本文发稿于2010年12月4日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。
今年10月份，Zynga的市值超过EA。不计知识产权，Zynga的市值为55亿美元，EA为52亿美元。作为目前世界上最大的互动娱乐软件公司和最大的第三方发行商之一，EA无疑是世界上最大的电子游戏制作公司，但此头衔有可能被Zynga及其社交游戏帝国所抢夺。
据Techcrunch近期文章所述，40%的Facebook用户（游戏邦注：也就是2亿左右的用户）在该平台上玩社交游戏。从近期关于游戏成瘾的报道中，我估计大约2亿美国人家中有Xbox 360、PS3和Wii等视频游戏控制器。但是，随着电子游戏普及领域逐渐转向智能手机和社交网络，而且ESA近期调查结果显示成年女性对上述平台游戏的增长贡献最大，这些资料似乎预示着社交游戏终将取代软件游戏成为电子游戏的主宰。
热门MMORPG《魔兽世界》有将近1200万月订阅用户，直到近期仍是最流行的在线游戏。但现在，这个数字与《FarmVille》8000万的日活跃用户相比似乎算不了什么。与多数社交网络游戏相同，《FarmVille》的主要游戏机制也是朋友间的互惠社交规范。但是这种对玩家间关系的利用是否带有强迫性？它能否为未来更好的游戏玩法奠定了基础呢？
社交游戏有可能引进玩家在视频游戏中的合作机制。我们可以想象下，MMORPG同时聚集40个在线玩家来杀死地下城BOSS变成召集40个好友来建设虚拟城市。假设我们可以将基于事件的合作替换成《魔兽世界》之类成功MMO游戏中的长久性合作，游戏又会如何呢？
首先，游戏会将某些目前正忙于收获大豆（游戏邦注：指农场类社交游戏）的新玩家带入MMORPG中。除了“金币农民”外，并没有多少《魔兽世界》玩家乐衷于通过游戏为那些更倾向于参加战斗的玩家提供服务来赚钱。但是眼见《FarmVille》之类社交游戏获得成功，MMORPG似乎无可避免将最终引进此类行为。不仅是为了获取逐渐增加的社交游戏玩家，还在于创造出另类的游戏玩法。这也会使某些经验丰富的MMO玩家受益，有些人可能逐渐对探索地下城感到厌烦，他们不介意升级打怪同开设商店的元素相结合，或为赚取虚拟及现实货币而奋斗。
这可能也会产生用户社区，导致更为复杂的虚拟国度的产生，由这些新玩家来维持和监管经济行为。复杂性和用户代理会产生更好的虚拟世界，让所有玩家受益。这种游戏会充满战争、社群团队活动、偷盗、贸易和经济波动等元素，总之玩家间更为长久的合作使游戏玩法更加丰富。
这种运用于《魔兽世界》中的用户长久合作也可以轻易转移至《侠盗猎车手》之类的游戏中，完成任务的玩家可以设计服装、建造或出售不动产、改装汽车、主办广播栏目、出售音乐专辑等。这种多样化会影响主流游戏机制吗？我不这么认为。无论是出色的MMORPG还是农场类社交游戏，其未来走向很大程度上有赖于MMORPG玩家间的社群合作。
Playing Good Games With Strangers vs Bad Ones With Friends
Gareth Mensah
As of October, Zynga’s market valuation is higher than that of Electronic Arts. Intellectual property aside, the market valuation of Zynga stands at $5.5 billion compared to EA capitalization of $5.2 billion. Currently the world’s largest interactive entertainment software company and one of the biggest third-party publisher, EA is arguably the biggest video game making company in the world, but is on the verge of losing that title to Zynga and its empire of cow clicking social gaming.
According to a recent Techcrunch article, 40% of Facebook users, or roughly 200 million users play social games on the platform. My own estimate from a recent post on game addiction is that roughly 200 million Americans play or live in household with access to video gaming consoles like the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, etc. However, with the popularization of video gaming moving to smartphones and social networks, and with recents ESA findings showing that adult women represent the segment of gamers with the biggest growth, everything seems to indicate that social gaming will, if it hasn’t already, replace software gaming as the dominant form of video gaming.
World of Warcraft, the most popular MMORPG has about 12 million monthly subscribers and until recently was the most popular online video game. This figure has now been dwarfed by FarmVille’s 80 million daily active users. As mentioned in a previous article, FarmVille, like most social/network games, relies on the social norm of reciprocity between friends as its main game mechanic. But is this use of relationships between players coercion or is it the foundation of the future and improved gameplay?
Social gaming has the potential to reintroduce cooperation between players in video gaming. Let’s image a ‘social MMORPG’ where gathering simultaneously 40 players online to kill a dungeon boss has been replaced by gathering of 40 friends to build a virtual city. Let’s suppose we were to replace event-based cooperation with permanent cooperation in a successful MMO franchise like WoW, what would that game look like?
For one, it would introduce a new segment of players currently busy harvesting soybeans to MMORPG. Besides chinese gold Farmers, not too many WoW players are motivated by the possibilities of generating money, creating businesses, or providing services to the more prominent battle-oriented players. But looking at the successes of social games like FarmVille, it seems inevitable that MMORPGs will eventually invite and not prohibit such practices, not only to reach out to the growing segment social gamers, but to create a greater diversity of gameplay. It would also benefit more experienced MMO players who have grown bored of dungeon quests and who wouldn’t mind combining battling demons with setting up shops or becoming mercenaries and earning money, virtual or real.
It could also lead to user-sustained villages and communities, to the foundation of more complex virtual nations, kingdoms and economies maintained and regulated by this new segment of players. A greater complexity and user agency would lead to better virtual worlds that benefit all players. Full out wars, village raids, theft, fluctuation of commerces and economical activities, etc, the establishment of more permanent cooperations between players should lead to a richer gameplay.
This permanent-based cooperation applied to WoW can also easily be applied other games, like GTA: where players on top of completing missions could design clothes, build or sell real estate, modify cars, host radio shows, sell music albums, remixes, etc. Would this diversification get in the way of the main game mechanic? I doubt it. In this dialectic between good MMORPG and cow clicking with friends, the obvious future seems to be the establishment of community-building co-ops between players inside MMORPGs. (Source: Game Judgment)
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