作者：AJ Glasser

Facebook游戏合作关系主管肖恩·瑞安日前在西雅图Casual Connect大会发表主题演讲，详述继Facebook沟通渠道发生系列变化，平台植入Facebook Credits货币后，其游戏生态系统的未来发展。

facebook from thewashingtonnote.com

瑞安否认社交游戏即将淡出市场的观点，他表示，“这个领域仍旧还在创造价值。社交游戏提高移动和网页平台的营收水平。没有社交游戏的游戏市场是个萎缩的市场。”

瑞安举例Facebook 10-12家主流开发商进行说明。除常提到的 Zynga、Playdom、Crowdstar和Playfish外，还有6waves （游戏邦注：即现在的6waves Lolapps）、Kabam、Kixeye、PopCap、GSN、Digital Chocolate、Wooga、Double Down Casino和Playtika。瑞安表示这些都是4年前尚未问世的年轻公司（除PopCap之外），如今这些公司或成功走向国际，或筹得大笔资金。他表示，意图涉足社交游戏的开发公司在Facebook和其他平台尚有很大发挥空间。

关键在于开发商要找到入口。瑞安将其分解成4点：大规模/核心群体、多曝光渠道、高效营收模式及持续完善平台。瑞安表示，游戏依然能够凭借数百万普通用户（大规模）一举成名，但他各更希望看到的是，开发商能通过吸引小规模忠实用户（核心群体）立足市场。提供多曝光渠道相对较难，因为开发商需进行广告投入，至少是在Facebook平台。瑞安表示，通过广告获得的用户数量占规模的1/3-1/2。但若足以购买广告，游戏多半已能创造利润。

瑞安表示，高效营收模式和持续完善平台说明Facebook不断完善自我，协助开发商进行游戏开发。首先是高效营收模式，这体现在Facebook Credits，是传统分散付费系统的优化。至于持续完善平台，瑞安表示，Facebook一直都在优化平台，这也是平台服务条款和API变更如此频繁的原因所在。

瑞安表示，Facebook希望今年能够恢复病毒式传播功能（游戏邦注：继去年平台限制消息动态内容和其他传播渠道后，游戏就与此功能失之交臂）。他希望携手同开发商探索生成新闻故事的更好方式，这样玩家好友会更愿意点击内容。而Facebook团队未来将归类游戏内容，这样平台便能够向忠实玩家推荐同类游戏。例如，在隐藏物品游戏中，Facebook就会向你展示其他隐藏物品游戏广告，而非时尚游戏信息。

瑞安寄予开发商们的期望很简单：创造更丰富的游戏类型，不要再一味的复制。他表示，依靠复制创收的时代已过去。他既列举某类游戏获得的成就（游戏邦注：特别是“中间核心”游戏和“硬核”游戏，如Zynga的《Empires & Allies》或Kixeye的《Battle Pirates》），也罗列一些至今在Facebook平台仍旧默默无闻的作品：

钓鱼类型——平台至今只有一款真正的钓鱼游戏。

基督教主题——这是有待挖掘的领域，据悉，42%的美国人都是福音派信徒。

城市主题——瑞安指的是真实反映生活的游戏内容。

角色扮演游戏——瑞安所指的角色扮演游戏是《暗黑破坏神》（非《黑手党战争》）。

战斗游戏——这是日渐风靡的游戏类型。

爱情主题——这是一大文学题材，但此内容的社交游戏还不多（不知《It Girl》算不算）。

第一人称射击游戏——迄今只有两款此类游戏，但瑞安表示基于浏览器的第一人称射击游戏存在局限性。

最后是关于Facebook怎么看待亚洲和土耳其市场未来发展。瑞安表示，Facebook认为亚洲对于Facebook来说是个快速发展的市场，但中国仍旧限制访问Facebook，这是一大挑战。除此之外，其他国家的Facebook用户规模正不断扩大，例如韩国。至于土耳其，瑞安表示Facebook目前正在解决开发商付费模式问题。Facebook目前同Peak Games达成合作关系，旨在提高该地区的用户获取水平。巴西是Facebook游戏的新兴市场，这也是为什么越来越多游戏开始推出葡萄牙语版本的原因。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Upcoming Facebook API Changes Bring Back Virality By Sorting Game Genres

By AJ Glasser

Sean Ryan, Director of Games Partnerships at Facebook, delivered a keynote speech at Casual Connect in Seattle today detailing the future of the Facebook games ecosystem following many changes to the platform’s communication channels, and the complete integration of Facebook Credits.

“There is a massive amount of value creation still going on here,” he says, defending Facebook’s games platform against arguments that the social games market is dying. “Social games are driving the revenue on mobile, the revenue on web. If you’re not building social games on a platform, you’re building for a shrinking market.”

Ryan breaks out key examples from the top 10 to 12 game developers that Facebook pays special attention to. Aside from the usual suspects of Zynga, Playdom, Crowdstar and Playfish, there were shoutouts to 6waves (now 6waves Lolapps), Kabam, Kixeye, PopCap, GSN, Digital Chocolate, Wooga, Double Down Casino and Playtika. Ryan characterizes most of these — with the notable exception of PopCap — as young companies that didn’t even exist four years ago, and now many of them are making successful exits or raising large amounts of capital. So clearly, he argues, there’s still a lot of growth to be had on Facebook and other platforms for developers looking to enter the social games space.

The key is how developers should approach entry. Ryan breaks it out into four points: massive/relevant scale, multiple discoverability options, efficient monetization and continued improvement over time. Ryan says that a game can still find success with hundreds of millions of general users (massive scale), but the emerging trend Ryan wants to see more of is developers succeeding by attracting a smaller, more dedicated audience (relevant scale). Multiple discoverability options is a bit harder because developers have to spend on advertising, at least on Facebook. Ryan says that advertising accounts for one-third to half of all users in a game. However, if you’re buying advertising, Ryan surmises that your game is already profitable.

Efficient monetization and continued improvement are areas where Ryan sees Facebook stepping up its game to help developers. To the first point, there’s Facebook Credits, which Ryan says is a logical improvement over fragmented payments systems of the old platform. As for continued improvement, Ryan says that Facebook is always looking to improve — which is why the terms of service and APIs change frequently in the games space.

Going forward this year, Ryan says that Facebook hopes to restore a lot of the virality that games lost following the crackdown on the news feeds and other channels from last year. By working with developers, he hopes to help games find better ways of generating the kinds of news stories that players’ friends will want to click on. On Facebook’s side, the team is looking into sorting games by genre in a way that allows the platform to suggest games of similar genre to dedicated players. For example, by playing hidden object games, Facebook would know to show you ads for other hidden object games instead of ads for fashion games.

Ryan’s plea to developers is simple: Make more games in more genres, and stop copying each other. The days of monetizing by making a clone of a clone are over, he says. He broke out some areas where genre-specific games have succeeded — notably “midcore” and “hardcore” games like Zynga’s Empires & Allies or Kixeye’s Battle Pirates — and then listed some genres where there’s almost nothing on Facebook so far:

Fishing — There’s only one actual fishing game on the platform so far.

Christian — An untapped market, as 42% of the United States is evangelical.

Urban — By which Ryan means games that speak authentically to that audience.

Role-Playing Games — Here, Ryan characterizes RPGs as Diablo (not Mafia Wars)

Fighting — A genre that’s just starting to take off.

Romance — A very big literary category, and yet there are no social games for it (we’re not sure if It Girl counts)

First-Person Shooter — So far, there are only two, but Ryan admits that there are limitations on this genre that come from the browser.

A final point raised during the Q&A dealt with where Facebook sees the Asian and Turkish markets going. Ryan responds that Facebook sees Asia as the fastest-growing market for the platform, but there’s still the challenge of being banned in China. Other countries in the region, however, are currently expanding — such as Korea. As for Turkey, Ryan says Facebook struggles with payment options for developers. The platform is working with Peak Games, however, to improve user acquisition in the region. Brazil is also an emerging market for Facebook games, which is why there’s a big push to localize games in Portuguese.（Source：insidesocialgames）