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社交游戏开发商CrowdStar CEO谈2011年发展愿景

发布时间:2011-02-21 11:16:38 Tags:,,,,,,

CrowdStar公司旗下游戏目前的月活跃用户超过了4500万人,成为仅次于Zynga的第二大Facebook社交游戏开发商(Zynga的月活跃用户为2.75亿人),对于一家融资仅10万美元,成员规模只及Zynga十分之一的公司来说,这种成就确实不容小觑。

近日,CrowdStar新任掌门人、YouWeb机构的主席彼得·瑞朗(Peter Relan)在媒体采访中介绍该公司在2011年的发展愿景。

据游戏邦了解,CrowdStar这家开发了《Happy Aquarium》、《It Girl》、《Happy Pets》和《Mighty Pirates》等热门社交游戏的公司,现在有50%的用户流量来自国际市场,瑞朗称海外市场是CrowdStar在今年的重要发展机遇。

crowdstar games

crowdstar games

除了关注国际市场之外,CrowdStar还打算通过进军手机游戏领域,赢得新的发展空间。但据瑞朗所称,CrowdStar并不赞成直接将游戏制作成投放智能手机、功能性手机的原始应用,“Facebook平台上的社交游戏与手机上的游戏互动体验是完全不同的概念。”

他认为,Facebook用户主要通过广告、系统信息等途径发现新游戏,而手机用户则需要下载应用才能体验游戏。这种操作方式让手机游戏应用更像是一个用户体验的终点站,所以也就对游戏质量提出了更高的要求,只有那些轰动市场、获得大量曝光率的游戏才有希望争取到新用户。

虽然瑞朗并不愿意透露关于公司发展计划的具体细节,但他还是指出,CrowdStar正打算开发极具市场潜力的手机游戏。他表示,这些游戏会考虑植入地理定位功能,因为地位定位功能已经成为手机互动的一种关键元素,他相信这项技术能与手机社交游戏无缝兼容。

除此之外,CrowdStar的手机游戏还会关注信息推送服务,并通过与Facebook不同的多种渠道进行创收。这些手机游戏的创收方式仍将以虚拟商品交易为主,但运营模式的设计会与Facebook游戏有所不同。

游戏邦获悉,Zynga的企业扩张策略主要通过收购美国和海外的一些游戏工作室,增加新游戏种类、移动技术和人才资源这种方式来实现,瑞朗表示CrowdStar也会计划有选择性地收购一些公司,扩大在Facebook社交游戏的业务范围,也会考虑通过融资来支持这种收购行为,但目前暂时不会收购手机游戏工作室,因为“手机游戏仍然只是一个新兴的行业”,这一领域还没有形成可靠的运营模式。

CrowdStar目前共有75名成员,其中多为游戏开发者和美工,瑞朗称公司今年的另一个关注重点就是扩大人员规模。虽然企业收购可以迅速实现这一目标,但他表示硅谷的人才争夺仍然十分激烈,CrowdStar比EA旗下的Playfish甚至是Zynga更凸出的优势就在于,他们的企业文化更独特,可以为员工提供更平等的发展机会、更广阔的上升空间。

与Zynga一样,CrowdStar也将Facebook视为核心的社交游戏运营平台,但Facebook最近对用户News Feed的功能设置进行了调整,限制了游戏更新等消息的传播,这一点无疑也对CrowdStar的游戏用户流量造成了消极影响。

不过瑞朗认为,该平台现在强制推行的Facebook Credits,对社交游戏开发商来说其实大有裨益。因为这种统一的支付渠道,有助于增加虚拟商品交易,可以为社交游戏用户提供无缝对接的消费体验。他表示,Facebook Credits有利于Facebook打造一个与iTunes类似的苹果运营平台。

Zynga最近传出正融资5亿美元,以便为2012年的首次公开募股作准备,所以CrowdStar要追赶上Zynga确实还有很长的一段路要走。除此之外,这一领域还存在EA旗下的Playfish、迪士尼旗下的Playdom等劲敌,CrowdStar在2011年的发展注定充满挑战,该公司通过大规模的融资有可能加快他们的收购步伐。

尽管如此,瑞朗还是认为,CrowdStar现在暂时处于弱势其实也有不少好处,他们已经有明确的发展计划,而社交游戏这一领域仍将充满大量机遇,“社交游戏正处于一个历史性发展阶段,它的三个基本核心领域就是手机平台、国际市场和Facebook。”(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

Peter Relan On How CrowdStar Plans To Take On Zynga, EA And Playdom In 2011

With 45 million monthly active users on Facebook, CrowdStar is now the second largest social gaming network behind Zynga (which has 275 million monthly active users). Second in line in the social gaming race isn’t bad for a startup that has received only $100,000 in funding and is one-tenth the size of Zynga in terms of employees. And with a new CEO at the helm and a fast growing set of popular games, CrowdStar is gearing up for a big 2011 to help the company grow in terms of users and games.

We sat down with Peter Relan, newly appointed CEO of CrowdStar to talk about how he plans to move the company forward in 2011. Relan is also the chairman of the incubator YouWeb (where CrowdStar first received funding), but stepped into the CEO role recently.

CrowdStar, which is best known for producing Facebook social games Happy Aquarium, It Girl, Happy Pets and Mighty Pirates, is currently seeing 50 percent of its traffic coming from international markets. Relan says that expanding globally is going to be a huge market opportunity for CrowdStar in the coming year.

One way CrowdStar is hoping to expand to additional markets is through mobile initiatives. But Relan says that it’s not as simple as just putting CrowdStar games in native apps for smartphones or feature phones. “Social gaming on Facebook is totally different than interacting with a game on a mobile phone,” says Relan.

He says that with Facebook, users tend to stumble upon games either through advertising or notifications whereas with mobile versions, users actually have to take the action to download the game.

This action, he explains, makes a mobile gaming app more of a destination and make the games more hit-driven as a whole.

While Relan couldn’t get into too many specifics around product features, he did shed light on how the startup is planning to create this potential mobile gaming hits. First, CrowdStar’s mobile games will take into account location. Geolocation is a key component of mobile interactions, says Relan, and he believes that this technology can seamlessly fit into social gaming.

CrowdStar’s mobile games also have a lot more focus on push notifications and will also monetize in a slightly different way from the Facebook economy. Relan says that monetization will still be around virtual goods, but the economic designs are different on mobile apps.

Zynga’s expansion strategy has centralized around acquisitions, adding new games, mobile technologies and talent by buying a number of game studios, both in the U.S. and internationally. Relan says that over the next year he plans to build up CrowdStar’s social games on Facebook with a few select acquisitions and would consider raising capital for these purchases. But he’s hesitant to buy game studios that are specializing in mobile technologies, explaining that ‘mobile is still young’, and no one has really figured out what will succeed in mobile gaming yet.

Another area where Relan will be focusing his efforts on is building talent. CrowdStar has around 75 employees, mostly made up of developers and artists, and plans to double its employees this

year. Acquisitions can help in this department, but Relan says that the competition for talent is a challenge in Silicon Valley. One advantage CrowdStar has over companies like EA’s Playfish or even Zynga, is more of a startup culture. We have more access, and can offer much more equity to employees, he says.

Similar to Zynga, Facebook is a central part of CrowdStar’s social gaming platform, as the network brings the social component to the actual games. Relan says that Facebook’s changes in the news feed, most notably eliminating game updates from the feed, definitely had a negative impact on traffic for CrowdStar’s games.

But he sees the potential for the ecosystem to be recharged with the now mandatory Facebook Credits, which the gaming platform has adopted. One way in which Credits could help increase virtual goods transactions, says Relan, is if the virtual currency became an entire ecosystem, and brought a more seamless experience to social gaming. Relan envisions Credits becoming a frictionless platform, similar to the way iTunes is across the Apple platforms.

There’s no doubt that for CrowdStar, 2011 will be a pivotal year. The gaming company has a long way to go to catch up to Zynga, which is rumored to be raising $500 million in funding in advance of an IPO in 2012. And there are a number of other players with deep pockets, including EA’s Playfish, and Disney’s Playdom that are also competitive with the bootstrapped gaming company. A large round of funding would certainly help the company keep up in terms of acquisitions.

But being the underdog can be a good thing for a startup. Clearly, Relan has a clear plan for how CrowdStar is going to increase traffic and games to its platform and it should be interesting to see if the new CEO can execute on this vision. And while social gaming is seeing massive traction currently, Relan sees a tremendous amount of future growth in arena. “Social gaming is sitting on perfect storm,” add Relan, “And the storm revolves around three basic areas-mobile, internaional and Facebook.”(source:techcrunch)


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