Break Media负责游戏的副总裁迈克尔·苏近日在著名科技博客Techcrunch撰文，讲述了社交游戏的前世、今生和未来，并点出了当今打造一款成功社交游戏的要素。

social game

文章概要如下：

从前有个叫肯（Ken Williams）的家伙，每天朝九晚五的为一些大型软件公司编写代码，就算是再重要再有价值的代码也在日复一日中被消磨殆尽。肯的妻子罗伯塔（Roberta Williams）则在玩过某款新上市的电脑游戏后，心想：“这游戏烂透了！肯和我完全可以做个比它更好的！”这对夫妻档随后利用晚上和周末的时间，花了三个月时间打造出一款游戏：谜之屋（Mystery House）。游戏棒极了。

由于这款游戏的成功，他们筹集到了资金，做出了更多热门游戏，并最终以15亿美元卖出了他们的游戏帝国。对于不熟悉这个故事的人来说，可以把它看作是当今Playfish或Zynga的创建史。不过这个故事其实是上世纪80年代的游戏公司雪乐山（Sierra Online）的创建史。

当时的情况令人兴奋。技术让游戏开发者能利用新的游戏机制，使玩家沉浸在他们意想不到的游戏世界中。最令人叫绝的就是夫妻档在短短三个月内，利用自己的休息时间就打造出了一款寓教于乐的好游戏。

历史是序幕

随着社交游戏的不断崛起，现在的情况同样令人兴奋。大卫·马斯特里（David Maestri）就是利用工作时间开发出了黑手党游戏Mob Wars。而CrowdStar仍然不需要任何风险投资。事实上，我们每天都能看到某款游戏的玩家数在数小时内就超过了关岛的总人口。

但是传统的夫妻档游戏开发模式已一去不复返，现在靠少数几个人是做不出一款成功的社交游戏的。事实上现在许多最成功的社交游戏都是利用 Facebook提供的免费病毒式推广平台开发用户的。但是近几个月来，Facebook已经关闭了这个平台，原因是用户越来越反感时常收到他们朋友的邀请去玩某一款新游戏。对于社交游戏开发商，免费搭车的时代已经结束，要想在社交游戏界取得成功，必须做到两点：开发用户的能力，开发游戏的能力。

还木于林

在线视频业的发展与社交游戏业有惊人的类似。在其发展早期，内容创建者只要够聪明够快就能崭露头角。第一批人利用病毒式推广平台，推送视频内容而成名，随后人们蜂拥而入，市场上很快内容泛滥。

最终，后来进入的人仅仅依靠搞笑视频是无法取得成功，他们还需要内置搜索，或利用包括SEO和SEM在内的营销战略，还有多种在线吸引用户的技术。没有这么做的人，哪怕内容再精彩，浏览数也只有区区几百人。

同样，游戏也进入了这么一个阶段，仅仅是款好玩的游戏远远不够。游戏开发人员现在必须致力于为他们的游戏开发用户，吸引用户已经变得和游戏设计同等重要。

现在我们看到，电脑游戏的营销预算水涨船高，社交游戏的营销预算也会增长。唯一能“免费”获得游戏玩家的只有那些已经建立好分销平台的公司，如Zynga和6 Waves等。

游戏仍是重点

下一代游戏的成功，就如Zynga的Frontierville那样，将取决于游戏本身带来的体验和影响。高度概念化的游戏将更易推广。换句话说就是游戏的艺术越来越重要，而且将会有更多的社交游戏公司去传统的游戏开发社区中寻找优秀的人才。

那么到底哪些公司将会开发出成功的新游戏呢？简单的说归纳为三类：一是已经建立完整分销平台的现有公司，Zynga、 Disney/Playdom和Crowdstar等；二是有能力开发游戏并且有能力推广游戏的创业公司，如A Bit Lucky 和Funzio等；三是那些有自己的业务和观众，可以随时进入社交游戏界的公司，如媒体公司索尼、福克斯、Sugar Inc和Break Media等。将来这些公司开发的游戏应该更精致更好玩。遗憾的是肯和罗伯塔利用业余时间开发出成功游戏的故事在当今已不可能。（本文由搜狐IT柯山编译，来源为搜狐IT）

his post was written by Mike Su, Vice President of Games at dude-centric video network Break Media, where he created the social gaming group.

So there was this guy named Ken who was working a 9-to-5 at some giant software company writing tons of code for something whose importance and value was exceeded only by its monotony. Ken’s wife, Roberta, had been playing some newfangled PC game and thought to herself, “Man, this game sucks! Ken and I should totally make a better one!” The husband-and-wife team then worked nights and weekends for three months building a game. The final product? Mystery House. And it was awesome.

On the heels of this success, they raised money, made more hit games, and eventually sold their gaming empire for $1.5 billion. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this story, it could just as well be the founding story of a Playfish or a Zynga today. But this is the story—or my version of it—of the founding of Sierra Online back in the ’80s.

It was an exciting time back then. Technology had enabled game developers to develop new game mechanics and immerse players in new worlds in ways that had never been imagined before. And the best part? A husband-and-wife team could work nights and weekends and knock out a meaningful and entertaining game in three months.

Past is prologue

It’s an exciting time now as well, with the rise of the social game. David Maestri built the OG mafia game Mob Wars on top of his day job (a point that was disputed by his employer, but that’s another story). And CrowdStar still doesn’t have the need for any venture funding. In fact, we read every day about new games that add more users in a few hours than the entire population of Guam.

Yet in the same way that a husband-and-wife team can no longer build a competitive PC game in three months, we’re entering a time when it will no longer be possible for a few guys in a garage to build a successful social game. Many of the most successful games in the market today were built on the backs of the free viral marketing channels Facebook provided. But Facebook has clamped down on that in recent months, in response to users who were tired of reading about one of their friends finding yet another lonely pink cow. For social game developers, the free ride is over, and success in the social game market will come down to two things: the ability to build audiences for your games, and the ability to develop genuinely compelling games.

If a tree falls in a forest…

On the first count, I think there’s an interesting parallel to the way the online video industry evolved. In the early days of online video, there were a few breakout hits from content creators who were smart enough and fast enough to get in on the wave early. These folks, like the Diet Coke and Mentos guys, LonelyGirl15, and others, were among the first to deliver compelling content on a highly viral platform (i.e., YouTube and its embeddable player). Soon the gold rush was on, and the market became flooded with content.

Eventually, content creators who were late to the party could break through only by coming to terms with the fact that it was no longer enough to simply create a funny video — you either needed built-in reach, or a marketing strategy that included SEO, SEM, and various other online user-acquisition techniques, to make a mark in the industry. Those who failed to do so were stuck with great content and 500 views.

Likewise, the gaming industry is now entering a phase where just making a fun game is not enough. Game developers now must devote significant resources toward building audiences for their games, and the user-acquisitions guys on most teams are going to be just as important as the game designers.

And just as we see bigger and bigger budgets for marketing PC and console games these days, I expect bigger and bigger budgets will need to be set aside to market social games. The only “free” user acquisition will be for those who already have a significant distribution footprint (i.e. the big guys like Zynga, or a distribution company like 6 Waves).

Yes, the game still matters

When it comes to the importance of gameplay, in the first generation of social games, we witnessed huge success with games being built by people with traditional web developer backgrounds. This is because what made a game attractive and go viral took a lot of the same muscles that make websites successful. These were people who cut their teeth on figuring out landing pages, conversion funnels, A/B testing, and so on. All these elements took games that were pretty basic from a gameplay standpoint and turned them into runaway hits.

The success of the next generation of games, as Zynga demonstrated with Frontierville, will depend less on the “hustle” of virality and more on real and impactful gameplay. High-concept games will tend to be easier to market and therefore, will perform better as an advertisement, resulting in lower user acquisition costs. In short, the “art” of the game will matter more, and as a result I think we’ll see social gaming companies reach out more and more to the traditional gaming community to find talent.

So, with all this in mind, who will the new games come from? I believe it will be a mix of the successful incumbents who have built-in distribution (Zynga, Disney/Playdom, Crowdstar), startups that have enough funding to market games as well as develop them, likely with a veteran team (A Bit Lucky, Funzio), or companies with existing businesses and audiences that are entering the field (media companies like Sony, Fox, Sugar Inc, or yours truly – Break Media). And the games that come from these companies should continue to become more sophisticated and more fun to play. The days of Ken and Roberta coding in their spare time are once again coming to an end.（source：techcrunch）