作者：Kris Graft

在2013年，Facebook拥有一些有关浏览器游戏和手机游戏的大计划，并且其中一个主要目标便是瞄准之前并未特别重视的目标用户群体：硬核玩家。

今年，Facebook希望在社交网站上发行多人硬核游戏，以此迎合那些不是很喜欢社交游戏但却倾心于硬核游戏的玩家们。

在今天的Game Developers Conference，Facebook游戏合作关系总监Sean Ryan表示，如今该社交网站正致力于吸引更多开发商，让他们愿意在2013年面向Facebook创造游戏。

Sean Ryan(from goabroad.sohu.com)

18至35岁的用户会在Facebook上做些什么？

显然是玩游戏（笑）。

当你获得相关数据时是否感到惊讶？

的确，一直以来我们都未曾接触过这些用户。在此之前，我们并不需要提供这类型游戏去迎合这些用户。如果你着眼于三个主题时便会发现，现在的台式机仍然健康发展着，并不像人们所想的那样。同时，我们也将在2013年迎来硬核和中核游戏的发展。

我一直在等待“中核游戏”的到来！

关于中核游戏这一术语一直备受争议。但是当我们着眼于这些类型的游戏，当我们着眼于FPS，RTS，MMO，MOBA，RPG等你能够想到的首字母缩略词时，我们便能预见接下来几个月将会出现怎样的游戏热潮。

第三个主题便是跨平台。最近，我们注意到越来越多游戏带上了Canvas的标签，之后它们又转向了手机平台，并攻占排行榜最前列的位置。《Candy Crush》便是一个典型的例子，而《闪电纸牌》和《Dragon City》也在上周都出现了手机应用，并在30或40个国家的排行榜中位列前10。

你们是如何吸引开发商的注意？即你们是以什么原因去说服开发商们创造Facebook游戏？

我们告诉开发商们，不管他们创造的是硬核游戏还是非硬核游戏，我们都能保证较低的用户获取成本或者较高的终生用户价值，因为我们拥有提升用户粘性的渠道。对于那些基于不同方法使用我们的渠道的硬核和中核游戏，我们一直在琢磨新方法将玩家带到这些游戏中，不管是游戏安装还是提升用户粘性。所以今天的App Center汇聚着策略型，冒险型以及行动型等不同类的游戏。

同时我们还拥有面向用户的应用提示，而这主要是针对于硬核游戏。同时我们也不断完善与Unity有关的工作。根据数据显示，每个月我们共拥有7500万基于Unity的活跃用户，并且这一数值也仍在增加着。

社交游戏中似乎环绕着各种谣言？

是的，就像有人说台式机或Canvas正在衰败。但事实是，不管从哪个指标看来我们都在发展着。就像我们的玩家数量一直呈现着上升趋势，并且现在的我们也拥有史上最高的DAU。去年我们支付给开发商们20亿美元，并且那也是我们大多数开发商的最高记录年。Canvas持续发展着，并且世界各地的桌面游戏也仍是一个巨大的业务，且仍处于上升趋势。所以我们决定发展桌面游戏业务。

还有一个谣言便是不能基于Facebook创造硬核游戏。但是近来却有一些全新的杀手游戏使用我们的新渠道（而非传统方法）而吸引了硬核玩家的注意。

归结起来共有3种谣言，分别是台式机不再发展，Facebook只适合射击和博彩游戏，Canvas在手机领域中没有任何价值。关于第三个谣言我想说的是，Canvas能够帮助你更快速地进行迭代，所以当你转向手机领域时，你已经拥有一定的用户基础。也就是你可以将这些用户自动推向Android和iOS平台。这比你一开始便面向手机平台发行游戏拥有更棒的良性循环。

现在Facebook游戏和手机游戏的状态是怎样的？显然手机游戏更能推动你们的发展。

关于这一平台我们拥有三大组件能够应用于手机和台式机上，即身份认证，社交图谱和发现功能。社交图谱非常重要，因为任何一款社交游戏都不能缺少这一元素。

而开发者在手机平台上的最大抱怨便是发现功能，即如何在众多应用中脱瘾而出。这也是我们所专注的内容，不管是付费还是免费应用。我们在去年12月推出的手机应用安装网站便为我们的合作商们提供了许多便利。我们也看到News Feed发挥了更棒的效能。上个月我们共推动了苹果和iOS商店的2.63亿次点击。希望这种发展能够继续维持着（游戏邦注：几个月前是1.75亿次点击）。

在手机领域，如果你使用我们的平台，你便能够获得社交图谱，身份认证以及免费的News Feed推广功能，并且你还可以通过付费推广而放大其功效。

（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）

Myths, mid-core and mobile: Facebook’s message to developers

By Kris Graft

Facebook has big plans for browser and mobile games in 2013, and one of its key aims is to target a demographic that it hasn’t particularly chased before: core gamers.

Over the course of this year, Facebook plans to back the launch of multiple hardcore-focused games on the social network, as it looks to cater for an audience that has up to this point not been hugely interested in the social games that Facebook has had to offer.

At the Game Developers Conference today, Facebook’s director of game partnerships Sean Ryan talked to Gamasutra about what the social network is doing to attract developers, and make them want to create Facebook games in 2013.

So what are 18 to 35 year old males doing on Facebook?

Playing games, apparently [laughs].

Was that surprising when you got data back that said that?

Yeah, there’s always that image that we don’t have those users. It’s just that up until now, we didn’t necessarily have the games for those users, and they ways to surface those games. If you look at the three themes, it’s that desktop is healthy and growing, unlike what people seem to think. Also, 2013 is the year of core and mid-core for us.

I was waiting for the term ‘mid-core’ to come up here!

Yeah, it’s debatable, the mid-core to core break. But when we look at those types of games, when we look at the openings for FPSes, RTSes, MMOs, MOBAs, RPGs and any acronym you can think of, that’s where we see the next wave of games hitting over the next couple of months.

The third [theme] is cross-platform. We’ve seen more examples recently of games getting big on Canvas, then they move to mobile, and it just drives you up through the charts. Candy Crush is the obvious example, but we also see Solitaire Blitz and Dragon City both launch apps in the last week and they just shot up to the top 10 in 30 or 40 countries.

What are you doing to attract developers? Why would a developer make a Facebook game today?

You make a Facebook game, core or non-core, because we either have a lower cost of acquisition, or a higher LTV [life-time value] because of our re-engagement channels, or both. With core and mid-core games, which use our channels differently, is figuring out new ways to expose users to those games, both for installs and engagement. So App Center, which has now been retooled around strategy, adventure and action games, so they have distinct categories.

There are app-to-user notifications, which are aimed primarily at the core. And we’ve done a lot of work with Unity. We have 75 million active users each month with Unity, and that’s growing every day.

What are some of the myths that are going around about social games?

The first is that desktop or Canvas is dying. The truth is that at every metric level, we’re up. Number of payers is up, we have an all-time-high gamer DAU, ever in the history of the company as of a week ago. We paid out $2 billion to developers last year, and most of our developers had record years. Canvas continues to be, and just desktop gaming in general around the world, is big business, and is up. So we’re going to grow the desktop business.

And there’s also a myth that you can’t do core games on Facebook. What we’re doing with our new lineup of games is trying to show a set of killer games that use our channels in a way that’s appropriate for that type of game, not in a way that [the channels] have been traditionally used.

So the myths, I think, still are are that desktop is not growing, because it is; that Facebook is only for bubble shooters and casino games — which it is that, but also more; and third — what is the value of Canvas in the mobile world? And the answer is that Canvas allows you to iterate much faster, so when you go to mobile, you already have a user base, then the messaging kicks in. And at that point you’ve got a bunch of users who automatically are going to be able to send Android and iOS. They couldn’t before, so you get a much more virtuous circle than just launching on mobile-only.

What’s the status of Facebook games and mobile? Obviously, mobile has been a big push for you guys.

We have three components to the platform that apply to mobile as well as desktop: Identity, social graph and discovery. Identity is obvious, the social graph is important because you can’t have a social game without a social graph.

Really, the biggest complaint from developers in mobile is discovery — how do you break through, given the amount of apps. That’s where we are focused, both paid and unpaid [apps]. The mobile app install network that we launched in December is doing incredibly well for a wide variety of our partners. And we’re starting to see more organic and viral traffic from News Feed. We sent 263 million clicks to the Apple and iOS stores last month. Hopefully that continues to go up — it’s up from 175 million a few months ago.

In mobile, if you use our platform, you get social graph and identity, you get free distribution through News Feed, and you have the ability to amplify that through paid distribution in a way that’s more effective than what people are used to.(source:gamasutra)