不少用户访问Facebook网站的最主要目的就是玩游戏，据称40%的Facebook用户都是社交游戏玩家。也就是说，每月共有2亿用户在Facebook上玩游戏，Facebook的前十款热门游戏各自玩家人数都超过了1200万。但如果你并不是排名前十的Facebook游戏开发商，那就很难指望从如此庞大的用户群体中分一杯羹了。

所幸Facebook也并非世界上独一无二的社交游戏平台，本文仅以拉美、俄罗斯、日本三地为例，奉劝开发商要放眼世界，关注美国本土以外的社交游戏市场。

拉丁美洲最大的社交游戏发行商Mentez，在巴西圣保罗和美国迈阿密都有一个工作室，其CEO和联合创始人是胡安·佛朗哥（Juan Franco）。

Mentez原来主要从事自有品牌的游戏开发，在一年半以前进行了业务转型，致力于发掘来自美国、欧洲和亚洲的优秀社交游戏，并对这些游戏提供本土化、市场营销和创收服务。

在巴西社交网站Orkut（谷歌旗下网站）上受到热捧的5款游戏中，就有4款由Mentez公司发行，它们的每周活跃用户人数已达2200万人。

佛朗哥表示，“如果你只在Facebook上投放游戏，其实还可以试试国际市场，这样还可以创造二到三倍的营收，美国市场竞争激烈，基本上被两三个大公司所操纵，所以对小型开发商来说，要在美国的Facebook平台混口饭并不容易，我相信，对那些拥有精湛技术、巧妙创意的开发商来说，开发国际市场可能是他们走向成功的最佳途径。”

Playdom是美国大型开发商之一，今年初已和Mentez签署了独家合作协议，让后者对该公司的《Bola》（一款世界杯游戏）、《Tiki Resort》（一款度假村管理游戏）、《Social City》和《Market Street》这四款游戏进行本土化处理，然后推向巴西市场。

Mentez会判断哪些游戏最有可能在拉美获得丰收，然后对其进行语言翻译、创建新的虚拟道具，必要的话还会调整游戏机制，然后再将其投放到拉美最大的两个社交网络平台，即Orkut和Facebook。前者在巴西一国就有4000万至5000万用户，而后者的足迹则遍及拉丁美洲的其他国家。

佛朗哥解释，“美国开发商很难在没有任何帮助的情况下，自主对游戏进行本土化处理。这些游戏大多都有一些文化上的鸿沟，比如说美国橄榄球大赛、美国独立纪念日、万圣节等等，巴西人对这些文化并没有什么概念。所以对美国开发商来说，自己将游戏翻译成葡萄牙语版本、然后投放到Orkut平台，要完成这些任务并不太容易。”

Mentez拥有自己的设计团队和产品经理，他们会帮助外来游戏创建符合拉美当地文化的虚拟道具，并对游戏进行适当润色，让它们看起来更具有拉美特色。

另外，Mentez还有一个公关团队，帮助提高这些游戏在拉美发行界的知名度，而且还会在其他游戏中增加横幅广告进行宣传和推广。Mentez还将从虚拟道具营收中分成，所以对Mentez来说，游戏越是成功，他们自己也就越容易从中获利。

Mentez还会在游戏中添加自已专用的Paymentez付费服务系统，据佛朗哥所称，“在巴西这样的新兴国家市场，1亿的互联网用户中就有50%的人根本不用信用卡，所以贝宝系统（PayPal）在这里不会有市场。游戏玩家得选择其他付费渠道，通过Paymentez提供的服务，他们就可以在网吧中用现金购买虚拟游戏积分。Paymentez有10万多个零售点，美国开发商跟Mentez合作就不需要担心虚拟商品交易问题，他们只要轻松坐在家里，通过电子邮件查看帐单，就能将自己的游戏推向全世界。”

i-Jet-Media-logo

根据俄罗斯社交媒体分销网站i-Jet Media的联合创始人、CEO和总制片人Kostarev的介绍，美国开发商在俄罗斯和东欧也有不少类似的发展机遇。

与Mentez公司一样，i-Jet Media的前身也是游戏开发商，后来也进行了业务转型，今年向Facebook之外的社交网站发行了20多款游戏，主要集中在俄罗斯和东欧地区。目前该公司有将近70游戏准备投放到30多个社交网站，这些网站的用户数量今年底预计会超过6000万。

该公司已发行的游戏中最成功的当属《Farm Frenzy》（由Alawar Entertainment公司开发），《Wild West Trains》（由Evolution Games公司开发），它们的发行平台包括比利时的Netlog、波兰的NK、柏林的StudiVZ、MeinVZ、SchulerVZ等社交网站。

今年8月，i-Jet Media也与Playdom进行了发行合作，帮助Playdom的游戏打入东欧市场。

Kostarev表示，“早在几年前，这里还没有什么社交网站，现在这里的社交网站业务每年都在双倍增长，我们估计它们今年的市场规模可能在4000万至6000万美元左右。所以越来越多的美国开发商也被吸引过来，打算在此发行游戏。”

据Kostarev所称，i-Jet的目标是“打造全球最大的社交媒体分销网站，如果从目前的市场发展状况来看，i-Jet要实现这一目标就得向100个社交网站投放100款游戏，每款游戏每月营收要达到2000美元。i-Jet的策略很简单，那就是涉足多个社交网站，集结多家开发商，在多个优秀的平台整合他们的业务。”

i-Jet已有Alawar、 Akella、Drimmi、Evolution等公司在内的40家开发商合作伙伴，正准备与更多开发商合作，打响i-Jet在这一行业的名气。

Kostarev表示，“我们希望帮助开发商从Facebook之外的平台赚到更多钱，所以我们会检验他们的游戏，考虑市场营销策略，让他们创造出最好的游戏，对这些游戏进行本土化处理，我们的翻译人员会把游戏翻译成多种语言版本，我们还会调整它们的营收模式，与社交网站进行谈判，然后绑定一些应用服务，提供多种语言的用户技术支持服务。最后，我们才开始销售这些产品。”

与i-Jet合作的开发商只要“把他们的游戏和i-Jet的平台绑定，因为这种操作非常简单，基本上不需要什么专业知识，然后i-Jet就可以在任何有业务往来的社交网站上植入游戏，开发商不需要执行其他步骤。”

i-Jet的政策是，游戏营收与分销商对半分成，“我们不会缩减自己的成本，如果我们从社交网站得到了100美元营收，那么开发商也会分到50美元。”

DeNA & Ngmoco

虽然上文提到的两家公司都还没对日本市场下手，不过DeNA Global公司（日本手机网络公司DNA在美国加州的分部）却已经主动向美国社交游戏开发商伸出橄榄枝了，意欲拉拢他们面向日本市场发行作品。DeNA总公司拥有日本最有影响力的手机社交门户网站Mobage Town，该平台已有2000万的注册用户。

DeNA Global公司总裁Dai Watanabe表示，DeNA在美国的目标是打造当地最大的手机社交游戏平台。为此，DeNA已收购了美国游戏开发商IceBreaker和Gameview，而且还对Aurora Feint公司进行投资，并于上个月斥资4亿多美元，收购了位于旧金山的Ngmoco公司。

Ngmoco将扮演“星探”角色，为DeNA发掘那些希望借DeNA之手，在美国和日本发行作品的游戏开发商。

Watanabe表示，“我们原本打算成立一个专门与美国开发商谈判的业务开发团队，但现在已经有Ngmoco公司可以负责执行这一任务。另外，Mobage Town开发平台的API也已经和Ngmoco的SDK相对接。所以经过一些细微的调整，美国游戏开发商仅需一个单独的源代码，就能将游戏同时投放到西方和日本市场的iOS、Android平台。这就是我们所谓的跨平台、跨国界战略的核心所在。”

换句话说，DeNA的计划就是创造能在世界任何地区、任何平台运行的游戏。

可以说，为招徕美国游戏开发商，DeNA确实是下了一番功夫。该公司成立了名为Incubate Fund No. 1的基金会，向其投入2750万美元的资金，为社交游戏开发商提供种子轮融资支持。另外还宣布与雅虎日本合作开发社交游戏。

据称，其新门户网站Yahoo! Mobage结合了双方的用户优势—-雅虎在日本的每月活跃用户为5200万，DeNA的每月活跃手机用户是2000万。它还为进军日本市场的美国开发商提供翻译、托管和营收资源管理等必要的服务。

位于加州的游戏开发商CrowdStar已抢先向日本市场出击，最近宣布将两款热门游戏《快乐岛》（Happy Island）、《开心水族馆》（Happy Aquarium）投放到Yahoo! Mobage网站，并打算将旗下的所有游戏都引入日本。

Watanabe表示，“我能给开发商的最好建议就是，请关注正在壮大的日本社交游戏市场。如果你是在Facebook上惨淡经营的开发商，就更要重视这个市场，就算是已经收获成果的开发商也不能例外。请记住，在美国市场之外还有大量发展机遇，如果无视这些机会那你就太迟钝了。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Beyond Facebook: Global Social Game Opportunities

Games are one of the primary reasons people visit Facebook. Reportedly, 40 percent of its user base is there to play social games. That means that more than 200 million people play games on Facebook each month, and the top 10 games on Facebook have more than 12 million users each. Those are a lot of eyeballs! However, if yours isn’t one of the top 10, attracting those eyeballs to your game can be a frustrating experience.

Fortunately, Facebook isn’t the only game in town. Global social platforms want it known that there are real opportunities for developers who dare to be agile and venture outside the U.S.

Indeed, other global markets — in Russia, in Eastern Europe, in Japan, in South America — are hungry for quality social games. Publishers there have set up mechanisms to make entering those markets easier than one might expect. Localization, for example, is becoming less of an issue.

In Brazil, for instance, where the market has grown so large that this month the Brasil Game Show 2010 is expecting 20,000 visitors from all over the globe, Mentez is looking for developers.

Mentez — Latin America’s largest social gaming publisher with an office in Sao Paulo, Brazil (and one in Miami) — is the brainchild of CEO and co-founder Juan Franco.

A year and a half ago, Mentez switched business models — from producing its own games to focusing on finding, localizing, marketing, and monetizing social games from the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Today, Mentez publishes four out of the five most popular games on the Google-owned social network Orkut in Brazil and its portfolio reaches 22 million active users every week. One of those games, Colheita Feliz, a farming game, is the single most popular game on Orkut.

“If you currently only have your game on Facebook, you can double or triple your revenue by working the international markets,” says Franco. “The U.S. is a very tough market that’s dominated by two or three big companies. So it’s very difficult for a smaller developer to compete in the U.S. on the Facebook platform these days. I believe that, for those good developers with good skills and good ideas, exploring international markets could be the best way for them to succeed.”

One of those big companies — Playdom — apparently agrees, having signed an exclusive agreement for Brazil earlier this year with Mentez which has, so far, localized four games for Playdom — Bola (a World Cup soccer game), Tiki Resort (a resort management game), Social City, and Market Street.

Mentez determines which games have the highest probability of succeeding in Latin America, translates the game, builds new virtual items for the game, tweaks the game mechanics if necessary, forms relevant partnerships with brands and celebrities, and launches the game on the two dominant social networks in Latin America. They are Orkut, which has 40 to 50 million users in Brazil alone, and Facebook, which owns every other country in Latin America.

“Localization is difficult for U.S. developers without help,” explains Franco. “Many of their games are filled with cultural references — like the Super Bowl and the Fourth of July and Halloween — which mean nothing to Brazilians. So it’s not as simple for U.S. developers as translating their games into Portuguese and dropping them onto Orkut.”

Mentez has a team of artists and product managers who build virtual items that resonate with gamers in Latin America and help craft changes in the games so that they have a Latin American look and feel.

The publisher also has a PR team that helps the game get coverage in Latin American publications, and it runs banner ads inside their other games. It also takes a cut on virtual item revenue, so Mentez has a vested interest in seeing the game succeed.

Mentez also takes care of monetization through Paymentez, its proprietary, alternative payments network. According to Franco, “in emerging markets like Brazil, 50 percent of the 100 million people who are connected to the internet don’t have credit cards — and so PayPal doesn’t work here. So gamers need other ways to pay. With Paymentez, they can walk into an Internet café and use cash to buy virtual credits.

“Paymentez has over 100,000 retail points of sale. That’s just one more hurdle U.S. developers don’t have to worry about when they partner with Mentez. They can sit back, get their checks in the mail, and enjoy a bigger footprint worldwide.”

U.S. developers have similar opportunities in Russia and in Eastern Europe, according to Alexey Kostarev, co-founder, CEO, and general producer at Russia-based social media distribution network i-Jet Media.

Previously a developer, i-Jet, like Mentez, changed its business model and, this year, began distributing games to 20 or so local social networks not affiliated with Facebook, mostly in Russia and Eastern Europe. It currently has approximately 70 games in its portfolio that it expects it will be publishing to 30-plus social networks with over 60 million users by year-end.

Two of its success stories include Alawar Entertainment’s Farm Frenzy and Evolution Games’ Wild West Trains published on Belgium-based Netlog, Poland-based NK, and Berlin-based StudiVZ, MeinVZ, and SchulerVZ.

And, in August, it was reported that Playdom entered into a publishing deal with i-Jet to bring its games to Eastern Europe.

“About half of our business is in Russia and all major releases are made through the four or five largest social networks in Russia, like Vkontakte,” says Kostarev.

“A few years ago, no social networks existed here. Now their business doubles annually and we currently estimate that they will finish the year at between $40 to $60 million. So it is becoming more and more attractive to U.S. developers who are searching for new markets to publish their games here.”

According to Kostarev, i-Jet’s goal is to “build the largest social media distribution network in the world. Considering the current phase of market development, that will require our distributing 100 games on 100 social networks with revenue from every single product at about $2,000 each month. Our strategy is simple — more social networks, more developers, and more perfect platforms for their integration.”

And so i-Jet is on the lookout to increase the number of developers with which it partners from the current 40 — including Alawar, Akella, Drimmi, Evolution — which means making it known the services it provides.

“We want to help developers earn more money than they are currently making on just Facebook,” Kostarev says. “Which is why we examine their games, consider marketing and producing the best games, do localization and translation of games (with our own translators) into any language required, we tune monetization models, we hold negotiations with social networks, and then we integrate applications, and organize the technical support of users in many world languages. Then, of course, we distribute the products.”

What i-Jet asks of developers is to “integrate their games using our own platform which is very simple and doesn’t require any special knowledge,” he adds. “After that, we have an opportunity to build the game on every social network we cooperate with without additional actions performed by the developer.”

i-Jet’s policy is to share revenues with distributors on a 50-50 basis. “We don’t subtract any of our costs,” he adds. “If we get $100 from a social network, the developer gets $50.”

While neither Mentez nor i-Jet target Japan, DeNA Global (pronounced “DNA”) is on the hunt for U.S. social game developers interested in publishing there. The two-year-old, San Mateo, CA-based company is a division of DeNA Co., the Japanese mobile internet company that owns that country’s most popular mobile portal site, Mobage Town, which boasts 20 million registered users.

According to Dai Watanabe, president of DeNA Global, DeNA’s goal is to grow the largest social gaming platform in mobile here in the States. To that end, DeNA has been acquiring or investing in U.S. game developers, including IceBreaker, Gameview (formerly Bayview Labs), and Aurora Feint. Most prominently, last month it bought San Francisco-based Ngmoco for $400 million.

Ngmoco will serve as a talent scout of sorts for social game developers anxious to have their titles published by DeNA both here and in Japan.

“We had planned to have a business development team that would talk to U.S. developers,” says Watanabe. “But now Ngmoco will perform that function instead. Also, we have enabled Mobage Town’s open platform to connect its API to Ngmoco’s SDK.

“So basically, after a little tweaking, a U.S. game developer can use just one single source code for both the western and Japanese markets and for both IOS and Android. That is the key to what we are calling our cross-device/cross-border strategy.”

In other words, Watanabe explained, DeNA’s plan is to create games that run on any device in any region of the world.

DeNA is clearly serious about attracting the attention of U.S. game developers. It is using a new pool of cash, called Incubate Fund No. 1, into which it has invested $27.5 million, to provide seed rounds to social game developers. And it has announced a partnership with Yahoo! Japan to create social games.

The new portal Yahoo! Mobage is said to offer the advantage of two user bases of significant size — Yahoo’s 52 million monthly active web-based users and DeNA’s 20 million active mobile users. And it is providing services that developers will need to make the transition to the Japanese market, such as translation, hosting, and monetization resources.

One U.S. game developer that has already made the leap to the Japanese market is Burlingame, CA-based CrowdStar, which recently announced that two of its most popular titles — Happy Island and Happy Aquarium — are now available on the new Yahoo! Mobage site. The company intends is to bring all of its games to Japan.

“My best advice to developers,” says Watanabe, “is to take a look at the social gaming market in Japan, which has just started to explode. Especially if you are struggling to be number one — or even just successful — on Facebook. There are many opportunities outside of the United States — and to ignore them would be foolish.”（source:gamasutra）