作者：Regina Leuwer

如今的Zynga最终迈出了上市这一步，不少人开始疑问，作为一个已经到达顶峰的游戏平台，Facebook是否已经开始走上下坡路了。业内观察者Tami Baribeau曾指出，Facebook游戏不再是一种可持续发展的商业模式，对于众开发者来说，iOS平台才是现在的最佳选择。与App Store不同，Facebook热门游戏排行榜单中很难看到草根开发者的作品。

Baribeau还指出，与Facebook游戏总是依赖于特定的游戏机制（如能量，赠送礼物和拜访邻居等）不同，iOS的游戏类型更加多样，且具有创造性。在Facebook的前20名游戏榜单中大多都是“Vile”游戏，因为这类型模拟游戏已经获得了巨大的成功，并证明是有利可图的，其次便是大多数的指向-点击动作类游戏。而在App Store中，用户可以通过分类和推荐等方法找到游戏，但是Facebook却并未提供任何游戏目录。

Ville games(from thehighlow.com)

推广是Facebook最大的资产还是债务？

Facebook平台伙伴关系主管Julien Codorniou对此不予苟同。他认为，社交发现和社交推广是Facebook最大资产，而那些未能进入前20名榜单的开发商们很难在iOS平台上获得新用户。

Zynga的《CityVille》是Facebook上排行第一的游戏。Zynga以2亿2300万的月活跃用户雄踞该平台。

Wooga首席执行官Jens Begemann也说道，在Facebook中什么都是免费的，包括该平台本身以及各种推广活动，除非开发者成功销售自身的虚拟产品，Facebook才会向其抽成30%。同时他还提到，与其它平台不一样，任何人都可以创建一个Facebook应用，而无需等待应用审核或支付费用。的确，这听起来是个不错的理念，但是在现在这个日益拥挤的市场以及面对更为局限的病毒式传播渠道，Facebook推广活动不再完全是免费的了。有时候，开发商也有可能获得自然发展，但正如Wooga所强调的那样，现在大多数开发者在Facebook上所面临的是不断上涨的用户获取成本。即使是最为成功的Zynga在2011年第一季度光是花在广告上的费用就高达4千万。很多业内人士都预测众社交游戏公司在2012年会掀起一轮裁员潮，因为整个市场已经非常拥挤了，这些公司的用户获取和游戏开发的成本也在不断增加。

Bigpoint首席运营官Philip Reisburger认为，他们必须寻找Facebook以外的机遇，因为Zynga的用户占据了30%-40%的Facebook活跃用户，尽管Bigpoint也拥有相同规模的用户，但却难以达到覆盖全体网络用户的30-40%。Philip Reisburger说道：“我们正处在一个更大的市场中，并且无需依赖任何一个Facebook新注册用户——我们拥有上千个可推动流量增长的媒体合作伙伴，只要他们愿意进入新领域，我们就能够从中受益。”

Facebook本身的Social Graph允许游戏脱离平台

即使脱离了Facebook canvas，Facebook的身影仍然无处不在。几乎所有基于浏览器的游戏都在使用Facebook Connect功能，以此让应用能够出现在更开放的网络中，无需向Facebook支付30%的抽成，这样既能更好地控制自己的产品与收益，并且也能同时从Facebook的社交生态系统中受益。英国博彩游戏开发商Yazino在11月离开了Facebook canvas，但是这家公司却仍然依赖于Facebook的Social Graph功能。所以是否这就是Facebook游戏在离开Facebook平台后的发展道路？

Google+ Games_homepage(from googleblog.blogspot)

King.com这家瑞典休闲游戏开发商（成立于2003年）就是一个反例，它们在加入Facebook之前就已经是家网络大公司了。但是直到2011年2月份他们才选择加入Facebook canvas发行游戏，以这种全新的方法获取巨大的成功——现在该公司共拥有超过2千3百万的月活跃用户。根据King.com首席执行官Riccardo Zacconi表示，截止2010年12月，其自主平台上玩家每月玩过3亿多次游戏。而现在作为Facebook上的一家成功发行商，玩家每月玩King.com游戏的时间多达14亿次。

Google+Games或成为黑马

在平台的竞争中，Google+Games成为了一匹黑马，因为直到现在我们还不清楚Google+这一平台能否吸引并留住大量用户以及这些用户是否对游戏感兴趣。谷歌正在加快发展自己的游戏平台，并采用了一些与Facebook的“人人都能发行游戏”略有不同的做法，它更侧重于挑选有特色的游戏。

Google+平台上现有的33款游戏被归为不同类别，包括“新游戏”或者“最受欢迎游戏”以及“编辑推荐游戏”等，而这也是Facebook蓄意避开的做法。谷歌这么做是希望能够努力维持平台上不同游戏类型的健康混合，既有《愤怒的小鸟》、《CityVille》等休闲游戏，又有Kabam的故事型游戏《教父》。这是谷歌回应Facebook中以“Ville游戏主导”的单一局面，以及人们批评谷歌Android Market不及苹果App Store管理有序的一项举措。

（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）

To Be or Not to Be on Facebook? That is the Question for Social Games in 2012

By Regina Leuwer

Now that Zynga has finally made the step and gone public, opinions are divided as to whether Facebook as a games platform has peaked and is now on the downslope. Industry expert Tami Baribeau has repeatedly argued that Facebook games are not sustainable as a business model and iOS should be the platform of choice if a developer was to start today. Unlike in the App Store, in the top lists of Facebook games, there are hardly any small bootstrapped companies, Baribeau points out.

She also points to the greater creativity and variety of genres on iOS whereas Facebook games often rely on the same set of mechanics (e.g. energy, gifting, neighboring). The top 20 list is crowded with a lot of ‘Villes’ because city building simulation games have proven most successful, alongside casual point-and-click action titles. In the App Store, games can be discovered through categories and editorial recommendations, whereas Facebook doesn’t offer a game directory.

Distribution – Facebook’s biggest asset or liability?

Naturally, Facebook’s Head of Platform Partnerships Julien Codorniou begs to differ. He argues that social discovery and distribution is Facebook’s great asset and on iOS developers outside the top 20 list have a hard time acquiring new users.

CityVille by Zynga is the number one game on Facebook. Zynga dominates the platform with 223 million monthly active users.

Wooga’s Jens Begemann even goes so far to say that on Facebook everything is free – including the platform itself and distribution, until a developer is successful enough to sell virtual goods, from which then Facebook takes a 30% share.  Also, he notes that unlike on other platforms, everybody can start a Facebook app tomorrow, without asking for approval or paying a fee. It sounds like a nice concept indeed, but in the crowded market and with limited viral channels, distribution is not exactly free. In some cases it might be possible to grow organically, like Wooga repeatedly states to, but the majority of developers are facing a rising costs for user acquisition on Facebook. Also, the most successful one, Zynga, spends more than 40M in Q1 of 2011 on advertising. Many industry experts are expecting more layoffs at social games companies in 2012, because the market is too crowded and costs for user acquisition and production of games are rising.

Philip Reisburger of Bigpoint believes that being outside Facebook is an advantage for his company because Zynga’s audience represents 30-40 percent of the active Facebook population whereas Bigpoint with a similarly large audience doesn’t represent 30-40 percent of internet users. “We’re in a bigger market, we’re not relying on a new guy registering on Facebook – we have over a thousand media partners who drive traffic, so whenever they venture into new ground, it’s beneficial for us,” Philip Reisburger told Gamesindustry.biz.

Facebook’s own Social Graph allows games to move out

Login with Facebook – play on the web. Casino game publisher Yazino moved away from Facebook’s canvas in November.

Even outside the Facebook canvas, Facebook remains omnipresent. Almost all browser-based games use Facebook Connect to have their application on the open web for full control over their product and revenues without having to pay 30% Facebook tax, while at the same time still being able to benefit from Facebook’s social ecosystem. UK-based casino game developer Yazino moved away from the Facebook canvas in November but the company still leverages the Facebook Social Graph. So is the future of the Facebook game outside the Facebook platform?

A counter example would be King.com. The Swedish casual games developer (founded in 2003) was already a big player on the web before entering Facebook. Their move to publish games on the Facebook canvas came as late as February 2011 and brought them surges in new traffic – currently over 23 million monthly active users. According to Riccardo Zacconi, King.com’s CEO, the company had 300 million games played on its platform per month in December 2010. Now, after the company became a highly successful Facebook publisher 1.4 billion King.com games are played per month.

A dark horse has entered the race

In the platform race, Google+ Games is a dark horse because so far its unclear whether Google+ will be able to attract and retain a mass audience and if that audience is keen on gaming at all. Google is ramping up its games platform and following a different approach than Facebook’s ‘everybody can publish anything’.

Google Games follows a different approach with preselected and featured games.

Google+ offers a choice of now 33 games that can be browsed in categories such as New games or Top games and also editorial staff picks – something that Facebook deliberately avoids. There appears to be an effort of maintaining a healthy mix in games and genres from Angry Birds to CityVille and Kabam’s story driven Godfather franchise.  This might be a reaction to Facebook’s ‘Ville-dominated’ monoculture as well Google’s own Android Market which is often criticized as cluttered and disorganized in comparison to Apples App Store.（source:socialgamesobserver）