作者：Dean Takahashi

Zynga之后的Facebook游戏第二大开发商已不再是EA，而是Wooga。这个位于柏林的工作室已经成为欧洲最大的社交游戏发行商，旗下产品在Facebook上的月活跃用户超过4890万。

该公司由Jens Begemann（如上图）、Philipp Moeser和Patrick Paulisch于2009年创办，他们的目标是制作适合所有人的游戏，包括一直被游戏界所忽视的大众市场。自公司成立至今，只发布了以下6款游戏：《Bubble Island》、《Brain Buddies》、《Monster World》、《Happy Hospital》、《Magic Land》和《Diamond Dash》。凭借这6款游戏，该开发商在2011年使月活跃用户增加了185%。

现在，Wooga已募得2400万美元的风投资金，员工数量超过150人。公司现在需要做出多个战略决定，比如加大在Facebook平台上的投入或将游戏扩张至Google+或Zynga.com等平台。Begemann在近期于旧金山举办的游戏开发者大会的采访中谈到了这些内容：

你在GDC上说了些什么？

我主要分享了从Wooga这3年的运营中学到的东西。大会组织者邀请我们参加，因为现在我们拥有近5000万的月活跃用户。他们向我提出了如下问题：你来自哪里？如何实现目前的佳绩？为何公司能够如此迅速地成长？

我们没有魔法，只是工作而已。但是，我努力将过去数年学到的东西总结成7个建议。其中之一是，专注于将游戏设计得极具吸引力，这样人们就会频繁回到游戏中。相比病毒性而言，我们更强调这一点。

我发现，有些公司抱怨称Facebook上的病毒性效能已不及以往。对我们来说，真正起作用的便是专注于吸引力，确保玩家能够回到游戏中。对于每个新用户，你都要将他们视为小金块，要尽量留住他们。如果你留住了所有的新用户，那么你就能够获得金条。

那么，《Diamond Dash》等游戏如何实现留住用户的目标？

在《Diamond Dash》中，有许多你看不到的小细节。我们曾经花数个月的时间来调整。当你点击一组宝石后，新宝石过多长时间后会下落？你能够获得多少分？获得奖励得分的难度有多高？

从根本上说，如果你知道了游戏中的流动理论，那么游戏会有一定的挑战性，但不会变得过于困难。我们确保人们总是能够在游戏中感受到挑战性，包括新玩家和已经玩了很长时间的老玩家。他们总是会感觉到自己受到控制，他们可以创造属于自己的体验。这有点类似于AAA游戏，但显然要简单得多。正是这些小措施确保了人们频繁地回到游戏中。

当然，使用竞争性社交元素也是种值得一提的方法。如果你能够同好友竞争金牌，那么这比独自玩游戏或与陌生人一起玩游戏要有趣得多。

游戏通过什么来盈利？玩家能否通过购买能量来玩更长的时间？

是的，你可以购买能量来玩更长的时间。你也可以购买强化道具。如果你想要打败好友，你可以购买额外的强化道具，这样便有更大的可能性战胜他们。你也可以在游戏中赚取这些东西，游戏中没有只能通过金钱来购买的东西。但是，与核心游戏类似，你可以通过支付金钱来加快速度。

你是否认为这款游戏的盈利比其他社交游戏更好？

就绝对数字而言，我们对结果感到很满意，因为《Diamond Dash》这款游戏有着庞大的月活跃用户——1800万。尽管每用户平均盈利并不是很高，但整体盈利很不错。就每用户平均盈利而言，它的盈利性显然比不上Kixeye的游戏。我觉得，他们采用的是与我们不同的商业模式。用户更少，但每用户平均盈利更多。对我们来说，游戏面对的是真正的大众市场。这是从公司成立之初就定下的方向。首先，获得庞大的用户，然后以此为基础构建盈利。

从我个人对游戏的观察，我觉得游戏似乎很难盈利。我猜想你应该找到了那些不想要停止玩游戏的人。通常情况下，当我用光能量后就不会继续玩。

玩《Diamond Dash》只需要1分钟的时间。这就像是在吃一袋薯片，你一口就可以吃掉一块薯片，但是如果不注意的话，你很快就会吃掉整袋薯片。

《Diamond Dash》也是如此。每个回合只有1分钟，但是有些人却会玩上很长时间。那么与好友一起玩的人更会乐在其中。许多人在午餐休息的时候在办公室中玩游戏。很多人同时在这半个小时的时间里玩《Diamond Dash》。借助Facebook的赠礼功能，他们相互赠送5个生命值，这样他们就能够玩更长的时间。有些人还会花钱购买强化道具。像《Diamond Dash》这样的游戏无疑会被众多普通玩家所接受。

Zynga已经开始在《Words With Friends》中添加大量广告。你们是否也会考虑这么做，尤其在这些不会自动盈利的游戏中？

我们暂不透露具体的数据。但是，我认为人们低估了我们的盈利能力。拥有如此庞大的用户量，获得很好的盈利是完全有可能的。对于广告这个层面，我觉得未来确实有成长的潜力，但是此刻我们还不会将精力放在这上面。我们拥有许多机会，但是对我们来说，我们目前主要关注的是在Facebook上获得成长，不断增加我们的用户量，提升我们在该平台上的盈利能力。

第二个关注点是手机市场。广告确实是种额外的盈利成长方式，但是此刻对我们来说，它只会分散我们的精力。

你们已经成了一家强大的公司。目前市场上有许多强大的公司，他们采用多种不同的战略。Kabam将业务分散到6个不同的平台上，但你们之前依然坚守Facebook。现在，你们也已经开始转向Google+。你们计划将业务扩展到多少个平台上？

我们的发展线路很清晰，主要专注于Facebook平台，同时关注iOS系统移动设备（游戏邦注：包括iPhone、iPad和iPod Touch）。我们不想将业务分散到过多的平台上。我们与Facebook之间有着良好的关系，而且我们很喜欢iOS平台。随着公司的发展，或许会扩散至更多平台，尤其是在手机方面。我觉得，Android和Windows Phone都是值得考虑的。我觉得，手机平台上这样的发展是很自然的。但是在PC上，我们依然会将主要精力放在Facebook上。其他公司或许会选择其他平台，但是对于我们来说，Facebook是个值得专注的平台。

你们在Google+上发布了游戏。是否会保持这种做法？

我们确实涉足了Google+。我们确实很关注这个平台的发展，但是最近Google发布了Play。他们似乎更专注于手机领域。

在某个GDC讨论会上，开发者们讨论过Google。他们表示游戏将跨越Chrome、Android和Google+等平台。明年可能将会出现一个统一的平台。

我觉得对我们来说，如果能够成为这种统一平台的一部分，着实是件很不错的事情。很显然，目前还为时尚早。所有人都知道Google+的流行度不及Facebook，但是观察它如何改变局势是件很有趣的事情。

对于Facebook的不断发展和提升，你现在觉得哪些进展对你们有所帮助，你还希望在将来看到哪些改变？

我们对Facebook发展的整体效果很满意。我们的月活跃用户不断增加，2011年总体情况也有所改善。我们的用户量增加了185%。对于所取得的成果，我们感到很满意。

总体而言，我觉得Facebook做得很不错。显然，改善是永无止尽的，但是我认为Facebook找到了正确的方向。而且，他们还增加了对手机市场的关注。我们正在iPhone版《Diamond Dash》中使用Facebook Connect。这个功能使iPhone应用同Facebook的连接得到了简化，我们对此感到很高兴。在过去数个月以来，这种连接过程确实变得更为流畅。现在，他们将病毒性传播到手机上。他们找到了正确的方向，做出了正确的决定。服务的完善和完美还需要一段时间，但是我们相信，社交手机游戏将在2012年的游戏行业中扮演重要的角色。社交手机游戏不是单人手机游戏，而是社交化的手机游戏，你可以同好友一起体验。

Zynga.com上的第三方发布平台对你们有没有吸引力？

Zynga刚刚发布了这个平台，接下来我们会关注Zynga.com的发展。现在，我觉得Zynga在该平台上投放的还主要是自己的游戏。现在，有些许小型开发商也在Zynga.com上发布游戏，我们会观察这些第三方游戏的发展。但是，从总体上来说，我们的专注点是制作适合所有人的游戏，而不是制作适合游戏玩家的游戏。我们与Kabam和其他公司不同。我们的目标是大众市场。

Zynga这个平台确实提升了玩家的游戏体验，在这里你可以结交同是游戏玩家的好友。如果你是个游戏玩家的话，这是个属于你的平台。但是，我们也希望接触那些年长的用户和工作中的同事。这些人不会经常玩游戏。我们希望能够将游戏带到他们所在的地方，也就是今天的Facebook。这些人不一定会选择那种独立的游戏玩家平台。但是，我们依然会关注它的发展。

那么，Wooga.com或许将成为你们的选择？

可能吧。但是就短期计划而言，正如我之前说过的那样，我们会专注于Facebook和iOS。出于多个方面的考虑，我们首先选择iOS而不是Android作为目标手机平台。

King.com类游戏现在无处不在，有趣的是，Facebook上的竞争似乎都是游戏间的竞争。这是种很不稳定的竞争关系，有失败也有胜利。

数年之前我就知道了King.com。他们在美国并不出名，但是在欧洲很出名，他们有自己的站点和许多基于技能的游戏。许多游戏已经运营了很长时间。他们的《Bubble Witch Saga》获得了很大的成功。

Facebook上的游戏起落很大，这是个事实。我们努力不落入这种状况中，我们尝试专注于长期的持续性成长。比如，如果你查看我们的流量来源，会发现只有1/5的新用户来源于广告。40%的用户来源于病毒性传播，55%的用户来源于我们不同游戏间的交叉推广。我们不想依赖广告以及任何短期驱动流量的方式。

我们每周都能获得稳定的成长和提升，游戏用户数量每周缓慢增加。《Diamond Dash》、《Bubble Island》、《Monster World》和《Magic Land》这4大游戏的月活跃用户介于450万到1800万之间。所有这4款游戏的月活跃用户数值的最高点都是在上周。所以对我们来说，出现的并不是典型的游戏产品寿命循环。现在，游戏是种服务，如果你确实将它们当成服务，那么你就会不断地改善它们并维持稳定的成长，这是可以做到的。这样，它们才能获得更长的寿命。

我们的做法或许同其他公司有所不同。

你们是否也有过使盈利提升的《FarmVille》现象？

我不能透露过多细节信息，但我们确实也曾经历过盈利改善的情况。对于某些游戏来说，出现改善的情况可能是总体用户量下滑但那些最热衷于游戏的用户留了下来。因此，每用户平均盈利增加。对于我们来说，我觉得更多运用的是连续提升。

我们将连续提升运用到盈利等战略上。以《Monster World》为例，我们公布过某些有关这款游戏的数据。我认为，《Monster World》这款游戏的盈利能力被很多人低估。就日活跃用户而言，它是Facebook上位列前15名的游戏。它发布于2010年4月，到现在已有将近两年时间。发布1年后，我们在游戏中引进WooGoo这种新资源，它是种浓缩彩虹软泥。

在这个奇妙的世界中，你可以看到采用。你可以通过游戏来生成采用，也可以付费购买。仅这个道具就让《Monster World》的盈利提升了50%。现在，它成为了三大主要盈利来源之一。从根本上来说，你需要做的是向游戏中引进全新的游戏玩法元素，这样才能让用户长时间地留在游戏中。

你们今年计划发布多少款游戏？

可能会比我们去年发布的要多。

但是总整体上来说，我们的产品非常少。我们公司成立了两年半时间，到现在位置只发布了6款游戏。对于其中的4款，我们仍然有团队在处理和改善。这4款游戏的用户量都在上周达到历史最高点。所以，我们发布的游戏数量不会很多，每年只会在Facebook上发布两三款。而且，现在公司负责手机游戏的人员与负责Facebook游戏的人数几乎相同。

我们努力做的就是制作属于我们的游戏。

凭借爱和智慧？（如文章上图T恤所示）

是的。我们的根本想法是，你需要跟着自己的感觉走，这是游戏制作的传统方法。你需要相信你的本能和直觉。有时，遵从数据来制作游戏的新方法会遭到众人的批判。而我们努力实现的是，将心和智慧结合起来，制作出最棒的游戏。

你们的产品是否被其他人克隆过？

有，现在Android Market上已经有《Diamond Dash》，甚至连名称都相同。完全相同的名字，完全相同的游戏。

你们是否通知他们迅速撤下游戏，还是说游戏现在依然在市场上？

近期我们正采取相关措施。两天前，游戏仍然还存在于市场上，但是我们正在同Google交涉。如果你在iTunes App Store中搜索“Diamond Dash”，也会看到其他玩法与我们的产品极为相似的游戏。它们的名称有所不同，但是都以“Diamond Dash”作为关键词。

模仿是最大的奉承。事实上，我很高兴市场上出现了克隆产品。我认为，这表明我们的产品确实取得了成功，不是吗？（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）

How Germany’s Wooga took Facebook by storm

Dean Takahashi

After Zynga, the second-biggest player on Facebook isn’t Electronic Arts anymore. It’s Wooga, a Berlin-based studio that has become Europe’s largest social game publisher with more than 49 million monthly active users on Facebook.

The company was founded in 2009 by Jens Begemann (pictured above), Philipp Moeser, and Patrick Paulisch with the goal of making games for everyone, including the mass market and not just gaming die hards. Since then, it has only published six of them: Bubble Island, Brain Buddies, Monster World, Happy Hospital, Magic Land, and Diamond Dash. With that portfolio, the developer grew its monthly active users by 185 percent in 2011.

Now Wooga has raised $24 million in venture capital and has grown to more than 150 employees.  The company now faces a number of strategic decisions, such as doubling down on Facebook or spreading out to platforms such as Google+ or Zynga.com. We caught up with Begemann at the recent Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Here’s a transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: What did you talk about at GDC?

Jens Begemann: The talk was basically [about what we learned] from the first three years of Wooga. We were asked by the organizers here, because we now have nearly 50 million monthly active users. They wanted to know, “Where did you come from? How did this happen? Why this growth?”

We’re not doing anything magical. We’re just doing work. But I tried to sum up seven lessons that we’ve learned over the last few years. One of those is to focus on making our games very engaging in such a way that people come back often. We emphasize that instead of virality.

I think some other companies have been complaining that the virality of Facebook is not what it used to be. I think for us what has worked is focusing on engagement and making sure people come back. Every new user…you need to treat them like a small gold nugget — try to keep them. If you keep all of these new users, you’ve made a gold bar.

GamesBeat: So how does something like Diamond Dash do that?

Begemann: In Diamond Dash, it’s many, many things that are in the small details that you don’t see. We spent months on fine-tuning. When you hit a group of diamonds, how long does it take for the new gems to fall down? How many points do you get? How difficult is it to get this in-the-row bonus when the whole game world is on fire?

Basically, if you know the theory of flow, the game has to be challenging but at the same time can’t become too difficult. We ensure that people — from the very first moment on but also if they have played for a very long period of time — always feel challenged. They always have the feeling that they are under control, and they can create their own experience. It’s kind of similar to a triple-A title but obviously much more simple. It’s really about all these small little improvements that make sure people come back over long periods of time.

And then, of course — one element is using the social elements of competition in a good way. If you compete with your friends for a gold medal, that’s more interesting than playing alone or playing with strangers.

GamesBeat: How does that game monetize? Are you buying energy to play longer?

Begemann: Yeah, you can buy energy to play longer. You can also buy boosts. If you want to beat your friends, you can buy some extra boosts and get a bigger chance to beat them. All of those things you can also can be earned inside the game, so there’s nothing that’s exclusive through paying money. But, like in core games, you pay for having that faster speed-up.

GamesBeat: Do you think that one monetizes well relative to other social games?

Begemann: In terms of absolute numbers, we’re very happy, because the game is so big: 18 million monthly active users. Even if revenue per user is not so huge, overall that’s big. But yes, in terms of revenue per user, it obviously doesn’t monetize as well as Kixeye’s games. I think they have a very different model. Much less users, much more revenue per user. For us it’s truly mass market. That has also been our philosophy since the beginning. First, reach a huge audience, and then build monetization on top of that, instead of the other way around.

GamesBeat: From observing that game, it seems so short to me that it’s really hard to monetize. I suppose you can find people who really just don’t want to stop. [Laughs] Normally I just stop when I run out of energy.

Begemann: Diamond Dash is just a minute. [You can visualize it like this:] It’s like a bag of chips, where each chip is just one bite, but if you don’t pay attention, you finish the whole bag.

Diamond Dash is similar. Each round is just one minute, but some people really play for lots and lots of time. People who play with their friends enjoy it more. Many groups of people play in their offices when they’re on their lunch breaks. Everybody during this half an hour plays Diamond Dash at the same time. This group of 10 people or so, they send free lives to each other. It’s a Facebook gifting feature, so they can play for longer. Some of them also spend money on buying power-ups. But a game like Diamond Dash is definitely super-mass market.

GamesBeat: Zynga has started running a lot of ads in Words With Friends. Is that an opportunity for you guys as well, especially in these games that don’t monetize automatically?

Begemann: We don’t reveal detailed numbers. But overall, I think people underestimate it. Because of these huge user numbers, it’s possible to monetize quite well. And regarding advertising, I think that’s a potential growth opportunity for the future, but at the moment we’re very focused on doing a small number of things. There are tons of opportunities that we have, but for us, we really focus on growing on Facebook, growing our user base there, and improving our monetization there.

The second big focus is mobile. Advertising would be a good, additional growth opportunity, but at the moment, it’s too much of a distraction for us. It would take away the focus from our key growth.

GamesBeat: You guys have become a strong company. There are a handful of strong companies out there, and they’re starting to pursue different strategies. Kabam’s is going onto six different platforms, while you guys are sticking with Facebook. You have moved onto Google+. Do you know how many platforms you want to be on?

Begemann: Our focus, really clearly, is Facebook, and on mobile it’s iOS [iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch]. We like being on a small number of platforms. We have a great relationship with Facebook, and we like the iOS platform a lot. And over time, especially on mobile obviously, there will be more. I think it’s quite natural to think of Android and potentially also Windows Phone — I think that’s quite natural, but on the PC, we’re really happy with Facebook. Other companies may go to other places, but for us, it’s the right platform to focus on.

GamesBeat: You tried out Google+. Are you going to stay with it?

Begemann: We tried Google+. We’re really keen to see how it develops, but also this morning Google announced Play. They seem to be focused on that.

GamesBeat: In one GDC session, they talked about one Google. They’re going to have games across Chrome, Android, and Google+. It’s going to be one unified platform by next year.

Begemann: I think for us, it’s good to be part of that and to see how it develops. It’s obviously still early. Everybody knows that Google+ doesn’t have the scale of Facebook, but it’s interesting to observe how that will work out.

GamesBeat: And on Facebook’s continuous improvement, what do you see now that is helping you, and what do you want to still see happen in the future?

Begemann: Overall, we’re really happy with the development of Facebook. We look at our monthly active users, and we look at 2011 overall. We’ve grown 185 percent, almost threefold. We are really, really happy with what we see there.

Overall, Facebook I think is doing a good job. Obviously there are always ways to improve, but I think Facebook is doing the right things. Also with their increased focus on mobile. We’re using Facebook Connect in Diamond Dash on the iPhone, and we’re really happy with how they’ve simplified the process of using an iPhone app to connect with Facebook. This process has really, over the last few months, become much smoother. They now have virality on mobile. They’re taking the right steps in the right direction. It will take some time to really be perfect, but our belief is that social mobile — mobile games that are not just single-player but that are really social, where you play with your friends — will play an important role in 2012.

GamesBeat: Does third-party publishing on Zynga.com attract you at all?

Begemann: Zynga has just announced it, and we will observe how Zynga.com develops. I think Zynga now launches with their own games. It seems to be a couple of smaller developers that are launching on Zynga.com, and we will observe how that develops. But overall, really, if I look at what we do, our focus is really…we create games for everyone, right? We don’t create games for gamers. It’s different from Kabam and others. We create games for everyone.

What Zynga does there is, they really improve the experience as a gamer destination. You have your gamer friends there, you have a separate site if you’re a gamer, and so on. We’re really addressing the group where the grandmother plays with her grandson, or where colleagues play with each other. It’s really people who usually don’t play games. We want to bring our games there where they are, and that’s today on Facebook. These people are not necessarily keen to go to a separate gamer destination. But we’ll see how it will develop over time.

GamesBeat: Might Wooga.com might be an option down the road? [laughs]

Begemann: Maybe, but, short-term, as I said, we’re really focused on Facebook and iOS at the moment. There are many reasons why we developed for iOS instead of Android at first.

GamesBeat: King.com sort of came out of nowhere as well, and it’s interesting that the competition seems to be game-by-game on Facebook. It’s very fluid competition, where people rise and fall. It changes a lot.

Begemann: Obviously I’ve known King.com for many years. In the U.S. they’re not well-known, but [they are] in Europe, with their own site and their skill-based games. Many of them have been around a long time. They’re very successful with Bubble Witch Saga.

It’s true that there’s lots of development on Facebook as far as ups and downs. We try to stay away from this short-term focus. We try to focus on very long-term, sustainable growth. For example, if you look at where our traffic is coming from, only five percent of our new users come from advertising. About 40 percent come from virality and 55 percent from cross-linking between our different games. We do not rely on advertising and do not rely on really driving traffic in short bursts.

Instead, we have very constant improvement every week, making the game a little bit bigger and better every week, trying to get sustainable growth. If you look at our four biggest games — Diamond Dash, Bubble Island, Monster World, and Magic Land — they all have between 4.5 and 18 million monthly active users. All of those had their all-time high last week. So for us really, it’s not this typical game product life cycle. Games are a service these days, and if you treat them as a service and you constantly improve them and have sustainable growth, you can really achieve that. They can have very long lifetimes.

Maybe our philosophy’s a little bit different from some other companies.

GamesBeat: Are you experiencing that FarmVille phenomenon, too, where the monetization also gets better?

Begemann: We don’t reveal details, but yes, we also see monetization improvements. For some games, these improvements may come because the overall audience goes down, and the people who are most committed to the game stay. Therefore, revenue per user increases. For us, I think it’s more about applying this constant improvement that we apply to something like engagement.

We also apply this constant improvement to things like monetization. In Monster World for example, we’ve revealed those numbers. Monster World is a game that I think is a little bit underestimated by many out there. In terms of daily active users, it’s a top 15 Facebook game. It launched April 2010 and is now almost two years old. One year after launch we introduced this new resource called WooGoo. It’s concentrated rainbow slime.

In this fantasy world, it’s the rainbow you see, concentrated. You can generate it during the game, but you can also buy it. That alone has improved Monster World monetization by 50 percent. It’s now a third of all revenue. Basically, what you do is you introduce completely new gameplay elements, and you keep users really sticky over long periods of time.

GamesBeat: How many games are you shooting to get out this year?

Begemann: Um…more than we had in the previous year?

But overall, we do very, very few. We’re live now for two and a half years, and we’ve only launched six games. Four of them, we still actively have teams on and actively improve. All of those four hit their all-time high last week. So we don’t do a lot of games; we only do something like two or three per year on Facebook. And we now have as many people working on mobile as we have on Facebook.

This here…have you seen this T-shirt [editor's note: pictured at top]? This is how we see ourselves. What we try to do, making our games…

GamesBeat: “Love plus brains…”?

Begemann: Yes. What we basically say is, there is this traditional approach to games, which is, you just follow your heart. You just follow your instincts. And then there’s sometimes this very new approach that is often criticized, of only following the numbers and doing nothing else. What we try to do is combine our hearts and our brains to get those [games] out.

GamesBeat: Have you been hit by any of the copycats out there?

Begemann: There was Diamond Dash on the Android Market, yeah. The same name even. Exactly the same name, exactly the same game.

GamesBeat: Did you get them to take it down quickly, or is it still up there?

Begemann: It was quite recent. As of two days ago it was still there, but we’re in contact with Google. And if you search for Diamond Dash in the iTunes App Store, you see games that have extremely similar gameplay. They’re called different names, but they used “Diamond Dash” as a keyword.

So imitation is the biggest form of flattery. We are really happy about that. No, really, I am. That, I think, shows that we are very slowly becoming a little bit relevant? (Source: Games Beat)