CrowdStar是Facebook平台上最具影响力的社交游戏开发商之一，旗下游戏的月活跃用户总数高达4100万。该公司目前致力于在Facebook上开发基于Flash的社交游戏，《Happy Aquarium》和《It Girl》是其最中受欢迎的产品。

不少CrowdStar的开发人员原先是掌机游戏开发者，转移阵地后不得不适应一系列新的开发规则，例如游戏开发周期从一两年削减到了短短一个月。该公司表示，快速开发游戏可以避免浪费宝贵的资源。

据游戏邦了解，除了其他影响社交游戏开发的因素之外，Facebook平台相关政策的变化无常，也是CrowdStar面临的挑战之一，因为Facebook的新规则有可能改变游戏运营或者获取新用户的方式。

日前，CrowdStar的三名游戏开发者Adam Lipsky、Jonathan Cook和Jeff Tseng在媒体采访中谈到了该公司如何在多变的Facebook平台中运营，以及开发商们为何仍然很重视游戏中的社交机制。

进入社交游戏领域的转型过程

在开发社交游戏之前，你们中有些人曾开发过传统游戏。能谈一谈这两种工作之间的差别吗？

Adam Lipsky：差别很大，这是两个不同的行业，这两个行业中的工程师的工作内容也大不相同。我认为最大的差别在于时间、开发周期、投资额度以及人员数量等方面，总之差别非常之大，所以我们确实需要费一些功夫来适应这种变化。

在开发传统游戏时，你一整个月的任务可能仅仅是完善一项游戏功能，而在这里，一个月几乎是一款游戏从头到尾的完整开发周期，你甚至有可能在一个月内完成一个项目，然后又把它废除了。当然，这种开发周期主要是由产品本身的特点决定的。

如果是在传统游戏领域，你一天的日常工作有可能是这样的，“我来这里就是为了让这项游戏功能生效，有可能要花几个星期才能完成任务。”而不会想到这种情况，“我今天来就是要做一项影响数百万人的重大改变。”

从创意酝酿到发布产品，再到收集用户反馈，这个环节是相当紧凑的。因此，我认为这种体验就是社交游戏领域最大的魅力之一，你每天的工作体验就能体现出这两个行业最大的区别。

我倒是认为，这两个领域的不同，主要体现在工作内容上，比如说编程、渲染效果等方面的差异决定了这两者的区别，对吗？

Adam Lipsky：不全是这样的。在渲染之前总要先做一番研究，在这两个领域，你使用的是完全不同的工具来执行这种操作。比如说，掌机游戏的渲染效果的颗粒感很强，所以你就得对它进行更多的微调，Flash在这一点上的要求就没有这么高。但也并不总是这样，即使是开发Flash游戏，你也还是得时时盯紧Flash的渲染效果。

不过，你在这两个领域的工作内容也确实大为不同，比如你需要具备的硬件知识就完全不一样。如果你对硬件了解不充分，那么在开发掌机游戏时就可能陷入巨大的麻烦。但在Flash游戏方面，即便你完全不懂硬件知识也无关紧要，因为你不必做那方面的决策，Flash播放器在植入不同的浏览器和平台时已经替你打点好了这一切。

所以，你只需要集中精力开发游戏，这也是开发商所希望的结果。他们希望可以把重心放在产品上，而不必担心硬件与产品的兼容性问题。这也正是开发社交游戏的明显优势。

Flash技术是你们的首选吗？

Adam Lipsky：目前是这样的，我们过去和现在的几乎所有的游戏都是用Flash技术创建的。我们最初是用PHP技术做更多基于文本的东西，比如类似于《Mob Wars》或《Mafia Wars》这种题材的游戏。我记得我们的第一个项目是基于文本的角色扮演游戏《World War II》。

后来我们很快就向Flash游戏转型，大约在两年前意识到了Flash的重要性，并开发了多款这类游戏。事实上，我是到了这里才掌握了Flash技术，在此之前我并没有想到自己会学习Flash。从那时候起，Flash技术凸显优势，它的足迹几乎遍及各个平台。

虽然Flash已经成为Facebook游戏的技术标准，但用户结构也比以往更为复杂，他们有可能转向Unity、HTML5等技术开发的游戏。对你们的开发平台起支配作用的因素是什么？用户？游戏设计？或者仅仅是技术的发展？

Jonathan Cook：我认为以上都是，这三者都是非常重要的因素。当然，用户的影响作用最大，因为没有用户的游戏是没有生命力的。有些人虽然一直在制作游戏，但从未领悟到这一点，所以他们失败了。这就是这个行业的规则。

虽然Flash现在有广泛的群体基础，但如果用户更乐意为Unity技术开发的游戏花钱，或者这一行的技术快速发展，以致所有的浏览器都能兼容HTML5，那么HTML5就会变得更有竞争力。我认为这是我们应该考虑的事情。

我认为所有人都想知道自己追求的价值是什么，所以会把为更多人创造最好的产品当作终极目标，不知你们对此有何看法。

Jonathan Cook：已经有很多人向我打听关于HTML5的具体情况了，但HTML这种技术其实很容易泄露游戏代码。比如说，我们用HTML5开发了一款很复杂的游戏，但每次下载时它都会显示代码，这样其他人就能轻而易举地窃取这些代码。这是我们今后必须警惕的事情，我们在一定程度上可以保护自己的知识产权，但却很难保护创意。

迅速创建，果断抛弃的开发过程

之前你们曾经提到，你们有可能在一个月内开发了一款游戏，然后又立即将它作废，我的看法是，掌机游戏项目同样也有可能被否决，但如果已经投入了一定成本，所以开发者仍然会将项目进行到底，对吗？

Adam Lipsky：（笑）对，是这样的。

由于开发周期过长，因此没有人能在一个月内判断出一个掌机游戏项目是否可以有效运营，因为它还只是处于试验阶段。那么，社交游戏这种新的开发周期，对你们产生了什么影响，是不是可以让你们更快速地做出叫停项目或者继续开发的决定？

Adam Lipsky：它让我们总体上加快了学习进程。我们可以零成本地快速测试一款产品，这比自己闭门造车地瞎摸、猜测更有效率。我认为，无论对开发商还是游戏开发爱好者来说，成本都是必须重点考虑的限制性因素。我必须在有限的时间内完成某件事，至于开发出来的游戏是不是一定好玩，那我就真的不知道了。

如果你不能快速创建游戏的原型，或者你必须花上三个月的时间研究一款Xbox Live游戏的实际运行效果，这对没多少时间的开发者来说就是一件很令人泄气的事情。所以，我认为社交游戏领域所提供的开发环境非常理想，很适合试验、探索和学习。

尽管如此，我们也仍然想尽量缩短这个开发周期。即便是一个月时间，对我们团队来说也仅仅是很短暂的瞬间，因为每个人的任务都排进了这个时间表。所以在现实生活中，一个月对于掌机游戏开发来说是十分短暂的。但这都是相对的，我们可以在一个星期内就完成他们一个月的工作任务。如果我们可以在一个星期内创建好游戏原型，那么我们的效率还会更高。

Jonathan Cook：是的，完全同意。我认为是最关键的是，虽然我们在这个阶段并不清楚游戏能不能打入市场，但至少已经可以创建一个可玩的游戏原型。

然后我们就可以开始讨论这款游戏究竟是否值得大家继续投入成本和精力，而且也可以得出结论，“这个主题看起来还不错，但如果付诸实践，就会发现它的游戏设置存在一些问题，而且也不是很好玩”，然后把这个项目否决了。尽管你认为自己一个月来花费的时间和精力很不少，但总比在一个失败的游戏上浪费两年时间要好得多。

你们的意思是不是说，叫停不理想的游戏项目和开发成功的游戏一样重要？

Adam Lipsky：终止失败的游戏项目其实更重要。开发一款成功的游戏会受到许多无形因素的影响。乐趣是一个相当难以计划的东西，娱乐性只有有效或无效之分。它很难捉摸，也没有公式可以参考。所以到最后会导致你真的

只想尽快达成目标。如果你在错误的方向上浪费了资源，那么你最好尽早意识到这一点。我发现许多掌机游戏拥有相当华丽的设计和了不起的创意，但却不是那么有趣，原因就在于它们的部分功能并不可行。

只有当主要的缺陷集中到一起时，人们才会发现这款产品漏洞百出，但等你发现时已经太迟了，只能无可奈何地让它成为一个败笔。这甚至也可能成为一家公司停业的诱因。因此对任何游戏来说，一年以上的开发周期意味着巨大的风险，更不用说某些开发周期长达五年的游戏了。

对我们公司或者其他任何想开发好游戏的人来说，可以取消不理想的游戏是一个巨大的优势，因为它可以创造重新开始的机会。

另外我认为，造成这种现象的原因是，游戏领域是一个只能成功不能失败的行业。如果这款游戏注定不会有市场，那么你越早点意识到这一点，损失就越少；如果你采用的是小规模的开发团队，那么你完全可以把在一个游戏上失败了的团队，打造成开发另一款成功游戏的团队。重翻旧账只会浪费时间和精力。

如何在多变的平台上获得成功

因为Facebook上的游戏已经非常泛滥，而且这些游戏的设计已经越来越成熟和高端，只有轰动市场的游戏才可能从中脱颖而出，所以你们是否认为这一行业将患上了“成功饥渴症”？

Jonathan Cook：不，我想说成功游戏的定义已经变了。在我看来，成功的大作原来指的是那些拥有高达数百万日活跃用户的大型游戏，但这一行现在的情况已经发生了改变。

你可以让游戏吸引更多用户，或者将目标锁定细分市场，虏获那些确实爱玩这款游戏，并认为游戏能与他们产生共鸣的特定玩家。我认为这就是成功游戏定义的变化。什么才叫成功的大作？有人可能认为拥有最多玩家的游戏是成功的，也有人认为吸引忠实粉丝的游戏才是经典之作，总之不同人有不同的看法。

没错，这个市场上不可能出现太多的《FarmVille》这种成功之作，所以你们比较希望自己的游戏可以抓住更多忠实用户的心，获得更多这种粉丝，对吗？

当然。部分原因是我们的游戏会受到Facebook政策变化的影响。对任何一家社交游戏公司来说，游戏运行平台的变化都会直接影响游戏运营计划。

Facebook的这种政策调整已经不是一次两次了。

Adam Lipsky：是的。

iPhone平台也有这种情况，一些掌机平台最近也有一些变化。Xbox 360自发布以来就在不断变化，但它的变化和Facebook不同，它是渐进式的变化和发展。但社交游戏开发商遇到的多为根本性的变化。

Adam Lipsky：没错。360平台从来不会发生触及根基的变化，不会突然让开发商措手不及，难以适应。他们一直是采取循序渐进的变化方式，在原来的基础上增加新功能，不过我也不是很确实，我只是凭感觉猜测而已。

但Facebook的变化就像是一场大手术，因为社交游戏几乎只能和这个平台绑定在一起，也只有在这个平台上你才能让游戏顺利运营。

在社交游戏早期的发展过程中，似乎许多游戏都更重视滥发信息，海投广告等病毒式传播手段，这种做法的成效喜忧参半，但现在的社交游戏开发商更重视传达“分享”这一理念。

Adam Lipsky：确实啊。（笑）

作为一个开发者，这种变化是否影响了你们对游戏的看法，或者改变了你们与用户沟通或互动的方式？

Adam Lipsky：我个人认为，游戏本身的趣味性要才是最重要的。我知道这个领域有不少公司总想用最少的产品，吸引最多的用户，他们只要瞅准了发财的机会，就会一涌而上，有些人确实存在这种心理。

不过我并不认为这会改变我的立场。即使是以前开发掌机游戏的时候，我也总是尽量让游戏更有趣味性，我很乐衷于开发人见人爱，大家都喜欢玩的产品。把这些产品传递给更多用户对我来说很重要，但我并不认为通过Facebook病毒式传播渠道获取更多用户，会改变我对游戏本身魅力的看法。

Jeffrey Tseng:没错。社交游戏领域确实发生了不少重大的变化，但我们都清楚，这一切都在Facebook的计划之中。更良好的用户体验，既是他们的追求目标，也是我们的奋斗宗旨。所以Facebook的政策调整，有利于净化病毒式传播环境，让社交游戏各凭本事，实现真正可靠的社交传播。

从长远来看，这种变化其实对我们其实是更有利的，因为它意味着我们不需要掏空心思借用其他招术来招揽用户，整个行业也不会再以投机手段虏获玩家，大家都得有过硬的产品质量才能争取到用户。

关于社交游戏的污名化问题

传统游戏开发者与社交游戏开发者之间的关系似乎很紧张，前者似乎有点排斥社交游戏。但现在社交游戏已经不再那么依赖病毒式传播渠道了，所以我想大家对社交游戏的偏见应该会有所改观。

Jeffrey Tseng:是的，如果社交游戏真的很可耻，这应该不只是游戏行业的看法，社会大众可能也存有这种想法，但这种观点是不是有点极端了？

在玩社交游戏的过程中，当系统弹出一些提示信息时，你有可能很喜欢，也有可能反感这些内容。所以Facebook最近调整病毒式传播渠道的政策，有利于消除人们对社交游戏的负面看法，甚至带来更多愿意尝试体验游戏的用户。

你们之前有提到，许多掌机游戏的设置比较高级和复杂，需要用户对该游戏有一些基本的了解才能顺利操作其中的功能，但如果要争取那些不愿意花时间尝试游戏的用户，这种游戏机制的设置就非常不妙了。

Jeffrey Tseng：是的。而且这是一种漫长的学习过程，对掌机游戏行业来说更是如此。了解开发过程和用户情况是两码事，但我们认为自己在这一点上已经做得很好了。其实我也不知道。（笑）

Adam Lipsky：我认为，这是个不断学习的过程。对我们来说，开发掌机游戏其实是一种大有裨益的经历。假如一家大型掌机游戏公司想转战社交游戏领域，那么他们有可能汲取这个市场上其他游戏的开发经验，但却没法理解这类游戏某些设置的原因所在，他们不一定会认识到用户对游戏的设计也产生了重要影响。

即使已经有一些铁杆玩家对某款社交游戏的机制有所了解，但这款游戏还是会不断涌现许多新玩家。我认为游戏用户永远也不可能达到饱和的状态，所以还是得时时惦记着让新用户了解游戏机制。因为有许多新用户才刚开始接触游戏，所以你得一直与这类用户打交道。

对CrowdStar来说，我们一直都很清楚游戏中会存在新手级玩家和骨灰级玩家这两种用户类型，我们的一大优势就在于可以两头兼顾，综合考虑这两类用户的需求。

Jonathan Cook：没错，这是游戏从设计之初就必须考虑到的事情。当然，我们的新游戏也会吸引一些CrowdStar原有游戏的用户，在这种情况下，我们就会告诉他们，按照你玩A游戏的方法来体验B游戏就成。

因为Facebook平台仍在不断发展，所以我们还会争取更多不知交游戏为何物的新用户。在这种情况下，我们设计游戏时就不能想当然，而应该充分考虑新老用户的不同需求，掌握用户对游戏的了解情况。

你们曾经说过，这种游戏非常社交化，但我却认为社交游戏并不是那么具有社交性。这些游戏中虽然有一些社交属性，但并不能促进十分有意义的社交互动。首先，这些社交功能真的是用户所需要的吗？其次，这些功能真的充分利用了社交平台的核心优势了吗？

Jeffrey Tseng：我只能说，这就是这个行业目前的发展状态，但这并不一定是社交游戏的未来走向。你可以回头看看两年前的游戏，一年前的游戏，还有现在的游戏，把它们作一番对比，就会知道社交游戏的进步已经很明显了。

Facebook仍然是一个全新的平台，所有人都在学习适应和利用这个平台的功能。即使是在掌机游戏领域，开发商也仍在学着适应该平台的运营方式。我们不久就会看到大家都在尝试推出没有人想到的产品，或者认为自己可以创造的产品，我认为这就是社交游戏目前的发展情况。

社交游戏是一个新兴产业，大家都将目光转向了这个领域。现在你看到的是，许多游戏使用的都是之前其他游戏已经使用过的设置机制，只是在其中添加了社交功能而已。但你没有发现的是，这种突破性的变化其实是建立在社交机制上的。所以，尽管我们都知道这一行正在向前发展，但最终结果只有以后才会看得到。

我想用户对社交游戏的了解正日益加深，所以我们所需要做的就是，让用户尽早接受这些新事物。

最近我和另一个记者在Twitter上交流的时候，告诉她，“我认为社交游戏并不具有社交性”，她的回答是，“我不希望这些游戏更有社交性，因为这样只会增加用户的社交责任”，这种观点真是让人印象深刻。

Jeffrey Tseng：用户希望社交游戏在生活中发挥什么作用呢？你认为大众会怎么回答这个问题？我们的用户覆盖范围很广，上至高龄祖母，下至稚齿儿童，各种年龄段的玩家都有。对大多数人来说，社交游戏还只是一个新概念。

我们所知道的就是，有时候你很难向用户解释一些新概念。有些用户刚刚接触社交网站，他们不知道社交网站的运作方式，不了解社交网站对他们生活的影响。年轻的用户适应性更强，他们很会就会接受新事物，但你又该通过什么方式让这些用户理解游戏中的社交机制，以及它们的运行方式呢？（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Interview: CrowdStar Devs On Facebook Policy Changes, Social Game Stigmas

Major independent Facebook developer CrowdStar stands among the largest companies in the social games space, with 41 million monthly active users across all of its titles.

The company currently specializes in Flash-based games for Facebook, with Happy Aquarium and It Girl among its most popular releases.

A number of the company’s developers originally moved over from the console space, and have since been forced to adapt to a range of new development habits, as game cycles were slashed from one to two years to just about a month.

By making games quicker, the company says it can more easily prototype concepts and avoid wasting precious development resources.

Among the other unique elements of social game development, CrowdStar also faces a constantly shifting platform, as new Facebook policies can instantly change the way games operate or reach new users.

Gamasutra spoke with CrowdStar’s Adam Lipsky, Jonathan Cook, and Jeff Tseng to discuss the rapid speed of social game development, how the company manages its titles amidst volatile platform changes, and why developers are still “wrapping their heads around social mechanics.”

The Transition To Social Games

Some of you were working on console games before you got into social game development. Can you talk a bit about the differences between working in each part of the industry?

Adam Lipsky: They’re pretty large. There are differences in terms of the industry, and there are differences in terms of working in that industry as an engineer. I think one of the biggest things that people point to is time, development cycles, the amount of investment and people involved. I think all those are really huge. I find that it takes a little bit of getting used to.

In console development, your task for a month is to finish that feature, and out here, a month is almost a product lifecycle from start to finish. You might even complete an entire project and then scrap it in a month. It could happen that quickly, depending on the product of course.

It’s interesting to have your day in a console world be more like, “I came in and I helped make this feature happen. That’s going to be done in a few weeks,” rather than, “I came in today, and I made an impact that affected millions of people today.”

You know, from conception of the idea all the way down to the release and the feedback that you get from your users. That loop is much tighter in social gaming. So, I think that experience, working within this industry is one of the biggest draws, I think, the biggest different in your day-to-day experience.

I would assume that the differences could be different depending on exactly what you’re doing on the console side. I mean, a lot of the programming isn’t exactly that similar anyway because, rendering and things like that are very different, right?

AL: Not totally. I mean, there’s always some investigation to be done in terms of rendering. You’re working with a totally different tool base. The rendering on the console side is a lot more granular. You have a lot more fine-tuned control than you do in Flash, for example. But I don’t think that’s going to stay the same forever. And you do have to pay attention to how Flash does its rendering if you’re going to do your job effectively.

But yes, the types of tasks you get are very different across the board. The amount of knowledge that you need to know of hardware is different, for example. On console, if you don’t know your hardware very well, you can get into big trouble, but with Flash, you assume that you don’t know the hardware at all and you don’t really need to make those decisions. Flash and Adobe has made them for you when they make their Flash player work on different browsers and different platforms.

So, really you end up focusing a lot more on the game, which is what people want. That’s what the developer wants. They want to be able to focus on their product and not worry so much about, you know, the conduit between product and hardware. So, that’s an advantage definitely.

Do you guys primarily stick to Flash?

AL: Right now, yes. Almost all of our games in the present and in the past have been Flash. Originally, we were working in PHP, doing more text-based stuff. You know, the standard Mob Wars, Mafia Wars-type thing back when I first joined. I believe our first project was World War II, which is, you know, a text-based RPG style game.

We moved to Flash pretty quickly after that. We realized about two years ago that Flash was the thing to do, and we worked on a number of Flash titles. I actually learned Flash here, and I didn’t know I was going to learn Flash until that time in the job. And since then, Flash has done very well, and it’s available everywhere. It works.

Although Flash has become the de facto standard of Facebook games, audiences are getting more sophisticated and there are opportunities to move into things like Unity, HTML 5, among others. What’s going to dictate the platforms that you work with? Is it audience? Is it the game design? Is it just the way tech moves?

Jonathan Cook: I think it’s actually all of the above. I mean, every one of those is very important no matter what. Audience is huge, of course, but without an audience, a game doesn’t have a life really. People make games all the time that never see the light of day, and because of that, they die. That’s just the state of the industry.

Flash has a huge audience at this point, and it’s very hard to turn your back on something like that. But of course if the audience decides that they’re willing to invest in something like a plug-in for Unity, or if industry tech moves forward with all the browser compatibilities supporting HTML5, then the capabilities become greater. You know, that’s something we have to look at.

I think everyone’s going to be wanting to make sure that’s where they are. Being able to make the best product as possible for as many people as possible is the end goal. I don’t know how you feel about that.

JC: I’ve had a lot of people ask me about HTML5 specifically, and one of the things that’s actually a challenge is you’re pretty much giving away your code in HTML.

Like, let’s say we build one of our complex games in HTML5, every single time you’re downloading it, it’s the code, so anybody else can easily steal it. And that’s one of those things we have to be aware of looking forward. We can protect our IP to some degree, but like it’s really easy to steal ideas.

Rapid Production, Sudden Cancellation

You were talking earlier about games getting developed and scrapped in a month. I mean, games get cancelled all the time on the console side, sure, but once there’s a certain cost, it’s going to make it, right?

AL: [laughs] Yeah. That’s true.

And since the cycles are so long, it’s not like someone can figure out within a month whether a console game is working. That’s still preproduction. So, what’s the impact of that new timeframe for you guys, on your ability to say yes or no?

AL: It allows us to learn much faster than in general. It’s so much better than taking guesses, stabs in the dark, to be able to test and prove out a product very quickly with no cost. I mean, cost is really the limiting factor for a company or even for a hobbyist. I have a limited amount of time to work on something. Is it going to be fun? I don’t really know.

If you can’t prototype it that quickly, if you have to work on an Xbox Live title that you’re doing at home, and it takes you three months to find out if it’s going to work, then that’s really daunting to some people who don’t have that much time. I think that this kind of environment is pretty much ideal for experimenting, for exploring, for learning.

We’re trying to make that time cycle even better than it is, obviously. Even one month in our space is such a short amount of time because everybody is on that time scale. So, in terms of the real world, one month, believe it or not, is very small for console development. It’s all relative. For us, we can do that in like a week. If we can have a prototype ready for you in a week and done, then we would be even better off.

JC: Yeah. I mean, I definitely agree. The thing that’s nice about having that kill switch, which I think is the critical important thing, is being able to basically say, “We’re in this phase where

we don’t know if this is going to go to market, but we can get a playable version in front of a bunch of eyes.”

So then we can have this discussion and say, “Is this something we want to invest more time in and more money in to go with that?” And we have the ability to say, “It seemed like a good idea on paper, but once we actually started building it, we realized there were some problems with these game mechanics and they aren’t that fun,” so we just shut it down. And you look at what you actually spent in a month, it’s still a lot, but it’s better than spending two years for a busted game.

Would you say it’s as important to be able to shut down games that aren’t working games as it is to make games that are successful?

AL: Almost more important. I mean, the ability to make a successful game has so many intangible factors to it. Fun is a very hard thing to plan, you know. Fun is one of those things that just happens. For entertainment in general, it just works or it doesn’t.

It’s really difficult to capture that and write a formula for it. And so in the end, you really want to get to that point as soon as possible. If you are spending resources in time in the wrong direction, you need to know as soon as possible. I find that a lot of console games have come out with great brilliant designs, really awesome ideas, but just aren’t that fun; some part of the execution didn’t work.

There was just some major flaw that people couldn’t really see until it came together, but by then, it’s too late and you have to send it out there, and it becomes a failure. That can be the end of a company right there. So, there’s just a huge amount of risk when it comes to a one-year-plus development cycle for anything, much less five years for some games.

For us to be able to cancel games that don’t work is a huge asset for us as a company and really just for anyone who wants to make good games. It gives you a chance to jump back into the right direction.

I think part of it is that this is a hits-focused business. If it’s not a hit, then you need to know that, and the sooner you can figure that out, the better. If you think about small team size — we’re not dealing with the large console game team sizes — you could take that same team on a game that’s failing and get them on another game that’s doing well; that’s got a higher turnover. And to have people kicking a dead horse is just a waste of time and effort.

Finding Success On An Evolving Platform

Do you think that the space is becoming more hit-requisite because Facebook just floods with more games, and the games are getting more elaborate and complex?

JC: No, I would say the definition of a hit is actually what’s changed. Look at the old definition of a hit. In my opinion, it would be one of those massive games that have like tens of millions of people a day playing. I think one of the things is that the space has shifted now.

It’s like you can have kind of wide appeal, or you can go more for the people that are really going to love the game because it’s a game that speaks more to them. And I think that’s the shift. What is a hit? Well, do we see a hit as a game with lots of people playing it, or do we see a hit as a game that people love to play and that they will play forever?

Yeah. You know, there’s the theory there can’t be too many FarmVilles, you know, hits so huge and so broad. So, you see games going for more dedicated audiences, and hopefully there will be a lot of those, right?

JC: Absolutely. Part of it is we are not isolated from changes Facebook makes, obviously. For any platform that a social gaming company builds on, they are kind of tied into that directly, so any shifts that that platform makes will affect their plans.

And we’ve definitely seen that with Facebook more than once.

AL: Yes.

That’s what’s happening on the iPhone, too. And sure, some of the recent consoles have changed somewhat. The Xbox 360 has changed since its release, but it hasn’t changed in the same way. It’s more evolutionary. You guys have to deal with more of the ground shifting.

AL: Right. The 360 changes have never been so fundamental that you could never adapt whatever project you were working on to them. They will probably add things on, but I don’t know for sure; I’m speculating of course.

But Facebook’s changes are more fundamental because the games are presented in a way that is very much tied into that platform. And on that platform itself, you know how to get things.

Earlier in the social games space, it seemed as if a lot of games were focusing on the whole virality thing, by spamming messages and the like. It was more stick and less carrot in the past. Now the idea is you want to get people to be genuinely interested in sharing.

AL: Yes. [laughs]

As a developer, does that change your mentality towards games or the way you communicate with users or the way your users interact?

AL: I can only speak personally, but I’ve always been about making sure the game is fun first. I know there have been a lot of cases where people will try to make the bare minimum product and just get as many people as possible. When the opportunity is there, people will take advantage of it. When there’s money involved especially, you do what you can to make money. Some people have that mentality.

I don’t think that’s changed my perspective at all. Even in my console game days, it’s always been about making a really fun experience. I’m very passionate about making a product that people want to play. Having the ability to spread it to a lot more people has been a huge thing for me, but I don’t think that Facebook’s stance using a viral channel to get more people in has really changed my perspective on gaming at all.

Jeffrey Tseng: Yeah. There was that fundamental shift, but as we understand it, that’s what Facebook intended. What they’re looking for and what we’re looking for, too, is just a better player experience. What this does is it helps clear out the tricky virality and places the dependence more on true social virality based on the quality of the games.

In the long run, we think this is definitely better for us because it means that we are not given incentive to trick the players, and the rest of this industry is not given incentive to trick the players, and the playing field is based on product quality.

Social Stigmas

It almost seems as if there has been this tension between the traditional game developers and social developers — sort of a stigma against social games, perhaps. But with less of an opportunity to rely on viral tactics, I think that negative feeling sort of filters out.

JT: Yeah. If there is and was a stigma, it’s hard to quantify, not just within the gaming community but within the general public; it seems to be very polarized, right?

You know, when the feeds were up, you really appreciated them or you really hated them, from what I understand. So, the recent Facebook changes should help to eliminate the negative stigma about these games, and maybe that will attract more people, too.

Going back to what you were talking about a little earlier, a lot of console games have gone way overboard when it comes to relying on the audience having some sort of built-in knowledge, and that is going to be real detrimental when you’re going for a crowd that’s less willing to spend time dealing with that kind of stuff.

JT: Yeah. And that’s been a big learning experience, especially for the people in the console industry. To really understand that mindset and that audience is completely different. But I think we’ve done really well. I don’t know. [laughs]

AL: I think that, yeah, it is a lesson that has been learned several times. It’s actually a huge benefit for us to have come in at the time that we did because we were experiencing that education first hand. If a large console gaming company, for example, decided to jump into social games, they would take some examples and learn from the games out there, but they wouldn’t necessarily understand the reasons behind a lot of the decisions that are made at this point. They wouldn’t necessarily know that the users are at a certain point.

Or even if the core of the social gaming audience does get more educated, there’s going to be still more people coming in. I don’t think that the audience has grown anywhere near its capacity. So, that education is still ongoing. And with the same number of people starting from scratch, you’re going to have to deal with that audience for quite a long time.

For CrowdStar, we just have to remember that there’s this beginning audience, and also this growing sentiment that’s getting more sophisticated –being able to handle both audiences from the get go is a huge advantage for us.

JC: Yeah, it’s something you kind of have to build from the beginning mentally. Sure, we’re going to get a lot of users from our existing games. We told them these ways to play certain games based on the other things.

And as Facebook itself is still growing, we’re going to get those brand new people who are like, “What is a social game? What is this thing?” And so keeping that mindset and not assuming anything regarding the state of our users’ knowledge is a real strength.

You said earlier that games are often very, very social, I think that actually social games have not been very, very social a lot of the time. There are some social elements in the games, but not very much meaningful social interaction. First of all, is that what the audience is demanding? And second, is that what the platform is actually good at?

JT: I would say that’s where the industry is right now, but it’s not where the industry necessarily is going to be. I think what you’re seeing is what we’re talking about, look at the games two years ago, look at the games a year ago, look at the games now. There is tremendous progress.

It’s still a very, very new platform. Everybody is still learning how you can do things on the platform. You can see this with the release of any console system or anything like that, where developers are still trying to get a handle on what you can do with the platform. You’ll see something come out that everybody apes later on that no one thought of or thought you could do. So, I think that’s where it is with social games.

Social gaming is such a new mechanic that everybody is still wrapping their heads around it. So, what you’re seeing right now is a lot of games that use game mechanics that are somewhat well proven and then they try to integrate social. But what you haven’t seen is these huge break-outs based on social mechanics. So, we have some idea on what those are going to be and where those are going to go, but, you know, we’ll see where it goes.

And there is also the point of whether the audience is ready for it. Because the other side is there’s an audience education that’s happening, and so we need to make sure that the audience is ready for these things, too.

I had a kind of interesting conversation recently with another journalist on Twitter. I said, you know, “Social games aren’t very social”. And she said, “I don’t want them to be more social because that will make them more of a responsibility,” essentially. It kind of blew my mind, you know.

JT: Well, how much of a person’s life do they want the game to be? And so, how do you think the mass market would answer to that? Our audience is broad. It’s like, you know, the grandma to your kids. And social games are a new idea to people.

If there’s one thing that we know, it’s that when you’re trying to present these new ideas to people, it’s sometimes difficult for them to get it. And there are people who have just been introduced to social networks and how they work and how they impact their lives. The younger audience may adapt quicker, but how are you going to teach these people the new social mechanics in games and how they work? （source:gamasutra）