作者：Eric Caoili

我喜欢管理/大亨题材的游戏。社交游戏的兴起让我所喜爱的游戏类型得以复苏。因此，我通过联想爱上社交游戏。

很多社交游戏都偏向管理/大亨题材，但鲜少被视作这类作品的一份子。

本文主要以Zynga游戏为例。

例子——城建游戏

社交城建游戏似乎未被Wikipedia列为城建游戏。为什么会这样？

cityville from app100.net

若抽出《CityVille》中的等待机制，这款游戏就很像早期的城建游戏。

《Empires & Allies》和《海岛大亨》或《乌托邦》非常相似。它们都涉及小岛上的城建者。但《Empires & Allies》是款社交游戏，所以不适合同策略游戏挂钩。

Tropico vs. Empire & Allies from gamasutra.com

Firaxis深谙此道，试图同时覆盖这两片市场。凭借发行《Civ Revolution》和《CivWorld》，Firaxis得以瞄准不熟悉4X游戏的市场，获得多年发展。

这些游戏向4X游戏引入新族群（游戏邦注：通过简化方式实现）。我们不能让不熟悉题材的玩家在一开始就接触最复杂的内容。这需要一个“哺育”过程。硬核玩家有体验视频游戏的经历，因此能够适应复杂内容。

将《FarmVille》同最近最受欢迎的社交进行比较会发现，过去3年来，社交游戏在复杂性上有显著提高。此复杂性的发展势头似乎要比这些题材的原生内容的发展速度来得迅猛。

就原生《Sim City》到《Sim City 4》的复杂性变化来看，Maxis投入14年时间，连续制作3个续集，才达到《Sim City 4》的复杂程度。Zynga及其竞争者每年都会发行作品，游戏复杂性只有小幅提高。各作品的复杂性增幅甚微，但14年后，社交游戏是否会像“硬核”那般复杂？

在我看来，社交目前正在孕育新的管理游戏玩家。

例子——连线消除游戏

另一例子就是连线消除游戏。这类游戏的首个版本是《Shariki》（游戏邦注：发行于90年代中旬）。从那以后，PopCap通过推出《宝石迷阵》复兴这类题材。这个类型我鲜少涉足。但我发现其深度和复杂性都有所提高。

将最初的《宝石迷阵》同即将更新的版本比较会发现，原生《宝石迷阵》包含两个游戏模式。而第三版本则有8个模式，每个模式包含多种选择。在3款游戏中，PopCap都有提高连线消除机制的复杂性。

市场也紧跟它们的步伐。《战神的挑战》之类的游戏开始逐步提高内容复杂性，将休闲玩家引入RPG机制中。

其他例子

深入硬核领域的题材不只这些。

休闲领域最近挖掘的“时间管理”题材也开始掳获细分硬核玩家。《美女餐厅》等游戏的出现给系列硬核时间管理游戏铺平道路，这些游戏我们大多无法立即掌握。

虽然这些游戏更多同“休闲”游戏挂钩，但在我看来，时间管理游戏中更具难度的每分点击量和FPS或RPG其实大同小异。

《植物大战僵尸》是另一瞄准休闲市场的游戏类型。防御游戏已在Flash领域存在10多年，但PopCap的这款经典作品深入更休闲的市场。探究玩过《植物大战僵尸》的休闲玩家是否会继续体验更具挑战性、更复杂的防御游戏是件有趣的事。

你对此的看法是什么？文章是否谈到子虚乌有的联系，或社交游戏能否带来新的硬核玩家？瞄准AAA内容的公司能否从深入休闲/社交群体中受益？社交游戏能否将足球妈妈吸引至《矮人堡垒》？一切有待时间证明。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Opinion: What Does Casual Becometh?

by Eric Caoili

[In this reprinted #altdevblogaday-opinion piece, student developer Tyler Coleman argues that social games are fast evolving into titles with more depth that could be creating core gamers out of casual players.]

I love management/tycoon games. It seems the uprising of the social game is bringing my favorite genre back from a quiet period. Therefore, I love social games by association.

But many social games are on the borderline of being management/tycoon games, but are not considered as such.

com·plex (km-plks, kmplks) adj. Consisting of interconnected or interwoven parts; composite.

(I’ll be picking on Zynga’s games for this article, due to their market penetration)

Example – City Building

It seems that social city-building games are not considered to by city-building games by Wikipedia’s list of city-building games. Why is that?

If you took out the mechanics in CityVille that require you to wait for turns, it would be very much like early city building games.

Empires & Allies is much like Tropico or Utopia. They are all city builders on an island. However, Empire & Allies is a social game, so it is deemed unfit to earn the mark of a strategy game.

One company that realizes this, and is doing a great job at reaching both markets is Firaxis. With the release of Civ Revolution and CivWorld, Firaxis focused on a market that was not familiar with 4X games, and the years of growth they have endured.

These games have introduced a new demographic to 4X games, and did it in a simplified way. We cannot expect a player unfamiliar with a genre to step into its most complex title first. There must be a “weaning” process. The core gamers have had the history of video games to bring themselves in to the complexity of games.

Do a comparison of FarmVille to the more recent popular social games. There is a definite growth in complexity over the past three years. And, it seems as if that growth is at a faster rate than the original growth within these genres.

Looking at the change of complexity from the original Sim City to Sim City 4, it took 14 years and three sequels for Maxis to reach the complexity found in Sim City 4. Zynga and their competitors have released games on a yearly basis, with small increases in complexity. The increase per game is much smaller, but given 14 years, will social games be as complex as their “core” counterparts?

My opinion? The social market is currently weaning a new generation of management game players.

Example – Match 3

Another example of this is the Match 3 genre. One of the first versions of this game is Shariki, released in the mid ’90s. Since then, PopCap has revitalized the game type with Bejeweled. This is a genre I rarely play. However, I have noticed an increase of depth and complexity within the genre.

Compare the first Bejeweled to its upcoming successor. The original Bejeweled had two games modes. The third has eight, with various options in each. In three titles, PopCap has grown the complexity of Match 3 exponentially.

And, the market is following them. Games such as Puzzle Quest are increasing in complexity, introducing a demographic of casual players to basic RPG mechanics.

Other Examples

These aren’t the only genres that are reaching into the core realm.

A genre recently coined in the casual market, “time management”, is on its way to having a niche core player base. Games like Diner Dash have paved the way for a group of hardcore time-management games, which most of us would have difficulty picking up immediately.

While these games may be lumped in with “casual” games, I would pose that the mouse clicks per minute on a hard level of a time management game is not much different from an FPS or RPG.

Plants Vs Zombies is another example of a game genre aimed at a more casual market. Defense games have existed in the Flash realm (and others) for over a decade, but it took PopCap’s polished game to reach a more casual market. It would be interesting to see if the casual gamers who played PvZ went on to play more challenging and complex defense games after finishing it.

What are your thoughts on this? Am I finding a correlation where there is none, or could social games be creating a new wave of core gamers? Could companies with AAA interest benefit from introducing their brand of game to a casual/social audience, in order to bring more diversity to their player base?

Will social games wean soccer moms in to playing Dwarf Fortress? Only time will tell…（Source：gamasutra）