原虫布丁格

Forbes.com：Facebook's Hottest Games 報導中，不但提到玩魚有三作在最熱門遊戲榜上，文中佔的篇幅還不少。

在此引用：


Social games on platforms like Facebook "should be very engaging, entertaining worlds and lead to the discovery of new friendships and relationships," says Playfish Chief Operating Officer Sebastien de Halleux.

"I see social gaming as a new form of communication that is more interesting than e-mail and AIM [AOL Instant Messenger] in terms of connecting people together," he says. "It drives what we're doing and informs our decisions. We don't want to just stick our finger in the air. We want to create a new category."

Less than a year old, the London-based Playfish already has four games on Facebook. The goal, de Halleux says, is for the game to become incrementally more fun as more real-life friends join in. Such games grow organically as friends truly invite more friends--not just spam their acquaintances.

Playfish launched its first game, "Who Has the Biggest Brain?," in late December by sending it to 100 of de Halleux's friends. Now over 6 million Facebook users have installed it. Playfish launched its fourth game, "Pet Society," in beta earlier this month.

Currently, three Playfish games rank among the top 10 Facebook games. Playfish's games, built entirely in Flash, are polished and immediately tie into players' social networks. For instance, all the games regularly update the scores of players and their friends when they are played--a feature that leads them to issue challenges and taunt rivals.

The tactic is clearly working. In the sea of 27,942 applications now available on Facebook, only a handful see regular repeat customers. The word scramble game "Word Challenge," for instance, is near the top of the popularity heap, attracting on a daily basis as many as 9% of Facebook subscribers who have installed it. Across Playfish's four games--representing a population of nearly 13 million installations--the number of active daily players is about 924,400 people--or 7% of the population.

Other applications, built by companies including Slide, Rock You! and Facebook itself, can boast larger numbers of total users. But Playfish is among the leaders in the stickiness game, outranking heftier competitors when it comes to engagement. Some 4% of Slide's installations are active on a daily basis, followed by Rock You!, at 2%, and many Facebook-made applications, at 1%.

That means Playfish applications ranks among the top five companies in total number of daily active users on Facebook--behind the likes of Slide, native Facebook applications (such as videos and notes) and Rock You!--but beats out its larger competitors when it comes to the ratio of daily users.

Founded by Glu Mobile (nasdaq: GLUU - news - people ) veterans, Playfish views Facebook and other social networks as "the next generation of the game console," says de Halleux.

Companies like Playfish are also hoping to turn those repeat visitors into more lucrative customers. Ads, including video ads, will be part of that revenue stream. Playfish already boasts about its "TV-like" video ads that play at the end of game sessions, claiming its audience sticks around for the ad even though they don't have to.

But the most promising revenue strategy for such applications involves selling virtual items, says Jeremy Liew, managing director of Lightspeed Venture Partners and an investor in the application "Friends for Sale!" and the company, Rock You! Both Playfish, with "Pet Society," and Social Gaming Network, with "Warbook: Rise of the Infernals," are exploring virtual goods.

"The initial signs are highly encouraging," says de Halleux. Players have an "emotional drive" to decorate virtual spaces and give gifts to friends in "Pet Society," a virtual pet-inhabited town. Playfish has even sold a few $40 lip-shaped couches, currently the most expensive item in the game.

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