电子艺界华丽转身，大举挺进社交游戏

    约翰•麦登（美国著名橄榄球教练兼评论家——译注）将全身心投身于社交网络？我们现在说的不是那位橄榄球评论员。（麦登的一位同事称：“他对Twitter这类玩意不感冒。”）我们说的是电子艺界（Electronics Arts）制作的一款游戏，也就是以这位著名的橄榄球教练麦登命名的《麦登橄榄球》（Madden NFL）。

    电子艺界最近在社交游戏领域可谓春风得意——《模拟人生Facebook版》（Sims Social）勇夺Facebook游戏排行榜榜眼位置，仅仅屈居于Zynga的《城市小镇》（CityVille）之后。电子艺界称有意把旗下数十款最热门的特许游戏通通推向社交平台。

    事实上，电子艺界已经开始尝试将《麦登橄榄球》和《FIFA国际足联》（FIFA soccer）搬上Facebook，不过它并未大张旗鼓地展开宣传攻势，目前也并没有之王靠它们赚钱。现在，首席执行官约翰•里奇泰洛表示，社交游戏将成为公司未来宏伟战略的核心——电子艺界的游戏将遍布所有设备和平台，用户随时可以开始游戏或是跟踪游戏进程，即便他们从游戏机平台迁移到智能手机、平板电脑或桌面电脑平台。【例如，里奇泰洛本人向我抱怨，他非常沮丧，因为他无法将《愤怒的小鸟》（Angry Birds）的游戏积分从iPad 1代迁移到新款iPad 2里。】

    电子艺界的战略和“电视无处不在”战略有异曲同工之处，后者由《财富》（Fortune）的东家时代华纳（Time Warner）及一些公司提出。一旦付费，用户就能在任何平台上玩到它旗下的游戏。电子艺界还能通过销售虚拟货币和虚拟物品获利，例如《模拟人生Facebook版》的重度玩家就会乐意为此掏腰包。

    里奇泰洛希望彻底改造电子艺界，而进军社交领域和其它数字平台将成为其战略核心。他承认电子艺界变得有些刚愎自用，一直依赖老套的特许游戏，同时制造了大量低劣的游戏。电子艺界2009年亏损超过10亿美元。为了扭转颓势，电子艺界开始大举并购：2009年，它以2.75亿美元将Zynga的竞争对手Playfish收入囊中；今年早些时候，它又以7.5亿美元收购了休闲游戏制作商PopCap。里奇泰洛在最近一次讲话中表示：“通过收购切实威胁到我们的公司的新事物，我们已将电子艺界重新带回正轨。”

    电子艺界的转型还远未完成。该公司仍然在赔钱——第二财季亏损3.4亿美元——而且其数字战略也并无法一蹴而就：它将需要将游戏移植到更多平台，包括Xbox等传统游戏机以及iPhone和iPad等新型平台（电子艺界目前在此领域是领导者）。同时，它必须将适合长时间进行的游戏进行改造，使之适应社交网络。社交游戏玩家每次的游戏时间相对较短。不过里奇泰洛并不担心。他说，尽管Zynga之流可能更适应社交网络，但电子艺界拥有大量高品质的游戏，它们拥有一批忠实的追随者。换句话说，玩家们可以期待返老还童的约翰•麦登（说的是游戏，而不是那位教练）。

    译者：项航

    Is John Madden going social in a big way? Not the football commentator. ("He's not really the tweeting type," an associate says.) No, we're talking about the Electronics Arts videogame Madden NFL, named after the famous coach.

    Fresh off its recent success in social games -- EA's Sims Social is the No. 2 game on Facebook, behind Zynga's CityVille -- the game publisher says it is making a big push to modify a dozen of its most popular franchises to social platforms.

    In fact, EA (ERTS) has already experimented with Facebook versions of Madden and its FIFA soccer game, but it never widely publicized those efforts or tried hard to make money on them. Now, CEO John Riccitiello says, social games are at the heart of a broader strategy to make EA's games playable on any device or platform, and for consumers to be able to keep playing a game or track their progress as they move from a console to a smartphone to a tablet to a desktop. (Riccitiello tells me he is personally frustrated that he can't port his Angry Birds scores from his original iPad to his newer iPad 2, for example.)

    EA's plan is sort of a variation of the "TV Everywhere" model championed by Time Warner (TWX), Fortune's parent, and others. Consumers get to play the game on any platform once they've paid for it. EA also makes money from games such as Sims Social when heavy users buy virtual currency and other items for their games.

    For Riccitiello, the move to social and other digital platforms is the centerpiece of his efforts to reinvent EA, which he admits had become bloated and complacent, depending on tired franchise titles while producing a large volume of lower-quality games. EA lost more than $1 billion in 2009. To catch up, EA went into acquisition mode: In 2009 it snapped up Zynga rival Playfish for $275 million, and earlier this year bought PopCap Games, a maker of so-called casual games, for about $750 million. "We put the company back on track by embracing the very thing that threatened us," Riccitiello said in a recent speech.

    EA's turnaround is far from complete. The company is still losing money -- it lost $340 million in its second quarter -- and its digital strategy is hardly a slam dunk: It will need to juggle games on many platforms, including traditional consoles like Xbox and new form factors like the iPhone and iPad (where EA is a leader today). Meanwhile it must transition franchises designed for long hours of play to the social world, where users play in short bursts. Riccitiello isn't worried, though. Zynga and its ilk may have stronger social DNA, he says, but EA has a library of high-quality games with loyal followings it can mine. Put another way, fans can expect a rejuvenated John Madden (the game, not the coach).