据venturebeat报道，Facebook游戏平台被Zynga、艺电-Playfish和迪士尼-Playdom这三大游戏开发商所统治，在这种情况下，多家小型社交游戏开发商结成了“反叛同盟”，共同对抗这三大巨头。

applifier

Facebook 游戏平台明显形成了三足鼎立的局面，根据互联网数据统计机构AppData的数据，Zynga、艺电-Playfish和迪士尼-Playdom三家游戏开发商的每月Facebook活跃游戏玩家数量总计可达3.31亿。在这种情况下，小规模的独立社交游戏开发商只好结成一个名为Applifier的同盟，采用交叉推广（cross-promotion）的方式推荐盟友的游戏。这些小型游戏开发商还借鉴《星球大战》中对抗“银河帝国”的情节，戏称自己为 “反叛同盟”。

Applifier同盟中的游戏开发商会在自己的游戏中添加一个“交叉推广”的工具栏，向玩家推荐其它独立游戏开发商的游戏，玩家点击即可查看自己是否有兴趣玩工具栏中推荐的游戏。

自今年4月份成立以来，Applifier同盟的游戏网络中已经拥有了100多款游戏，玩家数量达到5500万。Applifier游戏网络中包括 Booyah开发的音乐游戏《夜店城市》（Nightclub City），玩家数量为800万；Digital Chocolate开发的城市建设类游戏《大富豪城市》（Millionaire City）和格斗类游戏《MMA Pro Fighter》，玩家数量为850万；ZipZapPlay开发的蛋糕店经营游戏《烘焙人生》（Baking Life ），玩家数量为610万；Ninja Saga开发的《忍者传说》（Ninja Saga），玩家数量为510万；GameHouse开发的拼字游戏《Scrabble Worldwide》和扑克游戏《Uno》，玩家数量为260万；Wooga开发的测验游戏《Brain Buddies》，玩家数量为250万；Icebreaker Games开发的咖啡馆经营游戏《咖啡人生》（Cafe Life），玩家数量为230万；Free Lunch Design开发的《冰塔历险》（Icy Tower），玩家数量为130万；King.com开发的《Funflow》，玩家数量为130万；iWin开发的策略游戏《Party Resort》和益智游戏《宝石探秘》（JewelQuest），玩家数量为90万；Playfirst开发的《巧克力大亨》（Chocolatier），玩家数量为70万。

提出“交叉推广”理念

这些游戏的玩家数量都比较可观，使得Applifier成为Facebook平台上仅次于Zynga的第二大游戏网络。Applifier领导人朱西·莱科宁（Jussi Laakkonen）表示，成立Applifier的灵感来自于挽救自己公司游戏的意愿。作为游戏开发商Everyplay的首席执行官，莱科宁正在思索如何推广自己公司的游戏产品。今年3月中旬，Everyplay推出了一款名为《Camel Town》的游戏，但当时正值Facebook严厉打击游戏相关的垃圾邮件。Facebook认为，非游戏用户收到了过多游戏相关的垃圾邮件，因此出台了限制措施，这导致社交游戏损失了数百万玩家，同时社交游戏的广告宣传费用也迅速增加，每名用户的获取成本增加了50%。

莱科宁表示：“我们有自己的游戏，但没有推广渠道。我们都没有足够的资金为自己的游戏做广告宣传，我们也没有足够的游戏在Applifier网络内部进行交叉推广。”通过与公司管理团队的协商，莱科宁决定推出“交叉推广工具栏”，游戏开发商将这款工具栏添加到自己的游戏中。莱科宁还请来了社交娱乐公司 Conduit Labs创始人纳贝尔·哈亚特（Nabeel Hyatt）来完善这一理念。Applifier于4月6日启动了交叉推广，最初只有7款游戏应用，但后来玩家数量迅速增长到350万人。游戏开发商 Three Rings首席执行官丹尼埃尔·詹姆斯（Daniel James）表示，在加盟Applifier游戏网络的一天时间里，ThreeRings玩家数量增长便超过之前一个月的增长。

交叉推广是一项早已经过测试的战略，Zynga就曾在自己的游戏中采用过这种推广策略，Heyzap和Mochi Media也曾在网络游戏中采用类似的方法。Zappos创始人托尼·赫什（Tony Hsieh）和桑杰·马登（Sanjay Madan）于1996年创办了广告公司LinkExchange，开创了横幅广告，并交叉投放其它广告。1998年，LinkExchange被微软以 2.65亿美元收购。莱科宁表示，Applifier就是要成为游戏界的LinkExchange。

Applifier 通过游戏网络中的点击数量收取一定的佣金，这种业务模式类似于广告佣金。莱科宁表示，要想进入Applifier游戏网络，游戏本身必须足够出色。他说，对于一款糟糕的游戏而言，交叉推广的次数再多也无济于事。遗憾的是，到目前为止，Everyplay的游戏尚未取得显著的成功，因此Applifier的成功使得莱科宁开始专注于自己的新业务。莱科宁表示，Everyplay将停止开发新的游戏，但仍会留下Applifier同盟中。另外，莱科宁计划将 Everyplay总部从芬兰赫尔辛基搬到美国旧金山。

Applifier游戏网络的增长值得关注。另外，Facebook社交游戏市场是否会继续被三大巨头垄断？这些小型游戏开发商能否通过游戏数量上获得持续的发展？这些同样值得关注。

In Facebook games, the big three rule. Zynga, Electronic Arts-Playfish, and Disney-Playdom have more than 331 million monthly active users on the social network, according to AppData. That’s why a group of smaller, independent developers have banded together to use a cross-promotional game network called Applifier. They have nicknamed themselves the Rebel Alliance, after the heroes that struggled against the evil Galactic Empire in Star Wars.

Applifier draws attention to smaller games on Facebook by adding a “cross-promotion” bar to the top of each game that recommends games from other independent developers. Users can click on the recommended games to see if they want to play them. If the action leads to real business, then Applifier gets some kind of cut, said Jussi Laakkonen, head of Applifier in Helsinki, Finland, in an interview.

Since its launch in April, there are more than 100 applications in the network with 55 million users. Members of the non-exclusive network include Booyah’s Nightclub City, with 8 million users; Digital Chocolate’s Millionaire City and MMA Pro Fighter, with 8.5 million users; ZipZapPlay’s Baking Life with 6.1 million users; Ninja Saga’s Ninja Saga with 5.1 million users; GameHouse’s Scrabble Worldwide and Uno with 2.6 million users; Wooga’s Brain Buddies with 2.5 million users; Icebreaker Games’ Cafe Life with 2.3 million users; Free Lunch Design’s Icy Tower with 1.3 million users; King.com’s Funflow with 1.3 million users; iWin’s Party Resort and JewelQuest with 900,000 users; and Playfirst’s Chocolatier with 700,000 users.

Those are great numbers and they make Applifier’s network second in size only to Zynga on Facebook. Laakkonen said the inspiration for Applifier came from the need to fix his own game’s problems.

As the chief executive of Everyplay, Laakkonen was looking for ways to boost the company’s social games. The company was launching one of its games, Kamu Town, in mid-March, right at the time when Facebook decided to crack down on game-related messages in its communications. Facebook concluded that users who didn’t play games were getting too much spam and put restrictions in place that resulted in a loss of millions of users for social games. At the same time, advertising costs on Facebook rose rapidly to more than 50 cents per user acquired.

“We had our games in place and the viral channel was disappearing,” Laakkonen said. “We didn’t have the funding to heavily advertise our games. And we didn’t have enough games to cross promote them within our own network.”

Laakkonen brainstormed with the team and came up with the Applifier cross-promotion bar, which developers can add to their games with the addition of five lines of HTML code. He enlisted Nabeel Hyatt, a social game entrepreneur and head of Conduit Labs (which has since been acquired by Zynga) to help spread the word about it. At the outset, Applifier had some key partners in place such as Booyah. The cross promotion began on April 6 with seven apps and it quickly grew to 3.5 million users. Daniel James, chief executive of Three Rings, said his company added more new players in a day than it had in a month after being included in the Applifier network.

Cross promotion is a well-tested strategy. Zynga does it with its own games. Heyzap and Mochi Media do similar cross promotion for web games.  Link Exchange, started by Zappos founder Tony Hsieh and Sanjay Madan, also did cross promotion when it was founded in 1996. The LinkExchange created banner ads that cross-promoted other ads. It was acquired by Microsoft for $265 million in 1998.

Laakkonen saw Applifier as a LinkExchange for games. Applifier earns a commission on the clicks exchanged through the network. It’s similar to an ad-link exchange; a member that sends 100 clicks out receives 100 clicks back minus Applifier’s commission. Applifier sells the clicks earned as its commission based on whether users click through or actually install an application.

Laakkonen said that the key ingredient for the games in the network is that they have to be great. No amount of cross-promotion can help a bad game, he said. Sadly, Everyplay’s own games haven’t taken off, so the success of Applifier means that Laakkonen has to focus on his winning idea. Everyplay will stop making games and continue on as Applifier. Laakkonen plans on relocating to San Francisco.

What remains to be seen is how much the Applifier network can grow. Will the Facebook social gaming market be dominated by the big three, or will there be a  long tail, where many small companies thrive by selling large numbers of relatively obscure titles.(source:venturebeat/tencent)