现金赌博有望成社交游戏新的利润点

    Betable公司的首席执行官克里斯•格里芬已经花了多年时间，用来培养他所谓的“游戏新文艺复兴”事业。这位年仅30岁的企业家希望通过帮助游戏公司构建传统的现金赌博游戏，为快速成长的社交游戏市场打开一个新的方向。

    格里芬可能的确捕捉到了一个巨大的商机。他留着一个美剧《广告狂人》（Mad Men）式的发型，穿着修身西装，看起来就像摩洛哥的赌场管理员。社交游戏公司Zynga对格里芬的点子很感兴趣。自从上市后七个月以来，Zynga一直在积极地寻找新的方法，好从它的数百万玩家身上赚到更多的钱。Zynga首席执行官马克•平卡斯近日在《财富》（Fortune）举办的科技头脑风暴科技峰会（Brainstorm Tech）上对观众表示，公司正在“积极扩展现金赌博等周边市场。”在6月25日的收益电话会议上，Zynga高管公布，公司当季收入为3.32亿美元，净亏损约为2,300万美元，同时再次重申，公司决定发展现金赌博游戏。格里芬表示：“他们认识到，仅仅只是拥有大量用户，还算不上是最好的业务。”

    格里芬表示，如果Zynga和电子艺界（Electronic Arts）等游戏公司真的决定进军现金游戏市场，自己希望能助他们一臂之力。格里芬的公司位于英国伦敦，在现金游戏这个仍然有些棘手但有大量盈利潜能的市场上，他的公司已经比后来者领先一年多了。Betable公司创立于2008年，初衷是要成为一家游戏公司，但从去年开始，公司将重点转为向其他公司提供幕后技术，使其他开发商的游戏能够兼容现金游戏模式。Betable的投资人包括创始人基金（Founders Fund）的FF天使基金、格雷洛克发现基金（Greylock Discovery Fund），以及戴夫•莫林和尤里•米尔纳等个人投资者。

    格里芬表示，他的公司是迄今唯一一家解决了现金游戏所涉及的监管难题的公司。一家赌博服务机构要想获得许可证，公司的全部受益所有人（也就是所有占1%股权以上的股东）必须接受为期整整一个月的调查。格里芬说这个过程“具有难以想象的侵略性”，因为公司的职员以及使用的软件、安全措施、服务器的地理位置，乃至公司的运营政策和流程都要经过细致的调查。Betable公司花了两年多的时间和数百万美元的费用才通过了英国监管机构的审批。现在Betable的30多位开发者已经完成了第一轮内测，已经进入封闭内测阶段。格里芬相信，目前市场上还没有其他定制平台通过了监管机构的审批。

    格里芬希望各大游戏制造商能够采用Betable的解决方案作为合作伙伴。使用了Betable的工具之后，社交游戏制造商们可以合法提供一些现金游戏元素，比如老虎机等，同时无需再自行向监管机构申请审批，因为主导赌博行为的实际上是Betable的技术。

    Zynga在收益电话会议上确认了公司的第一批现金游戏已经处于开发阶段，即将在一些能够获得审批的国家发行。不过平卡斯没有明确指出Zynga将自行申请许可证，还是通过与其他公司合作的方式来获得许可证的使用权，因此Zynga与Betable合作的可能性仍然是存在的。只要Zynga一声召唤，格里芬就会拿起电话，告诉他的平台愿意为任何人开放。同时，Zynga把首批现金游戏的发布时间定在2013年上半年，格里芬把这个好消息称作是送给Betable开发者社区的“提前到来的最大的节日大礼”——加盟了Betable的开发者们现在知道，他们已经比行业领袖Zynga领先了6个月。

    Zynga首席执行官平卡斯在《财富》的脑力风暴科技峰会上指出，扑克和Bingo游戏可能将成为最早融合了现金赌博元素的游戏。因此第一批Zynga的现金游戏很可能是赌场类游戏。不过格里芬和平卡斯似乎都认为，长期商机还是在于主流社交游戏对现金游戏元素的广泛采用。比如像《开心农场》这类游戏可以设置一种类似老虎机的机制，让玩家下注，赌农作物的长势。

    不过短期之内，两家公司应该都不会在美国推广现金游戏。Betable的服务在英国法律下可以合法运营，在一些对现金游戏没有明确限制的国家也可以运营。但是多种身份审核手段确保了用户无法欺骗系统，谎报自己所在的位置。因此目前包括美国等国家的玩家仍然无法参与现金游戏。不过格里芬并不担心这一点。他表示自己已经与数百名游戏开发者讨论过他的产品，这些开发者们表示，他们的业务平均有60%都是来自美国以外的市场。就在上周，Zynga的平卡斯指出，美国以外的在线赌博市场的市值可达150亿美元。

    如果美国立法机构宣布现金赌博游戏合法，这对于Zynga和Betable来说自然是个天大的喜讯。Betable最近在旧金山为它的研发团队设立了一个办事处。Zynga也在7月25日表示，公司仍有60%的总收入依赖美国市场。平卡斯上周也表示，Zynga打算未来将针对现金游戏问题参与对美国国会的游说。

    与此同时，格里芬指出，在那些没有开放现金游戏的国家里，用户们要想在一场游戏中赶上那些现金赌博玩家，甚至可能要花更多的钱来买虚拟物品。格里芬相信，凭借Betable公司在申请监管批准方面的领先地位，Betable现在至少已经有了足够的筹码在赌桌上玩下去。

    译者：朴成奎

    Betable CEO Chris Griffin has spent years cultivating what he calls "a new renaissance in gaming." The 30-year-old entrepreneur wants to upend the rapidly growing social gaming market by making it simple for game makers to incorporate old-school, real-money gambling.

    Griffin may be on to something. And not just because, with his Mad Men hair cut and sharp suits, he looks the part of a Monaco croupier. Social game giant Zynga (ZNGA), for one, is paying attention. In the seven months since it went public, Zynga has been actively looking for ways to make more money from its millions of players. CEO Mark Pincus told Fortune's recent Brainstorm Tech audience that the company was "actively exploring adjacent markets like real-money gambling." The company reiterated that position in its July 25 earnings call, when executives announced revenue of $332 million for the quarter and a net loss of about $23 million. "They realize that just having a lot of scale in terms of users is not the greatest business," Griffin says.

    If Zynga and competitors such as Electronic Arts (EA) do enter real-money gaming, Griffin wants to facilitate things. His London-based startup has over a year's head start in a potentially lucrative but still thorny market. Founded in 2008 to build gambling games, Betable shifted last year to focus on providing the behind-the-scenes technology that makes other developers' games compatible with real-money wagers. The company is backed by the likes of Founders Fund's FF Angel, Greylock Discovery Fund, and individuals Dave Morin and Yuri Milner.

    Betable's founder claims that his company is the only firm to have solved the regulatory puzzles involved. To receive a license, all beneficial owners (with a 1% or larger stake) of a gambling service must undergo a months-long diligence process. Griffin calls it "incredibly invasive" because company officers are checked out, as well as software, security and location of servers, operating policies and procedures. It took Betable over two years and millions of dollars to receive the go-ahead from regulators in the United Kingdom. The company is now moving into private beta after 30 developers completed an alpha test round; its founder is bullish that no other customizable platforms are licensed and in the market.

    Griffin hopes that Betable's solution will be adopted as a partner for major game makers. Social game makers who use Betable's tools can legally offer gaming components, such as a slot machine function, within the game, but don't need their own regulatory approval because it's Betable that actually conducts the gambling activity. Betable's U.K. servers receive the activity request from a particular game, whose developers can set rules on what type of mechanic they want to run. Betable then sends back a winning or losing result, taking a portion of the revenue from the transaction and paying back an affiliate fee to the game's owners proportional to volume of traffic. Whereas the process can take months to set up independently, Griffin says a company like Zynga can layer on Betable's solution to its games in just one hour.

    In its earnings call, Zynga confirmed that its first real-money games are in development in countries where it can obtain a license. But Pincus declined to specify whether Zynga would pursue its own licenses or obtain their use through a partnership, leaving the door open for a potential Betable deal. If Zynga calls, Griffin will pick up the phone, saying his platform is open to all. In the meantime, Griffin calls Zynga's launch timeline of first-half 2013 "the biggest early holiday gift ever" for Betable's growing community: developers joining Betable today can work knowing they have six months to steal a march on the industry leader.

    While at Brainstorm Tech, Zynga's Pincus pointed to his company's poker and bingo offerings as immediate opportunities for integrating real-money gambling, so first Zynga offerings would seem likely to put real-money to work in casino style games. But both Griffin and Pincus seem to agree that the long-term opportunity is broad adoption in mainstream social games. Users of Farmville-like games could, for example, run a slot machine mechanic to bet on a better crop.

    But neither country will be involved in real-money games in the United States any time soon. Betable's service operates legally under United Kingdom regulation in countries that do not have their own specific restrictions. Various identity checks ensure that users can't game the system to misrepresent their location and get in on the action. For now, that leaves out a few countries, including the United States. But Griffin is unfazed, noting that of hundreds of developers with whom he's discussed his product, the average game maker told him up to 60% of their business was now outside the U.S. market. Last week, Pincus pointed to the non-U.S. online gambling market as a $15 billion industry.

    Legislation to open the United States up to real money gambling would of course be a major boon to both Zynga and Betable, which recently opened a San Francisco office for its developing team. Zynga reported on July 25 that it still depends on the United States for 60% of total revenue, and Pincus said last week that Zynga plans to be a part of any online gambling lobbying conversations in Washington in the future.

    In the meantime, Griffin notes that users in non-starter countries may even spend more on virtual goods to keep up with their real-money gambling peers within a game. At the very least, Betable has wagered its regulatory head start will be enough chips to stay at the table.