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融入地理定位的社交游戏能成为开发者全新的模式吗?

发布时间:2011-02-10 17:06:16 Tags:,,,

随着2010年手机社交游戏的持续发展,提供移动定位服务的应用程序数量也在不断增长。但2011年会成为地理定位社交游戏在美国起飞的一年吗?智能手机的用户群体正在不断壮大,这是将地理定位融入社交游戏、为用户提供独一无二的体验,以及为开发商创造全新商业模式的绝佳机会。

为了给美国开发商提供灵感并让大家一睹移动定位服务给社交游戏带来的发展潜力,木瓜移动的首席执行官沈思在本文针对地位定位服务在亚洲(尤其是在地理定位游戏已经流行了数年的日本)社交游戏中的重要性这一问题,与我们分享她的独到见解。

foursquare

foursquare

日本最大的社交游戏平台、DeNA旗下的Mobagetown于2006年初发布,中国腾讯公司在2006年末也启动了其带有游戏平台的移动QQ。虽然已有部分美国开发商开始将地理定位元素整合到了手机社交游戏中,但显然亚洲市场的地理定位手机社交游戏的历史更为悠久。

自2005年起,日本市场便开始尝试提供定位服务的手机社交游戏。由COLOPL公司在2005年5月发布的《殖民地生存要塞》(Colonial Living PLUS)是首批地理定位游戏之一,它是一款单机的地理定位社交游戏,玩家在游戏中可以建造并维护自己的城市。据游戏邦了解,到2010年中期,该游戏注册用户约100万,其中90%用户年龄在20岁以上。该游戏要求玩家频繁返回游戏,管理自己的城市。

地理定位服务为用户们提供了另一个空间,为他们提供了互动和新的娱乐休闲机会。由于大多数移动设备已绑定地理定位信息,因此目前所有社交游戏均可植入地理定位元素。例如,农场游戏可将虚拟农场与真实的地理位置结合,黑帮战争游戏可以将武器隐藏在与真实地点有关的虚拟地点,而宠物游戏中的“虚拟邻居”则可能与你在现实生活中接触的宠物有关。

地理定位元素能够融入任何社交游戏。谷歌是第一家分享地理定位信息的公司,另一家名为Beiduo的中国公司,拥有无数注册用户的百度也是分享定位信息的先锋。而我所在的木瓜移动则是首家发布定位服务SDK的公司,支持其他应用程序将定位信息与用户的社交图谱绑定。

越来越多不同种类的游戏开始侧重于地理定位服务,城市发展游戏最为典型。如《My Town》这款游戏,玩家可以根据他们的真实地理位置建造一个虚拟世界,也可以在游戏中轻松绑定虚拟货币体系。由于城市发展游戏与真实地理位置相关联的缘故,玩家很容易建立起对游戏的忠诚度,上文提及的日本游戏《殖民地生存要塞》(Colonial Living PLUS)就是一个很好的例子。

另一类是“接管地盘”游戏,例如Foursquare,该产品支持500万用户不断访问、攻占某个地点。这些游戏也可促进本地商业的发展。在这一领域,亚洲也有许多以此为导向的游戏,由日本公司Mapion开发的《Mobile Country Battle》便是其中典范。玩家使用“接管”指令攻取目标地区,并不断重复直至征服整个日本。通过攻克特定区域或回答测验,玩家可赚得积分。不过以注册用户的数量而言,《Mobile Country Battle》》仍是一个规模相对较小的游戏。

除此之外还有许多其他范例,诸如寻宝游戏、照片上传游戏甚至定位约会游戏等。有一个与GPS涂鸦有关的有趣例子,它可以通过涂鸦追踪用户的下落,并在他们的手机上创作一幅素描。几年前在日本,曾有一个致力于信号采集的趣味应用程序以游戏的形式问世,用户可以去不同的地点采集手机信号,并以此赚取经验值。尽管这个游戏现在已经和日本无关,但旧金山AT&T公司的一个类似游戏仍将考虑公司面对的连通性问题与客户投诉问题。

地理定位服务正在成为许多社交游戏的共同特征,但若要使其在社交平台中发挥效力,需要具备一定规模的用户数量才行。对于所有游戏开发商而言,通过社交网站共享用户的位置信息以及兴趣点都是大势所趋。通常第三方开发商可以通过访问提供定位服务的API来获取用户的相关地理资讯,并以此来完善游戏,使之更为人性化。由于许多第三方开发商参考的是同样的位置信息和用户资料数据库,所以定位服务因与社交图谱相联系而效果更为显著。例如,超过50%的《Papaya Farm》用户都在使用木瓜社交网络的定位功能,而与其他开发商共享木瓜网的数据库,则可让构建全面的兴趣点资料库这项工作简单得多。目前约有800万注册用户在木瓜上分享彼此的位置信息,共有12个木瓜移动的应用程序与150个第三方应用软件采用了木瓜移动的社交SDK。

更为重要的是,定位服务可将本土商业与游戏相结合,并通过这一途径为社交游戏带来一种全新的商业运营模式。对于基于虚拟城市的游戏而言,虚拟货币系统可以轻而易举地与游戏融为一体。而对于与虚拟货币无关的游戏来说,游戏与本土商家联合发行的优惠券,却能为提升用户体验指明一条光明发展道路。基于社交图谱的推荐系统,再加上相关定位信息,可以为用户提供参加本土商业活动的有关建议。

中国最大的本土企业名录大众点评网拥有逾千万的注册用户,它有一个与位置信息紧密结合的完美商业模式。当用户使用该网站的本地信息时,它将提供指定地点或商家的相关优惠券。它允许用户在当地商家签到,并成为该地的“国王”,“国王”将获得指定商家的优惠券或折扣价作为奖励。

那么这种现象对美国市场而言又意味着什么呢?亚洲已经在定位社交游戏这条道路上领先多年,这一地区正向全世界展示着地理定位社交游戏的美好前景。期待2011年可以看到更多Foursquare之类的游戏,更紧密地将移动定位服务与手机社交游戏绑定在一起。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

How Location-Based Services Changed Social Games in Asia

[Editor's note: PapayaMobile chief executive Si Shen shares her perspective on the importance of location for social gaming in Asia.]

As social gaming on mobile devices continues to grow throughout 2010, so will the number of applications offering location-based services. But will 2011 be the year that location-based social games take off in the U.S? With smartphone ownership continuing to expand, we’re presented with an opportunity to add location awareness into social games, adding unique experiences for users and creating new business models for developers.

To provide inspiration to U.S developers and to offer a glimpse of the possibilities that location-based services bring to social games, I’d like to share with you some unique insights into the Asian Market, particularly Japan, where location-based gaming has been popular for some years now.

The largest social gaming platform in Japan, Mobagetown of DeNA, was released in early 2006. China’s Tencent launched its mobile QQ with a gaming platform at the end of 2006. Although we see some U.S. developers starting to integrate location elements into mobile social games, the Asian market has a longer history of using location-based services in mobile social games.

The Japanese market has been experimenting with LBS mobile social games since 2005. One of the first location-based games, Colonial Living PLUS, was released in May 2005 by COLOPL. This game is a standalone LBS social game in which users build and maintain their cities. In mid-2010, it had about one million registered users, with 90 percent over the age of 20. The games are designed so that users have to go back in frequently to take care of their cities.

The location information adds another dimension around which users can interact and explore new opportunities for fun and entertainment. Since the location information is relevant to most mobile devices, all existing social games can be integrated with some location elements. For example, a farming game can connect virtual farms with real locations; a mafia wars game can hide the weapons in virtual locations that are associated with real locations; and the “virtual neighbors” in a pet game can be associated with pets that are close to you in the real world.

Location elements can be made as a ubiquitous API that can be integrated into any social game. Google is the first company to share location information as open APIs. A Chinese company, Beiduo, that has millions of registered users, is a pioneer in sharing location information and my company, PapayaMobile, is the first to release a LBS SDK that allows other applications to integrate location information associated with users’ social graphs.

There are more games – in various categories – on the way that are specific to LBS. The largest category is the city development games, like My Town, where users build a virtual world based on their real location. It can be easily integrated with a virtual currency system. Since the city development games are associated with real locations where users have an attachment, it is very easy to build loyalty to the game. The Japanese game Colonial Living PLUS is a good example.

The other large category is “take-over-an-area” games, such as Foursquare, in which the company’s 5 million users occupy or conquer a location by continuously visiting it. These games can be combined with promotions for local businesses. There are also other game-oriented happenings in this area in Asia. The “Mobile Country Battle” developed by Japanese company Mapion is a great example. Players use the “takeover” command to conquer the region, and repeat until they conquer all of Japan. By conquering a certain area or by answering a quiz, users earn points. However, the “Mobile Country Battle” is a relatively small game in terms of registered users.

There are other examples including scavenger hunt games, photo uploading games and even location-based dating games. One interesting example involves GPS graffiti and traces a user’s whereabouts to create a drawing on their mobile phones. Several years ago in Japan, an interesting application came via a game that focused on signal gathering – users would go to different locations and gather cell phone signals to earn experience points. Although this game is not relevant in Japan anymore, a similar game for AT&T in San Francisco would be beneficial considering the connectivity issues – and consumer complaints – that the company faces.

LBS is becoming a common feature for many social games, but in order for it to be effective on a social platform, it must achieve massive user numbers. Sharing user locations and points of interest via social networks is a trend for all game developers (LBS and otherwise). Usually third-party developers can call on LBS APIs to get users location-related information so that it can be used to enhance and personalize games. Because a lot of third-party developers use a unified database of location information and user profiles, the LBS information is more effective because it is connected to social graphs. For example, more than 50 percent of Papaya Farm users actually use the LBS check-in function of the Papaya SNS. Sharing the Papaya location database with the other developers makes it much easier to achieve a comprehensive point of interest database. There are currently eight million registered users on Papaya sharing their location information with each other, and this location based information is used by 12 Papaya applications and 150 third party applications that have integrated our Social SDK.

More importantly, LBS will bring a new business model to social games by combining local business and gaming. For virtual city based games, the virtual currency system can be easily integrated into the game. For games where virtual currency is not relevant, the combination of gaming and local business coupons can provide a great way to promote services to relevant users. The social-graph-based recommendation system, combined with location-relevant information, provides comprehensive suggestions to users for local businesses.

China’s largest local business directory, Dianping, with 10 million users, has a great business model combined with location information. When players use Dianping’s local information, it provides coupons that are relevant to their specific location and profile. It allows users to check in to specific local businesses and become the “king” of the location. The “king” is then rewarded with coupons or discounts at the specific local business.

So what does this all mean for the U.S. market? Asia is leading the way in location-based social gaming and is many years ahead already. The region is showing the world the kind of location-based social games we’re likely to experience in the near future. Expect 2011 to see the continued rise of “take-over-an-area” games such as Foursquare, a deeper integration of location-based services into mobile social games and a new wave of popular location based games that you haven’t even heard of yet.

Si Shen is the Co-Founder and chief executive of mobile social gaming network provider Papaya Mobile Inc.(source:insidesocialgames)


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