作者：AJ Glasser

Zynga昨天宣布推出自己的社交游戏平台Zynga.com，这就是之前传闻所称的Z-Live和Zynga Direct。平台发布时还投放了5款Zynga最受欢迎的作品：《CastleVille》、《CityVille》、《Words with Friends》、《Hidden Chronicles》和《Zynga Poker》。

这是真实的Zynga.com：让社交游戏得以在此及在Facebook同步、无缝隙运作的游戏平台。某《CityVille》玩家昨天登陆Zynga.com发现自己在此的城市面貌和Facebook页面一模一样，自己的仓库具备同样数量的虚拟商品，电子钱包有同样数量的虚拟货币。由于同Facebook Connect紧密结合，两个平台会同步呈现玩家在某平台所进行的游戏操作。《CityVille》玩家可以在Zynga.com购买新的公园装饰品，若玩家返回Facebook体验《CityVille》，此道具也会呈现在这个平台中。Facebook玩家可以通过Credits在《CastleVille》购买20个Crowns，若玩家转而登陆Zynga.com，这20个Crowns也会出现在此平台的虚拟银行中。

Zynga.com并非传言所称的Facebook替代性平台。此平台锁定游戏内容，几乎未融入其他社交网络工具。此平台的玩家无法发照片，发帖子，只能够同自己的Facebook好友或玩同款游戏的玩家建立关系网。Zynga.com植入的Facebook社交互动功能仅包括：聊天功能、对新关联好友进行社交曝光及游戏活动实况呈现（游戏邦注：Facebook最近刚取消此功能）。

那么玩家为什么要选择在Zynga.com体验游戏，而不是Facebook？此平台的吸引之处在于玩家能够获得更快进展。Zynga游戏完全依靠社交互动——好友需赠予你虚拟商品，你才能够在《CityVille》中完成某建筑的建造，好友需加入你的牌桌，你才能够开始游戏。在异步Facebook平台，玩家完全不知道自己要等多久，好友才会返回游戏，发送礼物，回应请求或进行他们的下步操作。而在Zynga.com，开发者让玩家得以轻松访问自己的好友及其他愿意随时提供帮助的玩家社区。

Zynga将这个网络称作“Active Social Network”——这些好友群体（或者有时是陌生人）始终置身游戏之中。在这些玩家眼中，请求（Request）不是“垃圾信息”，若请求未得到满足，说明此人算不上玩家的真正好朋友。通过深入挖掘玩家的ASN，及就此进行相互比较，Zynga.com得以对玩家的新好友进行社交曝光，这反过来能够拓宽玩家个人ASN的延伸范围，迅速提高平台的新玩家数量。

CastleVille on Zynga.com from insidesocialgames.com

下面就以《CastleVille》为例进行进一步说明。假设我们试图收集6个水晶碎片，以创造一个探测水晶。若基于Facebook进行体验，我们通常会向好友列表中的所有好友发送请求，然后等待4小时，从中获得一半的反馈。在24小时内的3个体验回合中，我们也许能够收集到6个碎片，创造出探索水晶。我们还可以编辑游戏，浏览好友的动态消息（Timeline），查看他们是否有发布任何关于《CastleVille 》的操作信息，通过点击这些内容，我们能够从中收集到水晶碎片。但若是在Zynga.com体验《CastleVille 》，我们就可以将请求发送到在线应用消息动态中，我们的好友会从中读到消息，进而做出回应（游戏邦注：或者是得到其他也同时在线的《CastleVille》玩家的回应）。由于活动基于在线模式，我们更有可能在几分钟而不是几小时里收集到所需要的6个水晶碎片，在同个游戏回合中完成这一操作。若好友已退出《CastleVille》，我们还可以通过Zynga.com的聊天功能提醒他们回应我们的请求。此外，我们还可以通过聊天窗口直接发送或接收能量。所有这些操作都能够在Zynga.com中完成，玩家无需离开游戏等待请求获得回应或好友发送礼物，或者是通过转发好友的游戏消息获得回馈。

通过加速玩法体验，Zynga.com引入专门针对游戏玩家的新型社交图谱——这是Facebook所回避的内容。仅从用户信息在网站的呈现方式，你就能够发现两种模式所存在的差异。在Facebook，你会看到用户的头像，他们的动态消息，他们的好友及其喜欢的内容。而在Zynga.com，你看到的是玩家的头像，他们玩过的系列游戏，及他们在某款游戏中给予的帮助次数。Facebook的好友关系通过彼此间的共同好友数量体现，而Zynga.com的好友关系则通过双方共同体验的游戏数量、其帮助他人的次数及共同好友数量来呈现。在Facebook，若没有首先发出好友请求（Friend Request），我们完全无法同陌生人进行私下互动。而在Zynga.com，陌生人可以随时对任何请求做出回应，无需首先变成对方的朋友——若你决定将他们变成你的Zynga.com好友，那么他们也会变成你的Facebook好友。Facebook完全没有排名概念，但在Zynga.com，各好友都争相成为提供帮助最多的玩家，这样他们的头像就有可能出现在强势玩家之列，从而在游戏中获得更快进展。

Zynga.com Profile Page from insidesocialgames.com

Zynga.com平台的核心理念非常强大——旨在成为将社交图谱与玩法实际目标充分结合起来的目标游戏网站。但平台目前还处在初级阶段，有人对Zynga.com的未来发展方向提出疑问。下面是若干例子：平台目前只能够基于Facebook Credits进行付费；目前仍没有玩法平衡策略能够维持Facebook《CityVille》玩家和Zynga.com《CityVille》玩家的一致性；从理论角度看，手机设备的跨平台体验理念适合《Words With Friends》——但我们不确定Zynga.com是否会支持Zynga游戏的手机版本；Zynga.com玩家的个人资料采用的是真名而不是别名；网站目前没有嵌入广告，但若Zynga打算植入广告，其中也不乏发展空间。此外，Zynga.com还支持16种语言——包括中文，但除非玩家能够访问Facebook，否则他们就无法在Zynga.com体验游戏。

但平台未来将出现的若干功能就显而易见。虽然Zynga.com目前只推出公司自己的作品，但未来会发行第三方的作品（游戏邦注：据悉，MobScience、Row Sham Bow和Sava Transmedia将成为平台的首批合作伙伴）。有关具体合作内容，我们不得而知——Zynga拒绝透露具体营收分成模式，但据悉，Zynga计划年底面向所有开发者开放其API。

Zynga.com Homepage from insidesocialgames.com

至于Zynga.com将给Zynga及Facebook的具体股票发售计划带来什么影响，这主要取决于投资者对社交游戏商业模式的理解。很多人之前将Zynga的这一游戏网站看作Facebook的拆分平台——这将危及两家公司的稳定性。而其他人则觉得，没有Facebook，Zynga就无法支撑自己的游戏生态系统，因为市面上已涌现众多开放网络的游戏门户。但在我们看来，Zynga.com能够给Zynga和Facebook带来附加价值。Zynga从中得以尝试设置Facebook所放弃的游戏功能；而Facebook则可以通过Zynga向投资者呈现平台所蕴含的商业机会。Zynga.com同Facebook Connect的密切联系促使二者形成动态依赖关系，这令投资者不免心生疑虑，但Zynga如今总算拥有自己的游戏平台。

Zynga.com预计本月将正式上线。Zynga首席执行官John Schappert将在其下周的Game Developers Conference主题演讲“Why ‘Free’ and Cross-Platform Is The Future of Gaming” 中谈论更多有关平台的内容。（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）

Meet Zynga.com, also known as Zynga Direct, Z-Live and Zynga’s declaration of independence

By AJ Glasser

Zynga today reveals its very own social game platform, Zynga.com, which was previously called Z-Live and Zynga Direct. The service launches today with five of Zynga’s best-performing games: CastleVille, CityVille, Words with Friends, Hidden Chronicles and Zynga Poker.

Here’s what Zynga.com is: a platform on which social games can run synchronously and relatively seamlessly between it and Facebook. A CityVille player logging into Zynga.com today will find their city exactly as it appears on the Facebook canvas, with the same amount of virtual goods in their inventory and same amount of virtual currency in their e-wallet. Thanks to a deeper-than-anything-we’ve-seen integration with Facebook Connect, all in-game activity that takes place on one platform happens on the other. That CityVille player can buy a new park decoration on Zynga.com and it will appear in Facebook if they player were to jump back to the social network and play CityVille there. A Facebook player can used Credits to buy 20 Crowns in CastleVille and those 20 Crowns will be in the virtual bank if the player jumps to Zynga.com.

Here’s what Zynga.com is not: an alternative to Facebook. The service is focused on the games experience to the exclusion of almost all other social networking tools. Players can’t post pictures, can’t create events and can only group themselves by Facebook friends and players that play the same games. The only social network features Zynga.com cribbed from Facebook are the chat function, social discovery of new friend connections and a live app ticker for games activity (which is something Facebook recently disabled on canvas apps).

So why play games on Zynga.com and not Facebook? The hook is in the promise of faster progression. Zynga games rely almost completely on social interactions — a friend gifts you a virtual good you need to finish constructing something in CityVille, a friend needs to join your poker table to get the game started, a friend plays “Qi” in Words With Friends for a cheap shot triple-letter score, etc. On the asynchronous Facebook platform, it’s a gamble just how long a player has to wait before a friend gets back to their own game to send a gift, respond to a request or play their next move. With Zynga.com, the developer creates an environment where players can easily access their own friends — and an entire network of other players willing to help them out at any time.

Zynga calls this network the “Active Social Network” — the group of friends (or sometimes strangers) that can be counted on to participate in games. To these players, Requests are not “spam” and unfulfilled Requests represent someone that’s not a very good friend. By tapping into a player’s ASN and comparing it to others’, Zynga.com is able to create social discovery of new friends — which in turn broadens the reach of the individual ASN and quickly ramps up players new to the platform.

Let’s walk through a CastleVille example. Say we’re trying to get together six crystal shards to craft an exploration crystal. If playing on Facebook, we send out Requests to all the players listed in our friends list and wait maybe four hours to hear back from half of them. Within roughly three play sessions over 24 hours, we might have all six shards and can craft the exploration crystal. We can also exit the game to go read our friends’ Timelines to see if they have any CastleVille activity posts from which we could collect shards for clicking on the post. If playing CastleVille on Zynga.com, however, we can send the Request to the live app feed where it can be viewed and responded to by our friends, or by any other CastleVille player also playing the game at the same time. Because the activity is live — and because responding to Requests nets both players virtual goods — we’re more likely to get all six of our shards within minutes as opposed to hours, and within the same play session. We can also use the chat feature on our Zynga.com friends to alert them to our request, if they’re not already in CastleVille (“Hey, when you’re done in Zynga Poker, can you send me some crystal shards in CastleVille?”). We can also send and receive energy directly from the chat window. All of this activity can be completed on Zynga.com without ever leaving the game to fulfill requests, accept gifts or troll friends’ profiles for posts that generate rewards.

By speeding up the gameplay experience, Zynga.com introduces a new type of social graph tailored specifically to games players — something Facebook has avoided creating. You can read the difference in approach just from how a user profile appears on the sites. On Facebook, you see a person’s profile picture, their Timeline, their friends and and stuff they Liked. On Zynga.com (pictured), you see a profile picture, a list of games they play and how many times they’ve helped someone in a particular game. Friends on Facebook are suggested based on how many friends you have in common; friends on Zynga.com are suggested based on how many games you have in common, how often you help people in games and on friends in common. On Facebook, there is almost no way to interact with strangers intimately without first sending a Friend Request. On Zynga.com, any stranger can respond to any request at any time without first being your friend — and if you decide to make them your friend on Zynga.com, they do not become your Facebook friend. On Facebook, there is no concept of rank; on Zynga.com, friends are positioned as competing for who is more helpful in more games because their profiles are more likely to be surfaced to power players that will help them progress through games faster.

The core concept of the Zynga.com platform is strong — a destination gaming site that marries the best of the social graph to the actual goal of gameplay. The platform, however, is infancy and there are some features that raise questions about which direction Zynga.com will take as it grows. Here are some examples: the platform currently conducts payments only in Facebook Credits; there are no game balancing measures in place to keep the playing field equal between Facebook CityVille players and Zynga.com CityVille players; cross-platform play for mobile devices in theory will work for Words With Friends — but we’re not sure if Zynga.com can or will support a mobile version for Zynga’s mobile games; Zynga.com player profiles use real names instead of aliases; there are no display ads on the site, but there is plenty of room for them if Zynga wants to run ads. Zynga.com is also offering its platform in 16 languages — including Chinese — but unless a player has access to Facebook, they cannot access games on Zynga.com (which means mainland China, where Facebook is still banned and yet CityVille is available on Tencent).

Some future features are clear, however. Though only launching with its own games, Zynga.com plans to publish third party games on its platform in the very near future — announcing developers MobScience (inFamous Anarchy), Row Sham Bow (Woodland Heroes) and Sava Transmedia as early platform partners. Details on partner publishing are scarce — Zynga declined to discuss the revenue share model — but we do know that Zynga is planning to open its APIs to all developers later this year.

As for what Zynga.com does for Zynga and Facebook’s publicly traded stock, that will depend on investors understanding of the social games business model. Many people previously viewed Zynga’s games platform as a split from Facebook — something that could jeopardize the stability of both companies. Others believed that without Facebook, Zynga couldn’t possibly support its own games ecosystem with so many other competing open web games portals already out there. As we see it, however, Zynga.com is a value add for both Zynga and Facebook. Zynga gets the freedom to try games features that Facebook forbids or doesn’t have an interesting in supporting; Facebook gets to hold Zynga up to investors as a shining example of the business opportunities to be had on the platform. The deep Facebook Connect integration on Zynga.com still creates the dynamic interdependence that makes investors wary, but Zynga now has its own platform to call home.

Zynga.com is due to go live this month. COO John Schappert will talk more about the platform in his Game Developers Conference keynote speech, “Why ‘Free’ and Cross-Platform Is The Future of Gaming” next week at Moscone Center in San Francisco.（Source：insidesocialgames）