EA旗下的社交游戏开发商Playfish凭借著名的《Superstars》系列体育游戏《FIFA》和《Madden》博得了众多用户的青睐。游戏邦获悉，游戏是由Playfish和EA Sports联合开发的。《FIFA》和《Madden》两款游戏均在EA 10大热门游戏中榜上有名，约占EA MAU（月活跃用户）和DAU（日活跃用户）总数的14%。游戏邦发现，《Madden》的用户规模相对较小，目前其MAU只有140万，DAU也才刚超过17万，而《FIFA》的用户规模则持续见涨，其MAU和DAU分别为350万和56万。

Playfish的最新游戏《World Series Superstars》上周刚刚发行，恰逢美国职业棒球联赛（Major League Baseball）的开幕时节。Playfish发行和产品经理C.J. Prober日前接受了Inside Social Games的采访，谈论游戏和真实世界MLB的密切联系，以及这一联系如何促使游戏用户未来超越《Madden》用户。以下为游戏邦编译内容。

首先，谁是你最喜欢的棒球投手是谁？

Brian Wilson，旧金山巨人队（SF Giants）的替补投手。（如下图所示）

Brian Wilson

《World Series Superstars》从很多方面来看，不同于其他的Superstars系列游戏，最重要的是，该游戏添加了互动元素，玩家可以控制游戏的投掷动作。这些功能是如何从之前的《Superstars》游戏、《EA Sports FIFA Superstars》和《Madden NFL Superstars》发展而来的？

《FIFA》采用的是动画模式。而到了《Madden》，我们就希望将其提升至另一个高度，所以我们在游戏中添加了道具Game Changers，玩家可以借此改变游戏的结果。所以玩家只要触底得分或者射门得分就可以获得开球的机会或者可以通过。玩家对此反响很好，所以我们将《World Series》推向了新的高度。我们真正提高了用户的粘性。MLB对于球队的训练强度要比《FIFA》和《Madden》游戏的高得多。

玩家互动对于球赛结果的影响有多大？例如，玩家如果选择直接管理游戏而非采用《World Series》球赛中的仿真模式，能够扭转仿真模式中失败结局吗？

如果玩家颇有策略，能够有效管理团队成员，合理利用资源，做出明智决定，其无疑将会处在有利地位。玩家可以主宰比赛的结果。但其会自然而然取得胜利吗？不一定，但其肯定会置身有利地位。

《FIFA》和《Madden》有什么开发经验可供《World Series》借鉴吗？

我认为深度训练球员是一大经验。这些游戏的有趣之处在于玩家每个礼拜都可以晋升到不同等级。所以我们采用了某些既有的社交机制，将其运用至《World Series》中。例如，用户可以建造自己的体育馆，这无疑是从我们的合作社交机制演变而来。如果玩家想要为球员建造休息室，就得首先获得建造场所，然后在邀请朋友共同建造，或者玩家还可以通过使用Baseball Cash（游戏邦注：游戏中的虚拟货币）加快建造过程。《World Series》的社交元素比《FIFA》多得多。但同样这些游戏也会不断发展，所以如果你在《FIFA》和《Madden》也看到同样的元素，请不要感到惊讶。

《World Series》特别选在MLB赛季开幕期间发行，我们知道《FIFA》和《Madden》的某些游戏功能和现实世界的比赛事件紧密相联。MLB赛季对于《World Series》的游戏设置有何影响？

相比较《FIFA》和《Madden》而言，同MLB相关的游戏元素是最让我们着迷的地方。MLB是个更具连贯性的游戏系列。《Madden》玩家每周天会有比赛，但比赛有时在周四举行。而MLB每天都有比赛。所以玩家每天都会返回游戏。所以我们认为《World Series》的用户粘性会有很大的提高。

游戏还有部分内容即Predictor模式尚未推出，但将会在未来几周和用户见面。《Madden》已经稍有涉及该功能，该游戏玩家可以预测游戏的每周比赛冠军，同时还可以就比赛的胜算机率和朋友PK，以及较量各自对于赢家的预测能力。我们还在游戏中添加了积分机制，玩家可以为自己有信心的比赛添加积分。MLB的Predictor模式推出后，玩家每天都会进行一场输赢预测PK。玩家得选择比赛场次，同朋友进行预测PK，看看谁当天猜赢的场次最多。

由于棒球是款美式运动，你们认为《World Series》的用户规模将小于《FIFA》吗？我们发现《Madden NFL Superstars》的用户规模还不及《FIFA》的一半。

我认为MLB将会介于《FIFA》和《Madden》之间。我们认为棒球在美国之外也有很多粉丝。但需要指出的是，目前MLB只面向北美用户。其他地方目前还没有任何消息。但是发行《World Series Superstars》的振奋之处在于其与MLB密切相关。二者之间存在密切的营销合作关系，所以MLB将通过MLB.com支持我们的游戏，通过发挥其粉丝的影响力进而扩大游戏的用户规模。

World Series Superstars

MLB有没有可能为《Superstars》玩家提供免费入场券？

事实上，我们曾经在《Madden》采取类似举措，为玩家提供美国橄榄球超级杯大赛（Super Bowl）的门票，但最终我们不得不对此做出调整，但游戏依旧为用户提供相当丰厚的奖品。所以这些游戏的优势在于，其粉丝对于实现世界的体育运动、球队和球员都相当着迷。因此游戏显得十分有趣。玩家在游戏中和朋友相互竞争。这是游戏成功的关键。玩家可以尽情体验游戏，突破体育游戏和社交游戏原有的障碍，不断训练自己的优先选择能力。

有关MLB赛季方面的游戏内容具有高度的时效性，其他的社交游戏都是推出后才逐步完善游戏功能的，相比而言，该游戏推出时就以极近完美的状态呈现给用户，其重要性何在？

这是相当重要的。EA Sports向来精心打造其作品，其一年才推出一款体育游戏，该游戏也秉承了EA Sports的优良传统。团队过去都是在活动拉下序幕时推出游戏，以便同那些赛前推出的游戏错开。这次在MLB之前推出《World Series》，我们承受很大压力。同时，另一个潜在的问题是，用户体验精致、优质游戏的门槛将会有所提高。我认为的确如此。过去几年里，我们的游戏质量逐步提高，所推游戏的细节处理和深度也有了很大的进步，能够满足用户的期望。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Interview: EA Playfish’s C.J. Prober on Facebook Superstars

EA’s social game developer Playfish gets a lot of traffic love for its FIFA and Madden branded Superstars sports titles developed jointly with EA Sports. Both games rank in the top 10 across all Electronic Arts titles, accounting for roughly 14% of EA’s total monthly and daily active user traffic according to our app tracking service, AppData. Madden is the smaller game with only 1.4 million MAU and just over 170,000 DAU to date, while FIFA is still going strong at 3.5 million MAU and roughly 560,000 DAU.

The newest title in the lineup, World Series Superstars, launched just last week to coincide with the start of the Major League Baseball season and Playfish VP of publishing and product management, C.J. Prober joins us for an interview on the title’s vital link to the real world MLB and how that grow the game’s audience hopefully past Madden’s.

Inside Social Games: First things first. Who’s your favorite pitcher?

C.J. Prober: Brian Wilson, relief pitcher for the SF Giants. [Pictured]

ISG: World Series Superstars differs from other games in the Superstars series in several ways — most notably by adding a highly interactive component to gameplay where players can control the action pitch-by-pitch. How did these features evolve out of previous Superstars games, EA Sports FIFA Superstars and Madden NFL Superstars?

Prober: In FIFA, there’s an animation [for individual soccer games]. In Madden, we wanted to take that to a new level, so we added Game Changers [items] you can play to impact the outcome of the game. So you can return a kickoff for a touchdown or score a field goal or what have you. The feedback from the players was really positive on that, so we’ve taken World Series to a whole new level. We’ve really increased the engagement around playing games in terms of managing [plays]. You also train your team in a much deeper way in MLB than in both FIFA and Madden. It’s kind of a much deeper exercise where you’re like, “Oh, do I want to juice my pitchers or train my outfield?”

ISG: How much of an impact does player interaction have on the outcome of ballgames? For example, if a player chose to manage a game directly instead of using the simulation mode where World Series plays the ballgame for them, could they pull off a win when the simulation would’ve determined that they lost?

Prober: You’re definitely at an advantage if you play the game strategically and manage your players, your training resources, and make smart decisions as you play the game. You can affect the outcome. Will it automatically result in a victory? Not necessarily, but you definitely have an advantage.

ISG: What other lessons did you take from FIFA and Madden to develop World Series?

Prober: I think the deeper training of players was a big on one. The nice thing about these games is that you can evolve them on a weekly basis. So we’ve taken some of the proven social mechanics and adopted those in World Series. For example, when you build out your stadium, it’s kind of an evolution of our collaborative social mechanics. Like if you want to build a dugout, you acquire the dugout and then you’ve got to hire your friends or you can accelerate that process using [the game’s premium currency] Baseball Cash. World Series has some more social hooks in it than we had in FIFA. But again, those games are continuing to evolve, so don’t be surprised to see these things in Madden or FIFA as well.

ISG: World Series launched specifically to coincide with the start of the Major League Baseball season and we know both Madden and FIFA contained some game functionality that depended on real world events within the sport. In what way will the MLB season affect World Series gameplay?

Prober: That’s actually one of the things that we’re excited about with respect to MLB relative to Madden and FIFA. MLB is a much more consistent series. In Madden you’ve got weekly games on Sunday and sometimes there’s games on Thursday. In MLB, you’ve got games happening every day. So we’re confident in the fact that people engage in their affinity for the sport on a daily basis. We think that’s going to increase the engagement of our players in World Series.

One of the things that we haven’t included as part of the launch — but it’s coming in the next couple of weeks — is the Predictor mode. In Madden we had this very light functionality where you would pick who would win the weekly games and you would compete against your friends around winning percentage, how good you were at predicting the winners. We had a mechanic where you had a certain amount of points you could [assign] to certain games you felt really confident about. In MLB, when Predictor mode launches, there’s going to be a game of the day. You’re going to make a selection of games and you’re going to be competing with your friends on a streak of how many games of the day you picked correctly.

ISG: Are you at all concerned that the audience for World Series will be smaller than FIFA’s because baseball is a very American sport? We observe that Madden NFL Superstars’ audience is less than half the size of FIFA’s, according to AppData.

Prober: I would say MLB is probably in between [FIFA and Madden in terms of audience size]. I think you have a lot of baseball fans outside the U.S. But I should point out that currently MLB is only available to players within North America. Nothing to announce on [other territories] at the moment. But one of the things that we’re really excited about with the launch of World Series Superstars is our relationship to MLB. We have a great marketing relationship, so they’re really going to support us through MLB.com and leveraging the channels to their fans to promote this game.

ISG: Any chance of the MLB offering free tickets to Superstars players?

Prober: We actually did a sweepstakes with Madden — at one point, it was going to be Super Bowl tickets and then we ended up changing that, but there were some pretty exciting prizes there. So the great thing about these games is that you have fans with a massive affinity for the sport, for the teams and for the players. And then it’s fun. And you’re competing against your friends. It’s a recipe for success. There’s just so many opportunities to have fun with this and push the boundaries of what’s been done before in sports games and social games that we’re kind of in a perpetual exercise of prioritization given the opportunity here.

ISG: Because your game is time-sensitive with respect to the MLB season, how important is it for the game to be fully developed right at launch to coincide with the series as opposed to other social games that iterate planned features over a period of time post-launch?

Prober: It’s definitely important. This is where I think EA Sports brings a great pedigree [through] the packaged goods business where we release sports titles on an annual basis. The team is very used to the deadline-driven release timeline in order to meet the launches that typically happen before the season. We definitely felt pressure to get World Series launched before the MLB season started. I think another underlying part of that question is has the bar risen in terms of what users expect from a polished, quality product. I think the answer is definitely yes. Over the last couple of years, we’ve really increased the quality and the polish and the depth of our games at the time of launch and users expect that.（Source：Inside Social Games）