最近，社交游戏公司Zynga首席执行官马克·平卡斯（Mark Pincus）在其西雅图工作室的开业典礼上，向前来参与活动的200多人介绍了Zynga的企业文化，并将其与西雅图的另一家最为成功的企业亚马逊进行了一番对比。

Zynga’s Mark Pincus

首先是员工的自由权，Zynga西雅图工作室的工程师、产品经理等成员，与该公司在世界其他13个工作室的1500多名成员一样，拥有高度的自治权，即平卡斯所推崇的人人都应该将自己视为公司CEO这种说法。

除此之外，他还将Zynga的事业雄心与亚马逊进行比较。因为平卡斯与这家零售巨头企业十分熟络，并且其亚马逊有一名原工程副总裁尼尔·罗斯曼（Neil Roseman）将成Zynga西雅图工作室的副总裁，所以平卡斯的这番举动并不令人意外。

他表示，“亚马逊打造商店……我们想创建娱乐玩法。如果我们的工作到位了，大家和好友一起玩游戏也就变得更容易了。”

因为《FarmVille》、《CityVille》、《Zynga Poker》和《Mafia Wars》等Facebook游戏的大获成功，Zynga目前每月游戏用户人数达到2.5亿左右，每天产生的信息流量为5兆兆字节（游戏邦注：五个月前还仅是1兆兆字节）。而这些玩家在同一时期的社交联系次数，也从原来的300万增长到了800万。

平卡斯在随后的采访中称，将Zynga的使命称为让人们去玩而不是玩游戏，有助于摆脱社交游戏的污名，“如果你说自己每天都在玩游戏，别人可能就会认为你是在挥霍时间，无所事事。但如果你说自己一整天都在玩，大家就会是羡慕嫉妒恨的表情了。他们认为你的工作就是如此，而非不思进取的玩游戏。”

亚马逊的对应的是零售、谷歌就是搜索的化身，Facebook倡导分享的精神，YouTube让人们观看视频，而“玩”就是Zynga所追求的目标。

平卡斯预测玩游戏的用户规模还会不断扩大，未来将有40亿台的设备通过社交网络让人们彼此互动。Zynga简单的游戏玩法将大量用户（包括非硬核游戏玩家）引进了游戏世界，但随着玩家游戏技巧的日益纯熟，Zynga等社交游戏开发商将不得不开发更为复杂的游戏机制，以满足这些玩家日益上升的需求。但如果增加了游戏难度，这无疑将缩小公司的用户规模。

平卡斯对此表示，“没错，这确实是一个挑战，但伟大的游戏就像沙士比亚，它们应该属于所有用户，适用于所有群体。”他认为一款好游戏应该是侄女、侄子和他本人都可以从中获得乐趣的游戏，但这恰恰是游戏行业所面临的一大问题。多数游戏公司只会迎合那些舍得花钱的用户，这也正是掌机游戏行业锁定硬核玩家的原因所在。

但也有一些例外的情况，平卡斯称任天堂开发的游戏却并非玩家认为自己想要的东西，苹果乔布斯也总是推出一些人们会想要，但却并不是他们所要求的东西，“没有人嚷嚷着要得到Wii”，但现在祖母级的人物都可以和孙辈们一起用Wii玩游戏。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Zynga’s Mark Pincus: “Amazon Built Shop. We Want to Build Play.”

Tweet SharePrint Zynga CEO Mark Pincus outlined the company’s social-gaming ambitions last night in a rare appearance to celebrate the grand opening of the San Francisco company’s offices in Seattle.

The new offices–still void of any computers, desks or chairs–were decked out with red ambient lighting, a DJ was spinning records and guests snacked on a mix of Seattle and San Francisco food. Sourdough and shrimp!

Pincus addressed the 200 or so attendees in front of an exposed brick wall typical of buildings found in the Pioneer Square neighborhood, and he did his best to woo potential engineers with the offer of a great company culture. He also took the liberty of comparing Zynga to one of Seattle’s biggest success stories: Amazon.com.

First was the employee pitch. Like Zynga’s other 1,500 employees in more than 13 offices worldwide, Seattle engineers and product managers will have a lot of autonomy in a corporate culture Pincus likened to a confederation of entrepreneurs who get to act as their own CEO.

Additionally, he compared the company’s ambitions to Amazon’s.

The analogy was easy to make given his proximity to the retail giant, but also because one of Amazon’s first VPs of engineering, Neil Roseman, will be the Zynga VP in charge of building the Seattle office.

However, it was mostly Zynga’s bigger goal that he was referring to.

“Amazon built shop….We want to build play. If we do our jobs right, playing games with your friends will be simple,” he said.

With popular Facebook titles such as FarmVille, CityVille, Zynga Poker and Mafia Wars, Pincus said, roughly 250 million people play Zynga games on a monthly basis. In all, they generate five terabytes of information a day, up from one terabyte a day five months ago. The number of social connections the players have made has soared to eight million from three million in the same time period.

In an interview after his general remarks, Pincus contended that talking about play instead of games changes the social stigma. “If you spent part of your day playing games, people might think you’ve wasted your time. But if you said you spent your day playing, people are envious,” he said, noting of the old saying, “It’s all work and no play. Not, all work and no games.”

The idea goes beyond Amazon’s association with shopping. Google has an association with search, Facebook with share, and YouTube with watch. “[Play is] one of the verbs I’d bet on,” he said.

So, how big is playing?

Pincus estimates that it’s massive.

There will be four billion devices that will be connected to each other through social networks, and half of them will engage in play. “We are very optimistic with where play will go in the future.”

However, as the industry matures, there’s a natural contradiction taking place. The simplicity of Zynga’s games made it easy for a wide audience to play (not just core gamers). But as those players develop and sharpen their gaming skills, Zynga and other social-game makers will be challenged to create more complex quests to keep them entertained. By introducing more difficulty, it will inherently narrow the company’s audience.

“Yes, that’s a challenge,” Pincus said. “But great games are Shakespearean. They should be all things, to all people.”

He argues that one game should be enjoyable for his niece, nephew and himself simultaneously. But that has been the challenge for the game industry. Companies end up catering to the audience that is the most vocal and spends the most money. That’s why the console game business trends toward hardcore gamers.

“It becomes harder and harder,” he said.

However, there are exceptions. Nintendo developed something that no one knew they needed or wanted, and, he said, Apple’s Steve Jobs constantly comes up with products people want, as opposed to giving them what they asked for.

“No one was screaming for the Wii,” he said, but now you see grandmothers Wii bowling with their granddaughters.（source:allthingsd）