作者：Leigh Alexander

随着Zynga股票的大幅下跌，分析师总结称此社交游戏巨头的Facebook业务在走下坡路，我们面临众多问题。Zynga目前该怎么做？这一显著暴跌将给其他社交投资及整个行业带来什么影响？

此外，在Facebook玩过Zynga游戏的人怎么会没有预料到这些结果？

长久以来，Zynga通过能够快速获得庞大用户的商业模式运作于Facebook平台。当游戏数据开始下滑，他们就会推出优于先前游戏的新作品，但鲜少能够弥补先前作品的损失。

瓶颈

Zynga在投资者尚对Facebook业务心存疑虑的情况下进行IPO，我之前曾分析了Zynga用户粘性瓶颈在于，Zynga在早期为用户提供大量资源，之后逐渐提高限制因素，直到长期玩家被迫在游戏中掏钱。Zynga一定是笃信虽然有众多玩家会被制止，但留存下来的用户将变成“鲸鱼用户”，会在游戏中进行高于平均水平的消费活动。

当游戏到达特定临界点：新用户获取处于停滞状态，长期用户最终心生厌烦，Zynga通常会发行新作品，从《FarmVille》到《CityVille》, 从《FrontierVille》到《Empires and Allies》和《CastleVille》。

Zynga的网络非常庞大，能够进行交叉推广，不难看到的是，厌倦于某空间的玩家被吸引至新内容中（游戏邦注：新内容通常声称包含醒目的进程设计及新鲜风格）。随着《SimCity Social》入驻Facebook，Zynga通过《The Ville》发动反击，这是款迅速风靡起来的潮流跟风作品，问世于《CastleVille》逐步淡出视野之后。

The Ville from allthingsd.com

查看有关单个玩家平均玩多少款Zynga游戏的数据信息非常有意思。但由于所有作品的商业模式基本相同，即便是最忠实的玩家也会步入再无法被这类游戏所吸引的临界值——因此如果他们厌烦于游戏必不可少的微交易活动和通知信息，他们就会认为Zynga新作品也不过是大同小异，无法提供更多新内容。社交游戏玩家是悟性很高的战略家，不难想象他们已习以为常。

我之前曾将此商业模式同毒贩子进行比较——首先是免费内容，设置较低准入门槛，随着玩家日益沉迷其中，提高获得满足感的难度。但毒贩者努力不让他们的用户死去。Zynga非常注重参数，以致他们的游戏同趣味性和娱乐性丧失联系，如今再没有Facebook用户会想要获得他们的内容。即便喜欢进行消费的社交玩家也逐步在移动平台发现更多有趣的机会，在此他们对于自己的社交网络享有更多控制权，能够通过投入少量资金收获显著的体验价值。

分析师是否玩游戏？

我很好奇，有多少行业分析师真正花时间了解Zynga游戏的体验过程，探究为什么他们的用户无法像《魔兽世界》等作品的玩家那样保持稳定。游戏投资领域不是头一次被分析师和商业人士对游戏行业运作方式的错误理解所伤害。由于有关“硬核游戏走向消亡”（游戏邦注：这不包括数字领域）的不完整信息，或者因推崇尚没有重大现实影响的游戏化模式，投资者似乎总是将资金投于错误地方。

若有关Zynga的错误评估给其他社交游戏投资带来消极影响，这些游戏本能够向Facebook提供梦寐以求的替代选择，那将非常遗憾。同样令我感到吃惊的是，这些通知引擎是游戏设计至今之所以能够吸引9亿用户眼球的主要原因。

最后是Zynga自身平台Zynga.com的发展潜力。由于意识到用户有意避免在不确定哪些好友想要进行频繁交流的情况下持续向好友发送消息信息，公司自身平台旨在减少真正玩家的障碍，他们可以同他人交换玩法商品和任务，即便他们在Facebook不是好友。Zynga.com界面有点令人心生畏惧，想要过渡至这一平台的用户必须积极体验某款Facebook游戏，所以我们不确定这一解决方案能够在多大程度上帮助Zynga弥补滞后问题。

很多分析师很快指出，随着社交游戏逐步过渡至平板电脑和手机平台，Zynga的Facebook用户流失变得日益严重，前者更适合现代社交和休闲玩法的快速和消遣性质。就此来看，Zynga某种程度上算是平台过渡期的受害者，投资者应该考虑到这些因素，以免盲目地全盘否定Zynga。（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）

Opinion: Zynga’s headaches – did we not see this coming?

by Leigh Alexander

As Zynga’s stock plummets and analysts arrive late to the conclusion that the social game giant’s Facebook business — 80 percent of its bookings — is in decline, we’re faced with a lot of questions. What can the company do now? What implications will this highly-visible nosedive have on other social investments, and on the landscape at large?

Also, how did anyone who’s played a Zynga game on Facebook not see this coming?

Zynga has long operated on Facebook through a business model that saw quick and massive user acquisition early on. When a game’s numbers began to decline, it launched a new game that frequently did better than the first, but rarely enough to make up for shortfalls in its predecessor.

That Bottleneck

Zynga launched its IPO amid investor concerns about the sustainability of its Facebook business, and on Gamasutra, I analyzed the significant user engagement bottleneck by which Zynga ramped up players with early plentitude, steadily increasing the friction until long-term players were forced to pay. The company must have been betting on the fact that although plenty of players would be deterred, the ones that remained would be the “whales” that would carry the game through their higher-than-average spend.

And when a game reaches a certain critical point where new user acquisition plateaus and long-term users finally get bored, Zynga has historically launched new games — from FarmVille to CityVille, through FrontierVille to Empires and Allies and CastleVille.

The company’s network was enormous enough that it could cross-market, and it’s not hard to see how players who are tired of one setting might be lured to a new one by the promise of sparkly design evolutions and fresh styles. As SimCity Social launched on Facebook, Zynga countered with The Ville, a trend-chaser that quickly gained popularity as CastleVille continued to bleed.

It’d be interesting to see the metrics-master’s data on how many Zynga games on average an individual plays. But since the business model is basically the same across the entire portfolio, even its most loyal players will cross a threshold by which they can no longer be sold — whereby if they’ve reached fatigue with the required microtransactions and notification spam of one title, they won’t expect a new title will offer much more. Social game players are surprisingly savvy strategists, and it’s not hard to conceive of them becoming inured.

I’ve compared the business model to that of drug pushers before — start with freebies, make access easy, and then make gratification increasingly unavailable as the customer gets hooked. Drug dealers, though, try not to let their customers die. Zynga, I believe, was so focused on driving metrics that its games lost any relationship to fun and entertainment, and now nobody on Facebook wants what it’s offering anymore. Even social gamers that like to spend money are finding much more appealing opportunities on the mobile platform, where they have much more control over their social network and can gain a much more significant experience value for minimal spend.

Do Analysts Play?

I wonder how many industry analysts took time to really understand the experience of playing a Zynga game and why its userbases aren’t sustainable in the way a game like World of Warcraft’s is. This isn’t the first time that the investment landscape around games has been harmed by analyst and suits’ poor understanding of how the game industry works. It often seems investors are putting money in the wrong places thanks to incomplete information on the “death of core games” that excludes digital, or due to big gold rushes toward charismatic gamification pitches that don’t have measurable real-world impact yet.

It would be a shame if this massive mis-estimation of Zynga has a negative impact on other social game investments that might offer the alternative approaches that Facebook so desperately needs. It continues to amaze me that these notification-grinding engines are thus far the biggest part of what game design has had the opportunity to do with some 900 million eyeballs.

Finally, there’s the question of potential for Zynga’s own Zynga.com platform. Correctly recognizing that users were balking at having to constantly send out notifications to friends without being sure which friends really wanted that much exchange, the company’s own network aims to alleviate that bottleneck for serious users who can exchange gameplay goods and tasks with one another, even if they aren’t Facebook friends. The Zynga.com interface is a little overwhelming, and for most players to transition onto it, they have to be actively playing one of the Facebook games anyway, so it’s unclear how much this solution will help Zynga bolster its lagging books.

Many analysts have been quick to point out that Zynga’s Facebook user attrition has become more grievous as social games transition to tablets and mobile phones, platforms much better suited to the quick-session, idle-time nature of modern social and casual play. In that respect, Zynga might be partially a casualty of its platform transition, something investors would do well to take into consideration lest the social gaming baby get thrown out with the bathwater.（Source：gamasutra）