作者：Kim-Mai Cutler

PopCap Games长久以来在亚洲都坚持“不论亚洲发生何种变化，坚持驻守亚洲”的方针，给予亚洲工作室充分自主权，令其能够不断尝试，将内容本土化。

此不干涉策略开始获得回报。

据EA亚洲工作室主管James Gwertzman表示，亚洲工作室所获收益占PopCap总收入的10%-11%（游戏邦注：前几年还只有5%）。去年PopCap尚未被EA收购时的收益是1亿美元，所以我们可以粗略估计，亚洲工作室的收益大概是1500万美元。

PopCap最近推出的《Plants Vs. Zombies Social》也于上周在人人网获得近50万的DAU，这要归功于人人网为PopCap开展的大量广告宣传活动。

Plants Vs. Zombies Social from blogcdn.com

但此成绩来之不易。这是PopCap在亚洲投资5年，积极建立各种关系网所换来的成果。

成立PopCap亚洲工作室的想法最早产生于2005年，当时曾在首次科技泡沫时期负责微软亚洲事务的Gwertzman，在某次旅行中重返亚洲，发现中国用户非常着迷《祖玛》之类的PopCap游戏。

他表示，“我们在中国享有极高品牌辨识度。当地用户知道我们的游戏，觉得内容非常有趣，尽管游戏并未进行本土化。但问题是我们要如何创收？”

从其他西方公司在中国所犯错误中吸取教训

他开始每隔1、2个月就造访中国，研究当地市场。他表示，“该游戏市场早就存在若干警示故事。我决定暂时不投入资金，直到我们理清其他西方公司所犯下的错误。我希望自己犯的是新错误，而不是老错误。”

其他西方公司所犯下的错误包括：

* 未给予当地团队足够自主权或权利，自己做决策：坚持要西方总公司高层审核当地决策。

* 未聘请适当充分了解中国市场的本土人员：Gwertzman表示，很多美国公司引进行业专家，忽略本土员工提出的建议。

* 或者恰恰相反，聘请对母公司一无所知的中国高管：由于他们未受到公司文化的熏陶，他们的决策或许会受到几千英尺外的北美或欧洲总公司的批评。

* 过早过度投资：公司会立即设定较高收入预期，当收入无法抵消预算时，他们就减少投资。他表示，“你会看到大量过度投资和迅速瓦解现象。”

* 他们选择的管理团队不够稳定。他表示，“公司也许在4年内就更换4次高层团队，”导致公司策略变得难以捉摸。

为避免这些情况，PopCap和Gwertzman制订了经营本土工作室的框架，他于2008年来到上海成立公司亚洲工作室。他们同意亚洲工作室将享有完全自主权，总公司高层唯一参与的决策是工作室年度预算。PopCap亚洲员工享有相对自由的权利，能够调整公司备受追捧的游戏品牌，服务当地市场。

他们还同意，不论亚洲发生什么变化，都会坚持留在亚洲。Gwertzman表示，“若要尝试疯狂商业模式，那就要留在亚洲。”

他们并未选择通过收购（游戏邦注：就像诸如Zynga等大型游戏公司在中国奉行的策略）引进人才（虽然Gwertzman觉得Zynga的XPD Media协议是个非常明智的收购决策）。

他表示，“很多公司通过收购进军亚洲市场。但这存在许多问题，我们无法确保所收购公司的文化会和总公司相匹配。而且，若他们以团队形式加入，他们也可以以团队形式离开。”

Gwertzman逐步开始亚洲工作室的运作，旨在希望工作室从一开始就呈现正向资金流动。随后收入开始逐年翻倍，虽然头年运作情况才是PopCap整个业务的关键。

选择中国平台

该工作室的最新大作就是在人人网推出的社交版《植物大战僵尸》，这和西方版本大不相同，其在原始的塔防内容基础上融入城建元素。

PopCap 1年半前开始寻找中国平台伙伴时，供第三方开发商选择的社交网络并不多。当时腾讯还未推出自己的开放平台，新浪微博今年夏天才推出首个游戏平台，所以人人网是唯一的主流平台。

Gwertzman表示，“最后，他们向我们提供了一个很棒的协议，”他补充表示，人人网愿意承担游戏在中国各大主要城市公交、地铁广告宣传活动的费用支出。Gwertzman不愿评价人人网协议的条款。但就像我们从中国其他平台开发商那里听到的一样，中国的收入分成要比美国社交平台灵活得多。人人网的开发平台通常会给予付费应用开发商48%分成，这对平台所有者来说是个较高收入分成，这是由于中国的付费渠道创建成本高，平台所有者还需处理各种审核工作，这使得平台运营成本高很多（平台通常需在应用入驻商店前检验应用，查看其是否符合审核要求，所以我们无法像Facebook或Android那样事后再检查应用）。

他们6个礼拜前推出这款游戏，还在上周扩充游戏前悄悄优化内容。上周一，游戏在人人网的用户是3万人，而周末就窜升至50万。

他们还计划将《祖玛闪电战》投放腾讯平台，入驻中国互联网巨头的若干平台（游戏邦注：例如QZone，这个平台拥有5.3亿的MAU）。

Zuma Blitz from pcmedia.ign.com

瞄准中国手机市场

至于移动平台，PopCap已将游戏转移至iOS平台。中文版内容的装载量要比美国版本高出1倍。

他们还和新浪微博合作，这是个类似Twitter的中国微博平台，该平台已开始迅速覆盖人人网等社交网络，通过收购和旗帜广告宣传游戏。由于很多用户通过手机发微博，这将创造较高转换率，虽然Gwertzman并未提供具体细节。

但在中国创收更具挑战性。即便在iOS平台（其中苹果通过iTunes提供流畅付费渠道），PopCap发现由于设备越狱，每个正版作品都有5-7个盗版内容。

这就是为什么公司最后转向免费增值模式。他表示，在中国免费模式中，优秀作品的平均收益是1-2美分/DAU。

但他觉得和美国市场一样，最终Android会取代iOS主导中国市场。他表示，“我们非常喜欢iOS，因为它帮助我们获得稳固用户基础，但Android未来将会主导中国市场。我们看好功能强大的100美元Android设备。”

但中国Android市场要比美国分散得多，中国的Android平台存在大量竞争设备，还有众多独立应用商店。所以PopCap绕过此环节，直接同运营商和设备制造商达成预装协议，旨在推广内容。

游戏领域之外的发展机会

就像Rovio的《愤怒的小鸟》，PopCap品牌在中国具有众多商品销售计划（过去几周，我已看到“植物大战僵尸”T恤和商业卡片）。

公司在品牌授权方面获得丰厚收益。其已同中国最大休闲服制造公司美特斯邦威达成合作协议，该服装公司制作的T恤头天在上海每分钟就售出10件。

当然和盗版应用一样，PopCap需面对盗版商品问题。Gwertzman表示，PopCap品牌在淘宝约有7.5万件冒牌商品。

最佳解决途径就是制作比山寨商品质量更胜一筹的产品。

Gwertzman表示，“我们慢慢发现这是个相当复杂的市场。这会令西方公司处在艰难境地，他们需要做好打持久战的准备。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

PopCap’s Slow and Steady Investment in Asia May Be Starting to Pay Off

By Kim-Mai Cutler

PopCap Games has long adopted a “What happens in Asia, stays in Asia,” approach to its business in the region, giving the unit an unusual level of autonomy to experiment with and localize its titles.

That hands-off approach may be starting to pay off.

The Asia unit is set to contribute about 10 to 11 percent of PopCap’s overall earnings, up from about 5 percent in previous years, according to James Gwertzman, who heads the unit for Electronic Arts. Before it was acquired by EA, PopCap said it made more than $100 million in revenue last year so a back-of-the-envelope guess means we may be looking at a runrate of about $15 million for the Asia business alone.

PopCap’s recent release Plants Vs. Zombies Social also reached close to a half-million daily active users on Renren this past week, thanks to an aggressive marketing campaign by the Chinese social networking platform on behalf of the gaming company.

This traction didn’t come easily however. It’s the product of more than five years of investment and relationship building in the region.

The idea for an Asian PopCap office started in 2005 when Gwertzman, who had worked in Asia for Microsoft during the first tech bubble, went back to the region on a trip and discovered that Chinese consumers were passionate about PopCap titles like Zuma.

“We had this huge existing brand awareness in China. People knew our games and thought they were fun despite the lack of localization,” he said. “But the question was — how do we make money?”

Lessons From Other Western Mistakes in China

He started traveling to the region every month or two to study the market. “There were already several cautionary tales in the gaming space,” he said. “We were resolved that we weren’t going to spend PopCap’s money until we could really coherently explain the mistakes by Western companies. And I wanted to make new mistakes, not old ones.”

Some of ways in which other Western companies had erred included:

* Not giving the local team enough authority or power to make their own decisions: Companies would insist that decisions have to be approved by upper management in the West.

* Not hiring a local enough team that really understood the Chinese market: Gwertzman said many U.S. companies would bring in expats and not listen to local staff when they made recommendations.

* Or they’d do the opposite and hire a Chinese head or GM who was relatively unknown to senior management: Because they didn’t grow up in the culture of the company, their decisions might be second-guessed by central management which was thousands of miles away back in North America or Europe.

* Over-investing too early: Companies would set up extremely high revenue expectations right away and when revenue didn’t meet those targets, they would ramp down their investments. “You’d see these huge over-investments and rapid collapses,” he said.

* The leadership they chose wasn’t stable enough. “Companies might go through four different GMs in four years,” he said, making strategy unpredictable.

In response, PopCap and Gwertzman set up a framework to run the local office and he moved over to Shanghai in 2008 to open up the studio. They agreed that the Asia unit would have total autonomy and the only decision where upper management would be involved was the annual budget. The PopCap Asia staff would be given relatively free reign to modify the company’s best-loved brands for the local markets.

They also agreed that what happened in Asia would stay in Asia. ”If we want to do crazy business models, it stays here in Asia,” Gwertzman said.

They also chose not to bring in talent via acquisition as many other gaming companies like Zynga have done in China (although Gwertzman said Zynga’s XPD Media deal was probably one of the smarter acquisition decisions).

“A lot of companies acquire to get into Asia,” he said. “There are a couple problems though. There’s no guarantee the culture of the company will match yours. Also, if they came in as a group, they can leave as a group.”

Gwertzman said he started the unit slowly, trying to be cash-flow positive from the outset. Revenue doubled every year subsequently, although this is the first year where it will be meaningful in terms of PopCap’s overall business.

Choosing Platforms in China

The unit’s latest big release has been the social version of Plants Vs. Zombies on the Renren platform, which is quite distinct from the Western version as it marries city-building with the original title’s tower defense elements.

When PopCap began looking for platform partners in China a year and a half ago, there weren’t many social networking sites that were open to third-party developers. Tencent had yet to launch its open platform and Sina Weibo only announced a gaming platform this summer, so Renren was the only major one.

“In the end, they basically offered us a fantastic deal,” Gwertzman said, adding that Renren is footing the bill for a major public advertising campaign on buses and in subway stations in the major Chinese cities. Gwertzman wouldn’t comment on the terms of the Renren deal. But the experience echoes what we’ve heard from other developers in that Chinese platforms tend to be more flexible on revenue split than American social networking sites are. Renren’s open platform usually gives 48 percent of revenues to the developer from for-purchase applications, a higher cut because building a payments infrastructure in China and dealing with censorship make operating a platform here more expensive. (Platforms generally have to review applications before they go up in the store to comply with censorship requirements, so you can’t operate a platform like Facebook or Android where apps are only taken down after the fact.)

They launched the game six weeks ago, and quietly optimized the title before scaling up last week. Last Monday, the game had about 30,000 users on Renren and then they bumped it up to a half-million by the end of the week.

They’ll also be taking Zuma Blitz to Tencent and putting the game on a few parts of the Chinese Internet giant’s platform like QZone, which has 530 million monthly active users.

Dealing With The Mobile Market in China

As for mobile, PopCap has been translating its games on iOS. The Chinese-language versions are doing twice the volume of the U.S. ones in terms of installs.

They worked with Sina Weibo, which is a Twitter-like platform in China that is quickly eclipsing other social networking sites like Renren to promote the game via site takeovers and banner ads. Because many people use Weibo from their mobile phones, it produced a good conversion rate although Gwertzman didn’t provide specifics.

Monetization is more of a challenge in China however. Even on iOS where Apple has a very fluid payments process through iTunes, PopCap is seeing five to seven pirated copies for every legitimate app it sells because of jailbroken devices.

That’s why the company will probably move to a freemium model eventually. With free-to-play games, the best titles in China can see average revenue of 1 to 2 cents per daily active user, he said.

Ultimately though, he expects Android to overtake iOS in China as it is doing in the U.S. market. “We’re excited about iOS because it attracts an affluent consumer base, but Android will have the volume play in China,” he said. “We’re seeing $100 Android handsets that are pretty powerful.”

But Android is far more fragmented than it is in the U.S. with competing variants of the platform plus several independent app stores (which we wrote about in an in-depth over the weekend). So PopCap is bypassing this by going for pre-install deals with carriers and device makers for distribution.

Other Opportunities Outside Gaming

Like Rovio’s Angry Birds, PopCap’s brands have shown a lot of promise in merchandising in China. (Throughout the past few weeks, I’ve seen Plants Vs. Zombies shirts and trading card decks around on kids and adults alike in the bigger cities.)

The company has more inbound interest than it can handle in terms of licensing its brand. It did a deal with China’s largest casual wear chain, Meters/bonwe, that saw sales of 10 T-shirts a minute in Shanghai on the first day.

Of course, like with pirated apps, PopCap has to deal with copycat merchandise. There are 75,000 knockoff items related to PopCap brands on Taobao, which is like the eBay of China, Gwertzman said.

The best strategy to deal with that is doing higher-quality work than what the copycats produce.

“What we’ve come to realize is that this is an incredibly complex market,” Gwertzman said. “It’s often very difficult for Western companies and they have to be prepared for the long haul.”（Source：insidemobileapps）