????Zynga在Facebook平臺的長期統(tǒng)治可能快要結束了，這家一度炙手可熱的社交游戲開發(fā)商正因競爭對手的迅速崛起而黯然失色，該競爭對手有一個應景的名字——King.com。

????市場研究公司AppDate的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，King.com的熱門游戲《糖果粉碎傳奇》（Candy Crush Saga）已經(jīng)取代Zynga的《農場小鎮(zhèn)2》（Farmville 2）成為Facebook平臺最受歡迎的游戲。前者的日活躍玩家為970萬，后者的數(shù)字是880萬。總部設在歐洲的King.com目前擁有365名員工，該公司在倫敦、舊金山和歐洲各地都設有辦事處。

????盡管《糖果粉碎傳奇》可能在日活躍玩家這項指標上取得領先，但《農場小鎮(zhèn)2》仍然位居月活躍玩家數(shù)量的首位，兩款游戲的這項數(shù)據(jù)分別為2,580萬和4,180萬。不過，考慮到King.com直到2011年4月才在Facebook平臺推出第一款游戲——盡管King.com創(chuàng)立于2003年——該公司的增長非常引人注目?！短枪鬯閭髌妗烦霈F(xiàn)的時間則更晚，直到去年4月才在Facebook上線。

????“在不到18個月時間里，King.com已經(jīng)憑借7,000萬月活躍玩家成為Facebook平臺的第二大游戲開發(fā)商，”Facebook歐洲市場游戲合作負責人朱利安?科多尼爾在一份新聞稿中稱?！叭蛑挥猩贁?shù)幾家科技公司能夠如此迅速地獲得這么多的用戶?！?/p>

????King.com的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人兼首席執(zhí)行官里卡爾多?扎科尼表示，大部分增長來自于游戲日益強大的跨平臺能力以及同步功能，即玩家可以在一款設備上（比如平板電腦）開始游戲，然后在另一款設備上（比如智能手機或傳統(tǒng)的臺式電腦）結束游戲?！拔覀儗V受歡迎的游戲移植到移動平臺，并讓游戲實現(xiàn)跨平臺的無縫對接和同步，這種轉變立刻激發(fā)了休閑游戲玩家的興趣，”扎科尼在一份聲明中稱。“我們在社交游戲和移動游戲兩個領域都取得巨大的增長?！?/p>

????跟《農場小鎮(zhèn)》相比，《糖果粉碎傳奇》的游戲理念簡單至極，它被歸入“瓷塊匹配”游戲的大類：用戶只要將3塊顏色相同、位置相鄰的糖果排成一線，就能使之消失并得分。King.com開發(fā)的大多數(shù)游戲都被歸入這一類，人們都說這類休閑游戲容易上手、不占用大量時間，但要成為高手并不容易。

????盡管傳統(tǒng)游戲玩家長久以來一直看不上瓷塊匹配游戲——因為太簡單，而且談不上益智——但這類游戲隨著智能手機和平板電腦的崛起已經(jīng)卷土重來?！坝?0%的人會經(jīng)常在手機上玩游戲，他們尋求的是便捷，”King.com的首席營銷官亞歷克斯?戴爾說。“他們想要的是在工作休息時間、回家的列車上或是在沙發(fā)上休息時能夠玩的游戲?！?/p>

????Zynga's long reign over Facebook may be coming to an end. The once-hot social game maker risks being eclipsed by the dramatic rise of a competitor, the aptly named King.com.

????Figures from AppData show that King.com's hit game Candy Crush Sagahas overtaken Zynga's (ZNGA)Farmville 2 to become the top game on Facebook (FB), with 9.7 million daily players compared to Farmville's 8.8 million. The Europe-based King.com currently has 365 employees with offices in London, San Francisco and across Europe.

????While Candy Crush Saga might lead the daily user figures, Farmville 2 is still ahead when it comes to monthly active users, with 41.8 million to Candy Crush Saga's 25.8 million. Still, the growth has been remarkable considering King.com only launched its first game on Facebook in April 2011, even though the company has been around since 2003. Candy Crush Saga is even more recent, launching on Facebook in April last year.

????"In less than 18 months King.com has become the second largest game developer on the Facebook platform with 70 million monthly active users," said Julien Codorniou, head of European gaming partnerships at Facebook in a press release. "Only a few technology companies in the world have reached so many people so quickly."

????King.com CEO and co-founder Riccardo Zacconi says much of the growth came from the games' growing availability across multiple platforms and the synchronization feature, where a game may be started on one device such as a tablet and finished on another, like a smartphone or traditional desktop. "The transition to moving our popular games to mobile and making the playability both seamless and synchronized across multiple platforms has generated immediate interest from casual games players," said Zacconi in a statement. "We've seen tremendous growth across both social and mobile games charts."

????Compared to Farmville, Candy Crush Saga is based on an extremely simple concept. It falls under the "tile-matching" game category: users win points for lining up three candies of the same color next to each other so that they disappear. Most of King.com's games fall into this category of casual games, described as titles that are easy to learn, don't take a lot of time to complete but can be difficult to master.

????While traditional gamers have long looked down on tile-matching games for being too simple and not intellectually stimulating, the category is making a comeback along with the rise of smartphones and tablets. "Eighty percent of people in the U.K. play games on their phone regularly, what they're looking for is convenience," says Alex Dale, chief marketing officer at King.com. "They want something they can play in between breaks at work, coming home on the train or while relaxing on a sofa."