Pet Society Blog

Pet Society becomes one of the most popular social games on Facebook. The CEO of Playfish, Kristian Segerstrale, claimed that social games are different from traditional computer games. It leads to competition, cooperation and communication of different players, just like any games (such as football games) in real lives.

Chinese Version:

網上社交遊戲得州話事啤Pet Society稱雄

2009-04-07

風靡千萬網民 Google急謀對策

【明報 專訊】上網跟朋友「操啤」、替寵物換衣服和到訪友人家……這類網站社交小遊戲近年風靡全球數千萬網民，每天最少玩半小時。英國《金融時報》昨報道，擁有約 2億會員的社交網站Facebook，已成了全球最大網上社交遊戲平台，當中「得州話事啤」和「Pet Society」等遊戲最受歡迎，參與網民均達千萬。Facebook來勢洶洶，已促使Google及其他遊戲商，在遊戲設計上再下苦功，以求在市場爭一 席位。

Facebook目前約有5萬個應用程式，其中遊戲佔最多，約有5000多個。在最受歡迎的前10個應用程式中，有3個是遊戲，當 中最受歡迎和最多人安裝的應用程式是「得州話事啤」，共有1100萬人安裝。第二受歡迎的是近期大受歡迎的「Pet Society」，全球共有900萬名玩家，當中六成人更是每天都玩。玩家可自創寵物和佈置家居，並需要定時餵寵物吃東西和替牠們洗澡，寵物亦可以探訪其 他「朋友」。

開發「Pet Society」的倫敦遊戲公司Playfish，其總裁塞格斯特羅勒（Kristian Segerstrale）表示，社交遊戲有別於傳統的電子遊戲，它就像大家來到公園踢足球的互動社交體驗，既可自己一個人玩，但若邀請其他朋友一起參與， 所得的樂趣會更大，「那種驅使你玩的情感，不是打鬥或射擊遊戲的感覺，而是你和現實世界朋友之間那種更有力量的感情……這可以是競爭、合作、溝通，就像真 實世界的遊戲一樣。」

回歸遊戲社會學根源

社交遊戲 上月成為三藩市遊戲開發大會的熱門話題。遊戲開發者法戈（Brian Fargo）說：「最大的改變，是過去許多社交遊戲都是和不認識的人一起玩的，但Facebook完全改變了這種遊戲方式。」他舉例指Facebook一 個保齡球遊戲可以看到他們朋友的最高分數，「我想玩因為我想贏他們」。

戴維斯說：「遊戲最初起源於社交活動，人類先在一起然後才發明了遊戲，所有遊戲本質上都是社交遊戲。在Facebook上，人們選擇以遊戲交流。因此，網上社交遊戲在某種意義上將遊戲帶回到起點。」

金融時報/明報資料室

Texas Hold Em Most Popular Game On FaceBook

The most popular application on the huge online social networking website Facebook is Texas Hold 'em Poker, which is played by a staggering 11 million of the site's 200 million users, according to a report over the weekend in the Financial Times.

It's a staggering number of people interested in online poker and a medium to which marketing professionals men would be wise to pay attention.

The trend is for Facebook to emerge as the world's biggest gaming platform. Next in popularity, with 9 million users is Pet Society , where players create pets and their homes and exercise and care for them with friends - it's even more popular in terms of daily players with more than 60 percent of its users returning every day to look after their creatures.

The newspaper reports that the leading publishers on Facebook are San Francisco's Zynga and London-based Playfish, which developed Pet Society.

Kristian Segerstråle, chief executive of Playfish, says social gaming is more like the social interactions around kicking a ball in a park than the experience of a traditional console video game.

"The emotional driver for you to play is not the kind of fight or flight emotions which tend to happen between you and the screen on consoles, but the much more powerful emotions of you and your real world friends," Segerstråle says.

"It can be competition, cooperation, expression, communication, just like in real world games."

Social gaming was a hot topic at last month's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

"The biggest shift is that, in the past, most of the social gaming has been with people that you don't know. With Facebook that's completely changed," says Brian Fargo, a game developer.

He describes a bowling game on Facebook where he can see his friends and their high scores.

"I want to play now because I want to beat them. The social dynamic of knowing the people out there really changes things for me," Fargo says.

Online gaming on services such as Microsoft's Xbox Live, which has 17 million members worldwide, or PC casual gaming destinations such as Pogo or Big Fish generally takes place between strangers.

Facebook is not charging developers for games, mainly because they are initially free and the service is focused on expanding its user base, the Financial Times reports.