作者：Leigh Alexander

Facebook面临有趣抉择，其涉及的经营艺术日益成熟化。这个领域的成功取决于能否快速而广泛地获取用户，这是设计的主要驱动力量。

在任何开发成本颇高的游戏领域中，模仿可行模式要比进行创新风险小很多，所以许多成功游戏都基于相同机制。

典型例子有令体验时间变成珍贵资源的常见“能量机制”，及要求玩家反复点击内容以顺利完成关卡任务的通知机制（游戏邦注：这旨在维持活跃用户）。最后，多数Facebook游戏会要求玩家邀请非玩家好友参与其中。

在传统玩家看来，这些玩法算不上游戏，而更像是Excel表格的交战。但很多游戏设计元老都纷纷转投社交游戏领域，继续宣传Facebook游戏的发展潜力，敦促大家要有耐心。

不满参数设计模式的人士继续质疑此平台未来将呈现的各种“更美好的未来”——游戏更富趣味、更逼真、更受到所谓的“玩家”的青睐。

若有关Zynga成员如履薄冰的报道属实，那么我们就不能说那些推进Facebook平台发展的人士已经可以高枕无忧了。

Metacritic的Facebook游戏？

RISK Factions from marketplace.xbox.com

EA高管Spencer Brooks目前负责《RISK: Factions》（这款游戏在Xbox Live Arcade表现突出）的Facebook发行工作，在最近媒体访谈中他提出一个有趣问题：掌机发行商在决定是否同意发行某项目时会将评论情况和Metacritic评分考虑在内。若Facebook游戏也采用类似于传统游戏的评分机制，这会给这类游戏的艺术及运营带来什么影响？

那些意图创造更新颖、更优质Facebook游戏的传统游戏设计师若能够利用媒体曝光提高作品知名度，那他们就能够在创新过程中处于更有利的地位。但游戏媒体常常忽略Facebook游戏，大家似乎从未想过在这类游戏中采用评分评论。

Kotaku是非常重要的游戏博客，主要服务所谓的传统游戏用户，网站始终坚持不就评论进行评分——这不是由于他们厌恶评分，网站总编辑Stephen Totilo表示，这更多是因为“我们想要确保用户读到所有内容。”

自去年以来，除评论外，Kotaku还推出“Gut Check”功能，用于呈现某些编辑对于某些游戏的第一印象。此外，网站还添加“Gaming App of the Day”功能，旨在推荐值得用户体验的手机游戏。

评论目的

Totilo表示，“评论有两大功能：提供批判性分析或购买建议。我们发现我们能够在评论范围之外给出消费建议。我们还关注读者希望看到的评论内容，试着将这些内容纳入其中。”

他接着表示，“Facebook是非常有趣的游戏类型，我们还在探究如何更好地报道这类游戏。”虽然Kotaku去年发布“许多”关于Facebook游戏的书面和视频报道，但网站对于Facebook游戏的报道程度和角度还是略有不足，Totilo坦诚传统游戏媒体依然需要学习如何更好地分析和报道这类内容——它们能够做得更好。

但在传统游戏媒体看来，Facebook游戏要融入评价生态系统依然存在若干问题：首先就是Facebook商业模式。 Totilo表示，“从提供消费建议的角度看，免费游戏显然无需什么购买建议。在编辑资源有限的情况下，我们也许会陷入这样的境地，即认为读者最想获悉他们不应尝试什么游戏。”

此外，Facebook游戏增加了评论持续更新作品所存在的挑战（游戏邦注：这是媒体在评论MMO游戏时会遇到的挑战）——这类游戏通常较早发行，其商业模式主要依靠持续更新和调整。在评论MMO内容时，Kotaku会先推出4篇作品发行后的“周记”，然后再发布评论，但其尚未将此模式运用至Facebook游戏中，因为后者的更新速度更令人捉摸不定。

即便如此，评分评论的模式也许仍然不适合Facebook游戏：Totilo表示，“评论的另一目的是提供批判性分析，但我们完全可以通过其他方式评价内容。我们在非Facebook游戏中采用此方式，未来我们会将此同时运用在Facebook和非Facebook游戏中。”

谁体验Facebook游戏？

这就带来一个更大的问题，此问题只能凭经验猜测，无法获得解答：阅读评论的玩家是否体验或关注Facebook领域？文化分歧依然存在，我们无法判断哪些玩家既玩Facebook游戏，又玩掌机游戏。

Totilo表示，“Kotaku活跃用户对Facebook游戏持怀疑态度。”他表示，网站活跃用户“排斥”传统模式之外的内容：“在他们看来，Facebook游戏是设计的倒退。其他人则觉得这些完全就是欺骗性内容，最佳证据就是Zynga要求玩家邀请好友参与至鲜有趣味的游戏中。”

他补充表示，“我们很难责备他们将Zynga游戏或其他Facebook游戏视作光鲜的连环信件，我们有责任告知他们此观点正确与否，这是我们会继续坚持的事情。”

最后，他表示，“我们的用户依然更着迷于下款《上古卷轴》或《塞尔达》，而不是新Ville内容或《宝石迷阵闪电战》续作。”

我们会做得更好

发行商有责任深入挖掘和完善Facebook游戏，方能向效仿传统游戏，向用户获取类似的质量评估信息。他坦率表示，“那些称Facebook游戏会越来越有趣的管理者其实都很少玩Facebook游戏。”

若是管理者更多关注游戏营收，而非游戏趣味性？Totilo表示，“显然他们更关心Zynga的数十亿IPO是否已达到一半水平。”

但问题是，Facebook游戏面向众多用户，但其没有设立评价制度，供玩家谈论游戏质量或提供进展反馈信息，而是让玩家自己摸索。游戏媒体的职责是，在此过程中给予帮助，Metacritic或评分评论也许并非理想模式，我们应该尽力做得更好。（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）

Do Facebook games need scored reviews?

by Leigh Alexander

Facebook games stand at an interesting crossroads as they approach the initial business and cultural plateau that comes with maturation. Success in the space depends on rapid, massive user acquisition, and this has been the primary driver of design.

As in any gaming arena where participation is costly, imitation of what works is far less risky than innovating, so most successful games are constrained by the same mechanics.

Examples include the common ‘energy’ system that makes playtime a precious (and monetizable) resource, and notification systems require friends to repeatedly demand one another’s clicks in order to complete quests, in an effort to keep active user numbers constant. Eventually, most Facebook games force players to start urging the participation of other friends who aren’t playing yet.

This sort of gameplay frequently feels to more traditional gamers less like a game and more like one Excel spreadsheet warring with another. Yet a number of veteran game designers have migrated into social games and continue to evangelize for the potential of gaming on Facebook, urging patience as the form develops.

Dissatisfaction with metrics-driven design sees constant tension with the hope of some nebulous ‘more’ in the platform’s future — games that are more interesting, more genuine somehow, perhaps more appealing to people who’d call themselves “gamers.”

Those who have contributed to the development of the Facebook space as it currently exists can’t be assumed to be content, if reports of life on a stressful knife’s edge at Zynga are to be believed, or if any evidence is to be gleaned in the wake of the company’s whisper-not-a-bang IPO.

But what would it take to create an environment that allowed more innovation in the Facebook space, and more of the kind of experimentation that would help social games discover new and effective design forms and methods of welcoming different audiences?

Facebook Games On Metacritic?

Gamasutra recently spoke to Electronic Arts’ Spencer Brooks, who’s heading the publisher’s launch of RISK: Factions on Facebook following the game’s success on Xbox Live Arcade, and in our conversation he raised an interesting issue: It’s a fact that console publishers take review scores and Metacritic performance seriously when deciding which projects to greenlight. What could it do for the art and business of Facebook games if they were part of that system like more traditional games?

Those traditional game designers aiming to pioneer newer, better Facebook games might have a better leg to stand on when trying to innovate if they had some kind of media response to bring to their higher-ups that could help make a case for audience desire for specific features, styles or kinds of games on the platform. Yet the games press generally ignores Facebook games, and the idea of giving them scored reviews hardly seems to’ve crossed anyone’s mind.

Kotaku is one of the largest gaming blogs serving largely what one would call the traditional game consumer, and it’s long had a policy of not scoring its reviews — less because of some kind of explicit aversion to scoring, but more “because we wanted to make sure people read them,” according to Stephen Totilo, the site’s editor-in-chief.

Since last year, in addition to reviews, Kotaku has also published “Gut Check” features that are designed to give a few editors’ off-the-cuff impressions of games that the site isn’t traditionally reviewing. And it also does a “Gaming App of the Day” feature to recognize mobile games that seem worth getting after a few subway or bus rides’ worth of examination.

What’s A Review For?

“There are two main things you can do with a review: provide critical analysis or provide shopping advice,” explains Totilo. “We’ve recognized that we can give shopping advice outside the parameters of what you’d think of as a review… We also listen to our readership about what they want to see reviewed and try to factor that in as well.”

“Facebook games are an interesting type of game that we’re still figuring out how to best cover,” he continues. Although Kotaku has posted “many” written and video responses to Facebook games in the last year, the site doesn’t review Facebook games in the sense that Brooks would like to see, and Totilo concedes that the traditional press still has learning to do on how to best analyze and cover them — and that it could be doing a better job.

But there are some factors that complicate the possibility of Facebook games being part of the review ecosystem in the eyes of the traditional games press: First is the Facebook business model. “In the sense of providing shopping advice, which I mentioned is one possible reason to write a review, there’s not much shopping advice that needs to be given for a free game,” Totilo notes. “In a world of finite editorial resources, we may risk assuming that our readers most want to be told about games they can’t try out themselves at no cost.”

Further, Facebook games escalate the challenge of reviewing always-on, continually-evolving products that the core press faces in reviewing MMOs — they regularly launch in early states and their development model relies on near-constant updates and tweaks. When it covers MMOs, Kotaku runs four weekly post-launch “diaries” followed by a review, but hasn’t yet tried (“we may!” he says) applying that model to Facebook games, which often run at a more capricious pace.

Even then, the model of the scored review may not be necessary or useful for Facebook games: “Since the other goal in reviewing games is to provide a critical analysis, we can just as easily do that without calling such content a review. We do this for non-Facebook games and we will in the future for both Facebook and non-Facebook games,” explains Totilo.

Who Plays Facebook Games?

And then there’s the larger question, one that’s difficult to answer beyond empirical guess: Does the kind of gamer that reads reviews play or care about the Facebook space? The cultural divide persists, and it’s difficult for anyone to gauge how much overlap there is between, say, the Facebook gamer and the console gamer.

“Kotaku’s most vocal audience, our commenters, is skeptical about Facebook games,” says Totilo. He says that vocal readership is “wary” of games outside the traditional model: “They see in Facebook games, rightly or wrongly, a regression in game design… others see Facebook games as scams, a valid view if your only exposure to them is the Zynga model of [getting] people to lure their friends to do minimally interesting things in a video game.”

“I can’t blame them if they still mistake Zynga games and other Facebook games as glorified chain letters, and it’s our job to show them if that impression is right or wrong, a job we’re continuing to do,” he adds.

Ultimately, “I think our readers are still way more excited about the next Elder Scrolls or Zelda than they are about the next ‘Ville or Bejeweled Blitz,” he opines.

Still, We Can Do Better

The onus may still remain on the publishers to better explore and iterate before they ask for the same kind of qualitative assessments from the gamer audience that better-established design forms receive. “Any executive who needs to be convinced that Facebook games can be more interesting isn’t playing many Facebook games,” he says bluntly.

And supposing executives care more about games monetizing than games being interesting? “Surely they care if [Zynga's] billion dollar IPO is close to being half that,” says Totilo. “Something didn’t add up.”

Yet the problem remains that Facebook games have welcomed millions of participants — and millions of dollars — and have not yet garnered a critical establishment that can speak to the games’ quality or offer feedback on their evolution, leaving players to fend for themselves and select what thrives and what doesn’t. The role of the games media is to assist them with this process, and even if neither Metacritic nor scored reviews are the ideal route, all of us should endeavor to do it better.（Source：gamasutra）