作者：Jon Jordan

韩国发行商Gamevil依靠《Zenonia》等RPG游戏和《Baseball Superstars》系列游戏在韩国国内和美国确立了自己的地位。

尽管如此，为实现其全球化战略，公司期待能够更轻松从休闲游戏受众身上获得盈利，可爱的99美分游戏《Air Penguin》的强劲势头让公司发现这片领域确实有利可图。这款游戏由韩国工作室Enterfly开发，在16个国家排行榜上拔得头筹（游戏邦注：包括美国、法国和德国）。PocketGamer最近采访Gamevil美国地区总裁Kyu C Lee，讨论公司如何及为何能够达成如此佳绩。

你们何时开始认可《Air Penguin》？

我们首次与Enterfly的合作是开发《Baseball Legends》，这款游戏数年前在韩国的功能手机上发布。Enterfly注意到整个市场正迅速转向智能手机，并制作了一款iPhone游戏，最初计划自己发布。当我们的发布团队向管理层展示这款游戏时，我们确实认为此游戏机制独特而且很有趣，这让我们对游戏可能雄踞市场很有信心。

Air Penguin

首次体验游戏后，你们是否觉得需要改变某些内容？

尽管我们认为游戏的核心机制无需变动，但我们的团队需要与Enterfly配合来调整游戏的平衡性以满足全球用户的诉求，也需要在用户界面和盈利性方面对游戏进行润色。当然，这使得游戏看起来与几个月之前大不相同。

Gamevil此前并未涉猎游戏的发行，你们如何想到要这么做？

正如你所提到的，Gamevil向来致力于开发自己的项目，发行游戏对我们来说还是个全新的业务。就发行的时间安排来说，Gamevil内游戏设计、质量管理和营销部门等各个团队间的配合都需要进行协调。我们曾与英国工作室Paw Print在《Kami Retro》游戏上有过配合，从中吸取所需的经验。而且，我们的发行主管Youn Il Jung确实非常出众，他将所有事情布置得井井有条。

Enterfly是个很棒的合作伙伴，对我们所有的反馈意见都会快速做出回应。我认为正因为我们曾经与许多开发商合作过，这使得发行能力不断得到改善。

《Air Penguin》很快就飙升至iOS排行榜首位，你认为主要原因是什么？

游戏为苹果公司所推荐，这一点有所帮助。另外，我们也看到游戏发布后，twitter上的点击量迅速上升，这让我们看到游戏的病毒式推广很顺利。我认为游戏看起来也很有吸引力，如果你见过朋友用重力感应控制玩《Air Penguin》，就会明白我的意思。我们认为游戏的角色也很符合受众的诉求，很多粉丝回应称游戏中的企鹅很可爱。

Air Penguin

你可曾注意到游戏在各个国家的表现有何不同？

游戏在不同国家勇夺榜首之位的顺序是个很有趣的事情。首先是美国，随后自俄罗斯起风靡整个欧洲并渐渐转向东南区域。最后，游戏开始在亚洲盛行。

自游戏发布后，为维持下载量，你们做了哪些工作？

我觉得团队和开发商都未曾预料到游戏会在这么短的时间内如此盛行，尽管Enterfly已经制定了一些更新计划。我们夜以继日地深化角色、提供更多的内容、开发Android版本以及推出授权项目以扩张品牌影响力。下次更新后，用户会看到更多的关卡，接下来的更新还会增添新的角色。就短期内的工作来说，我们已经在网络营销方面有所投入，也举办视频竞赛活动让游戏的病毒式扩张更加迅速。

你能详细介绍下更新吗？

我们已经将游戏更新至1.0.1版本，修正了些许漏洞，还减少鱼的数量让游戏变得简单。1.1版将会有新关卡，这些关卡适用于所有人，而且我们计划在1.2中添加新角色。我们会尽量在每次更新中为玩家提供更多的关卡。

《Air Penguin》会在其他平台上发布吗？

目前我们正在进行Android版本的开发，将来我们会尝试尽量把这款游戏发布到更多的平台上。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Gamevil’s Kyu Lee on expanding the visual virality of iPhone hit Air Penguin

by Jon Jordan

Korean publisher Gamevil has built its reputation, both domestically and in the US, on RPGs such as Zenonia and its Baseball Superstars series.

Expanding aggressively globally however, it’s been looking for more easily digested fare for the casual gaming audience – something it’s most definitely discovered with cute 99c bouncing game Air Penguin. Developed by Korean studio Enterfly, it’s been #1 in 16 countries, including the US, France and Germany. We caught up with Gamevil’s US president Kyu C Lee to find out how and why.

PocketGamer: When did you first find out about Air Penguin?

Kyu Lee: Our relationship with Enterfly started when we first cooperated on our game Baseball Legends, which was published on feature phones in Korea a couple of years ago. Enterfly noticed the market quickly switching to smartphones, and came up with a title for iPhone, which it originally planned to self publish. When our publishing team presented the title to our management, we really thought that the game mechanics were unique and fun, which gave us confidence this may be big hit.

Did you need to change any significant aspects from that first experience?

Although we thought the core mechanics were very solid, our team and Enterfly had to work together on adjusting the game balance to appeal to the global audience, and also polish the title in a lot of aspects such as the user interface and monetisation. The game looks a quite a bit different compared to several months ago too.

Gamevil hasn’t done many publishing deals so how are you finding this?

As you mentioned, Gamevil’s organisation is tightly set up in terms of building our own projects. Publishing titles is a fairly new business for us. Working with different teams within Gamevil such as the game design, QA and marketing departments required a lot of coordination with respect to schedules. We learned from some of our experiences working with UK studio Paw Print on Kami Retro, and our publishing manager Youn Il Jung really stepped up, putting all the pieces together.

Enterfly has been a great partner to work with, especially in terms of its quick turnaround on all of the feedback we have provided. We believe our publishing efforts are improving as we’ve been working with more developers.

Air Penguin shot to the top of the iOS charts very quickly. What do you think were the main reasons?

The game was featured by Apple, which helped, and we also saw a quick increase on the amount of clicks coming through the twitter feeds right after the launch and noticed that the game was very viral. I believe the game is visually viral too, and you’ll understand what I mean by being ‘visually viral’ if you’ve ever seen your friend playing Air Penguin using the tilt controls. Being another bird, we also believe the icon was very appealing for the audience. We got a lot of responses from our fans that the penguin was very cute.

Have you noticed any differences in terms of how the game has been received in different countries?

One interesting thing was the pattern in terms of how the game hit the number 1 spot in different countries. It first hit number 1 in the US, then in Europe it started from Russia, and gradually came down to the southeastern regions. Finally, it started hitting Asia.

How have you worked to maintain the downloads since release?

I don’t think our team and the developers expected the title to be such a huge hit within such a short amount of time, although Enterfly already had a couple of updates planned. We’ve been working through the weekends to build more depth to the character, provide more content, hustling to get the Android build out, as well as working on licensing efforts to expand the brand. You’ll see more stages in the next update and a new character in the following update. Regarding shorter term efforts, we’ve been spending additional amounts of budget on marketing online, and also have posted a video contest to make the game more viral.

Can you be more specific about the updates?

We’ve already updated to 1.0.1, which has some bug fixes, and we’ve also given away additional fishes to ease the game. Version 1.1 will have new levels, which will be playable for everyone, and we’re planning on showing the new character in 1.2. We will try to provide more levels every time we do an update.

Will Air Penguin be coming to any other platforms?

Right now, we’re working on Android, and we’ll try to bring this over to as many platforms possible in the future. (Source: Pocket Gamer)