作者：Joe Osborne

你是否知道大家也在Facebook之外的平台玩游戏？是的，听起来有点疯狂，但是真的。虽然很多美国人都不知道，但如今的社交游戏光景已大不相同，即便仅就大洋彼岸而言。Spil Games是2004年于荷兰问世的社交和休闲游戏平台，囊括50多个不同社交和休闲游戏网站，公司凭此掳获1.3亿MAU（月活跃用户）。

peter driessen from games.com

虽然这不过是Facebook玩家数量的1/2，但鉴于Facebook规模庞大，此数据还是相当壮观的。Spil Games首席执行官Peter Driessen日前刚同德国在线游戏开发商和发行商Bigpoint（游戏邦注：代表作是《Battlestar Galactica Online》和最近的《RamaCity》）达成游戏推广合作协议，Bigpoint计划放弃Facebook，转投欧洲平台。但就Driessen看来Facebook并不是公司关注的竞争平台。

Driessen表示，“我们的竞争对手不是Facebook，因为我们没有推出不同用户体验。例如，如今用户越来越常玩社交游戏，但仍旧存在众多单玩家或即时多人游戏。这些无法转移到Facebook，因为它们缺乏牢固商业模式（虚拟商品），缺乏此模式，游戏根本无法在Facebook存活。”

公司最初是十足的休闲游戏发行商和开发商，但2007年，随着社交游戏的诞生，Driessen不得不进行抉择。Spil Games是搭载Facebook所得成就，将其8000万玩家转移至该平台，还是继续依靠既有玩家群体谋发展？当然公司选择后者，并于平台添加更多新功能，如游戏交叉头像，排行榜和好友通讯录。至于Bigpoint，它是首家入驻Spil Games平台的大型开发商，但Driessen的目标并不局限于此。

虽然Spil Games采取的策略与Facebook不同，但差别甚小。例如，Spil Games处理所有开发商的付费活动，但报酬采用收益共享模式，而非Facebook的30%固定分成。Driessen表示，Spil Games将分成开发商净收益的60%，但会提供Facebook所没有的服务，如社区管理和本土化。若开发商选择自己解决这些服务，收益比例就降低。这是因为Driessen并未将Facebook视作游戏平台，而是把它当作社交网络。

Driessen认为，“我首先认为Facebook是个社交网络。我猜想未来5年，平台所有营收都将依靠其付费渠道。他们或许会把Facebook Credits推广到Facebook之外的平台，将其变成全球最大的付费平台之一，这能够促使他们处在有利地位。我认为未来游戏在平台的重要性将大大降低。”

Zoomumba, the first Bigpoint social game brought into the Spil Games family from games.com

据Driessen表示，二者的差异在于Spil Games只瞄准游戏。这是公司关心的唯一内容。Driessen认为这有望促使公司成为游戏领域的综合供应商，其未来的发展将持续更久，覆盖更广。但如何实现？

事实证明，Spil Games未来发展策略同其他在线游戏开发商和平台差异不大。移动游戏将会成为公司未来发展的关注焦点（游戏邦注：HTML5游戏也不例外）。但社交游戏问世还不到3年，仍属于新兴类型，Driessen觉得这还只是个开始。

Driessen表示，“我认为这是世界发展的自然模式。通常新内容刚出现都会瞄准混合市场，但随着开发商的涌现，各公司开始逐渐瞄准细分市场。”Driessen的观点或许正确，但还存在一个问题：若Facebook未来不给美国社交游戏提供细分用户群体，那么谁来提供？随着日本DeNA和中国腾讯的崛起，下个社交游戏战役或许同美国毫无关系。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Spil Games CEO: Games will be less important for Facebook [Interview]

by Joe Osborne

Did you know that people play social games elsewhere than Facebook? Yes, it’s crazy, but true. While many of you living in the states wouldn’t know it, the social gaming landscape is vastly different even just across the Atlantic. Spil Games, a social and casual games platform launched in the Netherlands in 2004, brings over 50 different social and casual games websites under a single umbrella. Through this, the company reaches a cool 130 million monthly players.

While that’s half of what Facebook reigns in, it’s nevertheless impressive considering what Facebook has at its disposal. Spil Games CEO Peter Driessen, who just oversaw the company’s games distribution partnership deal with German online game developer and publisher Bigpoint (known for Battlestar Galactica Online and RamaCity most recently), has big plans for his European alternative to Facebook. But if you ask him, Facebook isn’t even a concern.

“We are not so much competing with Facebook, because we do offer a variety of different user experiences,” Driessen tells us. “For example, people nowadays are playing many more social games, but still in that there are a lot of single player or real time multiplayer games. These kinds of games aren’t possible on Facebook, because they don’t have a very strong [virtual goods] business model, and without that you can’t survive on Facebook anyway.”

The company first started out as strictly a casual games publisher and developer, but around 2007–the dawn of the social game–Driessen had to make a choice. Would Spil Games ride on the success of Facebook, and bring its then 80 million players there, or would it grow on its already healthy legion of gamers? Of course, the company went with the latter, and added more features to its platforms like cross-game avatars, leaderboards and friends lists. As for Bigpoint, it’s one the first big time developers to join the Spil Games platform, and Driessen has no intention of stopping there.

But while Spil Games has a different strategy than Facebook, it’s only a slight difference. For instance, the company will handle the payments that come through all of its developers’ games. Though, compensation is handled in a revenue sharing model rather than the rigid 30 percent cut Facebook takes from all Facebook Credits transactions. Driessen tells us that Spil Games will bring in 60 percent of net revenues from its developers, though it offers services that Facebook does not like community management and localization. If developers choose to handle those services themselves, then that revenue percentage decreases. It’s because of this distinction that Driessen sees Facebook as less of a games platform than what it started out as: a social network.

“I really see Facebook as a social network first and foremost,” Driessen says. “I’d guess that in five years most of their money will come from that payment option. I think that maybe they will do Facebook Credits outside of Facebook. It could be that they’re really transforming into this social network into one of the biggest payment platforms in the world, which would give them a tremendous position. I reckon that games for them, in the future, will be less important than it is nowadays.”

The difference, according to Driessen, is that Spil Games only focuses on games. That’s all the company knows, and that’s all it’s concerned with. And it’s thanks to that focus that Driessen sees the company becoming a consolidator in the games space, and that its reach could grow even longer and wider in the future. But how?

As it turns out, Spil Games’s future strategy isn’t far different from other online game developers and platforms. Mobile games are going to be a large focus for the company moving forward, as is HTML5 gaming, the unofficial messiah for mobile and social gaming. But having been around not much longer than three years, social gaming is still a nascent genre, and Driessen thinks this is just the beginning.

“I think [this is the] natural path in how that world is evolving,” Driessen says. “Mostly you see some things start like a mixed market, but as developers come out, you see companies positioning themselves in some niches.” Driessen may be right, but one question still remains: If Facebook will not provide that niche for American social games in the future, then who will? With companies like Japan’s DeNA and Tencent in China on the rise, perhaps the next big battle in social games doesn’t concern the U.S. at all.（Source：games）