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手机应用《Talking Friends》10个月创造1亿次下载量

发布时间:2011-04-27 09:38:03 Tags:,,,

美国/斯洛文尼亚工作室Outfit7近日宣布,手机娱乐应用《Talkings Friends》登陆苹果App Store仅十个月就创造了1亿次下载量。

与之形成对比的是《愤怒的小鸟》,这款热门手机游戏历时18个月才实现了1亿次下载目标,而火狐浏览器也用了将近一年时间突破1亿大关。而在今年1月份,《Talking Friends》系列的下载量才刚达到6000万次。

Outfit7 comparison

Outfit7 comparison

《Talking Tom》是《Talkings Friends》系列中最早发布的一款应用,于2010年7月在App Store露面,目前下载量已超过4000万次。它虽然是一款免费应用,但支持用户花钱购买其中的虚拟商品。该系列的另一款应用《Gina the Giraffe》 现在也已创造了1500多万次下载量,这家位于美国加州帕洛阿尔托的工作室至今已推出10款Talking动物应用。

与其竞争对手《愤怒的小鸟》一样,《Talking Friends》也已成一种流行文化现象,曾在美国NBC节目《今日秀》以及ABC电视情景剧《Modern Family》中出镜。

这个应用系列出自斯洛文尼亚的一名研究人员之手,它支持用户对着iPhone的麦克风说话,然后让应用中的Tom猫以搞笑的声音重复用户的语言。用户可以爱抚这只动物,也可以去戳弄、拍打和抓取猫尾巴。该工作室负责人Nabergoj表示,Outfit7致力于通过创造招人喜爱的角色,以有趣的方式建立产品与用户之间的情感纽带。

Nabergoj

Nabergoj

这个应用系列从严格意义上来说,并不能算是手机游戏,但Nabergoj称公司会进一步充实这个品牌的内容,未来将围绕这些角色创造一种与游戏相似的体验,并且有可能将这些角色形象推向书刊、漫画以及其他教育和娱乐应用等不同媒介。

据他所称,“我们希望这个系列能够突破手机应用的范畴,也不想让它成为流行一时的现象……我们的目标是成为维亚康姆或者迪士尼,将这些角色形象推向全新的平台。”

这家工作室目前仅有25名成员,尚未接受任何外部投资。Nabergoj表示Outfit7利润颇为可观,而且还有大量盈利空间,即将推出的新动物角色是《Talking Ben》中的小狗。

他告诉媒体,《Talking Tom》在App Store上架仅15天就收获了100万用户,而《Gina the Giraffe》仅用4天就实现了这个目标,而《Talking Ben》的目标则是2天创造100万次下载量(游戏邦注:该应用系列目前每月下载量为1500万次左右)。

在他看来,这个系列的人气上升证明《Talking Friends》绝非一时之热,Outfit7现在仅专注于苹果iOS平台,他们并不打算因为接受风险投资而分散自己的注意力。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

Outfit7 hits 100M downloads with Talking Friends iPhone apps

Move over, Angry Birds. Outfit7 is announcing today that its Talking Friends apps have been downloaded more than 100 million times after just ten months in the Apple App Store.

That’s a big achievement that has been matched only by a handful of developers, and it means that Outfit7 will likely be able chart its own destiny as a developer of mobile apps and games. By comparison, it took Rovio’s immensely popular Angry Birds about 18 months to hit 100 million downloads and it took Firefox a little less than a year to hit 100 million. Back January, the Talking Friends series was only at 60 million downloads.

Talking Friends such as Talking Tom Cat are cute apps where users say something into the microphone of their iPhones and the cartoon character repeats it in a funny voice. You can pet the character, poke, punch, or grab its tail. Altogether, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Outfit7 has launched ten talking animal apps.

Like the rival Angry Birds, Talking Friends has hit the level of a cultural phenomenon, making appearances on The Today Show and ABC’s hit sitcom Modern Family.

Outfit7 launched Talking Tom Cat first in July, 2010, and that app has been downloaded more than 40 million times as a free-to-play app. Users can pay real money to buy virtual goods if they want. Another animal in the series,Gina the Giraffe, has also been downloaded more than 15 million times, said Andrej Nabergoj, in an interview.

The app was created by a researcher in Slovenia as a way to use a person’s voice as a user interface on a mobile phone. Outfit7 grew up around it and focused on creating lovable characters that could create an emotional connection to users, Nabergoj said.

“It has taken off far faster than we thought,” Nabergoj (pictured) said. “As far as we can tell, no one else has grown as fast as we have in just ten months.”

The app isn’t strictly a game. But Nabergoj said the company will expand the franchise and create game-like experiences around the characters in the future. It could also extend the characters to other media, including books, comics, and other educational and entertainment applications.

“We want to move them beyond the mobile screen,” Nabergoj said. “We don’t want this to be a fad. That’s why we have a different perspective, offering characters that people can engage with in a social context. Our goal is to be like Viacom or Disney, taking the characters to new platforms.”

Those are big words, considering the company is so small still. The company has 25 employees and is self-funded. But you have to credit them for ambition, and people with big numbers can talk big.

Nabergoj said Outfit7 is profitable and is expanding. One of the new characters coming up is Talking Ben the dog, with a very different personality from Tom, Nabergoj said.

Nabergoj said it took only 15 days for Talking Tom Cat to hit 1 million users. With Gina the Giraffe, it happened in four days. The goal for Talking Ben is to get there is two days, Nabergoj said. At this point, the apps are being downloaded 15 million times a month.

The repeat hits show that the first hit wasn’t just a fluke, Nabergoj said. For now, Outfit7 is focused just on the Apple iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) platform. Nabergoj said the company doesn’t want to be distracted by the process of raising venture capital now.(source:venturebeat


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