现在，许多社交游戏中所谓的与现实生活相联系往往只是将某个商业品牌带到游戏当中，例如在7-11商店中购买FarmVille品牌的香蕉，或者在FarmVille中发售打着麦当劳品牌的各种虚拟商品。迄今为止玩家还不能在现实生活购买过某种游戏虚拟产品的“真实版”。

最近，PlayFirst旗下一款手工巧克力制作类社交游戏Chocolatier: Sweet Society似乎将开创这一先河。针对即将来临的节日，PlayFirst与手工巧克力制作工坊Charles Chocolates联手合作，在社交游戏Chocolatier中推出了5款特别的巧克力。玩家可以像制作其他巧克力一样制作这5款巧克力。制作完成之后，玩家也一样可以将虚拟巧克力放置在店铺中贩卖，获得一些虚拟货币或者经验奖励。

除了这5款特殊巧克力都刻有Charles Chocolates的品牌标志外，游戏画面中还会出现一个醒目的按键鼓励玩家“进行真正的交易”。

玩家如果点击了这一按键就会被导向Charles chocolates网站购买Charles专为游戏制作的巧克力礼盒，礼盒中正包含游戏中的5款特殊巧克力。

对此，Charles Chocolate的创办者Chuck Siegel表示自己并不知道这种品牌融合的方式效果会如何，但不论如何，他表示自己喜欢这一创意。

目前，社交游戏Chocolatier: Sweet Society拥有80万月活跃用户。因此Charles Chocolate小小的巧克力工坊可能面临着大量的巧克力订单，尤其是在节日来临之际。针对这一可能性，Siegel表示工坊可以大量增补职员，因此大量的订单并不是问题。“虽然我们的巧克力都是手工制作，但我们也有应对特殊状况的能力。”

相信在未来我们可以见到更多的这类合作方式——品牌更密切地与游戏融合。当然，游戏Chocolatier的优势在于其专注于巧克力这一物品，但其他游戏也可以依样画葫芦，而且Mertado等新兴公司也十分善于通过游戏贩卖商品。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

For some social games, the connection to real life is so obvious it just begs for a commercial tie-in. For example: FarmVille branding on real bananas at 7-Eleven, or virtual goods from McDonald’s in the game. What we haven’t seen so far, though, is the ability to directly order a real version of an in-game virtual item.

PlayFirst is stepping up as the first with Chocolatier: Sweet Society, a Facebook game about making artisanal chocolates in San Francisco. For the holiday season, PlayFirst is partnering with Charles Chocolates, an artisanal chocolate maker based in, where else, San Francisco.

In Chocolatier, players will have access to five special chocolates the work much like the other chocolates in the games: after making the chocolate in their factory, the player puts it out in their store for purchase, getting a bit of virtual currency and experience for each sale.

But each of the new chocolates will also have Charles Chocolates branding, with a prominent button urging them to “Get The Real Deal!”:

If they click the button, the player will be sent off to the Charles Chocolates website to buy a box of all five chocolates, which Charles created specifically for the game.

The founder of Charles Chocolates, Chuck Siegel, says that he has no idea what the result of the brand integration will be. But he’s in love with the idea, no matter what happens. “The attractiveness of it to me is just the idea itself. Conceptually, it’s just brilliant,” he says.

Chocolatier has about 800,000 monthly active users, so there is the potential that the small company could face an overwhelming flow of orders, especially with the holidays coming up. But Siegel says he’s able to staff up dynamically, so demand shouldn’t be a problem. “Although we’re artisanal, we have phenomenal capacity,” he tells us.

It’s likely that this deal is just the leading edge of something we’ll see more often in the future — smarter, tighter brand integrations into games. Chocolatier’s advantage is its laser focus on just one thing, chocolate. But others are working on similar ideas, and startups like Mertado are homing in on merchandising through games. （source: Inside Social Games）