Facebook创办者Mark Zuckerberg表示十分欣赏游戏对Facebook成长所贡献的价值。

在最近举行的旧金山Web 2.0峰会上，社交网站Facebook的创始人Mark Zuckerberg提出游戏在Facebook网站飞速发展的同时造就了社交网络的繁荣发展。其中，FarmVille，Mafia Wars和Zynga poker等热门游戏更是成就Facebook 5亿用户的大功臣。现在，游戏仍然是社交网站的重要组成部分。据AppData数据显示，在Facebook用户数排名前10的应用公司中有7家是游戏公司。每月登录Facebook玩游戏的用户超过2亿人。

Mark Zuckerberg

社交网站Facebook之所以需要游戏公司是因为Facebook没有自己开发的内容，而只是单纯地依靠外来公司开发适应用户需求的软件。另外为了回应投资商Fred Wilson的某个观点，Zuckerberg还指出Zynga并不是唯一一家在Facebook取得成功的应用公司，此外还有CrowdStar，Playfish（被EA收购），Playdom（被迪士尼收购）等。Zuckerberg对主持人John Battelle说道：“这四家都是非常优秀的游戏公司，这些公司基本上完全建构在Facebook网络中。它们的成就改变了整个游戏产业的结构。纵观各种平台，我们可以发现游戏产业都在这些平台市场中占有重要地位，iPhone也不例外。哪怕是最早的个人电脑平台，游戏也是其中最令人兴奋的功能。”

同时，Zuckerberg还提到从游戏公司获得的收入对Facebook网站非常重要。要知道Facebook社交网站最重要的盈利来源就是各大游戏公司在Facebook刊登广告的投入。另外，Facebook最近还从虚拟货币Facebook Credits取得部分盈利：在每次使用Facebook Credits的交易中，Facebook网站会抽成30%。

然而，尽管十分欣赏游戏公司，但Zuckerberg同样不赞成游戏公司侵犯其他用户的利益。今年春天，Facebook关闭了游戏公司向用户免费发送通告的宣传方式，这主要是由于很多非游戏用户觉得受到了这种“垃圾邮件”的骚扰。但游戏公司却由于失去了病毒式传播渠道致游戏玩家大幅度下降，因此游戏开发公司不得不花费大量金钱在Facebook网站上刊登广告。

而Facebook Credits的引进同样引起了各大游戏开发公司的不满，这不得不令人质疑Facebook这位首席执行官是否真的认可游戏公司为社交网站做出的贡献。也因此Hi5等社交网站为吸引游戏开发公司将不限制病毒式传播渠道。

然而，最后Zuckerberg表示各大应用开发商还是愿意和Facebook签订协议，这主要是因为Facebook也的确能为各开发商们带去大量的商机。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said he fully appreciates the value of games to the growth of Facebook.

Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Zuckerberg said that games took off on Facebook and generated a lot of early buzz for the social network. Titles such as FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and Zynga Poker are a big part of why Facebook has more than 500 million users, 50 percent of whom log in every day. Games are still vital to the social network, since seven of the top 10 application companies (by number of users) are game companies, according to market analyst firm AppData. More than 200 million users play games on Facebook each month.

The reason that Facebook needs the game companies is that it doesn’t build its own content and relies on the app makers to create the software that users want. Reacting to something venture capitalist Fred Wilson said on the preceding panel, Zuckerberg said that Zynga wasn’t the only successful application company built on top of Facebook’s platform. He also pointed to other big social game companies such as CrowdStar, Playfish (bought by Electronic Arts), and Playdom (bought by Disney).

“Those are four really good game companies that are built almost entirely on Facebook,” Zuckerberg said, talking to conference co-host John Battelle. “They have made a structural disruption to the game industry. If you look at a lot of platforms, games are usually the first big vertical market. That’s true for the iPhone. Even if you go back to the early PC, some of the first things that got people excited were games.”

Zuckerberg said the revenues from game companies have been important to Facebook, which makes money from advertisements that the game companies place on the social network. Facebook also more recently started generating revenue from Facebook Credits, a virtual currency used in games. In game transactions using Facebook Credits, Facebook gets a 30 percent cut.

While Zuckerberg appreciates the game companies, he hasn’t favored them over other user interests. In the spring, Facebook cut back on the ability of games to send communications to users, mainly because non-gamers who saw the messages viewed them as spam. Game companies saw their users fall dramatically, since they lost a lot of virality. They had to advertise more heavily and that shifted more profits from the games into Facebook’s pockets.

The introduction of Facebook Credits generated similar grumbles. That made social game company executives wonder if Facebook’s chief executive truly appreciated what they had done for the social network.

That prompted other social networks such as Hi5 to target game developers, saying their apps were welcome on its social network.（Source：VentureBeat）