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开发商不满Facebook-Zynga联姻 意图转战Google+

发布时间:2011-08-01 11:09:29 Tags:,,

作者:Dean Takahashi

Facebook游戏开发商获悉Facebook同Zynga建立密切关系后颇为不悦。

谷歌若能合理平衡此愤怒之情,大量开发商将转投其新社交网络Google+开发游戏。问题是此愤怒之情是否确有实据,目前尚未明确答案。

相比其他游戏开发商,Facebook似乎对Zynga偏爱有加,双方通过达成流量增长协议,仿佛成为“连体婴儿”。Facebook开发商自然会觉得同Zynga抗衡胜算渺茫。他们或许会转投Google+,其平台未来或将支持游戏内容(游戏邦注:该平台还有待开发)。

某Facebook开发公司高管此前在西雅图Casual Connect游戏大会匿名表示,“这简直太令人生气,”会上Facebook-Zynga协议(及Zynga提交证券交易委员有关协议内容的文件)成为讨论焦点。“我们无法很快转投Google+平台。”

google+ from ylmf.net

google+ from ylmf.net

Facebook合作关系和平台营销副总裁Dan Rose承认确有些开发公司感到十分沮丧,但由于目前公司处在IPO静默期不便透露任何信息。但他表示,Facebook不会厚此薄彼,所谓的回扣谣言纯属虚构,公司绝没有特别偏袒Zynga,以换取其使用Facebook Credits货币。

Rose表示,“这是个公平竞争环境。所有平台成员都是遵照相同规则运作,不从是就经济角度,还是就推广角度而言。”

Digital Chocolate(游戏邦注:该公司同时涉足移动和Facebook游戏领域)首席执行官Trip Hawkins是唯一公开质疑Facebook言论的高级主管。Hawkins日前在GamesBeat 2011大会上把该平台所有者比作“封建君主”。

Hawkins表示,“众所周知,Zynga具有合约优势,但其程度致使其他Facebook开发商处于不利地位,举步维艰。今年的政策调整使得各公司创收更加困难。发现该平台既无竞争,也无无公平可言真令人难以接受。这好像是出于金钱勉强维系关系的糟糕婚姻。解除婚约后,没有一方会感到开心或自由。讽刺的是,双方原本可以成为真正的朋友。”

其他Facebook合作公司也不满目前耳闻的消息。另一Facebook游戏公司首席执行官表示,“最重要的是两家公司互相需要,Zynga因此获得优惠待遇。这令其他开发商处于不利地位。我们长久以来一直都处在不公平环境中。我们很早就发生,但也于事无补。这很令人非常恼火。我们很愿意加入Google+。”

另一Facebook游戏公司高管表示,“我很早就猜到他们已私下达成协议,旨在促使Facebook Credits步入正轨。Facebook需要获得Zynga的支持。令人气愤的是Facebook竟帮助Zynga增长流量。这令我非常反感。”

这些高管们都不愿意透露姓名,旨在维护其同Facebook之间的关系。这说明这些开发商们影响力仍十分渺小,Facebook对他们来说依然非常重要。他们或许某天会成为Zynga的囊中之物。

Wedbush Securities分析人员Lou Kerner(游戏邦注:其曾同其开发商谈及协议事件)表示,“我认为建立密切关系对Facebook和Zynga来说都颇有益处,但令其他开发商处于不利地位。在这种情况下,其他开发商也会争取更具公平性的竞争环境。此协议同Facebook声称的公平竞争相违背。”

在同其他开发公司的沟通时,Facebook极力安抚他们,称公司并未偏袒Zynga,令其他开发社区处于不利地位。其实Zynga也曾不满其同Facebook之间的关系。1年前,Zynga首席执行官马克·平卡斯向员工表示,公司将赶超Facebook,创建自己的社交游戏门户网站Zynga Live。但这最终并未实现,因为随后Facebook同Zynga就Facebook Credits货币达成合作协议。

相比其他开发商,Zynga已在Facebook抢占优势,其在该平台的MAU(月活跃用户)高达2.64亿,超越其他15家主要游戏公司的MAU总和。

但真正令人开发商们不满的是,Zynga最近提交至SEC的文件披露,Zynga在Facebook享有其他开发商所没有的福利。Zynga在文件中表示,公司在宣布同意支持Facebook Credits(游戏邦注:这是Facebook 1年前推出的虚拟货币)时同Facebook达成特殊协议。在此协议中,Zynga同意分成Facebook 30%收益,这是Facebook Credits的收费标准。

作为交换条件,Facebook同意帮Zynga增长游戏流量。但Facebook并未像之前报道的那样,给予Zynga游戏广告回扣。Facebook表示,其确有同Zynga达成广告分成协议,以防有天Zynga将游戏移除Facebook,但此协议从未生效。30%分成是所有开发商都需支付的费用,Facebook表示所有开发商都是获得相同待遇。

但其他开发商不满Facebook支持Zynga增长流量。据协议显示,Facebook承诺将支持Zynga提高流量直至此5年协议终止。开发商们表示,他们去年曾就此特别询问Facebook,弄清Zynga承诺使用Facebook Credits时是否获得特别协议,Facebook表示没有。但开发商们表示他们同Facebook签订的Facebook Credits使用协议并没有流量增长条款。

某社交游戏开发商表示,“开发商是否受误导?答案显然是肯定的。Facebook表示这同此其他顶级社交游戏开发商未享有的协议毫无关系。这明显不符实际。此协议促使我们处在不公平的环境之中。”

从Facebook角度来看,我们不难理解为何该公司会同Zynga达成此特殊协议。1年前,很多公司对 Facebook Credits都怀有抵触情绪。Facebook索取30%的交易费用,而其他虚拟货币供应商仅分成10%。这对Facebook开发商来说是个笔庞大税金。Facebook计划强制落实虚拟货币,但其需首先解决此机制同现实交易活动之间存在的分歧。Zynga此前准备将游戏移除Facebook,自立门户,创建游戏网站Zynga Live,加快入驻其他平台的步伐。这令Facebook忧心忡忡。

所以Facebook同Zynga达成协议(游戏邦注:此协议同掌机开发商为获得平台支持所达成的协议大同小异。例如索尼曾说服RockStar Games/Take-Two Interactive在PlayStation 2 独家发行《Grand Theft Auto》)。Facebook的立场是加大对游戏生态系统的支持,但不会随意协助Zynga游戏增加流量。

但对其他小型Facebook开发商来说,Zynga-Facebook协议表明Faceboo并位对所有开发商一视同仁。

从Facebook角度来看,此偏袒并不像过去其他平台所有者那样产生糟糕影响。例如,掌机开发商有其内部游戏工作室,他们能够先于第三方开发商访问新掌机平台信息。这促使第一方游戏开发商能够抢占先机。Facebook没有此类第一方工作室。

同时,Zynga同其他Facebook Credits早期倡导者(如CrowdStar、RockYou和EA)不得不先于其他开发商向Facebook支付30%分成,因为他们较早使用Facebook Credits。

Zynga也面临一大限制因素。若Zynga通过Facebook增加游戏流量,Zynga游戏就只能搭载Facebook平台。从这个角度看,协议也束缚Zynga的发展。Google+如今成为可行平台,Zynga或许也希望将游戏拓展至此平台。但Zynga如今不能使用相同游戏名称,直接移植,因为其已同Facebook达成协议。讽刺的是,未签订Facebook特殊协议,其他游戏开发商能够自由瞄准Google+开发游戏。

Facebook Rose表示,“我们的重心是增加Facebook游戏的流量。制作优质游戏的开发商将能够从我们推出的旨在推广游戏的产品中受益。这就是我们运作平台的方式,我们发展平台的方式。优质游戏受益最大,因为这是用户希望体验的内容。我们不会把某个开发商的平台推广机制运用至其他开发商。平台最大开发商和最小开发商都遵照相同推广原则进行运作。获得流量增长有两个渠道。首先是瞄准某特定开发商,增加其流量;其次是发展整个平台,确保那些制作优质作品的开发商同平台共同成长。我们采用第二方案协助开发商获得发展。”

开发商并不一定要签订特殊协议。虽然某些Facebook-Zynga协议内容在SEC文件中重新修订但也于事无补,只会让人们认为双方还有更多秘密协议。事实上协议第8.3条款明确规定Zynga需向Facebook支付Facebook Credits货币使用费,单未明确说明份额为30%。其实际费用已做过调整。SEC文件还附有流量增长规划图,但表中数据已进行调整。(游戏邦注:Facebook表示,公司1月份已公开表示,所有使用Facebook Credits进行交易的开发商都需支付30%分成,目前亦是如此)。

开发商还听到其他偏袒谣传。例如,据某Facebook游戏开发商高管表示,Zynga有多于其他公司的社交玩家邀请权利。但Facebook的邀请策略取决于玩家是否接受邀请。据悉,若玩家频繁拒绝某游戏发出的邀请,那此游戏的邀请次数就会减少。

Facebook正式表明,其欢迎更多社交游戏公司,更多游戏作品入驻平台。Facebook游戏开发商关系主管Sean Ryan此前在Casual Connect大会表示,游戏开发商存在很多机会制作其他鲜有社交游戏内容。Ryan表示,虽然Zynga在城建和农场模拟游戏中独占鳌头,但其他诸如角色扮演游戏、隐藏物品游戏和赌场游戏领域仍具有众多机会。Ryan表示,Facebook将继续投资其游戏生态系统,未来会继续向游戏公司提供更多新功能。

zynga from venturebeat.com

zynga from venturebeat.com

Ryan还表示,平台目前有376款游戏的MAU(月活跃用户)超过10万,有80款游戏的MAU超过100万。

谷歌有待提供应用编程界面或API,设定Google+作品开发和竞争规则。谷歌可以通过分成20%或更低水平建立自己的用户忠诚度,吸引那些不想因使用Facebook Credits分割30%收益的开发商。游戏投资银行Digi-Capital总经理Tim Merel表示,“有关Zynga-Facebook协议及其给谷歌带来的影响,任何未建立游戏生态系统的大型社交网络都存有供新成员发展的机会。这些能够抵消其作为新社交网络存在的风险。所有现有游戏公司,特别是像Zynga、Wooga、Crowdstar、Playfish、Playdom之类大玩家,都应思考如何入驻Google+市场。”

Hawkins表示,“谷歌是游戏领域的新兴力量,其能够凭借Google+带来重要创新。每当出现新选择或不同方案时,总是会带来更多竞争,让所有参与者如履薄冰。这些新兴行业尚处在其初期阶段,所以很多内容仍尚未明确确立。每个主要参与者都存在巨大机会,能够取得良好突破,但同时也需应对巨大挑战。能够虚心学习的公司定能够快速调试,最终获得成功。”

从Casual Connect和GamesBeat 2011大会趋势中就能明显看出,很多社交游戏公司开始进军移动领域,其市场份额之争仍呈开发态势(游戏邦注:因为其中没有公司占据绝对优势)。但他们也开始寻求其他能够给予他们更多用户的平台。

某Facebook游戏开发公司首席执行官称,“我们愿意移至Google+平台,但问题是该平台目前尚未提供任何机会,在未来很长一段时间内,Google+的用户规模仍旧会比Facebook略逊一筹。”(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Why game developers hate the Facebook-Zynga marriage, and how Google+ can benefit

By Dean Takahashi

Facebook game developers were furious when they found out about the tight relationship between Facebook and Zynga.

If Google properly channels that anger, it could find considerable support for the idea of making games that run on its new social framework, Google+. The question is whether that anger is justified – and the answer isn’t crystal clear.

Because Facebook appears to favor Zynga more than other game developer, including through an unusual growth-target agreement, those two companies seem to be just about joined at the hip. Developers of Facebook games might logically conclude that there’s no hope for them to compete with Zynga. They might instead focus on Google+, which is expected to support games in the future and is currently virgin territory.

“It’s an outrage,” said an executive at one Facebook game developer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, at last week’s Casual Connect game conference in Seattle, where the Facebook-Zynga deal (and a filing Zynga made with the Securities and Exchange Commission describing the deal) was the subject of much conversation. “It means we can’t move to Google+ soon enough.”

Dan Rose, vice president of partnerships and platform marketing at Facebook, acknowledges that some developers are upset and that his company is restricted about saying everything because of the IPO quiet period. But he insists that Facebook isn’t playing favorites, contrary to rumors of kickbacks or some special favoritism in exchange for Zynga’s adoption of Facebook Credits.

“It’s actually a level playing field,” Rose said in an interview. “Everybody on the platform is playing by the same rules, whether that is from an economic perspective or a distribution perspective.”

Trip Hawkins, chief executive of Digital Chocolate, which makes both mobile and Facebook games, was the only CEO willing to go on the record for this story. Hawkins described platform holders as “feudal lords” in a recent talk at our GamesBeat 2011 conference.

“We all knew Zynga had contractual advantages, but the extent of it makes Facebook a tough platform for everyone else,” Hawkins said. “Policy changes have made revenue and margins more challenging this year, so it is a bitter pill for all of us to find out that the market is neither competitive nor fair.  Their relationship could not be more complicated.  It’s like a bad marriage is staying together for the money.  You don’t get the feeling that either side really feels happy or free.  Ironically, they could both use more real friends.”

Other Facebook partners are not satisfied with what they have heard so far. A different chief executive at a Facebook game company, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “The bottom line is those two need each other and Zynga got a preferred deal. It sucks for other developers. We have long lived in a world where the playing field wasn’t fair. We knew that for a long time, and this doesn’t change anything. It’s annoying. We would very much like to participate in Google+.”

And still another chief executive at a Facebook game company said, “I fully expected they had a sweetheart deal from the beginning in order to get Facebook Credits to take off. They needed the biggest player to support it. Where it gets shady is where Facebook gives them growth targets. That makes me sick.”

The executives spoke with VentureBeat but didn’t want their names published in order to protect their business relationships with Facebook. That’s an indication of how little leverage these developers have, and how important Facebook remains to them. They might also one day be acquisition targets for Zynga.

“I think the tight relationship is positive for Facebook and Zynga, but places other game developers at a disadvantage,” said Lou Kerner, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, who has also spoken with developers about the deal. “All else being equal, other developers will seek out opportunities that offer a more level playing field. The agreement is counter to what Facebook has been saying about how it’s an equal platform for all.”

In conversations with game developers, Facebook is trying to calm developers down and explain that it really doesn’t favor Zynga in a way that is unfair to the rest of the development community. There were, in fact, times when Zynga hated the Facebook-Zynga relationship. A year ago, Zynga’s chief executive Mark Pincus told employees that Zynga planned to expand beyond Facebook and start its own Zynga Live web site as a portal for its own social games. That never happened because Facebook cut the deal on Facebook Credits with Zynga.

Zynga already has enormous advantages over other developers on Facebook, with more than 264 million monthly active users on the social network, more than the top 15 other game companies combined.

But what’s really making developers angry is a new disclosure by Zynga filed with the SEC, which shows that Zynga gets benefits that apparently no other game company gets. In the filing, Zynga said that it received a special deal when it agreed to support Facebook Credits, a new virtual currency from Facebook, a year ago. In that deal, Zynga agreed to give 30 percent of its virtual goods game revenues to Facebook, the standard fee for using Facebook Credits.

In exchange, Facebook agreed to help Zynga hit growth targets for its games. Facebook did not, as initially reported, agree to kick back revenue to Zynga from ads placed by Facebook alongside Zynga games on Facebook. Facebook said there was a deal to share ad revenue with Zynga if it chose to move its Facebook games off of Facebook, but that ad deal never kicked in, according to a statement by Facebook. The 30 percent fee is what every developer pays, and Facebook told developers that everyone was treated the same.

But other developers were upset about Facebook’s support of Zynga’s growth targets. Facebook reportedly (in a redacted section) promises growth by the end of the five-year agreement, according to a source familiar with the agreement. Those developers said they specifically asked Facebook last year if Zynga was getting a special deal when it signed up for Facebook Credits, and they were told there was no such deal. But the developers said there were no growth targets in their own agreements about Facebook Credits.

“Were developers misled?” said another source from a social-game maker. “The unequivocal answer is yes. In meetings with us, they told us there was nothing to the agreement that was not available to other leading social game developers. That’s patently not true. We look at the agreement and it does not allow a level playing field.”

From Facebook’s point of view, it is easy to see why the company entered into a special deal with Zynga. A year ago, there was a lot of resistance to Facebook Credits. Facebook charges a 30-percent transaction fee, whereas other virtual currency providers take as little as 10 percent. It amounts to a huge tax increase for developers doing business on Facebook. Facebook planned to make the virtual currency mandatory, but it needed to work out the kinks in the system with real-world trades. Zynga was prepared to expand its games off Facebook to its own portal, Zynga Live, and move to other platforms as quickly as possible. At the time, that was pretty alarming to Facebook.

So Facebook cut a deal to get Zynga on board. That deal was similar to other deals that console makers have made to get crucial support for their platforms, for instance when Sony was able to convince RockStar Games/Take-Two Interactive to publish Grand Theft Auto games exclusively on the PlayStation 2 console. Facebook’s position was that it would increase its overall support for the game ecosystem, but it would not arbitrarily help Zynga’s own games grow faster.

But for the smaller developers on Facebook, the Zynga-Facebook deal is a sign that Facebook isn’t being fair to all comers.

From Facebook’s point of view, the favoritism isn’t as bad as what some platform owners have done in the past. Console makers, for instance, typically have their own first-party (in-house) game studios that get access to information about a new console far earlier than third-party developers. That allows the first-party game makers to get a head start. Facebook has no such first-party studios.

Also, Zynga and other early adopters of Facebook Credits — CrowdStar, RockYou and Electronic Arts — had to start paying the 30-percent royalty to Facebook earlier than other developers, simply because they started using Facebook Credits earlier.

Zynga also had a major restriction. If Zynga hit its growth targets with Facebook, then Zynga’s games had to stay exclusive on Facebook. From that perspective, that part of the agreement may return to haunt Zynga. Now that Google+ is a viable platform, Zynga may want to extend its games there. But Zynga can’t just take the exact same game and move it over now, due to its contract with Facebook. Paradoxically, the lack of a special Facebook deal will give other game developers more flexibility to pursue Google+ games.

Rose at Facebook said, “Our focus is to grow traffic for games on Facebook. And the developers who build good games will benefit from the products we launch that are designed to grow distribution. That’s the way we run the platform. That is how we grow the platform generally. The best games will benefit the most because those are the games our users will want to play. We don’t apply the distribution mechanisms of the platform from one developer to the next in any way. The largest developers on our platform down to the smalllest developers on our platform operate on the same distribution rules. There are two ways to achieve a growth target. One way is to single out a developer and grow their traffic. Another way is to grow the entire platform and assume the developer that makes good games will grow with the platform. Our approach with any single developer is the latter, period.”

Developers aren’t necessarily buying that. It didn’t help that some sections of the Facebook-Zynga agreement were heavily redacted in the SEC filing, fueling more rumors that there were other special deals in place. In fact, in section 8.3 of the document, the agreement states the fee that Zynga has to pay to Facebook for the use of Facebook Credits. That section doesn’t say 30 percent. Rather, the actual fee is redacted. The SEC document also has a chart of the schedule for growth targets, but the numbers in the schedule are redacted. (Facebook says it said publicly in January that every developer pays the same 30 percent fee per transaction for using Facebook Credits, and that is still true now).

Developers have also heard rumors of other examples of favoritism. Zynga, for instance was reportedly allowed to issue more invitations to gamers to join a social game than other developers were allowed to send, according to one executive at a Facebook game developer. But Facebook’s policy on invites depends on whether the users embrace or reject the invitations. If users reject more invitations from a certain game, then the number of invites that game can send will be reduced, according to conversations that game companies had with Facebook.

Officially, Facebook says it supports the idea of more game companies and games on its social network. Sean Ryan, head of game developer relations at Facebook, said in a speech last week at Casual Connect that there are plenty of opportunities for game developers to make social network games in genres that aren’t crowded. While Zynga has a lock on city and farm simulation games, there are still plenty of opportunities in areas such as role-playing games, hidden object games and casino games, Ryan said. Facebook continues to invest heavily in its game ecosystem and will continue to offer new features for game companies in the future, Ryan said.

Ryan also said there were 376 games with more than 100,000 monthly active users and 80 games with more than 1 million monthly active users.

Google, as we noted in our other Google+ story today, has yet to come up with an applications programming interface, or API, which sets the rules on how to create a game that sits on top of Google+. Google would be smart to create a smaller royalty — perhaps 20 percent or lower (as is rumored) — to attract game developers who don’t want to share 30 percent of their revenues obtained via Facebook Credits.

“On Zynga-Facebook and how that impacts Google+, any substantial social platform without an established games ecosystem offers opportunities for new entrants,” said Tim Merel, managing director at game-focused investment bank Digi-Capital. “These must be offset against the risks of it being a new social platform. All the established games companies, particularly strong social players like Zynga, Wooga, Crowdstar, Playfish, Playdom and others should also be considering how to play the Google+ market.”

Hawkins said, “Google is a major force in the industry and could drive important innovations with Google+.  When there are alternatives and different approaches it makes things more competitive and keeps everyone on their toes.  These new industries are still in the first inning, so much remains to be decided.  Every major participant has great opportunity and will make many good moves, and also bad ones from which they will need to retreat or recover.  Whoever goes down their learning curve with a humble attitude will adapt fastest and be likely to win.”

Already evident from the trend at Casual Connect and our recent GamesBeat 2011 conference is the fact that many social game developers are moving into mobile, where the battle for market share is still wide open, since there is no dominant company. But they’re also looking around for any other platform that can give them large numbers of users.

“We’d love to move to Google+, but the only problem is that there isn’t anything to move to yet, and they will have a smaller audience for games than Facebook for a long time to come,” said one Facebook game developer CEO.(Source:venturebeat


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