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抢夺开发商 社交游戏平台SocioPath打破Facebook垄断?

发布时间:2010-10-12 13:00:06 Tags:,,,,
       数日前,社交网站Hi5推出了一款专以病毒式传播虏获用户、号称“新一代的社交游戏平台”SocioPath的测试版,尽管社交网站巨头Facebook的规模远超Hi5,用户约10倍于后者,但依旧难以阻止Hi5公开叫板Facebook,力破Facebook一枝独秀的战略野心。
hi5-logo

hi5-logo

Hi5公司总裁亚历克斯·圣·约翰(Alex St.John)为人大大咧咧,不拘小节的形象实在很难让人将其与一个公司的领头人物联系起来,但这名总裁及其首席技术官可不是省油的灯,他们推出的新平台SocioPath现已颇有斩获,顶级社交游戏开发商Playdom(已被迪士尼收购)、Digital Chocolate、Causual Collective、Portalarium等公司正着手抢滩登陆这一新平台。

Hi5社交网站用户约5000万,而Facebook却坐拥有5亿用户,但圣·约翰并不认为这个巨大的鸿沟难以逾越,他正忙于完善该网站及其开发平台,为社交游戏公司,尤其是那些因Facebook抬高准入门槛而无缘入围的开发商打造理想的落户天堂。他表示,“我会加倍照顾这些游戏开发商。”

Hi5's president Alex St.John

Hi5's president Alex St.John

SocioPath平台意将解放深受Facebook等特定社交网站束缚的开发商,鼓励其通过病毒式传播收获用户。Facebook游戏传播迅速主要得益于朋友之间的互通有无,共同分享。但Facebook为了保证用户的网络安全,对开发商在该社交网站的游戏推广手段采取了一系列限制措施。开发商对此无可奈何,但又舍不得撤离这一平台,谁让Facebook掌握着大量的用户交际网呢。

SocioPath正可借此突破口大做文章,今年初,Hi5推出了开发商门户网站以及与Facebook兼容的应用程序界面,意味着游戏只要能在Facebook上运行,也就能投放在Hi5这样的网站。今后数月,Hi5还将有所选择地面向一些合作伙伴推出SocioPath测试平台,相关功能也将相继问世。用圣·约翰的话说,SocioPath意为“反社交网站平台”,发展目标是让社交游戏告别Facebook条条框框的局限性,通过病毒式传播手段自由推广。

据了解,Facebook提供的是一种可让游戏推广迅速扩散的自动推荐功能。用户注册时,该功能会自动浏览用户电子邮件联系人列表,询问用户是否希望邀请朋友一起加入,成为Facebook用户。经过用户同意,该功能仅邀请友人列表中非Facebook用户的联系人。这项功能可自动处理友人邀请程序的特点,是Facebook用户迅速膨胀至5亿人的最大功臣。

Hi5则自有一套快速传播游戏的手段,当用户开始玩一款SocioPath平台的游戏时,Hi5网站会征求用户意见,问其是否同意将该游戏通过电子邮件、即时信息、Facebook、Twitter等途径推荐给朋友。用户无需注册,不用提交真实姓名,就能试玩SocioPath平台游戏。当用户中途想保存游戏进程时,系统才会询问用户是否要注册。这样一来,用户无需繁琐的注册程序,就能首先试完新游戏。对游戏开发商来说,这也是一箭双雕的事情,因为用户本人无需注册就能体验、了解这款游戏,用户的朋友也将同时通过SocioPath推广知道这款游戏。一旦用户注册了,该游戏还将通过网络传播再次获得推广,用户无需经过另一轮注册申请,就能直接购买游戏。

这些游戏还可以建立各自的虚拟交易商店,SocioPath允许虚拟商品在该网站的输入和输出。使用了Facebook可兼容API的游戏,就很容易执行这项操作。圣·约翰认为,SocioPath拥有的这些功能,将破除新游戏对用户的樊篱。Facebook最大的限制政策之一就是要求用户实名注册后才能玩游戏,而Hi5却允许用户匿名玩游戏。

圣·约翰还表示,Hi5系统还将解除Facebook对开发商的枷锁,通过游戏自动推荐及朋友邀请等功能,让开发商的游戏推广重获自由,摆脱对Facebook、Hi5或其他用拥有好友列表的社交网站的依赖。在这一新平台中,用户还可以通过Hi5游戏自动推荐系统,添加甚至是《魔兽世界》等其他游戏和网站的好友。尽管这些功能目前还不完善,但Hi5已经在运行并完善这些系统。

除了上文所提及的对象,Hi5的合作伙伴还包括Slingo、TheBroth、Sneaky Games、HitPoint Studios、Minsh以及GeyZap等其他游戏开发商。Digital Chocolate公司董事长斯瑞普·霍金斯(Trip Hawkins)表示,该公司的《大富豪世界》(Millionaire City)游戏将采用SocioPath所提供的信息沟通系统、好友邀请、信息通告以及礼物赠送机制等功能。相信这些SocioPath游戏开发商将受益于这一平台的跨游戏互动传染,与其他游戏公司共同分享更多玩家。据了解,准备在Hi5上推出重磅游戏的Casual Collective公司,已开发了《后院怪兽》(Backyard Monsters)这款游戏。

据圣·约翰介绍,Hi5创立于2003年,拥有大量的海外用户,目前正重新审视其网站基础建设,解决虚拟商品交易和电子商务等方面的问题。今年7月,该公司通过第二轮融资活动募集1400万美元资金,转型社交游戏和虚拟商品业务。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译)

Ever since Alex St. John joined Hi5 as president last fall, he has been promising to stick it to Facebook, the social network that dwarfs the size of his own company’s user base by 10 to 1. Now we’re getting some follow through on the first part of his evil plan to take over the social gaming world. Today, the company is announcing SocioPath, a next-generation social gaming platform.

As you can tell from the pictures here, St. John is a bit of a character — charming or obnoxious, depending on your point of view. It’s hard to take him seriously, considering his stunts such as taking on a professional sumo wrestler.

But the president and chief technology officer of San Francisco-based Hi5 has to be taken seriously. Top social game developers Playdom (which has been bought by Disney), Bigpoint, Digital Chocolate, Casual Collective, Portalarium and others are hopping on board with Hi5’s new game platform.

Hi5 has only around 50 million users compared to Facebook’s 500 million. But St. John has been busy revamping the site and its development platform to become a haven for social game companies, particularly those who fear Facebook has become too powerful and are chafing about restrictions Facebook has placed on game developers.

“I intend to love their game developers better,” St. John said.

SocioPath is designed to free developers from their dependence on social networks such as Facebook for viral audience acquisition. Games spread fast on Facebook because friends share them with friends. But in the name of protecting its users, Facebook has been curtailing what game developers can do to spread their games through its network. But the developers can’t leave because Facebook owns the friend relationships.

SocioPath has multiple parts to it. Earlier this year, Hi5 launched a developer portal and Facebook-compatible applications programming interfaces. That meant that any game written to run on Facebook could also run on web sites such as Hi5. In the coming months, Hi5 will roll out the SocioPath beta platform to a select group of partners. More pieces of SocioPath, which St. John has nicknamed the anti-social networking platform, will roll out over time. The aim of the platform is to allow games to be distributed in a viral fashion without tying them down to Facebook.

SocioPath includes a clever way to spread games rapidly. Facebook uses an automated feature called a “contact importer” to help spread itself rapidly. When you sign up, it looks at your email directory and asks if you would like to invite people to become members of Facebook. The importer checks to see who among your friends is not a member and sends invites only to those who are not members, with your permission. This importer automates the process of inviting people and is one of the biggest reasons that Facebook grew to 500 million users.

When a player joins a game that is SocioPath-enabled, Hi5 asks you for permission to spread the game to your email, instant messenger, Facebook, or Twitter contacts. SocioPath allows you to play the game without going through a registration process and without having to give your real name. Once you want to save your progress in the game, it then asks you if you will register. That way, players can try out new games without having the barrier of registering for them first. For the game company, the good thing is that it can send messages about the game to the user and the user’s friends, from directly within the game. That keeps gamers engaged in the games. Once the user is registered, games can be promoted across networks and purchased without the user having to go through another registration process.

Games can also create their own stores, and SocioPath allows the import and export of virtual goods into social networks. The implementation work is minimal for those using the Hi5 Facebook-compatible APIs. St. John said that these features will break down a lot of barriers that stop users from adopting new games. One of the big barriers is Facebook’s requirement that you play a game under your real name; Hi5 will let you play anonymously if you wish.

The Hi5 system could break Facebook’s lock on developers in this way, said St. John. By embedding the contact importer and the ability to send invites and messages to friends inside a game, the game is no longer reliant on Facebook, Hi5, or any other social network for a friends list. You can pull in friends from other games such as World of Warcraft, or any other game or network that Hi5 builds a contact importer for. The importers are not yet completely built, but Hi5 is working on them.

Besides those already mentioned, other game developer partners include Slingo, TheBroth, Sneaky Games, HitPoint Studios, Minsh, and HeyZap. Trip Hawkins, chief executive of Digital Chocolate, said that his company’s Millionaire City game will have access to powerful messaging systems, invitations, notifications and gifting mechanisms via SocioPath. Game companies who are members of SocioPath will find they get new game players from other game companies who are members of SocioPath, allowing for cross-game pollination.

Companies such as Casual Collective have begun to release hit games on Hi5. Casual Collective created Backyard Monsters.

Hi5 was founded in 2003 and has been particularly successful snaring overseas users. St. John said the company has overhauled its infrastructure to handle modern virtual goods transactions and e-commerce. The company raised $14 million in a second round of funding in July.(source:venturebeat)


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