《挖矿争霸》（Minecraft）开发者马斯库·佩尔森（Markus Persson）认为，社交游戏开发商Zynga先推出“半成品”，然后再不断完善游戏的方式，是独立开发者的理想选择。

在他看来，虽然这种方式与传统游戏领域总是先彻底完成游戏开发，然后再将投放到Xbox Live Arcade、苹果App Store等在线销售渠道的这种运营模式截然不同，但这也正是Zynga大获成功的原因之一——通过推出测试版本的游戏，不但可缓解财政压力，而且可以同时测试用户对游戏的反应。佩尔森表示，这正是《挖矿争霸》所采用的开发模式。游戏邦获悉，该游戏自2009年5月发布以来，至今已创收3300万美元。

Minecraft

佩尔森在新闻网站Reddit.com上发贴表示，“我认为这是非常适合小型工作室开发游戏的模式，虽然它可能并不适用于所有类型的游戏，但我确实希望今后也采用这种方式推出新游戏。闭门造车的游戏开发过程很可怕，而且可能错误百出。”

他的观点是，通过推出“半成品”游戏，开发者可以借助玩家社区的帮助，而无需依赖专门测试人员和工作室成员来检验游戏的质量。他在推出《挖矿争霸》后又根据玩家社区的建议添加了许多功能，也就是说，他是根据不断扩大的玩家群体的需求来调整游戏，而这种做法正好可以提升《挖矿争霸》以及他自己的人气。通过这种大家共同纠错的过程，他不断地修复漏洞和添加新功能。

佩尔森原来一直是单兵作战，独立揽下大部分的活计，但在2010年又雇用了两名开发人员。据他所称，他们团队正在开发另一款游戏，但拒绝透露关于新游戏的具体细节，只表示《挖矿争霸》至今的销量大约180万份，其中80万份为零售价9.95欧元的版本，另外100万份是14.95欧元版本。

在《挖矿争霸》这款游戏中，玩家会发现自己一觉醒来就置身于一片荒无人烟的沙漠，只能通过凿树根获得木头，以创造挖矿所需的铲子、凿子、斧子以及各类生活工具。在游戏中，玩家可以尽情创造所有自己所想到的东西，不但可制造刀剑和工具，还可能使用木头建造更庞大复杂的建筑物。

佩尔森称虽然自己曾陷入一些资金转帐的麻烦，但仍坚持选择PapPaly作为主要的交易服务系统。游戏邦得知PayPal曾冻结了他的一笔75万美元的资金，理由是他们认为这其中涉及“可疑的存款和取款行为”。佩尔森使用了亚马逊的S3云存储服务来管理游戏下载量以降低成本，所以总体来看，《挖矿争霸》的管理成本可能也非常之低。

他不需要发行商的帮助，仅通过玩家社区的口碑传播就迅速打响了知名度，引起了包括Reddit等在线社区的关注。这款游戏甚至还拥有自己的“维基百科”，专门向玩家传授游戏中的相关知识。不过佩尔森表示自己目前仍无计划走Zynga公司CEO马克·平卡斯（Mark Pincus）那种企业家路线，“开发游戏就是我最大的爱好，我觉得这是一种创造性的表达方式，我还会长期开发游戏。我不打算成企业家或者CEO之类的人物。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Indie darling Minecraft creator: release games before they’re finished

The Zynga way — releasing games mid-production and updating them as time goes on — is the way to go for independent game developers, according to Minecraft creator Markus Persson.

That’s counter to traditional game development, which involves completing a game from start to finish before submitting it to an online marketplace like the Xbox Live Arcade or the Apple App Store. But that’s one of the reasons Zynga has been so successful — it releases beta versions of its games, limiting its financial liability and testing audience reaction at the same time. It’s the route that Persson took with Minecraft, which has generated around $33 million since it was released in May 2009.

“I think it’s a great way for a small studio to do game development. It might not make sense for all types of games, though,” Persson wrote in a post on news aggregator Reddit.com. “I’d definitely want to release future games in the same way. Developing in the dark is scary and probably wrong.”

By releasing mid-production, developers are able to use a community to do quality assurance on a game rather than relying on testers and in-house staff. Persson said he released Minecraft and then added additional features as the community asked for them. That meant he was able to tailor the game to the growing community, which only fed Minecraft’s — and Persson’s — popularity. It’s basically crowd-sourcing the process of finding and fixing bugs and adding features.

Persson was able to pull most of this off on his own before he hired two additional developers in 2010. He said the team is currently working on another game, although he wouldn’t give any details on what it’s about in an “ask-me-anything” question-and-answer thread on Reddit.com. He said the game has sold around 1.8 million copies so far — 800,000 for €9.95 and 1 million for €14.95.

In Minecraft, players wake up on a deserted island and start punching trees. That creates wood, which they can turn into mining picks and other types of tools. From there, the sky is the limit.

Players can chip away at anything in the world and use it as a resource to build whatever they can think up. They can craft specific items, like swords and tools, or simply use blocks to build up giant and complicated structures.

Projects range from a scale representation of the   U.S.S. Enterprise featured in the Star Trek series, to a  giant cannon powered by 73 blocks of TNT with the sole purpose of launching a cow to the moon in a mining cart, to a   recreation of the Earth itself. There are even a few shots at using Minecraft to create  artistic videos that have become pretty popular on video-sharing sites like YouTube.

Persson still uses PayPal as his primary transaction service, even though he has run into a few scuffles with the money transferring service. PayPal once froze Persson’s account when it held more than $750,000 because it observed what it called “suspicious deposits and withdrawals.” Persson uses Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service to host downloads in order to reduce costs as well — so the overhead costs for the game are probably quite low.

Instead of using publishers, Persson relied on viral communities to spread word about the game. It spawned a number of online communities, such as one on Reddit. The game even has its own Wiki, because of just how many things players can do in the world. But Persson said he doesn’t have any plans to go the entrepreneurial route, like Mark Pincus once took when founding Zynga.

“Making games is my biggest hobby, and I feel some level of creative expression by doing so. I can see myself making games for a VERY long time,” Persson wrote. “I have no plans of becoming an entrepreneur or a CEO or anything like that.”（source:venturebeat）