作者：Libe Goad

移动设备成了社交游戏的新乐土，Zynga仍稳坐这个领域的头把交椅……多个现象已印证games.com对2011年社交游戏领域的预言，以下是该网站观察者对2012年的社交游戏走向的预测：

fortune-teller(from games)

1.Facebook仍将是首选社交游戏平台

Facebook有可能（或者不可能）在2012年流失一些美国用户，但仍会是人们体验社交游戏的第一站，谷歌社交网络Google+需提供更为人性化的服务方有望扭转形势。

手机社交游戏领域的情况与此相似，尽管这个市场已经有许多手机社交游戏平台，但用户在这些平台与好友玩游戏的现象尚未形成气候。Game Center、OpenFeint和Mobage都在争夺这个市场的主导权，但都面临难以吸引社交游戏玩家加入平台的挑战，而要说服那些并不以“游戏玩家”自居的用户入驻更是难上加难。

Facebook一大优势仍是将游戏与其广泛的社交体验相绑定。用户在向Facebook上传照片、编辑更新状态、在好友涂鸦墙发表评论之余，也很可能顺便在该平台玩数分钟的《宝石迷阵闪电战》或者收割农场中的庄稼。

2.“模拟城市社交版”将与《CityVille》正面交锋

simcity-iphone(from appcraver.com)

Zynga城建游戏《CityVille》自发布以来一直是Facebook头号热门游戏，主要原因有二：1）这款游戏同时发布多种语言版本；2）建设虚拟城市的题材颇受不同文化、性别和年龄段的用户欢迎。据称EA正紧锣密鼓地投入开发经典PC游戏《模拟城市》Facebook版本，我们认为除了它，没有哪一款游戏更具备与《CityVille》过招的潜质。如果《模拟人生社交版》能够大获成功，“模拟城市社交版”也极有可能处于强势竞争地位。

3.跨平台社交游戏体验获得提升

社交游戏的一大局限性就在于，用户只能在电脑或者手机上玩游戏，而不能同时在两者上体验游戏。从苹果iPad到亚马逊Kindle Fire，平板电脑迅速崛起成为用户的次级电脑设备，这种情况下，无法随时随地体验任何一款社交游戏的现象确实令人不快。

但跨平台游戏体验将在2012年获得突破。Zynga等社交游戏公司过于依赖Facebook，他们要想获得持久发展，就必须找到其他的立足点。这个问题至今尚未解决的一大原因就是技术局限性，例如，iOS设备并不支持运行Flash游戏。但Flash技术供应商Adobe已表示想出了一个折衷方案，许多人也开始将希望寄托于可兼容任何平台的HTML5技术。

4.社交游戏画面质量堪比视频游戏

去年已有人提出社交游戏将呈现3D视觉效果，或者说“视频游戏”这种高质量的画面，但这一点至今尚未实现。但我们相信2012年会成为3D Facebook游戏起飞的一年：首先，社交游戏仍将持续改进其视觉效果和玩法，它的下一步很可能就是采用3D画面。其次，3D游戏技术最近已取得了重大进展，例如Flash 11已支持运行Unity 3D游戏引擎所开发的游戏。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Welcome to the future: We predict big trends in social games for 2012

by Libe Goad

In 2011, social gaming turned out pretty much the way we thought it would. Mobile devices proved to be a fertile breeding ground for social games, FarmVille maker Zynga continued to get bigger, and we witnessed more than our fair share of advergames this year.

Now it’s that time of year that we, once again, reshuffle our tarot decks and see what the next 12 months will hold for games of a social nature. And, even if the Mayan predictions about the world ending in 2012 prove true, that won’t happen until December — so everyone has plenty of time to get this stuff in under the wire.

Facebook will still be the #1 place to play social games

Facebook may (or may not) be losing users in the US, but it will still be the number one platform for social games this year. Google’s social network needs to make its service much more user friendly to convince the change-averse general public (i.e. non-tech-heads) to make the move from Facebook.

Mobile social games suffer from a similar problem — there are a lot of them out there, but there’s not an easy way to play them with other people. Mobiles have three major game-based social networks duking it out for the top spot — Apple’s Game Center, OpenFeint and Mobage — but it’s hard to convince social gamers to join, especially when a majority of them don’t consider themselves ‘gamers.’

Facebook’s strength continues to lie in the fact that its games are integrated into a larger social experience. People are already visiting the social network daily to uploading photos, write zingy status updates and commenting on friends’ walls, what’s the harm in spending a few minutes playing Bejeweled Blitz or checking in on the farm?

SimCity Social will go toe-to-toe with CityVille

Since launch, Zynga’s city building game, CityVille, has maintained its position as the number one game on Facebook. There are several reasons for this: First, the game was simultaneously released in multiple languages, and second, there’s something about building virtual cities that crosses any cultural, gender and generational divide. So when we heard reports that Electronic Arts is hard at work on making a Facebook version of its PC gaming mega-hit SimCity, well, we can’t think of any other game more likely to topple CityVille from atop its perch. If the success of Sims Social is any indicator, SimCity Social (or whatever it’s called) will be sitting pretty this time next year.

Play your game of choice on any device

One of the biggest problems in social game-dom is the fact that you have to be on a computer to play your games. Or on a mobile device. But you can’t do both. And world that is quickly growing to embrace tablets, from the iPad to the new Kindle Fire, as a secondary computing device, it’s annoying that we can’t check in on our virtual people in The Sims Social whenever, wherever and on whatever.

2012 will be the year that someone makes this breakthrough. Why? Because it has to be. Companies like Zynga rely far too much on Facebook and must stop doing that for long term success. Technology is the main reason this hasn’t happened yet, as in, you can’t play Flash games on iOS devices. Flash-creator Adobe says it has come up with a workaround for that problem and many seem to be pinning their hopes on the platform agnostic HTML5 as well.

Social games with video game-quality graphics

Last year, we were certain that social games with 3D graphics, or what I like to call “video game quality” graphics, would be everywhere by the end of 2011. That didn’t exactly happen, but we’ve got plenty good reason to believe that 2012 will — for real, this time — be the year of 3D games on Facebook and other social gaming outlets. Social games will continue to look and play better, and the addition of high falutin’ 3D graphics is a natural next step. Second the technology to do it made major strides recently (though we’re still dubious that Flash 11 can deliver games on par with those on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 or Sony’s PlayStation 3).（source:blog.games）