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如何才能制作出优秀的Facebook游戏?

发布时间:2011-09-30 13:07:10 Tags:,,,

作者:Tim Rogers

每当我与认识的人在谈论Facebook游戏时,扯了几句后他们便会异口同声地认为Facebook游戏一点都不好玩。

这看起来我的朋友好像都是一些宁愿去看电影,或者玩《求生之路2》的人。简而言之,Facebook游戏似乎看起来并不是什么优秀的游戏或者艺术作品呢。补充:Facebook游戏与单机游戏的区别,我敢保证,如果你在Gamestop提及Facebook游戏,管理人员将有可能狠狠地把你踢出去。

Facebook游戏到底存在什么问题?我在谷歌上搜索“我讨厌Facebook游戏”,结果如下。

“我讨厌Facebook游戏。”这是Facebook上一个社区的名称。从第一条评论“这都是一些很无聊的游戏”,开始整个留言板写得密密麻麻的,都是玩家真实的情感反应。

有一条留言写道:“我讨厌像《FarmVille》这样的游戏,这根本不算游戏。”这是一个小伙子说的,他认为Facebook上的游戏都很无聊,只是在反复进行一系列的事件罢。

还有一条留言说道:“甚至SNES上的《Harvest Moon》也比这些游戏有趣1000倍以上……”

我想除了页面,我便再也找不到比这些内容更能简明扼要概括大众不喜欢Facebook的原因了。

当然了也有一些评论是正面的,所以我便在谷歌上搜索了“最优秀的Facebook游戏”,以了解大众到底喜欢什么样的Facebook游戏。我看到了一列清单,清单上的游戏我都认识,但多数是一些我很讨厌的游戏。

我想声明的是,现实中我的朋友没有一个会承认自己喜欢Facebook游戏。虽然我在Facebook上的一些好友会玩上面的游戏,但我从来没有遇到那些会在《FarmVille》或《CityVille》中大把撒钱的玩家。

Facebook上的游戏一般都是免费的。“免费游戏”是Facebook游戏一个很聪明的隐藏机制,其实它们中绝大部分并不是免费的。Facebook游戏是“可盈利的”。“可盈利”一词是随着商人开始提供给买家免费体验,并想办法让他们掏腰包后才开始在商业中迅速窜红。他们通过利用数学和心理学原理而构造出一个“大脑迷宫”(用于加强“用户粘性”)的机制。所以,通常这类型的游戏比起乐趣,反而更加注重如何留住玩家。

当你去研究数量时,你会发现大约有5%的Facebook玩家曾经在游戏中花钱。有些玩家甚至会在一款游戏中花费1万美元。而每个玩家在游戏中的平均消费额是1.7美元。但绝大多数玩家从来没有为之花过钱,而我也是这种“大多数”中的一员。

我曾经对社交游戏进行分析,并总结道Facebook游戏中最“棒”的一点就是它们能为一些人赚大钱。

这么看来这种“盈利”系统是有用的,尽管它只对“不足5%”的用户起作用。甚至一些从事于制作社交游戏的心理数学家也与我的观点不谋而合,即认为社交游戏其实还有很大的发展潜力。

为了坚持我所相信的“真理”,我将在下文按照“前十名”的排列顺序分析:如何做才能制作出优秀的Facebook游戏?

farmville(from mashable.com)

farmville(from mashable.com)

1.鼓动玩家重访游戏以及向新用户推广游戏

我总认为如果Facebook上的游戏能够重视这两点内容,那么将会做得更好。你也是这么想的吧?

“推动玩家再次尝试游戏”意味着很多人浅尝游戏后便掉头离开了。为了推动玩家再次进行游戏,你便需要让他们愿意投入更多时间于游戏中而非轻易放弃,随后你可以设置一个虚拟的推广墙,以此说服玩家再次进入游戏。

“向新玩家更好地推广游戏”意味着游戏中应该设置推广墙,向从没玩过该游戏的玩家宣传游戏并吸引他们前来尝试。

你知道吗,如果你想要制作出更好的社交游戏,只需要这两点便足以了。

而且我在谷歌上搜索“如何才能制作出优秀的Facebook游戏”,随之便出现了Facebook官方博客,而在里面我只看到了两点建议,便是“推动玩家重访游戏”和“向新玩家更好地推广游戏”、所以我认为这个看法并不是我的主观之断。

2.探索鼠标右键点击功能

如今,几乎所有Facebook游戏都只使用鼠标的左键进行操作。很多游戏都在使用Java或者Flash等技术,而鼠标的右键设置可以说是一种硬连线设置,能够帮助玩家打开某些浏览窗口并更改一些网络浏览器的设置等。

Facebook游戏设计者是多么聪明的人啊,他们能够让数以万计的人们为一些虚拟的商品投资上亿美元的金钱。那么既然他们如此聪明,一定也会制造出用鼠标右键进行点击的游戏吧。

要知道,除了左键你还有右键呢,多个选择有何不好?想想任天堂的红白机,它的控制器便有2个按键,即A与B。超级任天堂的主机也添加了X与Y按键。举例来说,如果说《银河战士》优于《超级银河战士》,那么《Super FarmVille》肯定会比《FarmVille》更加优秀了!

3.创造出比Zynga更棒的美术风格

我发誓我绝对不是在抨击Zynga。得承认我们只是不喜欢Zynga,因为不管怎样,在那里只是有一些人在寻找一些有效的东西并借此赚大钱罢了。

我们要在此谈谈一些更为现实的问题。

事实上,Zynga的游戏角色看起来就像治疗过程中使用的彩色画图本,用来鼓励孩童进行实验,以验证在他们眼中空地上有哪些东西是紫色的。当我看到Zynga的游戏角色时,我觉得自己的心态好像苍老了,因为我总是希望这些角色会遭受到失败。我觉得我是个再正常不过的人,所以我认为这种反应也是很正常的。

更糟糕的是,Zynga的美术风格主张模仿,其市场营销者更是认为任何受欢迎的游戏,其每一个小细节都是关键因素。因此我们才会看到如此多带有类似小细节的Facebook游戏吧。

我知道Facbook游戏在短时间里不可能创造出3D图像,因为它们需要在浏览器上运行并同时适用于不同玩家的电脑等等。所以我想说的还是尽可能地把游戏的2D图像做好。人们总是会说“这需要花钱那也需要花钱”,但是都还不是因为你们想要赚钱吗。也就是说你想通过制作这些游戏赚钱。那么就雇佣一些厉害人去帮助你,帮你制作出类似《飞天小女警》或者《歪小子斯科特》的游戏角色,或者创造出围绕这些角色的后农场游戏。就让一些更加奇特怪异的角色来占领我们的眼球吧。

4.谨用病毒式传播方式!

在我的状态栏中竟然有好多社交游戏更新的推广内容!

“嘿!我在体验一些Facebook游戏!”

“如果你也加入游戏将变得更有趣!点击这里!”

“如果你点击这里将获得一个奖励!”

这些无孔不入的信息真是让人无语。

5.制作一些简单的动作类游戏!

显然,Facebook游戏希望世界上97%的人口都能拥有Facebook帐号,而如果游戏能从每一个人手中获得1美元,那么它们将有可能买下整个地球,坐着火箭飞向任何地方了。而为了达到这个目标,你的游戏自然需要变得更加简单,即游戏中的任何东西都是美好的,不存在打打杀杀,没有人会是永远的胜利者,也没有人会一直充当失败者。

你知道人们喜欢什么吗?他们喜欢《水果忍者》。谁会不喜欢《水果忍者》?我的叔叔便不会喜欢这款游戏,如果他还活着的话。

《水果忍者》产生的利润并不多,因为有时候耍酷一族只会在圣诞节的时候掏钱买facebook积分,其它时候几乎不会消费。而你选择《水果忍者》是因为你喜欢切水果,而游戏也很高兴你喜欢。你想要做得更好。你希望能够不断提高分数,而游戏也希望你能够不断提高分数。

《水果忍者》和《宝石迷阵》都出现在Facebook平台上,他们可以说是现代版的《俄罗斯方块》,显得更简单更快速,且不会让玩家感到焦躁。

我们所说的“社交游戏”是指当你邀请朋友拜访农场而他们却没有做出回应时,你会对此感到抓狂。

然而《水果忍者》作为一款社交游戏并不是因为它出现在了Facebook平台上。它的“社交性”表现在玩家必须与好友分享自己的得分。任何与其他玩家一起进行的游戏都可以戴上“社交”的帽子——尽管许多权威始终强调“社交游戏”必须反复要求玩家进行直接的社交行动而加深游戏体验。

这个怎么样:在《FarmVille》中,种植草莓比种植花生贵,尽管进行这两种种植的行动是一样的,即指向和点击。在《模拟人生社交版》中,你可以发送“诽谤邮件”,可以在微波炉里烤干酪辣味玉米片或者看电视,而这些行动也只需要你指向并点击即可。多么简单,你只要指向某个东西,点击,那么这就是一个小型技巧游戏了。

网络中充斥着许多一次点击的小游戏。

我只是随便点开在Flixel.org网站上看到的第一款游戏,虽然它不是很优秀,但是都比《FarmVille》有趣多了,而且它也不是要求单一点击进行控制。为什么我们在收集草莓的时候不能也这么做呢?即让你能够保证基本得分,并在失败后也能够获得一定的补贴。

6.真正让玩家与好友一起游戏

今年我所交涉过的所有Facebook游戏开发者都对我宣称“我们的游戏将会有同步性功能”,但结果却往往不是这样。

Facebook游戏并没有真正让你与好友一起玩游戏,反而好友只是作为你的邻居,你可以去他们家窜门,并看看他们的游戏成果。这就是事实。这听起来好像是一个鬼故事:在《模拟人生社交版》中,你也许这时正在好友的卧室里玩吉他,而他正在洗澡,但是下一秒钟,你也许就坐在Dunkin’ Donuts(全球知名的甜甜圈连锁店)外面的草坪椅上,而你的好友正在厨房为你制作华夫饼。所以说游戏真的是一个说谎精,社交游戏更甚。

创造一款让玩家一起玩游戏的游戏会怎样?或者,在一款Facebook游戏中让玩家不仅拥有自己的家,也能够同时拥有一个城镇,他们可以与所有Facebook好友共享这个城镇,一起建造金字塔,大型机器人等等。所以《Minecraft》也是款不错的游戏。我决定开始执行这个创意,如果一个月后你发现我还是没有任何动静,那么我有可能去Zynga工作了。(笑)

7.在玩家之间添加一些冲突

我曾经为一家中型的公司工作,他们开发了许多工具用于收集你的Facebook好友的相关数据,并告诉你谁与你的喜好最为相近等等,而他们希望我能够“游戏化”这些数据。我便因此编写出一些句子,如“Stephen Totilo在他所有好友中是最厉害的Facebooker!挑战他吧!”

这种做法很有趣也很特别,尽管它有时候并不可行。首先是因为它缺少真实感(它的设计规格有点像《Cow Clicker》,即恶搞版社交游戏)。其次,如果“赢”的代价是必须与好友竞争,那么人们就不会那么在意了(这点很特别)。编写这种句子便要求我去控制玩家们的思想,但是我觉得这样做并不好,所以我们还是来说说其它的吧。

Facebooke成功的一大秘诀便是它从来不会明确地告诉用户他们比其他玩家优秀与否。而是把这个问题留给用户们自己去判断:如“Leigh Alexander留言板上的评论和赞词比我多,”那么这位玩家便会对此加以思考。Facebooke的这种做法也延伸到《FarmVille》,《Cityville》等Facebooker游戏上。如《模拟人生社交版》不会在玩家的留言板上说:“该死!Amanda Glasser的房子比你的棒多了!”

反而,在这些游戏中,当玩家不如好友时,他们还可以自己做决定:玩家参观好友创造的环境时心里会想“哇!他肯定在这里投入了很多精力。”而这将会导致玩家自卑感的产生,并因此推动虚拟商品销售(“你也必须有这样东西”)。这就好比是山顶洞人第一次发明了轮子,然后又出现了棍棒,铁锤,而提高了生产力,最后衍生出如今的市场。

心理学家,数学家等权威都会得出一致结论,即制作一款能让玩家获胜的Facebooker游戏(因为如果让玩家输掉了游戏他们将会马上停止游戏),以及让玩家能够打败好友的游戏需要投入大把的资金。

然而,我们还需要更多富有竞争性的多人Facebooke游戏。试想一下如果你创造了一种多人游戏竞赛,那么玩家在游戏中输掉大把资金于其他玩家又会是一种什么情况?

让我们以《万智牌:旅法师对决》的设计理念为例,来分析Facebooker游戏。

严格来讲,《万智牌:旅法师对决》是一款很棒的游戏,而它也迈进了庞大的Facebooke游戏队伍中。这是一款纸牌游戏,鼓励玩家用最少的消费去收集卡片。它的设计理念贯穿于游戏始终,所以仍然具有很大的发展前景。

在游戏中,玩家如果被好友打败了,那么他将丢掉“卡片”或者“桥牌”。假设你每天可以免费获得一张“卡片”(或者2张,3张),那么你可以支付最少的钱(如0.10美元?)去购买其它卡片。也许每一张“卡片”只能在一些特定的时间里使用:如“怪兽”牌可以进行复制,并在这张卡片被摧毁之前尽可能地拖延时间。

8.效仿《暗黑破坏神》游戏机制

有些人总是会效仿《暗黑破坏神》,将类似的机制带到自己的游戏中,让玩家在一天中拥有5条生命。他们可以支付0.25美元再购买一条生命。也就是说即使是死去的角色也可以再次复苏并多待6个小时。这么看来便很清楚了,Zynga的游戏与一般电子游戏类似。玩家可以使用游戏道具,如种子在自己的农场里进行种植,并收割如此反复。

然而比起Zynga独创的“能量”机制,0.25美元购得一条生命算是很便宜了,而且它们也能提供给玩家很棒的游戏体验。

9.让我们思考下棋盘游戏!

Zynga的《Words With Friends》(填字游戏)便赚了很多钱。这款游戏与“拼字游戏”类似。它有可能是很多玩家在iPhone上的唯一一款游戏。因为它的玩法与国际象棋类似。Facebooke上还有很多不错的棋类游戏!如《Rampart》,《Risk! Scrabble》等。

10.至少让《模拟人生社交版》与《动物之森》一样有趣

《模拟人生社交版》很恐怖,就像计算机病毒一样阴森可怕。我可不想在游戏中坐在自己的家里,或者去宜家买家具。确实有够混乱的!你还不如制作一款游戏让玩家能够洗碗或者刷牙。如果你想要制作一款让玩家能够拥有自己空间的游戏,那么就尽可能地突出你的游戏特色。而《动物之森》这款游戏就做得很好。你可以在Facebooke上找到这款游戏,并轻松尝试它。

11.《帝国时代OL》

哦,我差点忘了,还有《帝国时代OL》!这并不是Facebook游戏,但是它与我们所谈论的这个话题相关。我们也许可以向这款游戏取经。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

What Would Make Facebook Games Great?

By Tim Rogers

Whenever someone I know mentions Facebook games in front of someone else, a few lines of conversation transpire, during which they agree to agree to that Facebook games are not cool.

Maybe this means I hang out with a lot of people who love going to the theater, or else would rather play Left 4 Dead 2. In short, it might mean that Facebook games are neither high art nor high games. Re: the latter distinction, I’m sure if you mention Facebook games in a Gamestop, the manager pulls a shotgun out from under the register and racks it. (I am too scared to test this theory (absolutely no journalistic integrity).)

What’s wrong with Facebook games? I Googled “I hate Facebook games”, and I ended up here.

“I Hate Facebook Games.” is the title of a Facebook community. A discussion thread on the wall begins with the post “They are boring games”, a sentiment which is not punctuated.

“I Hate Facebook Games Likes This”, it says beneath the post. “Farmville is not a game,” says the chap who purports Facebook games “are boring games”. “It is a big series of events.”

“Even Harvest Moon on SNES was 1000x better than this…” says the next poster.

Outside of this page, I simply cannot find a more concise, potent summary of the public’s general dislike of Facebook games.

Part of the art of criticism is trying to be positive, so I did a Google search for “Top Facebook Games”, just to get a good idea of what the public likes. I stumbled onto a list. Of the games on that list I am familiar with, I can say I hate the majority of them.

For the record, none of my real-life in-person friends will admit to enjoying Facebook games. Some of my on-Facebook friends play the games. Still, it stands that I have never knowingly spoken to a person who is stone-cold financially addicted to Farmville or Cityville.

Facebook games are invariably free to play. “Free to play” is a clever little phrase which masks the idea that they are possibly not free to enjoy. Facebook games are “monetized”. “Monetize” is a word that didn’t exist so prominently in business until recently, until businessmen got the idea to offer people a free experience and then connive a way to get the users to pay anyway. They do this by constructing brain-labyrinths (“engagement wheels”) through scary dark tricks of math and psychology. The games aren’t about being fun—they’re about keeping the player there.

When you look into the numbers, you find that somewhere around five percent of Facebook game players ever spend any money at all on the games. Some of the users spend $10,000 on a single game. The average amount of money a user spends is $1.70, though most users spend nothing. I am one of those “most users”.

I have analyzed social games and concluded that the “best” thing about Facebook games is that they are making serious money for some people.

So, the “monetization” system that has emerged is a “good” one because it “works”, though it only works on “less than five percent” of users. So, even the psychomathematiconomists employed in making social games could agree with me when I say it is a scientific fact that social games could be better.

In the interest of my chosen science— lolology—I will henceforth tackle, in the tried format of a “top ten” list, the following elephant-sized question: What would make Facebook games great?

1. Drive re-engagement and improve discovery!

I’ve always thought that Facebook games would be better if they drove re-engagement and improved discovery. Duh. That’s what we all think, right?

“Drive re-engagement” means that a lot of people dip their toes into the game and then stop almost immediately. To drive re-engagement, you’d have to make a game people want to play a little bit longer before giving up—and then devise viral wall-posts persuasive enough to get those players to actually play the game again.

“Improve discovery” means that they should devise viral wall-posts persuasive enough to get people who have never played the game to dip their toes into the game.

You know what—we might not even need the rest of the items on the list. If you were going to make Facebook games “better”, those are really only the two things you need to do!

Wow—and look at this! I just Googled “how to make Facebook games better”, and it turns up an Official Facebook Blog post in which the only two suggestions for making Facebook games “better” are “drive re-engagement” and “improve discovery”. I guess “better” isn’t as subjective a word as we thought.

Looks like the mathematicians win again!

2. Right mouse click

Right now, every Facebook game uses just the left mouse button. As they all use Java, or Flash, or whatever the brainiacs are calling the latest computer-thing, the right click is hard-wired to open up some kind of voodoo window to change some kind of web-browser settings.

Well, these Facebook-game-makers are smart people. They’re so smart, they managed to get tens of millions of people to pay literally billions of dollars for stuff that isn’t even real. If they were able to do that, they can probably figure out how to make a game where you can right-click on some stuff.

Imagine if, in addition to left click, you had a right click. That would literally be twice the options. Remember the Nintendo Entertainment System? The controller had two buttons—A and B. The Super Nintendo added X and Y. Now try telling me that Metroid is better than Super Metroid. Super Farmville would be so much better than Farmville.

3. Make a better art style than Zynga

I’m not going to talk smack about Zynga, I swear. For today, let’s not talk about how their games are the electronic equivalent of an unraveled coat-hanger, their collective customers the consumer equivalent of an old Buick in a supermarket parking lot. Let’s not even throw around phrases like “computer-engineered pharmaceuticals” or “the ghostification of modern society”. Let’s be nice. Let’s admit that maybe we only think we dislike them, because at the end of the day, they’re just a group of people who found something that worked and then made enough money to give Uncle Scrooge’s Money Bin penis-envy.

Today, let’s stick to the facts.

The fact is the characters in Zynga games look like something you’d see in a coloring book used for the part of the therapy where the child is encouraged to show the therapist which things in this barnyard scene he wishes were purple. I feel a little bit older than I probably really am whenever I look at Zynga game characters. When I see them, I am filled with a semi-intense desire to see them suffer. I am a perfectly normal person, so I imagine this is a perfectly normal reaction (also, that no one else reading this has ever worn a pair of new socks more than twice).

The worst part about the Zynga art style is that we live in a world of copycats, copytigers, and copypanthers. Also, the predominant method of thinking among marketers is that if something is popular, every single tiny element of it is greatly responsible for its popularity. So we see similar munchkin bobbleheads popping up in every other Facebook game.

I know we’re not going to get triple-A graphics in these things anytime soon, because they need to run in a browser and they need to perform well on everyone’s computer for maximum accessibility, et cetera, et cetera. I’m just saying to at least try to make your darn 2D look good. They say “it takes money to make money”, and you want to make money, right? I mean, that’s why you’re making these games. Hire someone famous. Make the characters look like the Powerpuff Girls, or like the Scott Pilgrim comics. Or, make a post-apocalyptic farming simulator with characters who are a precise cross between Scott Pilgrim and Marcus Fenix. Just get those cold, weird ventriloquist-dummy grins off my e-lawn.

4. Be politer about the virality!

Every! God! Darn! Time! Someone auto-posts a social game update on my Facebook wall, it’s just full! Of! Exclamation points!

“Hey! I’m having fun in Some Facebook Game!”

“If you joined me we could have more fun! Click here!”

“If you click here you’ll get a reward!”

For god’s sake! Video games! Stop yelling at me!

Take a lesson from The Nigerian Spanish-Prisoner Spam-Robot, people: set all your soulless ItGetsTheMoney.virus programs to “Dear Friend,”.

5. Make some action games!

Of course, the idea of Facebook games is that literally 97% of the world’s population has a Facebook account, and that if you get one dollar from each of those people you can literally buy an entire planet and a rocketship to take you there. In order to get that one dollar from every pocket in the world, your game, of course, needs to be this hyper-simplistic thing where everything is beautiful, nothing hurts, no one ever wins, and no one ever loses.

Well, you know what people like? They like Fruit Ninja. What kind of psychopath doesn’t like Fruit Ninja? I’ll tell you who: I had an uncle once who probably wouldn’t have liked Fruit Ninja, if he’d lived long enough to see it.

Fruit Ninja makes money—a modest amount of money (maybe only enough to choke a horse (as opposed to a rhino))—because sometimes Genuinely Cool People get Facebook Credits in their Christmas stockings, and what else are they going to use them on? You play Fruit Ninja because you love cutting fruit, and the fruit loves being cut. You want to get better at it. Numbers go up—you love them going up, and they love going up.

Fruit Ninja and Bejeweled are games that fit on Facebook. They are The Modern Tetris, in that they’re as they’re simpler and faster-paced—and I’m not being snippy.

When we say “social games”, we are usually talking about games that will, following an accidental click on the wrong button, impersonate you, threatening suicide if your friends don’t visit your farm Right The Fuck Now.

However, Fruit Ninja is just as much of a social game—and not because it’s on Facebook. It’s “social” because you’re compelled to share your score with your friends. Any game you play with people is “social”, I say—though the scientists behind these things would pressure me to point out that “social games” usually require the act of socializing to directly enhance the game experience.

How about this: in Farmville, it costs more money to plant strawberries than it does to plant peanuts (I think), though the act of planting them is committed with the same action: point, and click. In The Sims Social, there’s a quest where you have to “Send Libelous Emails”, and that’s done the exact same way as cooking nachos in a microwave or watching television or having sex in the shower: you point, and you click. Why can’t it be, like, you point at something, you click, and then there’s a tiny little skill-game?

The web is crawling with little one-click games.

Here, I just opened the first game I saw on Flixel.org, and though it’s not very good, it’s at least more fun than Farmville, and its controls don’t even require a single click. Why can’t we have a little something like that every time we go to pick our strawberries, where your minimum score is always guaranteed, even if you fail, and optimal performance gives you a bonus?

6. Let people actually play with their friends.

Every Facebook game developer I’ve talked to this year has promised me, in a low voice, swallowing that last bite of hors d’oeuvre and wiping his hands on his thighs, that “Our game will actually feature synchronous play.” The game never comes out. The next time I hear from the guy, it’s via a Facebook message his mom is sending through his account: they have finally found the car.

Facebook games aren’t about actually hanging out with your friends—they’re about your friends being your neighbors. You can go over to your friends’ houses and . . . look at all the stuff they have. That’s about it. It’s all just a kind of flimsy ghost story: in The Sims Social, you might be in your friend’s house playing guitar in his bedroom while he is taking a shower, and at the exact same time, he might be in your house making waffles in the kitchen while you sit on a Dunkin’ Donuts lawn chair outside. Games are, in general, liars. Social games are pathological liars.

How about a game where players can actually play together? Or how about this? A Facebook game where players have their own home, and they also have a town. They share this town with all of their Facebook friends who are playing the game. In that town, they form circles with their friends, and they build something together—a pyramid or a giant robot or something. I mean, Minecraft is something people like, right? I’m going to stop before I basically hand someone else a billion dollars. If you don’t hear from me in a month, it’s because I got a job at Zynga.

7. Add real conflict between users

For a while, I was working with a medium-sized company that had developed one of those (now-many) tools for aggregating statistical data based on your Facebook friends—telling you who likes more of the same things you do than your other friends do, et cetera. They wanted me to “gamify” that data. I devised a thing that would spit out phrases like “Stephen Totilo is The Best Facebooker Among All His Friends! Challenge him!”

It was cute and weird, though it probably wouldn’t have worked, firstly because it was insincere (behind its design specifications was a Cow-Clicker-ish smirk, a betting dare that “jerks will love this”). Secondly, it wouldn’t have worked because—and this is the fascinating part: people in general just don’t want to “win” when it means beating their friends. Backing up that statement would require me to blow your minds, and that wouldn’t be nice (you might not all be wearing Protective Hats), so let’s move along.

One key to Facebook’s success is that it never explicitly tells its users they’re better or worse than any other users. Rather, they leave it up to individual users to judge: “Leigh Alexander sure gets a lot more comments and likes on her posts than I do,” one might muse. This translates smoothly into Farmville or Cityville or Whathaveyouville: The Sims Social doesn’t post on your wall saying, “Fuck you—Amanda Glasser’s house sure is cooler than yours.” (Mostly it wouldn’t do this because my house is objectively cooler than hers.)

Instead, games let the player decide for him or herself when they’re not doing as well as their friends: the player visits his friend’s constructed environment and thinks, “Wow—he’s put a lot of work into this.” This leads to a Manufactured Inferiority Complex. That’s been the driving force of marketing (“You need this stupid thing now!”) since the day the first caveman invented the wheel, the club, the hammer, and marketing (it was a productive day).

The psychologists and mathematicians and police have all sat down in a brain-tank and had a deep think about it, and the conclusion is that it’s A Huge Financial Gamble to make a Facebook game that players can win (because: then they’ll stop playing), and an Astronomical Financial Gamble to make a Facebook game that a player can beat his friends at.

Still: we need more competitive multiplayer Facebook games. How about you make it possible to lose marginal amounts of in-game assets to other players as a result of consensual multiplayer duels?

Let’s make a Facebook game as tightly designed as Magic: The Gathering.

Seriously: Magic: The Gathering is a brilliant thing, and it’s basically already a Facebook game. It’s a card game that encourages collection via small payments (booster packs). It’s designed from the ground up so that its math and rules are infinitely expandable.

Let’s make it so that players can lose “cards” or “units” to friends who beat them in duels. Make it so that you get a free “card” (or two, or three) every day, and that you can pay a tiny fee- $0.10?—for an additional card. Maybe each “card” would only be usable a certain number of times: the “monster” the card spawns can be spawned and killed a set number of times before the card is destroyed.

There you go. Let’s see something like that. (Not that I would want to play something that resembled Magic: The Gathering, because I’m so cool. (Ladies, call me; I swear my only obsessive hobbies involve writing 16,000-word reviews of video games in the first person.))

8. Just put Diablo on there already.

Somebody could just rip off Diablo—very tenaciously, with fair math—and there you have it. Players are allowed five lives a day. They can pay $0.25 for each additional life. Corpses stay where they fell for six hours. There you go: Zynga: The Arcade Game. Item drops include seeds or whatever—you can plant a little farm in your hub town.

$0.25 a life wouldn’t be as lucrative as Zynga’s ingenious “energy” mechanic, though hey—it would probably allow for a better game.

9. Let’s think about board games!

Zynga’s Words With Friends does drag in a heck-ton of money. It’s a “Scrabble” clone. You may know this game as “the only game your hip big sister has on her iPhone”. It’s incredibly addictive and fascinating thanks to its chess-in-a-bottle-style asynchronous play. Hey, guys, let’s think of more board-game-y games. Let’s get Rampart on Facebook, at least. Or Risk! Scrabble is cool. Now rip off some more cool stuff and Facebook it.

10. At least make The Sims Social as fun as Animal Crossing

The Sims Social is creepy. It’s a love letter from a computer virus. I don’t want to play a game about sitting around at home and buying IKEA furniture. That’s fucked up. You might as well make a game about washing dishes or brushing your teeth. If you’re going to make a game about the yayness of having your own place, give it some personality. Animal Crossing did that. Someone should try that on Facebook. It’s not rocket science (just computer programming).

11. Age of Empires Online

Oh, hey, Age of Empires Online exists. I keep forgetting. It’s not a Facebook game, though it might be relevant to this discussion. Let me finally get around to taking a look at it.(source:kotaku


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