作者：Patrick Dugan

我觉得自己已经被Facebook游戏缠上了，刚觉得自己脱离游戏，它们又将我拉了进去。

自我在《Cityville》中花费15美元起，觉得自己好像落入个圈套，虚拟货币很快就用完了。我曾经仔细考虑过平台上存在的问题，Facebook设计上的瑕疵如何妨碍你做某些事情。但多数情况下，我懊恼的是平台持有者似乎并不想将Facebook转变成更好的游戏平台。

首当其冲的是信息中心。《Cityville》最初是个跨游戏界面，只需单击便可以接受其他玩家的请求，这使得游戏的用户留存率很高且持续增长。现在，几乎每款主流游戏都这么做。这不是跟风，而是为在Facebook上保持竞争力，所有游戏都必须采取的手段。

facebook-games(from toggle.com)

于是，新的问题又产生了：为何Facebook不将他们的请求系统做得更加完善呢？难道不应该吗？

我知道Facebook公司现在手头较紧，很难划出资金聘请大量开发者研究更多功能并测试Facebook上的游戏体验，但它完全可以让一些资历较浅的人尝试解决这个问题。如果矫正界面不足之处需要动用到平台的所有开发者，那么这也就是个失败的平台了。

但事实在于，Facebook并不在乎游戏开发者，他们只关心Zynga，毕竟后者在Facebook也有股份。Facebook在《Cityville》发布时改变规则，而这个规则恰好适用于该游戏的设计。这还算是个公平和透明的市场吗？

Facebook并非一个自由市场；Facebook完全不关心游戏及其开发者；Facebook完全不关心你的感受。

Facebook关心的是什么呢？这些人只想以高得离谱的价格进行IPO，尽量从公众处赚得金钱，有这么多钞票在手，Facebook早期创始人和元老根本无需关心是否还有其他营收来源。聪明人会在最合适的机会争取得到公司的股票。Facebook基本点（游戏邦注：即0.01%的估值）就价值750万美元。如果你手中有这些股票，就能拿到这些钱。

这对那些主机开发者、应用商店、手机游戏网络及平台、零售商和5年前的休闲游戏门户网站同样适用。受众接受你所制作的游戏，获得经济利益的是其他人，而并不是你这个开发者。平台持有者带有收取平台适用租金的经济动机。如果将独立游戏开发领域比作“失落之地”，那么以平台为中心的游戏发行市场就是“僵尸之地”。

开发者所能应对的解决方案就是让他们的游戏成为“平台”，让游戏在玩家间迅速传播。真正喜欢玩你游戏的人自然会找到游戏的独立网页版本，抛开Facebook。虽然玩家可能在手机版本中花费的时间更多，但他们也会通过Facebook Connect在Facebook上发布和查看信息及请求，这些显示玩家投入和做法的核心数据将最终会反馈到你自己的数据库。你应该合理利用多样性的传播渠道，让你自己成为游戏的掌控者。抛开这些竞争的公司，找寻属于自己的玩家！（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

This Just In: Platform Owners Don’t Care About Developers

Patrick Dugan

I thought I was done with Facebook games, but just when you think you’re out, they pull you back in.

Since then, I’ve put $15 into Cityville, which ultimately felt like a rip off because of how quickly that virtual currency was used. I’ve contemplated the problems with the platform, how the flaws in Facebook’s design preclude what you can do there. But most of all, I’m struck with how little the platform holders seem to care about making Facebook better for games.

Case in point, Message Centers. Cityville debuted a cross-game interface for accepting requests from other players with a single click, it enabled the game to run a very high re-targeting rate in its “user” base and has fueled its sustainability. Now every other major game is doing the same thing. Unlike all the other times these companies copied each other, when they were designing their games, this time the feature is an unquestionably useful piece of boiler-plate that all Facebook games must have in order to compete.

So that leaves a pertinent question: why doesn’t Facebook just make their request system more useable? Right!?

I know Facebook is really strapped for cash and they can’t afford to put a lot of developers on doing more features and testing for the game experience on Facebook, but maybe put a junior intern on the problem. When the community of developers on your platform have to collectively implement a feature to get around the morbidity of your own native interface, you are failing as a platform owner.

But the truth is, Facebook doesn’t give a damn about Facebook game developers. I mean, they like Zynga obviously, they own shares in it. They changed the rules of the platform just in time fo the Cityville launch, rules that Cityville happened to be designed to exploit. What kind of fair and transparent marketplace is that?

There has never been a free market.

There has never been a Santa Claus.

These companies do not care about games, or their developers. They do not care about you. At all.

You know what Facebook cares about? Fucking Facebook. If they were going to care about something else, they’d wouldn’t have invented Facebook. These people are going to do an IPO at a ridiculous valuation and take in so much cash from the public, so much cash, it will not matter to most of the early founders/employees if the company ever earns another dime of revenue. Anyone halfway smart will try and liquidate at least half their position in the company’s stock at the first available opportunity. A basis point (.01%) of Facebook is worth $7.5 million. What would you do if you owned 1/100th of a percent of Facebook? You’d take that money!

This also applies to console developers, app stores, mobile game network/platforms, retailers, those shitty awful goddamned casual game portals from five years ago. It goes for everyone who is not you, the developer, who has an economic incentive to earn off the audience reception of your games alone. Platform holders have an economic incentive to reap the rents of their platform. These interests conflict all the time in a variation of the tragedy of the commons known as the zom-rom-com of the commons. If indie game development is the Land of the Lost then platform-centric game publishing is ZombieLand.

The solution is for developers to make their game, ahem, THE PLATFORM, and make everyone else a *player* acquisition tool. People who really play your game, rather than merely use it like an affect-less junkie, will find their way to your stand-alone version on the web to do the biggest transactions, with only a 2.5% credit card fee to cramp your style. While they might spend more play-time on the mobile version, they might post and find newsfeeds and requests from games on Facebook via FB Connect, the core data defining their investment and performance will be centrally processed in your own data base. There’s no reason why you can’t take advantage of the multiplicity of distribution channels and make yourself a master rather than a slave. Commoditize these competing corporations, find your people.(Source: Play This Thing)