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John Vechey回顾个人成长及PopCap创业经历

发布时间:2012-01-09 15:04:41 Tags:,,

作者:John Vechey

(John Vechey的成功故事带有点传奇色彩,他在1997年辍学以便与好友Brian Fiete共同开发一款电脑游戏,但这二人与Jason Kapalka在2000年成立了年收益达1亿美元,雇员超过300,在上海、首尔、都柏林、旧金山、芝加哥、温哥华、加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省等地均设有工作室的休闲游戏巨头PopCap Games。该公司的代表作之一《宝石迷阵》销量已超过5000万份。PopCap成功的秘诀就是:制作可供所有人体验的游戏。公司联合创始人John Vechey通过本文回顾了其个人成长经历。)

PopCap-John Venchey(from inc.com)

PopCap-John Venchey(from inc.com)

我在维斯星康州长大。我父亲的家庭有钢铁行业背景,但我父母却都是嬉皮士。我爸告诉我,那些你自己不想做的事情就不值得你去做。他从来没做过什么全职工作,对他来说,跟好友、家人还有女人在一起比赚钱重要得多。他知道自己最看重什么。

我小时候父母就离婚了,我跟了我妈,后来又迁移到印第安那州跟老爸住一起。我有7个继父,但我有两个半血缘关系的兄弟跟了我爸。后来我爸又离婚了,就带着16岁的弟弟住进了我在西雅图的房子。这个弟弟常在我房里玩Xbox游戏,他是我们游戏发布前最先把它们玩遍的用户。

我从小经济拮据。我从来没有参加过课外活动,因为我一直要打工。我进入普渡大学时在编程课上认识了Brian Fiete。我从小到大都没有自己的电脑,但却想成为电脑工程师。Brian经常是班上的第一名,我总是第二名。我提出了俩人一起开发游戏的建议,后来就诞生了名为《ARC》的在线游戏(游戏邦注:它是一个街机版彩弹球游戏)。那时候我的平均成绩变成了1.67分,我不得不在开发游戏和完成学业之间做出选择,于是我选择了为游戏付出所有精力。

1997年开始有人玩我们的在线游戏,后来有人登录系统要求跟我们对话,他就是我们后来的第三位联合创始人Jason Kapalka,当时他在一家游戏公司工作,他们想获得《ARC》的授权。

the power of three Popcap co-founders(from inc.com)

the power of three Popcap co-founders(from inc.com)

我们以4.5万美元达成交易,这对当时只有19岁的年轻人来说真是一笔巨款。与此同时,家里人有一些朋友是Sierra这家西雅图游戏公司的邻居,于是就有Sierra成员找上门人想跟我们合作,后来我和Brian就离开印第安那州到西雅图为Sierra开发游戏。后来我们以10万美元将《ARC》出售给Sierra并离开公司,利用这笔钱跟Jason自己创业。

那时候的考虑并不周全,我们基本上就是吃拉面、玩游戏这样度过一整天。我们将公司命名为Sexy Action Cool,因为我们觉得这样很好玩,我们想自己开发游戏,但不会直接将游戏出售给他人。我和Jason那时一起开发了一款看上去像儿童不宜的脱衣纸牌游戏《Foxy Poker》,但它实际上是一款好游戏,并不带有任何赤裸画面。我们联系了Strip-Poker.com这家色情网站问他们要不要买下这款游戏,对方笑着回绝了。

后来我们开发了《宝石迷阵》。那时候我回家到印第安那时在网上看到了一款简单的纸牌游戏——没有动画或画面,但我觉得它很棒。于是我就向Brian和Jason发送邮件提出了自己的游戏想法,Brian在第二天就用不同颜色的圈圈画出了游戏概念,Jason第三天就发送了一些宝石的画面,第四天《宝石迷阵》这款很简单的宝石连线消除游戏就诞生了。

我们曾打算把它出售给Pogo这个在线游戏网站,但没有成功,雅虎也表示没有兴趣。我们后来与微软达成交易,它在MSN平台上大获成功,一天内就有6万名用户捧场,但我们每月只得到1500美元。

在2000年时,有玩家建议我们推出可下载版本,因为那时大家还是拔号上网,不能老占用电话线。所以我们就制作了一个付费的下载版本,它的图像和音效比在线版更出色。我说服雅虎、MAN等公司相信,玩家在他们网站玩过免费版本之后,会花20美元下载更优化的付费版本。之后我们与这些游戏平台对半分成,这是一个全新的运营模式。

我们在2001年发布可下载版本,并于首月创收3.5万美元,第二个月收入为4万美元。我们大喜过望,终于开始赚钱了!我和Brian跑到阿根庭狂欢了四个月,雅虎跟我们签约时我们才回国。

那时候我们对运营事务一窍不通,我们请了一名顾问,对方信誓旦旦地宣称,“只要给我们10万美元和公司3%的股份,我们保证替你们解决所有的问题。”这让我们很反感,我们认为自己都不玩游戏的人,没资格指导我们怎么做游戏。但他们有建议我们聘请一名审计官,之前一直是我阿姨帮我处理财务方面的事情。

我们一开始就打定主意要制做非常好玩而简单、可吸引大众的游戏。我们目前有35名成员(游戏邦注:这是截止2010年10月份的情况,本文所涉数据均以此为准)。我们从来不认为自己有什么推出热门大作的妙招,但我们发布的每款游戏都赚到了钱。我们历时三年才完善了《植物大战僵尸》。但我们并没有去统计在每款游戏中分别投入了多少资源,假如是一款好游戏,它就值得我们大笔投入,如果只是一款中等偏上的游戏,那就可以说是一文不值了。

在2004年,有家公司出价6000万美元要收购我们这家仅15名成员的公司,但我们拒绝了。我们开始意识到得认真考虑运营方面的问题。所以就聘请David Roberts担任我们的CEO。他有苹果和Adobe的工作背景,也清楚我们需他帮忙实现公司的发展,但不能干预游戏创意层面的工作。

Dave开工之时我们仍然侧重游戏创意的问题而非每款游戏的盈利来源,但Dave改变了这一点。我们有30%以上的收益来自《宝石迷阵》,因为这款游戏在PC/Mac、Xbox、PlayStation、Wii、DS、PalmPilot、iPhone\iPad等平台都能运行。

我跟Jason接触较频繁,Jason跟Brian沟通比较多。Brian与Jason合作开发游戏,Jason也会参与公司创意方向的工作。我们三人的合作使大家不断交流想法。

我们创业时还没有Facebook,iPhone那时尚未出世。但我们会很快顺应时势,针对市场调整策略。我们不断将自己的想法植入游戏,我们知道自己还不够完美,虽然我们一直很优秀,但总想变得更出色。

游戏邦注:原文发表于2010年10月1日,所涉事件及数据以当时为准。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

How I Did It: John Vechey, Founder of PopCap

How a small company is capturing a big audience in the casual gaming market.

The Power of Three PopCap co-founders, from left, John Vechey, Jason Kapalka, and Brian Fiete in 2009. They essentially created the market for casual gaming.

It’s a geek’s dream come true. John Vechey dropped out of college in 1997 to work on a computer game with his pal Brian Fiete. This year, their Seattle-based game company, PopCap, which they founded in 2000 with Jason Kapalka, is on track to bring in $100 million. PopCap employs more than 300 and has offices in Shanghai, Seoul, and Dublin, with studios in San Francisco; Chicago; and Vancouver, British Columbia. The company’s first of 35 games, Bejeweled, has sold more than 50 million units. PopCap’s secret: Build games so accessible that anyone can play.

I grew up in Wisconsin. My dad’s family worked in steel, but my parents were hippies. My dad taught me that it’s not worth doing things you don’t want to do — he never worked more than a part-time job. For him, spending time with his friends, family, and women was more important than making money. He had priorities.

My parents got divorced when I was young. I lived with my mom and then moved to Indiana to live with my dad. I’ve had seven stepdads. My two half-siblings, though, are on my dad’s side from his second marriage. He divorced again, and moved into my building in Seattle with my 16-year-old half-brother, who is at my place playing Xbox all the time. He plays all of our games before they’re released.

I grew up pretty poor. I bond with anyone who has ever eaten government cheese. I never did extracurricular activities, because I always had a job. When I went to Purdue University, I met Brian Fiete in a programming class. I never had a computer growing up, but I wanted to be a computer engineer. Brian was always the first person done in class, and I was always second. I suggested we make a game together. It evolved into an online game we named ARC, based on an arcade version of paintball. At the time, my GPA was 1.67. I had to choose between working on this game or failing out of college. So I put all my energy into the game.

That was in 1997. People started playing our game online, and then someone named Warpig logged on and said, “Let’s chat.” That was Jason Kapalka, our third co-founder. He worked at a game company and wanted to license ARC.

We made $45,000, which, when you’re 19 and from Indiana, feels like a million bucks. Meanwhile, some friends of the family were next-door neighbors with the founders of Sierra, a gaming company in Seattle. Someone at Sierra called us for an interview, and next thing we knew, Brian and I both left Indiana to work on games for Sierra. After we sold ARC to Sierra for $100,000, we left the company and used the money to start our own business with Jason.

It was not well thought out; more like, Let’s live off ramen noodles, play games, and see what happens. We called our company Sexy Action Cool because we thought it was funny; plus, we thought we were going to develop games, not sell directly to the public. Jason and I were working on an animated PG-13 strip-poker game called Foxy Poker that had no nudity but was a really good game. We approached Strip-Poker.com, a porn site, and said, “Why don’t you give us a bunch of money and sell our game?” They laughed and said no.

Then we created Bejeweled. I was in Indiana visiting family when I saw this simple solitaire game online — no animation or graphics, but I thought it was cool. So I sent an e-mail to Brian and Jason with an idea for a game, which Brian created the next day using different colored circles. Jason sent a bunch of gem graphics on Day Three, and by Day Four, Bejeweled — a really simple game where you match gems — was done.

We tried to sell it to Pogo, the online gaming site. Yahoo didn’t want it, either. We wound up making a flat-rate deal with Microsoft. It became phenomenally successful for MSN, with 60,000 users a day. But we were making only $1,500 a month.

Back then, in 2000, fans started asking for a downloadable version, because everyone was still using dial-up modems and didn’t want to tie up their phone lines. So we made one, with better graphics and sound — and charged for it. I had to convince Yahoo, MSN, and so on that people would play the free version on their sites and then download a better version for $20. And then we’d split the sale 50-50 with the host site. It was a new business model.

We launched in 2001 and made $35,000 the first month. The next month, we made $40,000. We were like, Holy crap! We’re finally making money, but it won’t last. So Brian and I hang out in Argentina and drink wine for four months. When Yahoo signed on, we moved back.

We didn’t know anything about business, so we hired consultants who said, “We’ll fix all your problems — just pay us $100,000 and give us 3 percent of your company.” That pissed us off — if you don’t play games, don’t give advice on how to make games. They did get us to hire a comptroller. Before that, my aunt was doing the bookkeeping.

We decided from the start to make our games incredibly fun and easy so that they appeal to everyone. We currently have 35. We never think we have the magic formula or assume a hit. And yet every game we’ve done has made money. It took us three years to perfect Plants Vs. Zombies. We don’t track the resources that go into each game. If it’s a great game, it’s worth a lot of money. If it’s a B+ game, it’s essentially worth zero.

In 2004, we had 15 employees and turned down a $60 million offer to buy our company. We knew we had to start taking the business side more seriously. So we hired David Roberts, our CEO. He had worked for Apple and Adobe, and he understood we wanted him to grow the business but leave the creative side alone.

When Dave started, we were focused on creating new games instead of supporting revenue streams from each game. Dave changed that. More than 30 percent of our annual revenue comes from Bejeweled, because it can be played on all these different platforms: PC/Mac, Xbox, PlayStation, Wii, DS, PalmPilot, iPhone, iPad, in-flight entertainment.

Jason and I interact a lot, and Jason and Brian interact a lot. Brian’s working on a game with Jason, and Jason is also involved with the creative direction of the company. There’s a power to three — there’s a constant rejiggering and shifting of opinions.

Facebook didn’t even exist when we started the company. The iPhone didn’t exist. We’ve adapted and changed and rolled with everything that’s come our way. We’ve constantly integrated our approach to games. We’re never perfect. We’re always pretty good, but we’re always trying to be better.(source:inc


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