游戏邦注：本文作者为Joel Brodie，文章主要讲述Facebook如何在游戏领域脱颖而出。

成为休闲和社交游戏领域获利丰厚大公司之一的秘诀何在呢？Facebook首席执行官马克·扎克伯格之前曾在采访中就此发表自己的看法，他表示那就是不涉足游戏开发，不追求创收。以下是游戏邦整理的相关内容。

Mark Zuckerberg from arc.net

扎克伯格表示应用在Facebook取得的途径有两个：病毒式推广和回访率。Facebook表示，早期的运作模式更倾向前者（游戏邦注：即病毒式推广），如今公司开始改变规则，所以现在回访率才是关键，他们认为这才是促进更有趣游戏涌现的长远战略。

Facebook置身游戏领域所面临的挑战是确立合理发展模式，既能够迎合Facebook游戏粉丝，又不惹恼其他不喜欢体验游戏的Facebook用户。

扎克伯格显然属于后者（游戏邦注：即不喜欢游戏）。他表示自己很惊讶游戏竟然在Facebook平台取得如此大的成功。但他自己依然不玩游戏。

扎克伯格表示他们之所以推广Facebook Credits是因为通过统一货币购买虚拟商品能够优化用户体验。他表示这和营收没有关系，因为广告的利润空间更大。Facebook Credits货币的利润空间是5%，这对数十亿虚拟交易数额而言依然是个十分庞大的数据。

扎克伯格多次谈到Zynga，全部都呈现否定口吻。显然他不是《Ville》系列游戏的粉丝。

回到Facebook在休闲游戏领域成功的秘诀，还有一个扎克伯格没有谈到的因素，那就是运气！

认真来讲，2010年中没有哪个公司能像Facebook那样不涉足游戏开发领域却凭借游戏创收10亿美元。

但有一点值得Facebook注意。如果公司有幸在社交游戏领域创造数十亿业务，并出乎意料地成为其中佼佼者，这并不表示其精通这个行业。Facebook 2010年特意针对其游戏领域做出重大调整，但他们应该保持谦虚态度。虽然他们有幸创造社交游戏现象，但未来也可能不幸与之失之交臂。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The Secret of Facebook’s Game Success: Don’t play games, don’t care about money

By Joel Brodie

What’s the secret to being one of the profitable and biggest players in the casual and social games space? According to a fascinating interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg from Inside Facebook, it’s to not get games or care about making money.

Here are the detailed tidbits from the interview:

Zuckerberg believes there are two ways for an app to be successful on Facebook: viral distribution and reengagement. Facebook believes that the scales were tilted on the former and have now changed the rules of the game so that it is tilted to the latter, which they believe will lead to better games over the long-term.

The challenge for Facebook in games is set a course that appeals to Facebook users that love to play games while not angering Facebook users that don’t like games.

Apparently, Zuckerberg falls in the latter category. He admits to have been surprised that games did so well on the Facebook platform (and sending virtual Vampire bites like Bite Me was expected?). He still does not play games.

Zuckerberg says that the reason they are pushing Facebook Credits is that a single currency makes virtual goods a better experience. He claims it has nothing to do with money because advertising have better margins. Of course, the margins for Facebook Credits could be 5% and at billions virtual item dollars, it’s still a hefty number. His “margins” analysis does not compute to me.

Finally, Zuckerberg references Zynga multiple times in the article and each time it is in a negative way. It’s subtle but clear if you read the article that he’s not fan of the Ville games.

Back to the secret of Facebook’s success in casual games, here’s one more secret that Zuckerberg does not mention in the article: Luck!

Seriously, you don’t grow a business that is projected to make $1 billion in 2010 piggy backing on games and not get games (or in the case of Mr. Zuckerberg, apparently, not even like to play games.

There is a lesson here for Facebook. If you were flat out lucky to create a multi-billion business in social games by accidently becoming the leader, it does not make you expert in this space at all. Facebook has purposely made major changes to their games model this year, but what they need to have is humility. In the same way they were lucky to create the social games phenomenon, they can be equally unlucky to throw it away.（Source：gamezebo）