中日社交游戏差异性编辑本段回目录
Giordano Bruno Contestabile
若将《Restaurant City》玩家放置《人人餐厅》（游戏邦注：这是中国社交网络人人网最炙手可热的游戏）当中，他们会毫不犹豫地开始装饰自己的餐厅：这款游戏与另外一款颇受全球白领阶层追捧的Facebook游戏《Restaurant City》如出一辙。同时，《Farmville》忠实粉丝置身中国同类游戏《开心农场》，也能从屏幕中目睹类似的场景：庄稼尚未成熟的农田、迷失的奶牛以及形状别致的拖拉机。
Restaurant City (左) vs 人人餐厅(右)
其实《开心农场》先于其Facebook同类游戏《Farmville》问世，或许《Farmville》的灵感就是来源于此：类似的主题、游戏机制及内容遍布全球各大社交网络。到处都有玩家畅游于农场游戏之中（游戏邦注：如美国的《FarmVille》、中国的《开心农场》、日本的《Sunshine Ranch》，甚至是俄国的《Cheerful Peasant》）。
这些游戏表面之下的机制是否都大同小异呢？或者，更有趣的说法，这些玩家是否不分国界，对于这类互动体验情有独钟呢？玩家是否能够通过共享可爱虚拟宠物建立全球共识以及促进世界和平呢？虽然这使我们的思绪犹豫片刻，但事实显然并非如此，亚洲社交游戏获取流量和提高用户粘性的方式同西方社交游戏截然不同。
亚洲游戏玩家都知道，这并非一片高度一致的大陆，相反它融汇了各种世界观和生活习惯迥异的文化。例如，就中国和日本而言，这两个国家之间的差别丝毫不亚于他们同西方国家的差异。下面我们就以日本和中国两个国家为例，探究两个国家的社交游戏体验方式，其中包括某些我们鲜少接触的社交游戏。那么就先来看看中国社交游戏，从中我们可以发现众多备受瞩目的有趣作品。
西方社交游戏更多涉及合作、友谊、美丽彩虹和可爱小狗元素：我帮你的庄稼施肥，你回赠漫游农场之中的奶牛。如果体验群体主要由中年‘非游戏玩家’组成（游戏邦注：这些玩家上线的目的是消磨时间，联络现有圈子的朋友），那么赠送蔬菜将会是最佳选择。但如果玩家主要瞄准对社交游戏持侧目态度的都市年轻男子呢？表面上看，他们偏向偷摘虚拟庄稼。
但严格来说并非如此。中国政府尚未颁布官方命令之前，很多用户将闹钟定时半夜时分，以便自己起来偷摘其他农场的白菜，体验机制犒赏定期体验玩家，惩罚登陆间隔超越超过特定时间的用户。或许有人觉得政府介入评断花椰菜偷摘者行为可接受度很怪异，但是事实就是如此。只能说大千世界，无奇不有。
回到游戏本身，事实证明长期体验MMORPG和多人游戏的玩家（游戏邦注：尤其是亚洲和中国玩家）比西方玩家更偏爱竞争元素，西方社交游戏玩家偏好谜题和隐藏物品游戏，因此体验行为较为温和，鲜有恶意元素。同样地，体验中国社交游戏的国外玩家也许会对《奴隶庄园》感到惊讶（游戏就像S&M版《Friends For Sale》），游戏中玩家可以买卖其他玩家，这些玩家绑为一体，同时还得完成某些有损颜面的任务，抑或者是面对医院主题游戏目瞪口呆：为了战胜其他玩家，玩家得点击炸弹形状图表，制造灾难。换句话说：担心表兄妹（堂兄妹）分数超过自己吗？那么就炸掉他/她的医院吧。你能想象如果类似游戏于美国发行会带来怎样的媒体风暴吗？
奴隶庄园
当然这些都是极端的例子。中国还有很多采其他用传统主题的游戏。此外，就像上面提到的那样，中国政府早前打击了某些体验行为（游戏邦注：如偷菜和黑手党主题游戏），这使得开发商们不得不推出更多‘和谐’的游戏。然而，有趣的是，不同游戏背景，瞄准更为年轻族群以及各个文化因素将产生截然不同的游戏设计路线。
而日本方面，其社交游戏的最大不同在于所使用媒介：日本用户很早就把手机当作ATM/信用卡、订票系统、书籍浏览器、音乐播放器以及游戏掌机。然而过去几年社交游戏现象日益凸显，如今跻身三大主要游戏类型之一，玩家可以通过手机体验无数社交游戏，从普通游戏题材到颇为深奥的游戏内容（游戏邦注：前者如农场游戏和钓鱼游戏，后者如模拟列车员）。有关日本手机社交游戏独特性方面的内容完全可以自成文章，未来或许会讨论相关内容；如今，如果游戏是个惹人喜爱的社交体验，且带有疯狂和不寻常元素，那么无疑出自日本手机社交网络平台之中。
Bejeweled Blitz
事实上，任一亚洲市场，从日本到中国，从韩国到菲律宾，其社交游戏领域均栩栩如生，各国游戏体验别具风味，迎合不同玩家族群。PopCap认为好的社交体验应该具有普遍性，但是游戏需要针对不同平台、用户族群以及文化背景做出相应调整。PopCap的旗舰游戏《宝石迷阵闪电战》如今也投放中国、日本和韩国市场，公司显然拥有自己的制胜诀窍。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，本文作者为Giordano Bruno Contestabile。他是PopCap Games亚太地区业务拓展资深总监，主要负责监管该地区的业务拓展、营销和销售，同时负责公司各个渠道营收：在线、社交、手机、零售、掌机、广告及新平台。此外，Contestabile还参与公司亚太地区的战略部署，其中主要包括上海工作室在线和多人作品的开发和授权，及社交游戏的开发和运营。Contestabile曾涉猎互联网、媒体、手机和游戏多个领域。）
Social games in the US and Asia: Why looks deceive
By Giordano Bruno Contestabile
Sit any Restaurant City player in front of RenRen Restaurant, one of the most popular games on the eponymous Chinese social network, and he or she will likely start decorating their eatery without hesitation: the game is, by all accounts, extremely similar to the one available on Facebook and beloved by bored office workers worldwide. At the same time, plop a FarmVille addict in front of its Chinese equivalent Happy Farm, and the familiar patterns of fledgling corn fields, lost cows and wayward tractors will play out on the screen.
Never mind that Happy Farm was actually launched before its Facebook counterpart and was possibly the inspiration for the record-busting farming hit game: similar themes, game mechanics and content are found across social networks around the world, and people are farming eagerly everywhere, no matter if on FarmVille (US ), Happy Farm (China), Sunshine Ranch (Japan) or even Cheerful Peasant (Russia).
But below the surface, are those games completely identical? And, more interestingly, are people drawn to the same kind of interaction, no matter where in the real world they are located? Can a global understanding and worldwide peace be achieved by building on the shared love for cute virtual pets? The mind boggles, but it turns out that this is not the case, and in fact the way social games build traffic and engagement in Asia are quite different from how it’s done in the West.
As everyone that has spent any time in Asia knows, the region is far from being a monolith and hosts cultures with fundamentally different worldviews and habits. The differences between Japan and China for example, are not less significant in many ways than the differences between them and any Western country. Let’s then take Japan and China as examples and look at some of the fundamental ways in which the social games played there are not the ones you know and are addicted to. In fact, let’s look at China first, as that’s where some of the most glaring, and funny, examples can be found.
Western social games are all about cooperation, friendship, rainbows and cute puppies: I help you fertilize your crops, and you gift me the cow that was found wandering your farm. Gifting vegetables is fine and dandy when your audience is made of middle-aged “non-gamers” whose primary reason to be online is to kill time and be social with their existing circle of friends, but what happens when the audience is younger, skews male and lives in mega-cities rather than suburbia? Apparently, they steal the virtual crops.
No, seriously. Before the Chinese government put a stop to it with an official decree, people were setting their alarms in the middle of the night to be able to steal cabbages from each others’ farms, bound by a clever game mechanic that rewarded regular play and penalized any player that neglected logging in for more than a few hours. If the idea of a government stepping in to regulate whether being the Arsene Lupin of cauliflowers is acceptable behavior sounds weird to you, please suspend your disbelief: in this part of the world, stranger things have happened.
Back to the game itself, it turns out that Asian gamers, and Chinese gamers in particular, raised on a diet of MMORPG and multiplayer games, have developed a taste for competition much greater than their Western counterparts, made placid and harmless by a penchant for puzzles and hidden object games. As such, an outsider trying Chinese social games might marvel at a game called Slave Manor which, like a S&M version of Friends For Sale, allows users to purchase other users to which they are connected and engage them in degrading tasks, or gape at an hospital-themed game where, to prevail on other players, gamers can cause mischief by clicking on an icon in the shape of a bomb. Let me rephrase this: worried about your cousin overtaking you on the leader-board? Bomb his hospital. Can you imagine the media storm this would cause if the game was launched in the US?
For sure, those are extreme cases, and there are plenty of games that follow more traditional patterns. Additionally, as mentioned, the Chinese government cracked down on those practices in the past, banning activities such as vegetable stealing and mafia-related themes, and urging developers to make more “harmonious” games. Nevertheless, it’s intriguing how diverging gaming backgrounds, a younger audience and cultural factors have led to different paths in game design.
Regarding Japan, it should not come as a surprise that the main differentiating factor is in the media utilized to enjoy social games: the Japanese have long used mobile phones as ATMs/credit cards, ticketing systems, book readers, music players and game consoles. In the last couple of years, though, the social gaming phenomenon has exploded, and now counts three major platforms and thousands of games accessible through any cell phone, ranging in genre from the usual (farming games, fishing games) to the esoteric (train conductor simulator, anyone?…Anyone?!). Delving into the peculiarities of the Japanese mobile social game space would surely comprise an article of its own, and we’ll surely have occasion to do so in the future; for now, let’s just say that if a game is cute, social, frantic and unusual, it’s probably available on a mobile social network in Japan.
In fact, each Asian market, from Japan to China, from Korea to the Philippines, has a lively social gaming scene, specific characteristics and different tastes that need to be catered to. At PopCap, we believe that great gameplay is universal, but that a social game needs to be adapted for different platforms, audiences and cultures. Our flagship social game, Bejeweled Blitz, is now live in China, Japan and Korea, and there is exciting stuff cooking in our secret lab. Watch your favorite social network for new exciting PopCap games!
Giordano Bruno Contestabile is PopCap Games’ senior director of business development – Asia Pacific, a position he’s held for the last two and a half years. In that role he oversees business development, marketing and sales in the APAC region and is responsible for revenues in all channels: Online, Social, Mobile, Retail, Console, Advertising and New Platforms.
He is also involved in shaping the company’s strategy in Asia Pacific, with particular regard to the development and licensing of online and multiplayer products built in our Shanghai studio, and to the development and operations of social games.
Contestabile has more than 10 years of experience in management, business development and strategy, having worked in the Internet, media, mobile and games industries.（Source：gamezebo）
