Ian Livingstone并非销售员，他是Games Workshop（游戏邦注：该工作室的作品包括《战锤》、《地下城》和《Dragons’ envoy to the UK》）创始人之一及Games Workshop的终身总裁。那么，Livingstone最近为何选择投资英国社交游戏广告平台Appatyze？众多社交游戏难以获得Zynga游戏那样的知名度，开发商们是时候该采取某些措施改善这个局面了。Livingstone（其曾参与了《Lara Croft》和《古墓丽影》的制作）认为，广告可能是促进开发商成功的一个途径，帮助社交游戏开发商吸引其他平台的玩家。Livingstone日前借参与英国电影与电视艺术协会（British Academy of Film and Television Arts）之机接收媒体采访，阐述其为何选择投资Appatyze，并从行业标杆人物的视角预测该媒介未来的发展趋势。

Ian Livingstone

身为两家颇有影响力公司的联合创始人，你为何选择进军社交游戏广告领域，而不是开发这类游戏？

 游戏就是我的生活，我喜欢游戏，喜欢这个行业。我也投资了很多初创公司。我现已达61岁高龄，我更希望参与别人的项目，而不是自己开发东西。（笑）很多人要求我投资或充当公司顾问，还有的公司邀请我加入他们公司的董事会。我认为这是游戏领域的有趣阶段，游戏领域的第二个黄金时代似乎已经到来。

游戏行业既有机遇也存在挑战：这些依赖于发行商的内容开发商该如何增加自己的曝光度？玩家如何获取这些游戏？我认为广告是很好的解决方案之一。Appatyze使得开发商能够将广告资源出售给竞价最高的投标人。而开发商反过来又可以利用这些资金在其他应用中宣传公司产品。所以这对于广告商和开发商来说是个双赢的策略。这是个很好的解决方案（游戏邦注：这个方案出自备受尊敬的行业元老们手中，他们同Livingstone交情颇深，个个成绩显赫，刚正不阿）。我仔细观察了这个行业一段时间，最终才决定投身其中，我很高兴能够同Appatyze携手共创未来。之前在GDC大会期间，我有幸同众多行业元老和传奇人物交流探讨。当我同他们谈及这个项目时，他们也同样颇为激动。我想这是个成功的好机会。

appatyze

您为何决定采用这种不干涉的房屋拍卖方式出售广告，而不是选择直接向社交游戏公司出售广告？

我的专长是设计和开发游戏。我认为游戏本身不成即败，所以我的大部分时间是花在推敲游戏机制。了解人们为何体验游戏，看到如此庞大游戏用户群，我的内心无比雀跃。回到游戏的初期阶段（游戏邦注：那时Atari 2600刚刚于美国问世），当时美国只有40%的用户体验游戏。当时的游戏简单易懂，全凭直觉判断，是个颇具社交性的游戏体验。随着配有复杂控制器的掌机设备的诞生，游戏日渐变得越来越难理解，令许多人望而生畏。

但如今游戏变得更具社交性了，起居室的Wii及Facebook和社交媒介平台（游戏邦注：如iPhone和iPad）的游戏让更多人拥有体验游戏的机会。游戏并不总是复杂的体验，如今它是面向大众的体验。我自己很喜欢致力于开发游戏，但这次同Appatyze合作是个很好的机会，我无法拒绝。

如今随着时间的推移，新游戏的能见度越来越高，这个问题在过去几个月一直困扰着Facebook游戏。你认为Appatyze能够促进游戏的曝光度吗？

是的，它无疑能够助开发商们一臂之力。如果开发商们安装了Appatyze条码，他们就能够通过Appatyze使用实现雷达效应，或者通过广告商创收，或者使用Appatyze促使消费者体验应用。营收也是开发商们的发展动力所在，签约15分钟之后，开发商们就能够开始从中获利。通过该系统创造的营收，开发商们分成80%。

你前面提到说你对开发游戏更感兴趣。你是否一直觉得自己会长期置身这个行业？

社交游戏？是的，这一切都是在我的预料之外。去年12月初，Zynga刚刚发行《CityVille》，44天后，游戏MAU就高达1亿；这是个令人咋舌的数字。这是游戏同人类之间达成共鸣的另一典范。如果玩家偏爱简单的社交性体验，当然有其他游戏类型可供选择，但社交游戏无疑占据重要地位。

但我不是说掌机平台的AAA游戏将销声匿迹，我只是认为游戏领域未来将会出现两极分化，出现富人更富的局面。所以，未来新版《使命召唤》将会售出3500万份，而《FIFA》则售出2000万份。热门游戏将会表现得更加突出，而由于掌机用户只选择优质游戏，身处中间地位的游戏将会逐步退出人们的视野，用户将会转而争相体验iPhone和Facebook游戏。

你的意思是说未来AAA游戏和休闲社交游戏将会出现两极分化，所以……

众所周知，目前女性族群在社交游戏中占据重要地位（游戏邦注：美国将这群用户称作足球妈妈）。我认为如果《Unity》和《Unreal》能够在Facebook平台获得更好的把手，游戏将取得更好的体验效果，那些从未玩过社交游戏的硬核玩家也会开始钟情Facebook游戏。

你现在对于社交游戏领域的看法是什么？其中有什么空缺需要填补？

我认为就目前来说，即便是社交游戏，从实际意义上将，它们也并未具备真正的社交性。这类游戏并不具有及时性，主要采用异步形式，因此可以称之为异步社交连接体验。我认为社交游戏只有转化为及时体验，借鉴传统游戏的体验机制，才有可能出现第二春。但这期间，我们显然无法对于270多款Facebook游戏存在有异议。我只是觉得用户人数未来会有显著提高，更多传统游戏玩家将会加入社交游戏行列。

Tomb Raider

你前面提到你对设计游戏很感兴趣，或者虽然现在任职于Eidos，你依然自己投资其他项目。所以，你有没有考虑让Eidos参与到你投资的Appatyze项目中？

我们还没有就此展开讨论，但我希望未来我们能够将Eidos的某些游戏移植到Facebook平台。此外，我认为EA将会首先实施这项平台转移策略，他们将会把自己的某些知名游戏转化至Facebook平台。我希望未来《古墓丽影》、《职业杀手》、《骇客任务》及其他Eidos游戏也会能同Facebook用户见面。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Eidos’ Ian Livingstone: Facebook games will have a ‘second boom’

Mr. Ian Livingstone is no salesman. He’s one of the men behind Warhammer creator (and Dungeon and Dragons’ envoy to the UK) Games Workshop and the Life President of Eidos Interactive. So, why did Livingstone recently invest in UK-based Appatyze, a social games advertisement platform? If you hadn’t noticed, most social games are not enjoying exposure on Zynga’s scale, and something needs to be done about it. To Livingstone, one of the men behind Lara Croft, the Tomb Raider, advertising might be a way to increase the amount of successful developers and enamored social gamers elsewhere. Livingstone recently took a short break from an event at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA)–which now honors our favorite past time, video games–to explain why he invested in Appatyze and to give us predictions for the medium from an industry icon’s perspective.

For someone who co-founded two of the arguably most influential games companies, why did you decide to get into social games advertising rather than the games themselves?

Games have been my life-I love playing games, I love the industry. I also do a lot of investing in start up companies. At my ripe old age of 61, I’d rather put my finger in everybody else’s pies rather than make things myself. (Laughs.) I get a lot of people asking me to invest or to advise or to sit on boards of games companies. I think it’s a very exciting time in the games industry-it’s almost like the second Golden Age of games has arrived.

And around that space, there are opportunities and challenges: ‘How do these content creators who had historically relied on publishers get visibility? How are their products discovered?’ And one of the solutions, I would suggest, is advertising. And Appatyze, it allows developers to sell their ad inventory to the highest bidder, and in turn they can then spend that revenue advertising their app on other peoples’ applications. So, it’s good for advertisers and it’s good for developers. It’s a very elegant solution-the people behind it I’ve known for some time, and they’re respected industry veterans with a great track record and fantastic integrity. I look at things long and hard before I put my name to it, and I’m very excited to be associated with Appatyze. And at GDC, I spoke to a number of industry veterans and legends, and when I talked to them about it they were also very excited. I think it’s got a great chance to succeed.

Why did you decide upon backing a more hands-off, auction house-style approach to selling advertising rather than directly selling ads to social game companies?

My expertise is designing and creating games. I think about games at almost tragic proportions. So, a lot of my time is thinking about elegant games mechanics, why people play games and just being so delighted that such a huge proportion of the population now plays games. Way back in the early days of games, when the Atari 2600 came around in the U.S., 40 percent of people were playing games. They were accessible, they were intuitive and they were a social experience. Games became harder over the years with some of the consoles with a complex controller, and it was daunting to many people.

But now games become social, of course with the Wii in the living room and social games on Facebook and social media devices like the iPhone and iPad allow huge amounts of people to enjoy the experience of games. It’s not always complex, it’s something for everybody now: male or female, hardcore or casual, there’s something for everybody to enjoy. I would personally enjoy concentrating on making games myself, but this opportunity to be with Appatyze I just thought was such a great solution. I couldn’t say no to it.

Now, about increasing potential game discovery, because that’s been a pretty big problem in the past few months for Facebook games. Do you think that Appatyze will do good to increase the amount of games that get exposure?

Well, it’s certainly going to help developers. If they allow the install of the Appatyze bar, then of course, they’re going to come up on the radar through Appatyze and therefore be able to either take revenue from advertisers or they can use Appatyze to get consumers to play with their app. Developers are motivated by money as well, and they can start earning money really within the the 15 minutes of signing up. And they do keep up to 80 percent of their advertising revenue generated through the system.

You mentioned that you would be more interested in creating games yourself. Do you think this is an industry where you think you’ll be staying for a long time?

Social games? Yeah, I mean, it’s extraordinary what has happened. What happened on the first of December of last year when Zynga launched CityVille and 44 days later they had 100 million MAUs (monthly active players); these are extraordinary numbers. It’s another great example of why games resonate with humans. There’s something there for everybody to play and social games plays a major part in making games, if you like simple and socially acceptable.

I don’t mean to say that triple-A games on consoles are going to disappear, but I think there’s going to be a polarization and the rich will get richer. So, you’re more likely to see the next Call of Duty sell 35 million units next time and FIFA will sell 20 million units. The best in class will get even more successful, but the middle ground will disappear as people play the best in class on their consoles, and they’ll be snacking on iPhone games or games on Facebook.

OK, so what I’m getting is your prediction of the future is that there will just be polarity between triple-A games and the casual/social games, so-

At the moment, we all know there’s a larger proportion of females, the soccer moms as you call them in the US [playing Facebook games]. I think when Unity [3D Engine] or Unreal gets a greater handle on the Facebook environment, I think you’ll see production values rise and people who haven’t played social games but have played console games will also enjoy games on Facebook.

What are your thoughts on the social gaming industry now? What’s missing there that needs to be filled?

I think at the moment even if they’re social games, they’re not really social in the true sense. There’s no real time, there is asynchronous movement at the moment and therefore asynchronous social linking. When it becomes real time and with mechanics drawn from traditional games, I think there’s going to be a second boom. But in the meantime, you can’t argue with 270-odd million playing games on Facebook. I just think it’s going to be an higher proportion going forward, and more traditional gamers will play.

You mentioned that you were interested in designing your own games or that you can venture out on your own, regardless of your position with Eidos. So, are there any interests in bringing Eidos into the program you’ve backed, Appatyze?

We haven’t discussed that yet, [but] I’m hoping that at some point we can take some of Eidos’ great portfolio of IP and migrate it to Facebook. Also, one thing I’m sure of is that EA will be there sooner rather than later, and that some of their brand IP is certainly going to translate well onto Facebook. I would hope that one day that Tomb Raider, Hitman and Deus Ex and other Eidos stable IP will also be available on Facebook.（Source：Games.com）