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椰岛工作室创始人谈中国独立游戏开发者面临的挑战

发布时间:2011-04-06 08:43:55 Tags:,,,

游戏邦注:本文原作者为椰岛工作室(Coconut Island Studio)联合创始人、业务发展经理Wen Chen,他是一名富有创作激情的游戏人,于2009年与Wesley Bao 、Ye Feng 在上海共同创办了椰岛工作室,该公司目前已成为中国领先的独立游戏工作室之一。

EA、2K和育碧等许多国际游戏公司在中国都设有工作室,它们正是中国独立开发者诞生的摇篮。

例如,椰岛工作室的两名联合创始人Wesley和Ye,之前就是科乐美上海工作室成员;玩够互动(GameGou)公司首席执行官He Dongxu就来自Gameloft中国工作室;手机游戏《虚拟乒乓球》开发者Wang Xi也曾为科乐美效力。

椰岛工作室作品--《Finger-Balance》

椰岛工作室作品--《Finger-Balance》

与许多国际大型企业驻中国分公司的情况一样,这些开发者走上独立路线的原因在于,即使是最资深的中国员工也只能负责产品开发的事务,对游戏设计提出自己的想法简直是遥不可及的梦想。如果中国独立开发者要根据自己的创意来开发游戏,唯一的选择就是自立门户。

对独立游戏开发者来说,他们在自立根生之前,都要先了解自己的处境以及本土市场的中国特色——绝大多数中国玩家都很痴迷免费体验的MMORPG游戏,因为他们不费一文钱就可以玩游戏(除非需要加快游戏进程或者购买道具)。如果他们想换换口味,或者想在个人电脑或掌机上离线玩游戏,那么他们就会通过BitTorrent下载免费游戏,或者花80美分从游戏商店购买盗版软件。

由此可见,独立开发者的游戏在本土市场几乎没有生存的土壤。

除此之外,中国独立开发者还面临难以发行游戏以及成功创收等不利因素。首先,独立的个体无权在中国发行游戏,而本土传统游戏发行商并不是很理解独立开发者;其次,即使游戏真正发行了,它也很快就会被黑客破解,成为四处均可免费下载的东西,所以针对中国市场开发游戏并不是个划算的选择。

那么独立的个体为什么不能在中国发行游戏?

这主要是因为中国发行市场设置了多道准入门槛。最基本的一点是,你得具有发行游戏的相关许可证,而独立开发者基本上不具备获取该许可证的资质。如果要申请该许可证,企业至少得提供六名计算机科学或出版编辑专业员工的文凭及相关证件。

即使是以一家公司的身份示人,这些开发者也同样需要绞尽脑汁,为自己的游戏找到创收出路。但苹果App Store的问世扫清了这一障碍,因为它让开发者掌握了独立的主导权,并且不再需要死守中国市场。

所以,中国正涌现越来越多的iOS和Android平台的独立游戏开发者,但并非所有人都能通过独立路线生存下来,因为大家仍然面临不少挑战。一是文化鸿沟,传统的中国游戏开发商一般只创建武侠题材的RPG游戏,因为这类游戏在中国最有市场;但独立开发者的主要用户却是海外玩家,他们如果将一款带浓郁中国特色的RPG游戏引进西方市场,即使是经过大量的本土化处理,也不太可能为西方用户所接纳。

另外,语言障碍也是中国独立开发者的瓶颈之一。他们的英语阅读能力没问题,但对话、听力和书写还存在较大困难。而这种语言能力,恰恰是海外市场推广极为重要条件之一,如果你不能让世界听到自己的声音,那就没有人会意识到你的存在。

总而言之,任何地区的独立开发者的日子都不太容易,而中国市场尤其具有挑战性,不过我们仍相信即使是中国市场,也终会迎来独立开发者的时代。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

Coconut Island’s Wen Chen on the difficulties of being an indie developer in China

Who: Indie game developers

What: Boom!

Where: China

When: The past two years

Why: Lots of international game companies, including EA, 2K and Ubisoft, have major studios in China, which is where many Chinese indie game developers came from.

For instance, the two co-founders of Coconut Island Studio, Wesley and Ye, worked for Konami Shanghai; the CEO of GAMEGOU, He Dongxu, came from Gameloft China; and the programmer of Virtual Table Tennis, Wang Xi, was employed by Konami.

They chose to go indie because, just like many in other international companies in China, even the most senior local employees only take charge of production; to have any say in the design of a game is an unattainable dream. If we want to make games with our own ideas, we have to establish our own indie studios.

hoW: There are some basic background features of the Chinese game market you need to know before you can understand the situation for indie developers here.

The majority of local gamers are addicted to free-to-play MMORPGs, which you can play without spending a penny (if you don’t buy special power-ups or gear). If they need a change and want to play offline games on PC or console, then they either download them for free through BitTorrent or just buy it pirated from a game store for 80c per title.

So, sadly, there really is little space in the Chinese home market for an indie game.

Furthermore, there are other factors which make it hard for Chinese indie developers like us to make a living through creating and monetising indie games in the Chinese game market. Firstly, as a private individual you can’t publish a game in China and the local traditional game publishers don’t have much idea of what indie is. Secondly, even if it gets published, the game would easily get cracked and be provided as a free download everywhere, which means it’s not economical just to make games for the Chinese market.

Why can’t private individuals publish games in China?

There are multiple barriers to entry. First, you need a licence to publish games, and the requirements for getting such a licence precludes an individual from publishing games. To get a licence, a company must have at least six professional staff who have specialised certificates in computer science or editing.

Even as a company, we had to figure out a way to monetise our games worldwide, which was difficult until the Apple App Store appeared. It cleared away all of the barriers for us to go indie, because we don’t have to target just China.

As a result, more and more developers are making indie games for iOS and Android. Now everything seems beautiful, doesn’t it?

However, only some indies can live developing indie games, because there are still several challenges. Firstly, there’s a cultural issue; traditional Chinese game developers love to develop martial-arts related RPGs because they are very popular in China. Yet, as our main audience has changed to foreign customers, it’s hard for an exotic local RPG to get a good reception in the western world, even with good localisation.

Language is also a huge issue for Chinese indies. They can read English but speaking, listening and writing are much harder tasks. Without these essential abilities, especially for marketing (crucial for indies), you can’t let the world hear your voice, so that they don’t know the existence of your game.

The life is not easy for indie developers anywhere and the Chinese market throws up some huge challenges, even for Chinese developers. That said, we believe the indie’s era will come, even in China.

Wen Chen is co-founder and business development manager of Coconut Island Studio, a Shanghai-based indie game studio. An enthusiastic gamer, Wen Chen founded Coconut Island Studio with Wesley Bao and Ye Feng in 2009. It’s becoming one of the leading indie game studios in China.

Wen Chen is co-founder and business development manager of Coconut Island Studio, a Shanghai-based indie game studio. An enthusiastic gamer, Wen Chen founded Coconut Island Studio with Wesley Bao and Ye Feng in 2009. It’s becoming one of the leading indie game studios in China.(source:pocketgamer


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