随着社交游戏的大热，开发者们开始越来越关注他们的平台战略，facebook已经不再是他们唯一的平台选择，专业的游戏网站和手机终端平台也是他们接下来的主要战场。

众所周知，facebook上最受欢迎的游戏farmville除了facebook的app应用，还有farmville.com的网站平台，而今年的苹果全球开发者大会上他们还推出了iphone版。

social_farmville

zynga产品研发副总裁Mark Skaggs表示他们的战略就是把他们的游戏发布到任何用户集中的地方，这也可以给玩家更多的平台选择。毕竟玩家并不能每时每刻都守在电脑前，而当他们farmville上的作物成熟时他们就可以在他们的iphone上或者ipad执行相关的操作了。

另外一个方面，他们也需要为facebook上的游戏用户下滑做准备，farmville在2009年3月份达到最高峰的8500万月活跃用户，而现在这个数字已经下滑了2500万之众。

Mark Skaggs认为尽管facebook是一个伟大的合作平台，但是他们并不想放弃其他的平台机会和收益效果。

With social gaming currently sizzling hot, some developers are rethinking their platform strategies in order to capture additional eyeballs. While one leaps from Facebook to a dedicated web site and to iPhone, another hops from browser to Facebook. Meanwhile a third has decided to stay put on devices like the iPhone and iPad.

It’s a potpourri of strategies, to be sure, with each of the developers confident that theirs is what will work best for their particular game.

Take San Francisco-based Zynga, for example, best known for developing browser-based games that work both stand-alone (on FarmVille.com, for instance) and as apps on social networking sites like Facebook. Practically a year to the day after FarmVille launched on Facebook in June 2009, the wildly popular game was expanded to the iPhone.

According to Mark Skaggs, Zynga’s VP of product development, no one should have been surprised: “Our strategy is to go where the players are. And since we know that there are a large number of our Facebook FarmVille players who have mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad, why not let them have the opportunity to experience our games from that platform as well?”

In addition to expanding the FarmVille gamer population, Skaggs believes it’s also important to give current players more choices.

“Some people don’t sit in front of their computer all day,” he explains. “And let’s say their crops are coming due on FarmVille, but they have no access to the game at the moment. How great is it that they can just use their iPhone to play?”

Skaggs denies that the transition had anything to do with the difficulties Zynga has experienced with Facebook. Since its peak of 85 million users in March 2009, FarmVille has shed more than 18 million of them. The troubles stemmed in part from Facebook’s decision to limit app notifications, which many developers rely on for the viral growth of their titles.

“I wouldn’t tie the two together,” he explains. “Facebook is a great partner and that’s going to go forward. But there are also other platforms and other avenues that we’re exploring as well.”

Skaggs chose not to elaborate.

Skaggs doesn’t necessarily believe that Zynga’s strategy — to extend its game to mobile devices — is the right one for all social game developers.

“Any business that has gone from zero to 500 million users in just a few years is going to attract developers who want a piece of that and who have their take on the best way to do business,” he says. “Ours is just one of the strategies out there.”