helps contribute to greater game engagement and player retention, which are the key variables in determining the business potential of a social game — the more involved a player is, and the longer they stay involved, the greater their potential lifetime value.

For a cost perspective, Kabam’s model takes significant risk out of the game development.  Retail games have a high cost of production and distribution ($20-$40MM is not unusual and costs for major titles are increasingly exceeding $100MM) and can take years before they are released. Once the game ships, the bulk of the work is done; the developer can only cross their fingers and hope they’ve produced a hit.

Conversely, Kabam games have a significantly lower cost of initial production ($1MM range) and take only months to launch.  Once released, the fun really begins.   Kabam continuously adds new features, optimizes game play, and makes fixes that are all informed by the players’ activity which can be monitored in real time.（Source：secondshares）