作者：Alex Pham

Zynga公司团队由大量对产品充满激情的游戏开发者和设计师组成，他们正蓄势推广公司最新大牌游戏《Empires & Allies》。

这家已有4年历史的旧金山公司近期将进行首次公开募股，公司最近发布的新游戏可算是玩具士兵战争的网络版，这无疑是他们最有潜力的产品。

玩家刚刚明白如何在《Empires & Allies》中控制和管理虚拟游戏军队，Zynga却早已夺取了游戏行业中急速成长并极具竞争性的在线社交游戏的胜利旗帜，

每个月，全球1/10的网民都会打开Zynga旗下55款游戏之一，这些游戏包括《FarmVille》、《Zynga Poker》和《Mafia Wars》。每月玩Zynga游戏的用户数达到2.5亿人，相当于美国总人口的4/5，使Zynga成为Facebook上最大的社交游戏开发商。

Arcadia Investments Corp.总经理和游戏分析师John Taylor表示“传统游戏公司以百万为单位来统计他们的用户，而Zynga之类的社交游戏公司则是以千万甚至亿为单位来衡量。这是完全不同的两个数量级。”

Zynga近期估值在100亿美元左右，华尔街预测IPO将使这个数字进一步攀升。

Empires & Allies(from realtimetricks.com)

《Empires & Allies》之所以能成为一款热门大作，这与其游戏机制颇有关联，它展现了Zynga积聚大量玩家的最新技术。

在2月份旧金山举行的游戏开发者大会上，Zynga高级产品副总裁Mark Skaggs在演讲中总结了公司的设计原则。面对着满屋数百名想学习Zynga强大游戏开发经验的设计师，Skaggs说道：“那就是快速、简单和正确。”

这意味着，该公司游戏是由数十名开发者花数周时间便可开发完成，开发时间最多维持几个月。相比之下，传统视频游戏动辄需要数百人辛勤耕耘两年或更长的时间。

与多数传统游戏不同的是，Zynga游戏在发布后还会进行更新，开发者夜以继日地添加内容、测试新功能并不断根据玩家的互动方式调整游戏。

《Empires & Allies》也不例外。开发者在数个月的时间内便完成了游戏的开发，玩家可以通过征服和招募盟友来扩张他们的岛国。如果单人玩，你所能做的仅限于此。如若需要继续发展，你就需要好友的帮助，比如帮助击退入侵者，担任各种企业的雇员或互相交易用于制造武器和建筑的金属。

《Empires & Allies》与该公司其他作品一样有着卡通界面、简单的风格、鲜明的色彩和可亲可近的角色，这些设计能够满足主流社交游戏用户的需求。负责这部分内容的是游戏艺术总监Matt J. Britton，他是Creature Shop的前总经理。

但是，《Empires & Allies》与Zynga其他游戏的不同之处在于军队在战斗中可能永久性死亡。这是Zynga的一次冒险之举，因为他们的游戏能够如此吸引玩家，大部分的原因在于玩家在游戏中几乎不会遭到损失。

《Empires & Allies》执行制作人Amer Ajami说道：“在这款游戏中，我们要让玩家认识到行动的结果。我们想用些许损失来引起用户对此的关注，但损失不可过多，以免他们离开游戏。”

《Empires & Allies》也暗示着Zynga未来规划的发展方向，即将传统视频游戏世界的题材引进大众媒介中。

Zynga洛杉矶工作室总经理Chris Corry说道：“《Empires & Allies》让我们开始对策略和战斗题材游戏的探索。对我们而言，挑战在于如何让游戏既适合所有玩家又有足够的复杂度引起传统游戏玩家的兴趣。”

上述平衡性挑战在游戏发布后依然存在。所幸Zynga能够通过所谓的A/B测试来追踪每个功能和设计元素的作用。简单地说，就是Zynga将玩家分为两类，一类有某项功能，另一类没有，以此来探究功能的表现。如果这项功能可以引起玩家强烈的“点击冲动”或者点击的玩家比例很大，那么Zynga就会将其整合到游戏中。

《Empires & Allies》首席设计师Greg Black称，“我们能够实时跟踪游戏用户，看他们喜欢做什么事情。你需要根据玩家的喜好来改变游戏。”

玩家平均每两个月便会更改所玩的社交游戏，开发者必须不断地发布新功能和新游戏来吸引用户。比如，《FarmVille》曾经是Zynga的头牌游戏，月活跃用户最高达到8400万。然而据追踪Facebook应用的站点AppData.com上的数据显示，这款有2年寿命的游戏月活跃用户现已不到4500万。

为保住在排行榜上的首位，Zynga于去年12月发布了《CityVille》，今年年初这款游戏的月活跃用户达到顶峰，共有1.01亿玩家。但即便如此，现在《CityVille》的月活跃用户也滑落到了9000万，可见Zynga培养《Empires & Allies》成为下部巨作的行动刻不容缓。

过去Zynga的行为已证实该公司精于利用网络效应这个互联网现象，即拥有大量用户的公司可以更简便和低成本地营销最新产品。市场调研公司Inside Network创始人Justin Smith表示，从本质上而言，就是公司将用户从一款游戏导入到另一款游戏。

这个优势使得Zynga比竞争对手成长得更快。据Smith所述，现在该公司的Facebook玩家数达到2.43亿，比排名第二的社交游戏发行商EA高出7倍（游戏邦注：EA的用户总数为3180万）。

Zynga这种将大量玩家从一款游戏导入到另一款游戏中的能力吸引了风险投资和娱乐行业的注意力。

Zynga的投资方包括Silver Lake Partners、Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers、SoftBank Group和LinkedIn Corp.创始人Reid Hoffman，这家公司在5月份的IPO是今年最热门的IPO之一。Zynga董事会成员有DreamWorks Animation SKG首席执行官Jeffrey Katzenberg、EA前首席创意官Bing Gordon和Facebook前首席运营官Owen Van Natta。

社交游戏常通过出售让玩家在游戏中进展更快的虚拟商品，或可购买这些东西的游戏卡获得盈利。广告赞助和推广、订阅杂志或购买产品换取玩家可在游戏中使用的货币也能够带来少部分盈利。

大部分社交游戏玩家都不会花钱，但只要有少部分玩家付费，开发商就可以获得游戏开发成本。即便是那些不付费的玩家也能起到作用，他们是美国运通等合作公司的广告受众，也可以充当招募更多玩家的工具，而这些新玩家有可能付费。

Zynga首席游戏设计师Brian Reynolds于2010年2月在拉斯维加斯Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences大会的演讲中提供了衡量社交游戏的方法。Reynolds表示，社交游戏关注的是“日活跃用户”的数据。根据AppData.com数据，Zynga游戏最近日活跃用户总数为4900万。

在这些玩家中，付费用户占3%到5%。Reynolds假设这些用户每天平均付费1美分，也就是说1年3.65美元。以上述概率来推算，Zynga旗下4900万日活跃玩家每年将带来1.8亿美元左右的盈利。只要Zynga通过高明的游戏设计和营销手段让玩家多付费一点点，比如每天两美分，那么公司的盈利就会相应翻倍。

无论Zynga采取何种方式来盈利，毫无疑问这些都是由于该公司的游戏充满了乐趣。

Reynolds在2月份的游戏开发者大会上说道：“归根结底，这些都是游戏，是给玩家带来休闲体验的产品。趣味性应该凌驾于盈利之上。”

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2011年6月2日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Fluid game development keeps Zynga one step ahead

Alex Pham

Its troops, a few dozen game developers and designers with a penchant for bringing their dogs to work, have been stealthily working on the San Francisco company’s next big title, “Empires & Allies.”

With the nearly 4-year-old firm poised to file an initial public offering of its shares within days – Zynga this week launched the game, an online version of a toy soldier set, arguably its most ambitious.

While players of “Empires & Allies” figure out how to command and conquer their virtual game boards, Zynga has already captured the flag when it comes to online social games, a rapidly growing and viciously competitive segment of the games industry.

Every month, 1 out of 10 people worldwide on the Internet fires up one of Zynga’s 55 games, which include “FarmVille,” “Zynga Poker” and “Mafia Wars.” About 250 million people play its games each month, a number equivalent to about four-fifths of the U.S. population, making Zynga the biggest social games developer on Facebook.

“Traditional game companies measure their audience in the millions,” said John Taylor, managing director and games analyst at Arcadia Investments Corp. “Social game companies like Zynga measure theirs in the tens and hundreds of millions. It’s a completely different animal.”

Zynga’s recent rounds of financing have valued the company at about $10 billion, and speculation on Wall Street is that the IPO will push that figure even higher.

What makes the company such a hot commodity can be, in part, distilled into a handful of game mechanics embedded in “Empires & Allies,” which represents Zynga’s latest techniques for amassing legions of players.

Mark Skaggs, Zynga’s senior vice president of product, summed up one of the company’s design mantras during a talk at the Game Developer Conference in February in San Francisco. “Fast, light and right,” Skaggs told a room packed with hundreds of designers eager to learn the formula for Zynga’s addictive games.

That means its games are designed in weeks or, at most, a few months with crews of a couple of dozen developers. By comparison, traditional video games require hundreds of people working two or more years.

Unlike more conventional games, however, much of the action happens after a Zynga game is released as its developers work round-the-clock to add content, test new features and constantly adjust the game based on how players are interacting with it.

In that sense, “Empires & Allies” is no different. Its developers have worked for just a handful of months on the title, which lets players expand their island nations through conquests and by recruiting allies. Individuals can only get so far playing by themselves. To really get ahead, they need friends to lend a hand, either by helping repel invaders, agreeing to become a staff member of various enterprises or trading metals required to make weapons and buildings.

“Empires & Allies,” like its siblings, is designed to appeal to a mainstream audience with its happy, toy-like aesthetic, crisp, vibrant colors and approachable characters designed by Matt J. Britton, the game’s art director and former general manager of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.

Unlike many other Zynga games, however, “Empires & Allies” features battles in which troops can perish forever. It is a modest gamble for Zynga, whose games have been broadly appealing in large part because its players rarely lose.

“With this game, we wanted there to be consequences,” said Amer Ajami, “Empires & Allies” executive producer. “We wanted people to care enough so that the losses would sting a little, but not so much that they would quit the game.”

“Empires & Allies” is also an indication of how Zynga plans to further grow its business, by taking genres from the traditional video game world and introducing them to the mainstream.

” ‘Empires’ expands us into the strategy and combat genre,” said Chris Corry, general manager of Zynga’s studio in Los Angeles. “For us, the challenge becomes how we thread that needle of making games that are accessible to everyone but complex enough to be interesting to traditional gamers.”

This balancing act of creating just the right dose of challenge is expected to continue long after the game goes live. Among Zynga’s key strengths is its ability to track the performance of each feature and design element through what’s known as A/B testing. Simply put, Zynga compares players in two camps, one with a feature and one without, to see how well the feature does. If the feature has a high “click compulsion,” or high rate of players clicking on it, Zynga incorporates it into the game for everyone.

“We can mine our users and see in real time what they like to do,” said Greg Black, “Empires & Allies” lead designer. “The sky’s the limit when it comes to morphing our games to be whatever our players want.”

There’s another factor working in Zynga’s favor – brute force.

With players churning through social games every two months, on average, developers must release a constant stream of new features, and ultimately new games, to keep their fickle audience in the fold. “FarmVille,” for example, was once Zynga’s top game, with close to 84 million players a month at its peak. These days, the 2-year-old title averages just under 45 million players a month, according to AppData.com, a site that tracks Facebook applications.

To stay on top of the charts, Zynga in December released “CityVille,” which boasted 101 million monthly players at its peak earlier this year. But even “CityVille” has waned to 90 million monthly players, making it even more important for Zynga that “Empires & Allies” becomes its next big hit.

In the past, Zynga has proved adept at leveraging an online phenomenon known as the network effect, which allows companies with large audiences to more easily and cheaply market their latest offerings. Essentially, the company rolls its customers from one game to the next, said Justin Smith, founder of Inside Network, a Palo Alto research firm.

This advantage has allowed Zynga to grow much larger than its rivals. Indeed, its audience of 243 million players on Facebook is more than seven times that of the second-largest social game publisher, Electronic Arts Inc., with 31.8 million players, according to Smith.

Zynga’s ability to gather tidal waves of players, and move them from one game to another, has attracted the attention of high rollers in the venture capital and entertainment world.

Among Zynga’s investors are Silver Lake Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, SoftBank Group and Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn Corp., an online social network for professionals whose IPO in May was among the hottest of the year. Zynga’s board of directors includes Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation SKG; Bing Gordon, the former chief creative officer of Electronic Arts; and Owen Van Natta, Facebook’s former chief operating officer.

Presumably, investors are also attracted to Zynga’s financial data, which are not publicly available.

In general, social games generate the bulk of their revenue through selling game cards that let players advance faster or obtain virtual goods in the games. They also reap a smaller amount of money from ads, sponsorships and promotions in which players apply for credit cards, subscribe to magazines or buy products in exchange for credits they can use in the games.

The vast majority of social game players don’t spend a dime to play, but enough of them do to make a small initial investment in game development pay off. Even those who don’t spend money act as an audience for corporate sponsors such as American Express Co. and as recruiting tools for more players, including a few who will fork over actual cash.

Brian Reynolds, Zynga’s chief game designer, in February 2010 gave a rare clue to the financial math involved in social games during a talk at an Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences convention in Las Vegas. Reynolds said social games focus on the number of “daily active users.” In Zynga’s case, that number is around 49 million, according to AppData.com.

Between 3 percent and 5 percent of those players end up spending money on the game or signing up for a promotion. Reynolds threw out a hypothetical average of a daily player’s worth – a penny a day, or $3.65 a year. At that rate, Zynga’s 49 million daily players would generate roughly $180 million a year. If through clever game design and marketing Zynga pushes that player to spend just a little more – say, two cents a day – its revenue would double.

Whatever cash Zynga is generating, it’s likely to boil down to whether Zynga’s games are any fun.

“Ultimately, it’s a game,” Reynolds said at a talk in February at the Game Developer Conference. “It’s an entertainment experience. The number crunchers shouldn’t beat the fun out of it.” (Source: Physorg.com)