社交游戏在整个游戏工业的进程中历史相当简短，但是在zynga、playdom、playfish等社交游戏巨头的努力下已经实现了真正用户群的开拓。

自从playfish和playdom相继被EA和迪士尼收购之后，这两大公司已经转向协助母公司推出旗下品牌的社交游戏版，诸如迪士尼旗下的playdom可能将着手推出奇迹Marvel电影系列的超级英雄题材游戏。

zynga playdom playfish

zynga是目前社交游戏规模和收益的领头羊，但是它并没有像迪士尼类似的拥有诸多知识产权的题材可以继续深挖掘。所以我们能够看到zynga在行销方式上和其他游戏公司的独特之处，比如和实体店7-11的合作。zynga首席技术官Cadir Lee在接受采访时表示，他们深信虚拟世界和现实世界有着诸多的共同点。虽然playfish和playdom拥有更多的知识产权类资源，但是zynga依然在社交游戏领域遥遥领先，比如旗下的farmville就拥有高达6000万的月活跃用户。

playfish的联合创始人Sebastien de Halleux在接受采访时表示尽管zynga旗下的farmville仍然拥有6000万的高用户，但事实上和它的高峰期已经足足下滑了三分之一，这也意味着说尽管该款游戏是成功的，但是用户也有对他审美疲劳的时候。

playfish目前在facebook游戏中约活跃用户仅次于zynga和Crowdstar位居第三，每个月有多达4000万的用户在使用他们的游戏。

playdom首席财务官Christa Quarles称playdom接下来将有可能使用迪士尼旗下Marvel和ESPN的品牌资源，尽管这并不能保证总是能够获得成功，但是她同时表示这样可以减缓他们的市场竞争压力，因为Marvel和ESPN旗下的角色和人物是目前用户所熟悉的，有助于他们打开市场。

zynga首席技术官Cadir Lee表示尽管zynga面对来自playdom和playfish方面的竞争，特别是后两者拥有知识产权的一些好的资源，但是事实上这些资源暂时还没能帮他们在facebook上或者用户方面的领先，所以这些资源还有待用户的认可，至少到目前为止这些资源还仅仅只是理论上的优势。（本文由游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译）

Social gaming is just barely old enough to be called an industry, but already the battle lines are emerging between major players Zynga, Playdom and Playfish.

Playdom and Playfish, since their acquisitions by the Walt Disney Co and Electronic Arts Inc respectively, have focused on bringing their branded intellectual property to the social gaming world.

That could include a possible Playdom game with Marvel superhero characters, or the Playfish version of Monopoly now in the works (EA owns the digital rights to the board game).

Zynga is by far the industry leader in revenue and size, but it lacks the deep vaults of intellectual property that come with being part of a conglomerate such as Disney.  So it has taken a different tack by focusing on marketing tie-ins with the likes of McDonald’s and convenience store chain 7-11. “One of the things that we really believe is going to happen is we think there is going to be much more connection between the virtual world and the real world,” Cadir Lee, chief technology officer for Zynga, told Reuters.

As Reuters reported on Sunday, the social gaming sector is bracing for a new wave of acquisitions.

With that development in the works, competition in social gaming continues apace.

Playfish, which was acquired by Electronic Arts in November 2009 in a deal valued at up to $400 million, has already rolled out social gaming versions of the popular EA sports games “FIFA Soccer” and “Madden NFL.” The company also has high hopes for its version of Monopoly due out later this year on Facebook, and it seems to be gunning for Zynga, which so far dominates the sector with its virtual harvest game Farmvilleplayed by 60 million users a month, according to Inside Network.

“If you look at games like Farmville for example by Zynga, they’ve dropped a third of their audience since their peak, and it shows that although those games have been highly successful, people do get tired of those games,” Sebastien de Halleux, Playfish’s co-founder, told Reuters. “If you’re looking at creating (game) categories, you’re looking for more than a one hit wonder,” he said.

Right now, EA through its Playfish division ranks third among social gaming companies in number of users, with 40.7 million players of its games, behind Zynga and Crowdstar, according to Inside Network. Playfish sees the use of well-known franchises and brands, such as Monopoly, as a way to build its customer base over time, said de Halleux“The companies that do not currently have a strong franchise pool to draw on and are working actively on this, are basically at a disadvantage, and that leaves companies like Zynga and Crowdstar pretty much out there versus Playdom’s participation with Disney and EA/Playfish, which are starting to shape into what I think are going to be the winning companies,” he said.

As for Playdom, Christa Quarles, the company’s chief financial officer, said that she does not anticipate her company to rely on Disney characters and franchises for all of its content. But she mentioned the possibility of using the Disney-owned Marvel characters, and the use of sports content in its social games through a partnership with Disney-owned ESPN. She told Reuters that using Disney content is not all it takes to succeed, but that it “helps ease the marketing burden because people already know and love the characters.”

Zynga’s CTO Cadir Lee said that despite the competition his company faces from the likes of Playdom and Playfish, social games with branded intellectual property, such as Playfish’s Madden and FIFA titles, have so far failed to attract a big audience. “They’re much smaller than many of the other games on Facebook, so it remains to be seen whether users are going to care about that, at a level that is significant or not,” Lee said. “So far, there hasn’t been a game that was built on some sort of existing IP that has become a big game. None of the top 10 games are based on existing IP.”

What has succeeded for Zynga is deals such as its cross-promotion partnership with 7-11, which was unveiled earlier this year and involved 6,000 stores, and a similar cross-promotion with McDonald’s unveiled last week where for one day where the restaurant chain had its own virtual farm — with prizes to boot — embedded in the Farmville game. Lou Kerner, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, called the McDonald’s announcement “the most interesting deal in history” for social gaming, and he highlighted the potential it presents to use social gaming for advertising.（source：reuters）