好莱坞近来并非无所事事，他们正在竞争价值200亿美元的电子游戏生意。

目前，许多主要的电影公司已拥有逐渐庞大的游戏工作小组，华纳兄弟公司（WB）和迪斯尼公司更是从几年前便花高价购买了社交游戏公司。

在过去，电影工作室一般与出版商缔结许可协议，之后大部分的创意会移交给外聘的出版商。如今，与此相反，电影工作室的目标是建造一个游戏公司，并自己主导，拥有和开发游戏。

尽管电影公司的总体目标是基本一致的，但是华纳兄弟公司和迪士尼公司却对如何将游戏货币化有着不同的公司策略。

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迪士尼将其大部分的资源投资在建设网络媒体社交游戏，如Facebook和Myspace，或者开发在线领域，如World of Cars，Disney Fairies’ Pixie Hollow等等。

与此同时，华纳兄弟则重视开发全方位游戏——从面向儿童的，家庭的“Lego Batman”到刚强的，更成人化的“Batman：Arkham Asylum” ——同时也面向不同的游戏平台如微软，任天堂和索尼。

这两种方式主要体现迪士尼和华纳兄弟所要吸引的观众群不同。儿童和家庭是迪士尼的主要顾客，他们想要简单上手，随时随地的休闲游戏；然而华纳兄弟的目标顾客则更热衷于游戏剧情和挑战更高的难度。共同点则是两者都需要高质的计算机平台，从而提升图像效果。

共同主席Walt Disney和执行总裁Robert Iger在上周讨论公司第三季度的经营收入成果说道：

“我们总结认为必须对公司的游戏政策进行思考。如，最基本的，顾客是如何进行游戏的？当我们对这一问题进行思考，我们会想起不同的游戏平台和经验，从我们将继续开发的电视游戏到刚开始进入的社交游戏，也包括移动应用游戏，在线休闲游戏和虚拟世界如Club Penguin。”

开发网络社交游戏的趋势是不可避免的。

“我们都意识到了网络社交和社交游戏的快速成长。”Iger说。Facebook 的5亿成员中有40%进行网站游戏，因此一般来说社交游戏市场有希望每年增长30%。

每个月将近4千2百万的用户被Playdom的“Social City”，“Sorority Life”和“Market Street”等标题所吸引。Playdom是排名第三的社交游戏制作公司，其游戏可以和第一的Zynga所制作的“Farmville”和“Malfa War”相竞争。Tapulous为iphone和ipad制作广受欢迎的音乐游戏如“Tap Tap Revenge”和“Tap Tap Radiation”。

电影工作室不得不重视游戏业——特别作为一种收入来源——尤其当其家庭影视已在经济衰退和动荡中受到重创。

“如果无法快速意识到娱乐业会迎来更多竞争，我们将不能在数字媒体中占有一席之地，社交游戏就是一个例子”，Iger说，“DVD市场正受到挑战，并将一直受到挑战。”

在线游戏的策略变动始于迪士尼。迪士尼公司首先尝试目标定在老顾客。

一个游戏可以适用于从网页到移动电话不同的数字平台，同时也变得需要更加昂贵的生产和经营。迪士尼可以通过向前往迪士尼乐园的5千万群众推广其标题而节省开支。而Marvel和ESPN而是在Facebook上打广告。

Iger说：“我们喜欢这个机会，我们有坚实的客户基础来进行市场经营。”

迪士尼新的在线世界将模仿Club Penguin的模式，要求会员支付月费，收集来自广告、货品和facebook的新贷款的收入。“Tap Tap Revenge”可以免费进行游戏，但是当用户添加如Justin Bieber和 Lady GaGa的新歌时则需要付费。

然而，网络世界并不能保证成功。孩子们的注意力都极其短暂，因此迪士尼等公司必须想方设法吸引他们的兴趣。

迪士尼公司在2007年花费3亿5千万买进的Club Penguin本预期在2009年获得双倍的收入。然而，根据最近的一份迪士尼文件：随着每月点击率的缩减，它并没有实现这一目标。企业尚未透露订购者的名单（他们每月须付5.99美元）。但自2007年，据称有70万订购者。

从另一方面，华纳兄弟有着自己的成功故事。他们取得了由TT Games生产的Lego游戏特许经营权，开发游戏如“星球大战”，“印第安纳琼斯”，“蝙蝠侠”和“哈利波特”。华纳公司在2007年买进这家游戏设计公司，同年，它开始通过对其他的出版商的收购，大规模地建设WB Games品牌。

资产收购使得华纳兄弟公司在蒙特利尔开发了一个新的WB游戏工作室。该工作室的最新产品是一个基于“蝙蝠侠”的游戏：勇敢和果断的动画片系列。同时，新的“指环王”游戏正在企划中，在WB从Electronic Arts收购回游戏经营权后，将于9月开始“阿拉贡的任务”。

华纳公司同时也将通过专有权抢占学前市场，制作芝麻街游戏，并在这个秋季开始“Elmo’s A-to-Zoo Adventure”和“Cookie’s Counting Carnival”

和迪士尼公司一样，华纳兄弟公司不得不就“目标观众如何游戏”进行思考。

华纳兄弟公司的观众更倾向于成人和动作类游戏，这需要控制平台有着高质量的图像和硬件设施。微软开发了其动作控制系统Kinect，索尼引进了Wii-like Move，任天堂则为DS开发了3D版本。华纳兄弟公司也像开发面向这些平台的游戏。

这并不意味着华纳公司完全避开了在线游戏。

事实上，华纳公司正计划在接下来的3年中将在线游戏的盈利从目前的10%增长到25%。

“我们有将近90%的收入来自于包装游戏”，华纳兄弟公司的主席Martin Tremblay说，“将来我们将有所改变。”

这种变化可以由于从小型网络社交游戏到大型多人在线游戏如“指环王On Line”的引进。“指环王On Line”在重新制作和发行后，将作为免费游戏，通过付费虚拟商品如武器和力量等进行盈利。

“我们认为电视游戏市场是与平台无关的。”Tremblay说，“我们在控制平台上有明显的优势，并且对其进行投资，确保我们能保有竞争力，但我们也在进行着网络社交游戏的开发。”

驾驭这一成长空间的是WB花费了1亿6千万收购的Turbine。在四月，它生产了“龙与地下城On Line”和早期版的“指环王On Line”。正如WB对同一个游戏根据不同年龄组生产了多种版本，它也将开发在线版。

“该是时候了。”Tremblay说，“早在2000年，我们便谈到了数字的增长为网络游戏 我们花了很长时间才发展到如今的规模。这不是一种选择，它是义务。”（译者：Dora）

Hollywood isn’t playing around when it comes to competing for a piece of the $20 billion videogames biz.

While every major studio has a growing games group on the lot, Warner Bros. and Disney in particular have opened up their wallets over the past several years to buy up successful publishers that can quickly get them into the game of releasing interactive titles featuring their most popular characters and franchises.

In contrast with the traditional licensing pacts that studios made with videogame publishers in the past, where much of the creative was handed over to an outside publisher, the goal these days is to build a library of games that the studios can control, own and exploit themselves.

While the broad goal for the studios is largely the same, both Warner Bros. and Disney have embraced decidedly different corporate strategies of how to monetize gaming.

Disney is investing most of its resources in building games for social media networks such as Facebook or MySpace, or launching online realms like its World of Cars (which raced out of the development garage last week), the Disney Fairies’ Pixie Hollow and one for “Pirates of the Caribbean,” after building a lucrative financial following with online kids playground Club Penguin. An online world featuring Marvel Comics characters is in the works.

Warner Bros., meanwhile, has focused much of its efforts on creating games that appeal to all demos — from the kid- and family-friendly “Lego Batman” to the grittier, more adult “Batman: Arkham Asylum” — for play on consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony.

The two approaches primarily reflect the different audiences Disney and Warner Bros. are trying to reach. Kids and families that are the typical Disney consumers want to play casual games that can simply be picked up and played at any time, while WB’s target gamers prefer to invest more time in a game’s plot and tougher levels. They also want the high-end graphics that require the heavy-duty computing power of consoles.

The Mouse House made its latest acquisition last month, picking up social gamemaker Playdom for $563 million and mobile venture Tapulous for an undisclosed figure.

“We concluded that the (company’s) games strategy has to reflect, basically, how consumers are playing games, and as we look at the sector we see a diversity of platforms and experiences, from the console games — which we will remain in — to the social games, which we have just bought into, as well as mobile apps and casual games online and virtual worlds like Club Penguin,” said Walt Disney Co. president and CEO Robert Iger while discussing the company’s third-quarter earnings results last week.

A greater focus on creating games for social networks is unavoidable.

“We’re all aware of the rapid growth of social networks and the huge popularity of games on them,” Iger said, citing the 40% of Facebook’s 500 million members who play games on the site, and that the social games market, in general, is expected to grow 30% each year.

Some 42 million people each month are drawn to titles like “Social City,” “Sorority Life” and “Market Street” from Playdom, the No. 3 creator of social games, which competes with top shop Zynga’s “FarmVille” and “Mafia Wars.” Tapulous makes popular music games like “Tap Tap Revenge” and “Tap Tap Radiation” for the iPhone and iPad.

Studios have been forced to take gaming more seriously — especially as a growing source of revenue — as their home- video divisions have taken a beating amid the recession and shifting appetites.

“You can’t have a conversation about digital media without quickly realizing that there is more competition for people’s entertainment time, social games being one primary example of that,” Iger said. “The DVD market is challenged and will continue to be challenged.”

The strategic shift to online gaming comes after Disney first tried to target older gamers with racing and action-based console games only to realize that its most loyal audience is the younger set that gravitates toward the Mouse House’s stable of animated characters and gets parents to pony up subscription dollars or to buy digital goods to spruce up online avatars.

A single game also can be adapted for a variety of digital platforms, from websites to mobile phones. And as games become more expensive to produce and market, Disney can save money by promoting its titles to the more than 50 million people it has attracted to its Disney, Marvel and ESPN brands on Facebook.

“We like the opportunity,” Iger said. “We begin with a very, very solid base of people to market to.”

Disney will mimic the Club Penguin model for its newer online worlds, requiring members to pay a monthly subscription fee and collect revenue from ads and micropayments for goods through its own sites and Facebook’s new Credits currency. “Tap Tap Revenge” is free to play, but it charges users to add new songs from the likes of Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga.

Online worlds aren’t a guarantee for success, however. Kids have a notoriously short attention span, and companies like Disney need to figure out new ways to keep them interested.

Club Penguin, which Disney bought in 2007 for $350 million, was expected to make double that sum in revenue if it met earnings targets through 2009. But it didn’t, with monthly visits shrinking, according to a recent Disney filing. The venture hasn’t disclosed its number of subscribers (who pay $5.99 to play each month) since 2007, when it reported some 700,000 subs.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, on the other hand, has its own kid-friendly success story with the Lego games franchise, produced by TT Games, which makes titles based on “Star Wars,” “Indiana Jones,” “Batman” and “Harry Potter.” WB bought the gamemaker in 2007, the same year it started to aggressively build its WB Games label through the acquisition of other publishers.

Those include “Arkham Asylum” producer Rocksteady Studios, Midway Games (adding “Mortal Kombat,” “Spy Hunter,” “Wheelman” and “Joust” to its game library) for $49 million, Snowblind Studios, and a significant distribution deal with Eidos (which gave it the film rights to the “Tomb Raider” franchise).

Assets from those acquisitions have helped open a newWB Games studio in Montreal to focus on creating games based on DC Comics characters. Its latest is a game based on its “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” animated series. New “Lord of the Rings” games are also planned, starting with September’s “Aragorn’s Quest,” after WB bought back the gaming rights to the franchise from Electronic Arts.

Warners also is upping its presence with the pre-school set with an exclusive rights deal to make Sesame Street games for consoles, starting this fall with “Elmo’s A-to-Zoo Adventure” and “Cookie’s Counting Carnival.”

Like Disney, Warner Bros. had to figure out where most of its target audience was playing games.

The WB audience skews older, and tends to play action-oriented titles that require the high-end graphics and hardware of consoles. As Microsoft launches its motion-control system Kinect, Sony introduces its Wii-like Move and Nintendo rolls out a 3D version of its DS handheld, WB also wants to produce games for those platforms.

That’s not to say that Warner Bros. is completely eschewing online gaming.

In fact, the studio is aiming to generate 25% of its revenue from online games over the next three years, up from the current 10% such titles currently generate.

“Ninety percent of our revenue is packaged games,” says Martin Tremblay, president of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “In the future, that won’t be the case.”

That shift could come via the introduction of smaller social network games to more advanced massively multiplayer online games like “Lord of the Rings Online,” which is being revamped and relaunched as a free-to-play title that will make money from the sale of such virtual goods as weapons and powers.

“We’re looking at the videogame market as platform-agnostic,” Tremblay says. “We are obviously strong on consoles and have made investments to make sure we can compete, but we’re working on social networking games also.”

Driving much of that growth area is WB’s $160 million acquisition of Turbine, in April, which produces “Dungeons and Dragons Online” and the previous version of “Lord of the Rings Online.”

Just as WB produces multiple versions of games around a property for different age groups, it also aims to launch online versions along with a console counterpart.

“It’s about time,” Tremblay says. “We were talking about the growth of digital as the future of online gaming since early 2000. It took a long time to be where we are today. Online is a serious business and we have to be there. It’s not a choice. It’s an obligation.” (source:variety)