来自Inside Virtual Goods的研究称他们针对facebook社交游戏玩家进行抽样专访得到的结论显示55.5%的社交游戏玩家游戏对象是facebook内注册的朋友，工作伙伴的比例是9.6%，同学的比例是15.4%，而陌生人仅为19.5%。
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根据这样的抽样调查比例，facebook内的社交游戏玩家对象更加社交化（朋友、同学与工作伙伴加起来的比例达到80.5%），在这一点上和网页游戏的陌生人形成了鲜明的对比。
朋友和其他在现实世界中的关联在社交游戏中再一次被体现出来。Inside Virtual Goods的研究建议开发者可以针对这样的情况对游戏作出一些更适合朋友间互动的体验来。
Traditionally, players of online games have mingled freely with strangers. On Facebook, users’ real-world social connections have obviously changed this paradigm, mixing game players more with people in their existing social circles — but just how much more? Part of our most recent report, Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Habits of the Social Gaming Audience, addressed this question.
The findings were surprisingly strong in favor of real-world connections. A clear majority of people play with “friends”, while two further real-world categories claim most of the remaining interactions: co-workers and classmates. The exact breakdowns are below:
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Both co-workers and classmates, of course, might also be considered friends; taken together, the three categories account for 80.5 percent of the average player’s interactions on Facebook games.
This powerful majority helps explain why the most popular games released this year, even those put out after Facebook’s infamous notification changes, contain numerous features that encourage players to interact with those from their existing Facebook network, but include very few features that encourage or allow interaction with strangers.
Players also seem to favor this state of affairs; as one told us, games serve as “a nice way to stay connected with people.”
There’s a bit more to the picture, though. As part of our research, which was conducted through surveys of Facebook game players, we also asked how players found their favorite games. Some 44.5 percent had arrived via friend invites, a number that correlates strongly with the 55.5 percent who play with friends.
Virality, clearly, is still a powerful mechanism in gaming, but it’s also one that to an extent predetermines a player’s interaction — if invited in by friends, it makes sense that players will report playing with those same friends later.
And the 19.5 percent minority that reports playing with strangers is by no means small or insignificant — especially given the setup of most Facebook games, which gives no direct way to connect with strangers.
Friends and other real-world acquaintances are still clearly the most important group for Facebook gamers, and our findings suggest that developers are justified in continuing to focus on real-world connections. However, given the diversity of Facebook’s players, our stats also suggest that interactions with strangers may be another promising avenue in the future.
In-depth breakdowns of all the data referenced above is available in our full report, Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience. The full report includes over 30 charts and graphs with detailed information on social gamers’ spending and playing habits, demographic differences, and brand recognition.
