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Masshightech消息:马萨诸塞州游戏公司推动社交游戏发展

发布时间:2010-10-11 17:27:29 Tags:,,,

近来,很多马萨诸塞洲的公司纷纷涌入社交游戏领域。他们不再采用类似FarmVille的病毒式宣传,而是在深入研究大型社交游戏开发公司的专业经验后开发更加有趣而引人入胜的社交游戏。

剑桥Macguffin Games和波士顿Ayeah Games Inc这两家新兴的社交游戏公司最近都将发布新款Facebook游戏。而GSN公司也就是早前的Game Show Network最近也在华尔顿成立了GSN Digital Labs(GSN数码实验室)专门用于开发社交游戏。上个月初,该实验室刚刚发布了一款Facebook游戏Wheel of Fortune。

GSN Digital Labs所属的GSN数码分部源于该公司2006年收购的WorldWinner公司。主管GSN Digital Labs的副总裁Jeremy Shea相信,这款Wheel of Fortune很可能成为该实验室开发的最热门社交游戏。发售仅30天的Wheel of Fortune在第一个月就有活跃用户达25万人。

wheel-of-fortune

wheel-of-fortune

迪士尼公司在今年7月以7亿6300万美元的价格收购了社交游戏开发公司Playdom。而Zynga公司据预计,今年单凭FarmVille等游戏的虚拟商品销售就可盈利达6亿美元。以上两个事实告诉我们,只要游戏开发商能够吸引足够的玩家,社交游戏领域很有相当大的发展空间。

六人公司Ayeah Games的创办者兼首席执行官Doug Levin曾建立Black Duck软件公司,另外还曾经在微软任职。凭借早期经营软件公司的经验,他深切明白恰当宣传的重要性,同样,企业工作的经验也教导他重视搜索引擎的优化。他说,“凡是近十年来取得成功的企业软件公司都深知这个道理。”

Ayeah公司的首款游戏直到发布前一个月还没有官方命名。这是一款关于追踪名人新闻信息的游戏,玩家可以通过发布个人评论等赚取积分。Levin说,“这款应用的创作根源来自于我们发现人们对名人新闻十分热衷,很多人会因无法同朋友分享类似……杰士·詹姆斯欺骗了桑德拉·布洛克而感到挫折。”

然而,另一家新兴公司Macguffin Games的创办者Scott Macmillan及其三名合作伙伴新发布的Facebook游戏Mustache Mercenaries也与名人有关。这是一款回合制的机器人战斗游戏,而驾驭这些机器人的都是像罗兰·英格斯·怀尔德或亚伯拉罕·林肯等历史著名人物的卡通版。

Macmillan从当地一家游戏公司Blue Fang Games学到了不少开发游戏的经验,并希望将一些传统的游戏开发原理融入社交游戏中。Macmillan说,“我们知道如何开发游戏,不论是社交游戏或其他事业,我们都需要有所突破。”

上述的三家公司都采用了相似的经营模式——发布免费游戏,玩家一旦想提高游戏经验需购买虚拟商品。同样,三家公司也都认同趣味性是游戏开发的重中之重。对此,Macmillan表示,“我们的目标是吸引更多玩家,而不是像收集神奇宝贝那样,直接卖东西给玩家。”

A handful of Massachusetts companies are out to change social gaming from a way to annoy your Facebook friends with Farmville updates to seriously fun, engaging games by tapping into their big company expertise.

Two startups — Macguffin Games of Cambridge and Ayeah Games Inc. of Boston — are each about to launch a new game for Facebook, and GSN, the company formerly known as Game Show Network, has carved out a unit called GSN Digital Labs in Waltham solely to focus on developing social games. That entity launched at the beginning of last month a Facebook game based on “Wheel of Fortune.”

GSN’s Digital division, from which GSN Digital Labs was born, came about from the acquisition of WorldWinner Inc. in 2006. Jeremy Shea, vice president in charge of GSN Digital Labs, understands it is the games based on GSN properties like “Wheel of Fortune” or “Jeopardy” that are likely to be the labs’ biggest social game hits.

“Wheel of Fortune launched about 30 days ago,” Shea said. “We had 250,000 active users in the first month.”

Having a well-known name for a game title gives the 13-person GSN Digital Labs a leg up in the important mission of catching the attention of Facebook users in a space dominated by West Coast companies like Zynga and Playdom, Shea said.

The Walt Disney Co. bought Playdom in July for up to $763 million. Zynga is estimated to have 2010 revenue of about $600 million, solely from sales of virtual goods in their many games like Farmville, so the social game space has vast potential — if you can reach enough people to make a game a hit.

Doug Levin, founder and CEO of six-person Ayeah Games, knows about the value of proper promotion from his days running enterprise software companies. Levin was founder of Black Duck Software Inc. and had previously worked for Microsoft Corp. For Levin, that enterprise background taught him the value of things like search engine optimization to get the word out.

“The enterprise software companies who have found success over the last 10 years have understood how to leverage SEO,” Levin said.

Ayeah’s first game, which won’t officially have a title until it is released at the end of the month, Levin said, is a game based on tracking news and information about celebrities and winning points through posting user-generated content such as comments.

“Basically the creation of this application was based on noticing that people were very frustrated in their inability to express themselves about … Jesse James cheating on Sandra Bullock,” Levin said.

At Macguffin Games, founder Scott Macmillan and his three-person team are looking a bit further back for celebrities in their just-announced Facebook game, Mustache Mercenaries. “The game is a turn-based robot fighting game where all your robots are piloted by cartoons of historical characters like Laura Ingalls Wilder and Abraham Lincoln,” Macmillan said.

Macmillan is tapping his experience as a local developer of Triple-A games, Blue Fang Games Inc., to apply traditional principles of development and gameplay to social games. “We know how to make a game,” he said. “Whether that is a social game or not, there are certain nuts you have to crack.”

All three companies will use a similar model to make money — the games will be free to play, but you can enhance your game experience by buying virtual goods with real money. But all agree that the games first have to be fun.

“We are trying to engage the players, not just sell them things so that they can feel they have collected all the Pokemons,” Macmillan said.(Source:Masshightech)


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