Games Beat撰稿人Dean Takahashi在Facebook上玩Kabam的社交游戏《Glory of Rome》已有数周时间。以下是游戏邦编译的Takahashi对该游戏及制作公司的评述：

从游戏体验中可以看出，Kabam已开始掌握为Facebook上逐渐浮现并可从中获得丰厚利润的硬核玩家制作休闲游戏的方法。正是因为《Glory of Rome》成为Kabam抢占社交网络上硬核用户的成功典范，才使得这款游戏令人感兴趣。Zynga有数亿休闲玩家追捧，而Kabam在Facebook上仅有670万的用户。但这些用户比前者更有价值，因为他们乐于为Kabam的游戏付出金钱。Kabam在Facebook上的活跃游戏有三款，还有两款是《亚瑟王国》和《Dragons of Atlantis》。

为何Kabam能够步入正轨

Kabam是家私人公司，并未透露从每位用户处获得的平均收益。但现在看来，尽管为传统游戏公司EA所抛弃，Kabam正在构建足以烦扰其他游戏开发商的超大业务。反Zynga战略已经使Kabam于今年早期融资3000万美元，而且有传言称其用户价值将使公司的下轮融资收获更多。目前Kabam旗下员工已超过400人。

Glory of Rome

Kabam（游戏邦注：该公司位于加州红木城。）首席执行官Kevin Chou在采访中说道：“我们即将迎面挑战动视暴雪和EA。尽管这种说法听起来相当匪夷所思，但你不久就会看到我们发布更多游戏，为实现上述目标添砖加瓦。我们认为这是个良机，因此在其中投入很多精力。”

从某种意义上说，此番言辞甚为疯狂。4年前Kabam成立之时，Facebook上根本没有硬核游戏的市场。但Kabam借免费运营模式崛起之势取得成就，在这种模式下，用户可以免费在Facebook上玩游戏，仅花钱购买诸如帮助加快城市建设速度的虚拟物品。如果Kabam要求这些玩家为单款游戏支付60美元，游戏的盈利肯定会大大减少。Kabam将旗下游戏转变为服务模式，那些愿意每月支付大量金钱的玩家就可以不断为公司产生更多利润。

尽管Zynga也可以从用户处获取收益，Kabam的用户付费更多。腾讯公司于2月份花费近4亿美元购买Riot Games大部分股份，预示着游戏业开始认同Kabam所采用的模式，即努力从硬核玩家处获得更多营收。Riot Games的一款游戏只有100万个用户，但其中的玩家在游戏上花了大笔金钱。EA公司也在Bigpoint.com上运营自己的在线角色扮演游戏《Lord of Ultima》。

许多大型传统游戏发行商离开PC游戏市场转而关注控制器游戏，这为Kabam的壮大提供了良机。而那些进驻Facebook的传统游戏发行商则注重与Zynga争夺Facebook上新兴的休闲游戏玩家群体。除了Kixeye之类的新公司外，Kabam几乎没有人直接与之竞争。

《Glory of Rome》只有150万左右的用户，但他们都乐于为游戏支付费用。就游戏评论来看，我认为这款游戏能获得85分（总分100分）。Chou表示，公司产品90%的用户每周登录游戏6到7天，每次玩游戏的时间为4个小时左右。尽管这听起来很疯狂，但的确有许多玩家在游戏中花大量时间来建造城市中的各种建筑。正如地图上所显示的那样，玩家开始建设外观精美且带有真实建筑的城市。

Glory of Rome

起初建设花的时间很少，但随着玩家升级住宅、农场、矿场、采石场、伐木场和其他建筑，建设所需时间越来越长。玩家可以发出某些指令，让其在浏览器后台自动执行，随后便可以抽身做自己的工作或浏览网页。游戏的多任务模式尤其适合那些玩乐时间不多的硬核玩家。在Kabam的游戏中，动作和行为是实时进行的。数千名玩家同时互动，多达百名玩家可以组成多人联盟在布满城市、山脉、森林、草地、山丘和河流的地图上与其他联盟展开竞争。

《Glory of Rome》在Kabam首部巨作《亚瑟王国》成功之后制作而成，《亚瑟王国》与《Evony》和《文明》等游戏相似。凭借新款模拟战略游戏，Kabam在行业中不断逆流而上，于所从事的领域也显得越来越强劲。从某种程度上来说，Kabam在Facebook上运营游戏会面临挑战，社交网络其实并不支持出众的控制器式游戏图像和实时进行的游戏玩法。在游戏的这些层面上，Kabam尽其所能，让图像栩栩如生。而且公司已构建起成熟的后台来同步玩家的所有行为，不会出现过高的延迟。因而，为架构整个游戏，Kabam在服务器上需要投入更多的资金。

随着时间流逝，社交网络平台将变得更适宜运营网游。就现在而言，只有少数公司在社交平台上的游戏能够在全球获得如此反响，Kabam便是其中之一。未来Facebook用户将更具多样性，硬核玩家增多，Kabam会获得丰盛的成果。

《Glory of Rome》给人非同寻常的Facebook体验

Zynga可能让玩家每天花费10分钟时间与Facebook上的朋友玩休闲游戏，Kabam游戏利用的则是基于相同兴趣爱好的朋友网络。

我也曾邀请许多朋友一起玩，但没有人对此做出回应。因此只得自行在游戏中结交朋友，加入陌生人的群体。正是因为这些人喜欢游戏并在游戏中相遇，因而才会相识。Kabam鼓励玩家在游戏中结交朋友，如果你要在游戏中建设第二个城市，需要有一定数量的朋友才能实现。目前面临的问题是玩家必须获取他人邮箱地址，才能够发送加为Facebook好友的请求，其他玩家确认邮件后便可在游戏中发出邀请。

Glory of Rome

与其他社交游戏相比，Kabam的游戏也更为真实。Chou认为，尽管休闲游戏较为轻松，硬核玩家却偏爱更严肃的游戏。如果你在《Glory of Rome》中做了个错误的决定，可能带来灾难性的后果。如果你做出正确的行动，也将得到丰厚的报酬。游戏开始之初，选择合适的朋友至关重要，因为你将与他们相处的时间很长。

《Glory of Rome》高级制作者Keith Kawabata表示，游戏真实再现了罗马的历史面貌，时间定位于城市发生大火（游戏邦注：公元64年罗马曾发生火灾。）后的公元68年。本作的目标玩家是那些可能玩硬核网游或传统PC游戏的人，而这些人往往被社交网络所忽视。

如同其他战略类游戏，《Glory of Rome》中的挑战在于对细节的关注，玩家需要同时兼顾许多任务。你不能将所有时间都花在修建华丽的建筑上而忽略对军队的训练，当然也不能完全将城市打造成军事要塞，因为这会引起其他玩家的愤怒。玩家必须关注城市周围的环境，将自己的帝国建在其他竞争对手联盟的地域中总不是什么好事。

我之所以喜欢这个游戏，是因为只要在游戏中投入便可以获得回报。也就是说，尽管玩家无需花上大把时间，但如果你每隔几个小时就登录游戏，会让城市成长得更快，也能给联盟成员做出更多贡献。你的行动会带来战略层面的影响。你可以花钱加速游戏中城市的建设，但是不花钱同样可以做所有的事情。

挑战：Kabam游戏对新玩家颇具难度

从某种程度上说，为打造更好的硬核游戏，Kabam需要做的事情还很多。玩家隔段时间就需要刷新游戏，因为给出的分析报告有时很荒谬，比如食物产量显示时高时低。

Kabam的游戏也没有给新玩家提供明显的帮助。在《亚瑟王国》（游戏邦注：Kabam首款深受玩家喜爱的游戏。）中，我无意间登录游戏，根本不知道自己只有7天的时间让城市尽量发展壮大。新手保护于7天后解除，我的城市不断受到敌人的攻击，这些人夺走了全部资源。我压根不知道应该修筑城墙和扩大仓库，保护自己的资源免受他人掠夺。费时费力升级资源完全是无用之举，Kabam并没有清楚告知7天后解除新手保护的事情。

为保护自身利益，我尝试加入有100个玩家的联盟。因为实力弱小，许多联盟拒绝接纳我。我睡觉时城市也不断遭到攻击，甚至已没有足够的资源来建设防御设施。对老玩家来说这种体验并不好，Kabam没有采取足够的措施教授玩家如何玩游戏以及如何保护自己。

Glory of Rome

新玩家面临的挑战是，为数众多的玩家中有人专门掠夺其他玩家的资源。在《Glory of Rome》里，掠夺者无所畏惧，因为此类行为不会有什么不良后果。好在游戏中玩家的城市不会被彻底摧毁，如果你在游戏中不断受到此类行为袭扰，可以通过移城卡为城市重新选个位置。

在《Glory of Rome》中获得的较好体验

我在玩《Glory of Rome》时，知道为在这片荒地中生存下去，需要在前7天尽量建设城市。我专注发展基础资源，也就是农场、采石场、伐木场和矿场，随后修建城墙和仓库分别保护银币及资源免遭攻击者掠夺。我将军队藏在宫殿之中，这样他们就不会在攻击中丧生。采用此战略后，我将城市发展壮大得以生存下去，并加入联盟。

我建设城市的基础资源，但必须保证建造的住宅和训练的士兵数不能超过自己的负荷量。为了在游戏中取得进步，有些关键的建筑是你必须要建造的，如训练士兵的兵营、保护财产的城墙、城主定居的总部和研究新能力的学会。随着时间推移，你可以开始训练打造大量的军队，并升级农场以供养这些士兵。

我在联盟中的经历更具戏剧性。因为某位成员藐视其领导权，盟主对他展开攻击。随后盟主不断遭受到敌对联盟的攻击，他成功防御了一整天时间。但他的城市目标过大，敌军的攻击不断，最终他放弃并交出领导权。随后他加入五大联盟之一以获得保护，防止再次遭到攻击。有个联盟成员反水，加入攻击过我们的联盟。这完全是种背叛者的行为，可能将我们的大量机密透露给其他联盟。我们的新盟主接过领导权，尝试恢复整个联盟的运转。他指派某成员恢复与其他联盟的友善关系，这位成员最终成功让联盟与对手和解，所付出的努力也使她晋升为副盟主。与此同时，联盟中大部分玩家不断发展城市和军队。

在77个联盟成员中，我的荣耀值位居第11位，联盟荣耀值排名为27。除某个联盟外，我们与几乎所有联盟的关系都很好。我攻击过区域内几个小型中立城市，这种做法称为“采集资源”。侦查对手（游戏邦注：这需要耗费玩家的银币。）是你首先要做的事，随后方可展开攻击。如果对方未曾适当储藏或保护其资源，你就可以在战斗中打败防御军队，掠夺那些未受保护的资源。我有很多找到未受保护的中立城市的方法，因而可以获得大量资源。对我来说，这表明Kabam没有恰当告诉其他玩家如何保护城市免遭荼毒。

Glory of Rome

在游戏中攻击地图上称为“野地”的区域时，我犯了几个错误。山脉或山地等由野蛮人控制的区域有可供采集的资源，我损失了5千至6千个士兵，主要是因为我派出攻击的军队不足以打败固守的敌军。

战斗过程也很有趣，军队奔赴作战地随后自行返回，你所要做的只是等待结果。战斗结束后，你会收到报告，内容包括战斗是否胜利以及掠夺到何种资源。我失败的原因在于不清楚派出多少军队才能够取得胜利。我认为自己的军队和陪同作战的将军（游戏邦注：玩家在游戏中可以指定朋友作为率队的将军。）足以击败野蛮人，但我失败了，而且不理解战败的原因是什么。Kabam的Kawabata表示，战斗解释将会有所改善，未来公司会提供更多指导信息并更好地解释战斗机制。

有人问我是否在游戏中花过钱，可以说有，也可以说没有。我未曾用信用卡或Facebook虚拟货币Facebook Credits买过任何东西，但我在母亲节的时候在游戏中花了190金币给妻子买了束花，换算过来将近20美元。Kabam也从这笔交易中获得抽成，所以我认为这意味着自己从免费用户转变为付费用户。尽管如此，到现在为止我付给Kabam的金钱还远比不上普通的付费玩家。

结论：关注Kabam

我亲眼目睹许多Kabam游戏走上正轨，可以说他们在自己所专注的领域有所发展。Kabam已扩充其团队成员，规模足以让酝酿中的游戏变成现实。这款游戏花了我许多时间，但我并不为此感到遗憾。事实上，我玩这款游戏的时间比《CityVille》和《FarmVille》等Zynga游戏还多。

Glory of Rome

Kabam在发展过程中应当谨慎，不能只借助Facebook，这个平台不太适合硬核游戏。在社交网络上运营控制器类游戏并期待其发展迅速，这几乎没有多大希望。而且Kabam应该确保它的游戏既能够满足那些喜欢面对极端挑战的硬核玩家的需求，也很容易让众多硬核玩家学会怎么玩。不可只专注制作颇具难度的游戏，只让数千名玩家花时间的游戏并不好。

总之，我不得不说Kabam靠《Glory of Rome》之类的游戏为自己确立了令人瞩目的市场地位。公司有许多很棒的产品实现自己的战略，也有大量硬核游戏粉丝支持此类游戏。它的游戏并不像Take-Two Interactive和Firaxis Games的《文明》那样有强大的品牌效应，然而现在Kabam正有机会在传统游戏发行商抢占Facebook之时打造自己的品牌。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

How Kabam is cracking the code for hardcore games like Glory of Rome on Facebook

I’ve been playing Kabam’s Glory of Rome social game on Facebook for a few weeks. Based on that experience, I can see that Kabam has begun to crack the code for creating entertaining games for the emerging and very lucrative hardcore audience on Facebook.

Glory of Rome is an interesting game because it is an example of how Kabam is winning the land grab for hardcore users on the social network. While Zynga has a lock on hundreds of millions of casual gamers, Kabam has a mere 6.7 million Facebook users. But those users are far more valuable because they are willing to pay Kabam a lot. The game is one of three active Kabam games on Facebook, in addition to its predecessor Kingdoms of Camelot and the newer Dragons of Atlantis.

Why Kabam is on the right track

Kabam is a private company and doesn’t disclose revenue per user. But the tea leaves suggest that, just a stone’s throw away from the headquarters of traditional game company Electronic Arts, Kabam is building a very large business that could disrupt other game makers. Based on its anti-Zynga strategy, Kabam was able to raise a $30 million round earlier this year and is rumored to be raising another round at a higher value because of the value of its users. And Kabam has more than 400 employees now.

“We are going after Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts head on,” said Kevin Chou, chief executive of Redwood City, Calif.-based Kabam, in an interview. “That’s a big audacious statement. But you will see more coming from us soon that will back that up. We think this is a big opportunity and we are investing heavily in it.”

That is a crazy statement in some respects. Four years ago, when Kabam started, there was no market for hardcore games on Facebook. But Kabam is riding the rise of the free-to-play business model, where users can play games for free on Facebook and pay real money for virtual goods such as construction speed-ups for city buildings. If Kabam charged these gamers $60 for a game, it would actually be charging them too little. By switching to its games as a service model, Kabam can continuously generate more revenues from gamers who gladly pay lots of money each month.

While Zynga gets a few bucks out of a few percent of users, Kabam gets more. Everybody in the game industry woke up to the Kabam-style model of getting more dollars out of hardcore gamers when China’s Tencent bought the majority of Riot Games for nearly $400 million in February. Riot Games had only 1 million users playing one game, but those dedicated gamers spent a lot of money. EA, for its part, has its own online role-playing game Lord of Ultima online on Bigpoint.com.

There’s an opening for Kabam to get big in this niche because many of the big traditional game publishers have left the PC game market to focus on the consoles. And the traditional game publishers who have entered the Facebook market are focusing on competing with Zynga for the new demographic of casual gamers on Facebook. No one is really competing directly with Kabam, except other startups such as Kixeye.

Glory of Rome only has about 1.5 million users, but they’re dedicated. (I’d rate the game about 85 out of 100 as a game reviewer.) Chou said that 90 percent of his company’s users log into their games six or seven days a week. They play the game for about 4 hours at a time. That sounds insane, but a great deal of the time spent in the game is constructing the different buildings in your city. As you can see from the map, you build up a single city at the start, with attractive-looking, realistic buildings. At first, this takes a short time, but it takes longer and longer to build something as you raise the levels of your villas, farms, mines, quarries, sawmills and special buildings. So you can play the game by issuing a few commands and then leaving it running in a browser in the background while you do your work or cruise the web. The ability to multitask while you’re playing this game makes it ideal for hardcore gamers who don’t really have a lot of time to play. In Kabam games, the movement and actions are in real time, or simultaneous play. Thousands of gamers interact at the same time, and as many as 100 can join a multiplayer alliance to compete with other alliances across a grid of cities, mountains, forests, grasslands, hills and rivers.

Glory of Rome is modeled after Kabam’s first big hit, Kingdoms of Camelot, which bears resemblance to titles such as Evony and Civilization. With each new simulation strategy game, Kabam is progressing up the food chain and getting better at what it does. At some point, Kabam could hit a wall on Facebook. The social network isn’t really built to support outstanding console-style graphics and real-time game play. Kabam does what it can on these parts of its games, offering still animated screens rather than moving animations. And it has built a sophisticated back-end infrastructure capable of synchronizing all of the moves that players are making without inordinate delays. Consequently, Kabam has higher server costs because it has to build a responsive game.
Over time, the social network platform will become better at running online games. For now, Kabam is one of the few lucky companies whose games have consistently struck a chord around the world. Over time, as the Facebook audience embraces variety, the hardcore audience could grow big and Kabam will reap the benefit.

Glory of Rome is a different Facebook experience

While Zynga lets you play casual game experiences for maybe ten minutes a day with your Facebook friends, Kabam’s games take advantage of a different kind of friend network based on common interests.

I invited a bunch of my friends to join me in Glory of Rome, but nobody really took me up on it. So I had to make friends on my own by joining a group of strangers that I met in the game. We play together because we met in the game and we like it. Kabam encourages you to make friends in the game by requiring you to have a certain number of friends in order to build your second city in the game. The trouble with the process now is that you have to ask for someone’s real email and then send them a request to be a friend on Facebook. Then you have to confirm that and send them an invite from within the game.

In contrast to other social games, Kabam’s titles are also real games. While casual games are more laid back, hardcore games are more serious, Chou said. If you make a bad decision in Glory of Rome, the results can be catastrophic. And if you make the right move, it will pay off with brilliant results. At the start of the game, for instance, it’s critical that you pick the right friends to play the game with, since you’ll be spending a lot of time with them.

Keith Kawabata, senior producer on Glory of Rome, says the game stays faithful to a historical representation of Rome, set around 68 AD after the burning of the city. It targets gamers who might otherwise be playing online hardcore games or traditional PC titles. Those gamers have been under-served on the social networks.

As with other strategy games, the challenge of Glory of Rome is to pay attention to the details. And you have to divide your attention across many tasks. You don’t want to spend all of your time creating cool buildings, if it means you neglect training troops. You don’t want to make the city so militaristic that it will bring down the wrath of other players on you. And you have to pay attention to the wider world around you. You don’t want to build your empire in the middle of another rival’s alliance.

What I like about the game is that you are rewarded if you invest your time in the game. That is, you don’t have to put hours into it. But if you check in on the game every few hours, you can help your city grow faster and make more of a contribution to your fellow alliance members. Your actions can make a big difference on the strategic level. You can pay money to speed up construction in the game, but you can also do everything that other players can do without spending a cent.

A challenge: It isn’t easy being a newbie player in Kabam games

Kabam has a long way to go to create better hardcores game in some respects. You have to refresh the game periodically because it gives you ridiculous analytics reports sometimes, like saying your production capacity for food is high at a given moment and then lower the next moment.

The help offered for newbies is also very vague. In Kingdoms of Camelot (which was Kabam’s first hit game), I joined the game casually, unaware that I only had seven days to build as powerful a city as I could. By the end of seven days, my newbie “protection” expired. At the moment I became susceptible to attack, I got attacked repeatedly by enemies who stole everything I had. I didn’t realize that I had to build up my walls and expand my storehouse in order to protect my resources from being ripped off. The time I invested in building my resources was wasted. I didn’t realize it because Kabam didn’t hammer this point home to me.

To protect myself, I tried to join an alliance, a group of 100 players. I was rejected several times because I was too small. I was also attacked repeatedly while I was sleeping. My resources dropped so low I couldn’t even build anything to defend myself. It just wasn’t a fun experience to be picked clean by veteran players. Kabam didn’t do enough to teach me how to play and protect myself.

The challenge here is that there are just tons and tons of players, and there are some “griefers,” or people who like to pick on other players, in any crowd of gamers. With Glory of Rome, it is just far too easy for anybody to become a griefer without any negative consequences whatsoever. The nice thing is that you never actually see your city get razed to the ground in the game. And if you are the victim of constant raiding in the game, you can hide your city by playing a city resettlement card.

A better experience with Glory of Rome

With Glory of Rome, I realized I had to build as much as possible during the first seven days to be able to survive in the wild. I concentrated on building my basic resources — farms, quarries, sawmills and mines. Then I added walls to protect my silver and a storehouse to protect my resources from attackers. I kept my troops hidden in the palace so they couldn’t be destroyed during an attack. With this strategy, I was able to grow large enough to sustain my city. And I joined an alliance.

I built my basic resources and had to make sure that the homes I built and the soldiers I trained didn’t exceed my ability to feed new residents or armies. There are some key buildings that you have to create in order to make progress in the game, such as a barracks for training soldiers, walls to protect your treasury, a general’s quarters to house your leaders, and an academy where you research new capabilities. Over time, you start building lots of troops and then upgrade your farms to feed them.

Our alliance has seen a decent amount of drama. Our leader had to bounce a member for talking disrespectfully about the leadership. Then our leader came under constant attack from one of the rival clans. He defended himself well for a full day, but his city was a big target and the enemy kept hitting him. He eventually gave up and abdicated. Then he joined one of the top five clans to get their protection from further attacks. One of our members then jumped ship and joined the clan that had been attacking us. That was completely treacherous behavior and it probably leaked a fair amount of our secrets to the other group. Our new ruler took over and tried to patch things up. He appointed one of our members to concentrate on creating more friendly alliances with other clans. Her success got her a promotion to vice chancellor. She eventually made peace with the rival. In the meantime, most of us kept growing our cities and armies.

Of 77 members, I have the 11th-largest amount of Glory, and our collective rank is 27. We’re friendly with almost all of the clans except for one. I have been attacking a bunch of the small neutral cities in my area, a process known as “farming” for resources. First you scout the rival (which costs you silver) and then you attack it. If the rival hasn’t properly hidden or protected his or her resources, you can defeat the defenders in battle and then loot the unprotected resources. I have had no problem finding unprotected neutral cities with lots of resources to raid. To me, that means that Kabam doesn’t do a good enough job telling players how to protect themselves.

I made a couple of mistakes along the way, attacking areas of the map known as “wilds.” These are places like hills or mountains that have resources which can be farmed and are occupied by barbarians. Both times, I lost about 5,000 or 6,000 soldiers, mainly because I attacked with a force that wasn’t large enough to beat the entrenched enemy.

The combat is kind of fun because you have to wait in anticipation for the result as your troops march to the location and then march back. You get a report back that says whether you won or lost and what resources you gained. I lost because I truly didn’t know what kind of superior force I needed to win. I thought my soldiers and my accompanying general (you appoint your friends as generals) were trained enough to beat the barbarians. But I lost and I felt stupid and at a loss to understand why the combat didn’t work out. Kawabata at Kabam says the explanation of combat could be better (in fact, nothing comes up when you search the “help” area on the word “combat.”). In the future, the company will include more tutorial information and better explanations of how combat works.

Have I spent any money in the game? Yes and no. I didn’t buy anything with a credit card or Facebook Credits, which is Facebook’s virtual currency. Rather, I accepted a special offer as an alternative payment system. I bought FTD flowers for my wife on Mother’s Day, which yielded about 190 in gold currency for the game. That’s a little less than $20. Kabam gets a cut of that money, and so I’m sure it will be happy to know that I’ve been “converted” from a non-paying user to a paying user. However, so far, I am making a lot less money for Kabam than a usual paying user.

Conclusion: Pay attention to Kabam

I’ve had a look at some of Kabam’s games coming down the road. And I have to tell you that they are getting better and better at what they do. Kabam has built up its staff so big that it will soon have a steady number of games coming through its pipeline. This game has consumed a lot of my time and I don’t regret it. In fact, I’ve been playing this game far more than I have Zynga’s games such as CityVille and FarmVille.

Kabam has to be careful to walk a delicate line. It can’t race too far ahead of Facebook, which is kind of a weak platform for hardcore games. You can’t build a console-like game for the social network and expect it to run fast. Kabam also has to make sure that its games are satisfying for hardcore gamers who like extreme challenges. But it has to make the games accessible enough so they are easy for lots of hardcore gamers to learn. It doesn’t want to create a game that is so hard to play that only a few thousand people take the time to play it.

In summary, I have to say that Kabam is building a compelling market position with games like Glory of Rome. The company has some great things going for it and it has a lot of hardcore fans. It doesn’t have big brands such as Take-Two Interactive and Firaxis Games’ Civilization brand. In fact, a rival Civilization game will hit the market at some point. But for now, Kabam has a chance to create its own brands while traditional game publishers play catch-up on Facebook. (Source: Games Beat)