作者：AJ Glasser

以下是关于第三届年度Inside Social Apps大会的相关内容。本次会议主题是Facebook，苹果，谷歌：哪个平台终将主导2012。Eric Eldon将与wooga创始人兼CEO Jens Begemann，Kabam的创始人兼CEO Kevin Chou，Funzio和Storem8的联合创始人Anil Dharni以及Disney Interactive的社交游戏部高级副总裁John Spinale共同讨论该议题。

Eric：首先让我们谈谈Facebook近来的发展状况。Jens，从你开始，我知道你最近一直在密切关注着这一平台。

Jens：我们很高兴与Facebook进行合作。以我们的四大游戏为例，它们都在上周取得了突破性的发展，而其中的一些游戏甚至已经诞生了2年之久。与一年前相比，我们现在的用户数更是翻三倍。对于我们来说，平台是游戏创造过程中最根本的一大要素，在我们的用户群中，广告仅能为我们争取到5%的新用户，而40%的用户是通过病毒式传播获得的而剩下的55%则来自交叉推广。

Kevin：我想说，Jens是幸运的。在过去几个月时间里，我们在该平台所花费的广告成本就增加了18%，从根本上来说，病毒式机制对于开发者来说就是一个“黑盒子”（游戏邦注：指从用户的观点来看一个器件或产品时，并不关心其内部构造和原理，而只关心它的功能及如何使用这些功能）。当然了，我们也仍然很乐意与Facebook进行合作，但是该平台在关于如何将Facebook Credits元素融入开发者的体验这一实践过程还很短，当我们开始执行Facebook Credits时，我们以为能够因此获得15-20%的收益提升，但是实际却只获得5%的转化。

John：我们也面临着相同的情况，对于我们来说，这不只是关于DAU和MAU的问题，更多的是关于我们最终盈利的问题。而我们与Jens所经历的不同体验是，我们必须想办法推动用户基础的发展，而我们也最终知道了如何才能更好地实践现有的渠道并鼓励更多玩家进行消费。

Anil：我们并不清楚Facebook关于病毒式渠道的想法，我们也不知道哪些渠道能够继续存在或者哪些渠道正在发生着何种变化。这种不稳定性对于我们来说真的是个巨大的挑战，我们真心希望Facebook能够提供给我们更加稳定的病毒式渠道。而关于Facebook Credits，我认为这只是一种幌子。刚开始我们可能会满心期待于转化率的提高，但是最终却会发现我们关于每个用户的平均收益正在逐渐下滑。我们并不清楚出现这种情况的具体原因，但是对于那些鲸鱼玩家（游戏邦注：指那些每年花费超过1000美元购买游戏虚拟商品的玩家们）来说，他们更喜欢用信用卡购买更多的虚拟产品而不是被那些0.99美分的游戏所吸引。虽然付费玩家的比例上升了，但是我们所获得的总体收益却下降了。

Jens：我们在进入Facebook的第一天便开始使用Facebook Credits，所以很难就Credits出现前与出现后的盈利做出比较。我想我们应该真正感谢Facebook在你获得收益后才收取30%的抽成这一决策，并且我们也很少听到有人抱怨苹果收取他们30%的抽成，所以对于Facebook的这一做法我们就不要再报以消极的态度了。你可以在这个平台上发行游戏或做其它推广，而只要你能够获得成功，你就应该给予Faceook“报酬”。

Eric：能否跟我们详细谈谈你们从网络过度到手机的过程？Anil，你是否后悔这么做？

Anil：Funzio团队的背景较为特殊，在Funzio成立之前，我们就已经开始创造Facebook和手机游戏。在创建了Storm 8之后，我们的团队成员主要是来自于Zynga，而刚开始我们必须时刻着眼于游戏的DAU，虽然一开始的发展并不理想。但是我们却能够主导更多组合游戏。而当我们在创建Funzio时，Facebook则是最佳选择。因为很显然，那时候的Facebook是规模最大的平台，而现在我们还可以选择手机和Google+。总的来说，这对于我们是非常棒的经验。

Jens：2012年，我们将继续关注着FB，与此同时，我们也将紧盯着手机平台。我们将同时发行更多游戏到手机平台和社交平台。我们已经将《Diamond Dash》等游戏移植到iOS平台，并且取得了不错的成绩。我们不仅在手机平台上获得了更多新用户，并且发现这些新用户有的甚至从未看过这些游戏。原有的核心用户基础能够帮助我们更快地攀上排行榜单，从而让我们更加努力去吸引更多新用户。

Eric：在进军手机平台的过程中，你通过Disney发行了多款手机游戏，并且也经由Playdom继续发行社交游戏。对于你们来说，手机游戏和社交游戏哪个才是现在的发展重点？

John：在社交游戏方面，我们发现很多社交网站也开始趋于手机化。我们需要保证现在的社交游戏能够同时延伸到手机平台上，如iOS，除此之外，Android也能够给我们带来巨大的收益，不容小觑。虽然这么做不容易，并且需要耗费更多的费用，但是却是有价值的。我们必须做出战略性的选择，而能够带来最大收益的仍然是iOS和Facebook两大平台，我们很难从中做出抉择。

Eric：你曾经效力于OnLive，所以你经历过平台的转变。你是如何看待这种转变？

John：回到PC游戏时代里，那时候我们面临的是各式各样的操作系统，以及相互竞争的各式掌机，这是一种自然的发展状况。后来我们开始针对于MySpace制作游戏，而那时候Facebook还不是很有名气，我们也还未意识到这一游戏平台在今后的发展。可以说，苹果是“不得已”才进入游戏领域，而Facebook却是一不小心就踏进了这片空间。一开始，用户粘性和平台选择是受到游戏元素的影响，而现在这却成为了一种稳定的业务形式，游戏变成只是一种参考内容了。如今，许多不是游戏产业的人士也开始制造属于自己的游戏。我想在今后几年的时间里手机游戏将成为主导趋势，但是我却不知道这股潮流能够持续多长时间。

Eric：你们是如何看待HTML5？你们是否从已经发行的应用中得到了一些有意义的结果？这一系还要经过多长时间才能成为主流？

John：还需要一段时间的发展。已经有很多人在创造相关的游戏原型以展示这一系统的有效性。但是我却认为在此还未拥有足够完整的功能或推动力，值得我们将现在的发展方向完全转移到它身上。

Kevin：我们现在有两款正在进行测试的游戏。一款是基于Unity，另一款就是基于HTML5。我们的一些游戏都没有太多的动画场景，所以比较容易移植到HTML5。但是很明显，我们并不能使用加速器或其它工具去加速手机的运行和操作。所以我想，我们将在2013或2014才最终迎来HTML5的时代。

Jens：我们在10月份发行了第一款手机游戏。虽然我们对游戏的整体很满意，但是也发现了某些不理想的细节。就像我们很难先在线开始某款游戏并脱机完成剩下的游戏。也就是所有的这些小细节弊端大大降低了HTML5的吸引力。所以它还需要经过一段时间的完善与发展。但是从长远的角度来看，我们还是看好这一平台。而等到所有的用户体验获得最终的完善还需要三年左右的时间。

Kevin：不一定要基于同等的评价标准。我们可能同时在六个以上的平台发行同一款游戏而让玩家在不同平台上相互竞争。我们也很看好Google+等平台，而运行效率也是我们必须衡量的重要内容。

Anil：从玩家的角度来看，我们发现的一大趋势是他们都希望看到更加高质量的游戏。但是HTML5对于我们来说却是一种退化的表现。我们总是想要使用新技术，所以比起HTML5，我们更愿意选择3D。

Eric：让我们进一步挖掘iOS，现在来谈谈如何解决病毒式传播渠道所存在的问题。

Jens：我发现，通过使用connect功能，能够让更多Facebook用户接触到iOS游戏。而Facebook本身便拥有大量的用户基础。通过使用“Facebook Connect”服务，游戏的用户粘性能够得到的进一步的提高。不仅如此，我想如果赋予手机游戏更多社交性将能够更大程度地提高游戏的用户粘性。

John：我们已经在手机游戏，如《Where’s My Water》中添加了一些社交元素，并取得了巨大的成功；而使用Facebook连接功能所获得的效率却不大，相比之下，添加一些游戏的核心功能，如排行榜更能够帮助我们提高用户粘性。我知道现在有一些纯粹的iOS游戏平台。OpenFeint，Gree，ngmoco都是可以依赖平台，而苹果的Game Center也可以发挥更大的功效。另一方面，我们也正积极地将社交游戏带到手机平台上。虽然现在我们还不能肯定这么做到底是对还是错，但是我们相信随着时间的发展，它终将获得更好的发展。

Eric：iPad平台又是怎样的一种情况？我听说iPad玩家占据着你们的游戏玩家的很大一部分？

Anil：我们现在已经不再完全侧重于休闲游戏，而是慢慢倾向于中核硬核游戏。所以我们正积极向iPad平台靠拢。苹果与Android相比的一大优势便是前者具有iPad。我们同样也希望谷歌能够快速创造出平板电脑，而为我们创造出更大的市场。

Eric：今年你们是否会将更多的资源转移到Android平台上？

Anil：我们现在正全心全意地构建新的开发团队。

Eric：但是Android应该算是你们在Facebook和苹果之后所看重的第三块宝地吧？

Jens：我们并没有一个专门针对于Android平台的开发团队。从Facebook到手机的过渡对我们来说是个巨大的挑战，我们真心希望能够取得成功。所以目前，进军Anroid平台对我们来说还不是很现实，因为我们只是一家小公司，并未拥有自己的QA团队，即负责保证游戏的高质量。而因为iOS所服务的设备很少，我们自己的团队能够独立完成测试工作。Android游戏的开发需要一支强大的QA团队，以针对不同设备的特征进行检测——这是一个需要引以重视的问题。

Eric：你们又是如何看待Google+平台

Kevin：我们很喜欢Google+。在这个平台上我们同样也很重视游戏的用户留存。不过我们在此的盈利却不是那么理想。Google+帮助我们获取用户的方法与其它平台不同。这并不是一个开放型平台，所以它更加侧重于组织性方法。我们算是这个平台上比较成功的开发商之一，我们也正不断向该平台推出自己的游戏。而从单位经济上来看，我们主要关心获得一名用户所需要花费的成本，以及我们从每个用户身上能够谋取多少利益等。现在，谷歌所面临的最大问题是规模。而其较低的付费成本算是给予开发者的一大优势。这是一个还在不断成长着的平台，我们必须正视其身上所隐藏的真正潜力。

John：你们是否从谷歌平台上获得了盈利？[笑]

Kevin：当然。

John：我们看到了该平台的潜力所在，他们知道自己正在做些什么，也拥有突显于众多平台的发展机遇。针对于该平台创造游戏并建立游戏社区与我们在其它平台所面临的情况完全不同，我们也不再需要头碰头地较劲。更有趣的是，我们可以从中了解到不同玩家的不同想法。我们在该平台已经推出了几款游戏，虽然它们的用户数不多，但是却获得了不错的盈利。

Eric：我们再谈谈其它平台如何？

John：我们刚刚与Spry Fox联合发行了《Triple Town》，这款来自Kindle的游戏。虽然这个平台上的游戏不多，但是《Triple Town》真的是一款非常优秀的游戏。

Eric：你们是否考虑到Windows Phone？

Jens：因为我们来自于欧洲，所以我们非常看好Nokia的Window Phone。虽然在美国，这并不是一个非常大的品牌，但是在欧洲和亚洲市场，其发展确实不容小觑。我想这应该算是第三大重要的平台。而今天的我们仍将着重关注于Facebook和iOS，并在此创造出真正优秀的游戏。

现在进入问题和回答环节

问题：关于盈利方面，我们知道95%的用户并不能带来盈利，但是广告商却已经瞄准了这一领域。那么，使用可能赶走用户的广告与从非付费玩家身上盈利，这两者之间究竟有何不同？

John：我想用户可以通过不同方式意识到某个程序是需要收费。有时候通过前后关系便能够知晓一个内容是否需要付钱，所以播放相关广告并不会带来负面影响。并且我们也不会播放完整的广告。我们认为这是一种能够带来巨大收益的方式，所以我们应该牢牢把握住这个机会。

Jens：我们并不会在游戏中安插广告，因为我们更加专注于虚拟产品的销售和盈利。当发现大部分玩家从未在游戏中花钱时，我们觉得应该明确一个重要的收入来源。而我们需要面临的一大问题便是标准化，我想如果我们能够创造出一种标准化模式，便能够进一步推动游戏的发展。

Kevin：当我们自己在估算某些数值时发现，我们一天可以通过广告赚得1万至2万美元的收益，但是如果通过用户，我们便能够获得更大的收益。

Anil：我并不相信广告产品。我认为它们只会破坏用户体验。如果你拥有更具有创造性，且不会影响用户体验的产品，那么我们便更愿意进行尝试。

问题：从全球用户获取的角度来看，你们认为哪个平台更具有价值？是HTML5，Android还是其它平台？

Jens：对于我们来说，Facebook和iOS才是此时的侧重点。Facebook还未真正进入中国市场，并且在整个亚洲市场的盈利还非常低，所以我们现在主要关注于欧洲市场和北美市场。

Kevin：在手机平台上，你可以以全球市场为目标，但是在网络平台上却不行。Facebook在日本的渗透率还非常低，甚至还未进入中国市场，但是对于休闲游戏玩家来说，Facebook依然是是最佳选择。如果你想要针对一个利基市场，你可以选择一些较小的市场或者网站。在中国，你应该面向腾讯和新浪，在日本是GREE和DeNA，而在韩国就是Nexon等。

问题：用户是如何在Facebook上找到新游戏？

Jens：在Facebook上，玩家主要是通过邀请和状态更新了解到新游戏。我们的很多用户都是受到好友的影响而开始玩游戏。

John：Facebook的付费广告也是一种有效的吸引玩家方式。你同样也可以使用一些Facebook外部的营销渠道，如一些传统的渠道——PR和市场营销方法等。

问题：Facebook应该如何做才能成为一个成功的手机平台？

Jens：Facebook已经在手机领域取得巨大的发展。他们已经采取了一些有益的方法而真正渗透到手机领域。我们想要制作真正具有社交性的手机游戏，而Facebook的Facebook connect以及社交图谱都能够帮助我们实现这一目标。

Anil：我们发现很多玩家已经不再关心他们好友的发展，他们更愿意寻找其他玩家一起游戏。他们需要建立游戏图谱，特别是在手机游戏中。这算是我们游戏的秘密武器。

Kevin：现在的Facebook应该想着如何避开手机平台所收取的30%的税额。我想他们肯定也是意识到这一点才将更多希望寄托在HTML5身上，以此希望避开App Store而直接从手机浏览器打开游戏。应该没有哪个开发商愿意付2次30%的费用吧。所以Facebook应该好好利用HTML5，并将整个生态圈转向HTML5，从而向真正成功的手机平台发展。

（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）

Liveblogging Inside Social Apps: Facebook, Apple, Google and in 2012

We’re at the San Francisco Design center, blogging Inside Network’s third annual Inside Social Apps conference.

The event kicks off with “Facebook, Apple, Google: Which Platform(s) Hold the Most Opportunity in 2012?” Joining moderator Eric Eldon on stage are wooga founder and CEO Jens Begemann, Kabam founder and CEO Kevin Chou, Funzio and Storm 8 co-founder Anil Dharni and Disney Interactive Senior VP of Social Games John Spinale.

What follows is a paraphrased transcript of the panel.

Eric: Let’s talk about what’s going on with Facebook. Jens, let’s start with you — you’re still focused on Facebook.

Jens: We’re very happy with Facebook. If I look at our four largest games, we had our all time highs last week and some of these games are two years old. We have three times as many users as we had a year ago. If you really focus on the platform and you really focus on having a great user experience. For us, it’s really most organic. Advertising is roughly 5% of new users for us. 40% is viral and 55% is through cross promotion.

Kevin: I think Jens’ experience is a unique. I think looking at the platform for the past few months, advertising costs have gone up 18% and virality is kind of a black box to developers in general. We’re still very excited about Facebook and we continue to work with them, but they’re just starting to learn — they’re really two quarters in with learning how Facebook Credits factors into the developer’s experience. When we implemented Credits, we thought conversion would go up 15 to 20%, but I think FB Credits has helped maybe 5%.

John: It is pretty similar for us. At the end of the day, having a unified currency that’s easy for people to understand — I think they made a good choice, but it was a drag on the system. For us it’s less about DAUs and MAUs, it’s more about monetization. While we have a different experience than Jens here where we have to incent our user base to grow, we’ve gotten very good at figuring out how to get people to pay and how to use existing channels.

Anil: There is no clear roadmap on how Facebook is thinking about the viral channels. It’s not clear what channels will exist tomorrow and how they will change today.

That’s a growing challenge for us and I’m actually hoping there’s more solidification that they talk about here at ISA. As far as FB Credits, I think it’s a wash out. We saw increased conversion rates, but a gradual decrease in average revenue per paying users. It’s hard to know why, but for games with whales, we see that people just like credit cards and PayPal better than these 99 cent purchases. The percentage of users that are paying are increasing, but total volume has decline.

Jens: We’ve been with Credits since day one, so we can’t really compare. We don’t see negative trends because we can’t compare the pre-Credits revenue to post. I think we should appreciate that the Facebook platform is completely free and only if you make revenue will you do a 30% revenue share and I’ve not heard anybody complain about Apple for their revenue share. It’s apples to apples with Facebook. You get distribution and other things — and only if you’re successful do you give to FB.

Kevin: We’re really excited about mobile. On the web, we have converted more users to paying. On mobile, we’re getting well above the conversion that we see on Facebook. More people have historic credit cards on file, so there’s less friction. But Apple provides less than Facebook.

Eric: Walk us through the transition to mobile. Anil, do you have any regrets?

Anil: The Funzio team has a unique background, we’ve done Facebook and mobile gaming before Funzio. I think our experience depends on what existed at that time. When we were doing Storm 8 our team came mostly from Zynga and we had to look at our DAUs and they were mostly a joke. We had a large portfolio of games to manage. When we launched Funzio, Facebook was the obvious choice. Looking back Facebook was an obvious platform for scale and we can take a game to mobile and google plus. Overall it’s been a good experience.

Jens: For 2012, we’re very focused on FB, but we’re very interested in mobile. We’ve kicked off as many projects for mobile as we have for social. We’ve brought our IP to iOS like Diamond Dash and we see that this works very well. We see many new users on mobile. We see more new users that have never seen the game before. It really helped when we launched that we had the core fan base download everything because that brought us to the charts and then we attracted many many new users.

Eric: John, you have a bunch of mobile games through Disney and some Playdom games you’re moving to mobile. How do you prioritize?

John: On the social game side of things, we’ve seen social game networks go mobile. We move where the puck is, we’re making sure our existing social games extend to mobile — like on iOS, but we’re also seeing revenue growth on Android meaningful enough that it’s worth doing. It’s more unwieldy and has more overhead, but it’s worth it. It’s not an either or game for us. We take some strategic bets and we love that the vast majority of revenue is still iOS and Facebook but nobody wants a one horse race.

Eric: You’ve been at OnLive so you’ve seen platforms shifting. What do you think is shifting?

John: Back in the PC days when there were a variety of operating systems and a huge variety of consoles fighting it out, this is pretty natural. We started off making games for MySpace and it wasn’t obvious that Facebook would be THE social network and I don’t think they realized they’d be a games platform. Games drive usage and purchases and engagement. Apple came reluctantly to the games space and Facebook came accidentally. A lot of the user engagement and adoption of the platform is driven by gaming and now they’re beginning to stabilize their business around gaming. Now we’re seeing people come in from the outside to make gaming ecosystems. I think mobile is going to take the lead over a several year time frame. I don’t know how long that will take.

Eric: How is HTML5 going for you guys? Any meaningful results from some of the apps you’ve launched? Are we years out?

John: It’s going to be a while. There are a lot of people making incredible prototypes to show it’s real and it’s going to be great. But I don’t think there’s enough feature completeness or momentum where people are going to turn a business on it.

Kevin: We have two mobile games in beta. One is in Unity, the other is in HTML5. Some of our games have less animation, so it’s a lot easier in HTML5. Obviously you can’t access the accelerometer and other things that make mobile great. I’d say it’s probably 2013 or 2014.

Jens: We launched our first mobile game in October. We’re satisfied overall, but many details were not optimal. It was hard to start a game online and finish offline.

All of these small things combined to make HTML5 less attractive. It will take some time. It depends on the game — but in the long term, we’re very bullish. Until the user experience is identical — I would say three years from now.

Kevin: It’s not necessarily that there should be parity. We operate on over half a dozen platforms and it’s a single game universe where all our players play against each other. We’re excited about Google+ and several other platforms and we have to think about operational efficiency.

Anil: One of the big trends we’re seeing from a player’s perspective is that they’re demanding better quality games. HTML5 would be a regression for us. We’re interested in new technology, but we’d rather go 3D than HTML5.

Eric: Let’s talk about iOS a bit more — what are the main ways to solve the viral channels issue?

Jens: We see a decent number of users coming from the Facebook to iOS games if they’re connected. IT’s a healthy amount of users. We see much higher engagement from those using Facebook Connect. I think it’s a little bit underrated. I think making mobile games social will increase engagement a lot.

John: For our mobile games that we’ve added social components to like Where’s My Water, which has been a huge success, the level of engagement by adding Facebook has been pretty low, but adding game centric features like leaderboards has been better. I think there are better pure gaming platforms available on iOS now. I think OpenFeint, Gree, ngmoco, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on and I think Game Center could do more. On the flip side of things we’re bring our social games into the mobile platforms. We’re definitely viewing it through two lenses right now but it’s getting better over time.

Eric: What about iPad? We’ve heard that that’s a very big part of how people are playing your games?

Anil: We’re less on the casual side right now, we’re more on the midcore hardcore side. And we’re seeing massive uptake on the iPad. Apple has a massive edge over Android because of the iPad. We’re hoping Google figures out tablet soon because that’ll be a market for us. The ARPU is even higher than what you see on iOS users.

Eric: What are the monetization differences you’re seeing on iOS and Android?

John: It’s a smaller amount of users that get through the funnel. We’re finding that users are more engaged for equivalent games — like Gardens of Time. It’s a meaningful percentage that’s more engaged. That’s were we see the large growth in the market is mobile. To some degree, we take a platform agnostic view as Disney.

We’ve been through 20 platform transitions from black and white to radio and so on — that’s how the company at large views platform transitions. For us it’s about story and character connections and crafting them to be appropriate for the right platforms. We need to think about it in the short term and in the long term. When you have a success like Swampy the Alligator, you need to think about how to branch that out.

Eric: Are you shifting more resources to Android this year?

Anil: We’re definitely focused on building out the team.

Eric: But it’s the third place to go after Facebook and Apple?

Jens: We have no team on Android. Going from Facebook to mobile is a big challenge and we want to get it right. Android is an issue because we’re a small company and we don’t have a QA team. The team is responsible for delivering high quality. On iOS that’s possible because there’s a limited number of devices that the team can test. Android needs a large QA team that goes through all the specifics for the devices — and that’s an issue. In time it will happen.

Eric: Does the Google+ platform matter at all to you guys?

Kevin: We’re very happy with Google+. We’re seeing retention similar to what we see on other networks. Monetization is a little worse. Google+ takes a different approach to acquiring users. Putting content on the exclusively gets better featured placement. It’s not an open platform, it’s more of a curated approach. But we’re probably one of the more successful developers on the platform and we’re opening up our catalog of games to the platform. On the unit economic side, we look at how much it costs to get a user and we look at how much planned monetization we get per user and those are similar. On Google, the issue is scale. And the payments cost –
which is obviously very favorable. It’s been growing, so it’s hard to ignore. Google+ has been in the news for a lot of things, but the most important news is that it’s growing.

John: Did you get money from Google? [Laughs]

Kevin: Yeah.

John: I see the potential, that they’re very serious about what they’re doing and they have an opportunity to approach it differently. To be able to weave games and building a community on that platform is very different and it’s not head to head any longer. What’s interesting is how we can approach people from a different angle. We have a few games on there with smaller user numbers, but they monetize well.

Eric: Any other platforms we should talk about?

John: We just published Spry Fox’s Triple Town — which came form Kindle. There’s not much there yet, but it’s a great game to come from that platform.

Eric: How about the international networks? Aren’t they declining?

Kevin: I don’t track the platforms, I look at the growth in the games. The large majority of our new users are not on Facebook. It’s Google+ and 600 other social networks — we just launched on Yahoo and we’re launching on games portals. There’s a lot of opportunity around the web.

John: We’ve launched on loads of social networks over the course of Playdom’s life cycle and we’ve narrowed it back down to Facebook and Google+ and a couple in Russia like Mail.ru that are still pretty vibrant. But the number keeps shrinking. It gets down to true development efficiency.

Eric: Windows Phone? You guys ready?

Jens: I’m from Europe, so I’m bullish on what Nokia can do with Windows Phone. Here in the U.S. it’s not a big brand but in Europe and Asia it’s still huge. I think it will be a third platform that will be relevant. We’re focused today on Facebook and iOS and we’re trying to create the best games possible.

Now into the Question & Answer segment…

Q: With regards to monetization, we’ve heard that 95 percent of users don’t monetize, but advertisers are coming in and getting interested in the space. What’s the difference between pissing off users with advertising and monetizing those users who haven’t monetized yet?

John: I think users recognize that programming needs to be paid for in some way. Having contextual, relevant advertising typically isn’t a problem. We haven’t embraced advertising in its fullest form. We see it as a pretty big revenue stream overall and we’re leaning into it. We’re not at the bleeding edge.

Jens: We don’t have advertising in our games because we’re focused on selling and monetizing though virtual goods. The large majority of people who never pay, so there should be a meaningful revenue stream. Everything we’re hearing though says its not yet there. One of the big issues is standardization. I don’t know what this issue is, but if we could get a standardized format I think it could become big.

Kevin: When we do the math for ourselves we see we can make $10,000 – $20,000 a day through advertising with a lot of work, but we can make the same by monetizing with our users better.

Anil: I don’t think the ad products are there yet. They can actually hurt the user experience. If you have products that are more innovative and don’t impede a user experience we’ll look at them.

Q: From a global user acquisition point of view, which platform has been the most valuable – HTML5, Android etc?

Jens: For us, the focus is on Facebook and iOS. Facebook is blocked in China, and the parts of Asia where Facebook is big monetization is very low, so our focus is mainly on Europe and North America.

Kevin: On mobile you’re going to get global coverage, but on the web it’s different. Facebook has low penetration in Japan and it’s blocked in China, but for a casual audience, you pretty much want to be on Facebook. If you’re looking to go after a niche market, you can get into smaller markets and networks.  In China you want to be on Tencent and Sina. Japan is very interesting with GREE and DeNA, in South Korea you’ve got Nexon and a number of others.

Q: How do users discover new games on Facebook?

Jens: On Facebook it’s really through requests and news feeds. Our users come because their friends are playing.

John: Paid advertising on Facebook is a well-oiled machine on Facebook. You can also pull in from outside channels — we’re seeing a massive influx of people from outside the Facebook platform through more traditional channels like PR and marketing that I think we do well as a company.

Q: Eric Eldon: What can Facebook do to become a successful mobile platform?

Jens: Facebook is already huge on mobile. They’re doing the right things to make the platform right to develop for on mobile. We want to make mobile games that are really social and I think Facebook is doing the right things with Facebook connect to make it more social and use the social graph.

Anil: We’ve found that gamers don’t care about their friends, they want to find other gamers. They need to have a game graph and I think that would be a lot more relevant on mobile. It would be the secret sauce.

Kevin: I think what Facebook needs to do is figure out how to get around the 30 percent tax that mobile platforms charge them. I think that’s why they’re betting heavily on HTML5 so they can bypass the app stores and go from a mobile browser to a game. I think it would be very difficult for any developer to pay two 30 percent taxes. They need to go HTML5 and push the entire ecosystem to HTML5 to make it successful.(source:Inside Social Games)