在本周的GDC大会中的社交及在线游戏峰会（Social and Online Game Summit）上，Zynga产品开发的副总裁Mark Skaggs向与会者介绍了公司旗下的《CityVille》从创意构思到游戏发行的过程。

Skaggs认为《FarmVille》和《CityVille》之间的区别是很明显的。据游戏邦了解，Zynga最初发行《FarmVille》时对它的期望值很低，然而在《CityVille》还处于设计阶段的时候，Zynga公司的规模就翻了三倍。

cityville-screenshot

在Facebook调整相关政策后，一些开发商觉得自己再也无法推出热门游戏了。Skaggs表示，“我之前从电子数据表格中获得情况，《CityVille》的日活跃用户不可能超过500万。”起初，Zynga打算让Challenge Games来接手《CityVille》项目，后者正是Zynga在美国德克萨斯州奥斯丁收购的一家公司。

但最后Zynga决定在它的旧金山总部开发这款游戏。Skaggs表示，由于公司处于试产阶段，《CityVille》缺乏明确的发展方向。开发团队并不确定游戏是要走轻松路线，还是口味重些的风格；游戏的视觉效果或者风格并没有明确的定位，公司也不确定《CityVille》是否是像《FarmVille》一样只要具有最低程度的可行性就可以了。

Skaggs表示，“我们不能纸上谈兵。当我们还在构思图稿时，就不断有人提出意见，游戏总是在各种情况下被修改。”不久后，所有的意见都陷入了一片混乱。所以公司只好着手开发一个游戏的雏形，为游戏发展指明方向。

游戏邦获悉，即便是有了游戏模型，Zynga也不确定《CityVille》能否成为一个好游戏。Skaggs表示，“在夏末初秋的时候，有很多人不断私下找我碰面，告诉我说，马克，这款游戏不会好玩的，这将会是翻版的《FarmVille》。”所以8月份的时候，团队又开始删除一些想法。Skaggs表示，“我们把游戏的范围集中、缩小，希望开发一种核心的游戏体验。”

最后，Skaggs开始记录他所谓的“里程碑式成果”。例如在8、9月份期间，他注意到团队开始凝聚成一体了，他们相互协作，而不是各干各的。9月份后，他开始发现游戏的有趣之处，到了10月份、11月份的时候，团队成员自己都不自觉地玩起了游戏。

到了11月份，游戏就该发行的时候，团队决定暂时保留游戏。Zynga最后决定要脱离它的最低程度可行性产品模式。Skaggs表示，这很重要，因为在发行前解决问题会容易些。

据游戏邦了解，《CityVille》刚发行的时候并不是一个完美的游戏；Skaggs 指出了一些可以改进的地方，包括像列车、游戏界面和游戏空间扩张等这些主要元素。但游戏完全突破了最低程度可行性的产品定位，其顶峰时期的月活跃用户超过了1亿人。

Skaggs最后总结了一些“经验教训”，供其他开发商借鉴参考：

* 游戏必须有娱乐性——玩家希望拥有一个轻松、有趣的体验，游戏加载速度要和和打开网页一样快；

* 你所经营的是一个产品，一个7天24小时的项目——这和传统游戏开发不一样，你得每天维护游戏；

* 游戏的胜败取决于发行的设计和准备；有问题要在发行前解决掉；

* 掌握成功的秘诀——不妨参考一下Zynga的游戏，你可以发现一些共同的思路；如果成功的游戏都有特点，那么你也应该这么做；

* 胜败取决于速度——及早出击市场，争取出色的表现；

* 传递趣味性——别忘了你是在开发游戏；

* 不能用数量弥补趣味不足的缺陷——再多的内容也无法取代趣味性，要有一个好的游戏核心环节。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

GDC: An Insider’s View of CityVille, From Idea to Launch

One of the early panels at the Game Developer Conference’s Social and Online Game Summit today was “Click Zen: Zynga’s Evolution from FarmVille to CityVille”. Mark Skaggs, Zynga’s VP of product development, talked the audience through the company’s evolution to its latest and most successful game.

The difference between FarmVille and CItyVille was stark, according to Skaggs. Launching FarmVille was all about getting a minimum viable product out the door. By the time CityVille was on the drawing board, Zynga had tripled in size.

Facebook had changed, too, leading some developers to think they could no longer produce hits. ““I actually had a spreadsheet that told me City could not grow to more than 5 million daily unique players,” said Skaggs. Initially, Zynga thought about sending the CityVille project to Challenge Games, its acquisition in in Austin, Texas.

Ultimately Zynga decided to produce the game at its San Francisco headquarters. But as the company went into preproduction, CityVille suffered from a lack of vision, said Skaggs. The team wasn’t sure whether it wanted to make the game a lighter or heavier experience; it wasn’t settled on a look or feel, or whether to launch another minimum viable product, as it had with FarmVille.

“We had to get off paper. What we found, when you’re on a whiteboard sketching it out, someone comes in and says hey, there’s an edge case and it gets modified,” said Skaggs. Before long, all the ideas were leading to confusion. So the company set to building playable prototypes that could help guide the vision.

Even with the prototypes, though, it wasn’t clear that CityVille would be a very good game. “People were coming to me privately during late summer early fall and saying, Mark, this isn’t going to be fun. It’s going to be another FarmVille,” said Skaggs. So in August, the team started to whittle down its ideas. “We kept focusing, narrowing down the scope, trying to get to the core gameplay,” said Skaggs.

Eventually, Skaggs started tracking what he called “Mile Markers”. In August and September, for instance, he started noticing that the team was gelling, with members spending time with each other and not just working alone. As September wore on, he saw the first hints of fun in the game, and by October and November the team was playing it of their own accord.

When it came to November, when the game was due to launch, the team decided to hold. Zynga had finally decided to move completely away from the minimum viable product model. This turned out to be important, said Skaggs, since it’s much easier to fix problems before launch.

CityVille wasn’t a perfect game at launch; Skaggs pointed out some areas that could have been better, including major elements like the trains, franchise interface and game space expansions. But it beat a minimum viable product, and went on to draw more than 100 million monthly active users at its peak.（Source：Inside Social Games）

Skaggs finished off with some “meta lessons” for other social game developers:

It’s entertainment – People want a light, fun experience that loads as fast as a web page

You’re building a product and a 24/7 business – It’s not like traditional game development, you’re got to keep working on it every day

The battle Is won before the launch – It’s all about planning and preparation; fix problems before launch.

Learn the space and the recipes for success – Go look at Zynga games and find common threads; if successful games keep using features, maybe you should too.

Speed wins – Get to market and have the performance eliver fun – Don’t forget that you’re making games

You can’t make up for boring with volume – Content won’t make up for lack of fun, you need a good core game loop （source:insidesocialgames）