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Phil Larsen称Halfbrick的成功得益于孤注一掷

发布时间:2012-03-26 16:28:41 Tags:,,

作者:Chris Morris

虽然Zynga和Omgpop是近日社交和休闲游戏新闻的热点话题,但是Halfbrick Studios所打造的手机游戏王国也是我们难以忽略的内容。

这家《水果忍者》和《飞行背囊》开发商也许并非华尔街热捧的对象,但是它从一家小小的掌机游戏工作室迅速发展成为休闲游戏巨头的故事足以说明,快速适应行业变化的重要性。

该公司首席营销官Phil Larsen说道,Halfbrick的成功是一种孤注一掷的结果。

fruit ninja(from macstories.net)

fruit ninja(from macstories.net)

2007年,Halfbrick注意到数字发行产业在逐渐崛起,而这家澳大利亚工作室对于代工与合作开发的需求则是日益萎缩。为了在这种趋势下获得生存,Halfbrick选择自主发行游戏。

他们首次尝试在PlayStation Network上发行一些“迷你”游戏——主要是因为他们看到《僵尸时代》等游戏在该平台上取得了成功。尽管这么做帮这家公司积攒了不少人气,但是他们却未真正在此取得突破性的成功(直到两年后)。

Larsen说道:“2009年,当我们看到iOS取得巨大成功时,我们便决定转到这一平台。在App Store中,运气元素也很重要,并且我们也希望避开更多风险。所以我们便决定制作一些简单,休闲的单屏幕游戏。那时候我们的脑子真的满是想法,而其中一个灵感就是《水果忍者》。”

他们只花了3天的时间便明确了游戏机制,但是在接下来的两个月时间里他们不断地完善并调整游戏中的任何内容,包括音效的呈现,甚至是每个水果应该喷出多少果汁等。

这是一种冒险性挑战,但是那时候的Halfbrick并不想将整个公司完全倾注于该平台上。

Larsen表示:“我们注意到许多人将大量预算和精力投入某一款游戏但最后却以失败告终。而我们则希望更加灵活。就算游戏彻底失败了,它也不会是那种投入长达两年的游戏项目。”

当然,《水果忍者》后来成了iOS平台上大受欢迎的游戏,并且最终也被移植到掌机平台上(游戏邦注:如Xbox 360的Kinect)。截止去年3月份,该款游戏在iOS,Android以及Windows Phone上的下载了已经超过2000万次。

Jetpack Joyride(from appadvice.com)

Jetpack Joyride(from appadvice.com)

而之后的《飞行背囊》也是该公司的另一个赌注,并且这次他们希望置以更大的“筹码”。Halfbrick投入了9个多月的时间开发该款游戏,这款游戏也获得了超过1400万次的下载量。

Halfbrick最近除了准备为《飞行背囊》添加中,他们也在规划着自己的下一次冒险。Larsen还表示,从《水果忍者》到《飞行背囊》,公司已经创造了50多款的游戏原型,但还未明确是否去实践它们。

他继续说道:“我们很高兴看到自己所创造出的大量新内容。我们非常擅长快速建模。虽然我们所创造的一些产品看起来很愚蠢且没有意义,但是我们希望通过这么做而衍生出更多更棒的创意。”

在手机游戏领域拥有了一定声誉帮助Halfbrick在充满竞争的应用商店中占据一席之地,但该公司还在进一步放宽自己的视野。

Larsen说道,手机领域的技术进步以及网络电视的发展都让公司感到欣喜。而现在,他们最关心的一大领域便是异步多人游戏。随着该领域技术的不断发展,该公司将逐步转向多人游戏模式。

“我们的眼前有一大片让人兴奋的发展机遇,包括4G网络连接,音乐播放器,苹果TV等等。并且随着越来越多新技术的诞生,我们将拥有更多发展机遇。不过机遇归机遇,如果要想真正获得成功,我们还需要靠自己努力凸显游戏设计与主题特色。”(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

Fruit Ninja house Halfbrick counts on a series of small gambles

by Chris Morris

While Zynga and Omgpop may be grabbing the lion’s share of the headlines in the social and casual gaming space these days, the mobile empire built by Halfbrick Studios is hardly one to overlook.

The Australian company behind Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride may not be a Wall Street darling, but its evolution from a minor player in the console space to a casual gaming leader is a lesson in quickly adjusting to the times as the video game industry has changed rapidly over the past several years.

Halfbrick’s success, actually came as a result of a gamble, says Phil Larsen, the company’s chief marketing officer.

In 2007, it noticed that digital distribution was on the rise, while demand for work-for-hire from Australian studios was waning fast. Rather than fight the tide, Halfbrick opted to move into self-publishing.

It first tried its hand with small “Minis” games on the PlayStation Network, where it saw reasonable success with Age of Zombies. That helped the company’s reputation, but it wasn’t until two years later that it really broke through.

“In 2009, we wanted to try iOS because we were seeing huge successes,” says Larsen. “With the App Store, there’s a lot of luck involved and we wanted to eliminate [risk]. We did that by saying ‘Lets make simple, casual one screen games.’ A lot of ideas came around and one of those was Fruit Ninja.”

The game mechanics were up and running within three days, but Halfbrick spent the next two months polishing and tweaking the title, determining everything from what sounds would be heard to how much juice would come out of the fruit.

It was a gamble, but Halfbrick wasn’t willing, at the time, to bet the company on the platform.

“We saw a lot of games that were big budget that people put a lot of money into and they weren’t going anywhere,” says Larsen. “We wanted to be smart. If it had just completely tanked, then it wouldn’t have been a massive two-year project that some [console] games are.”

Fruit Ninja, of course, became an iOS staple – and eventually was ported to the console world with the gesture-based Fruit Ninja Kinect for Xbox 360. The game has been downloaded over 20 million times across iOS, Android and Windows Phone as of March last year.

The follow-up, Jetpack Joyride, was another gamble, but one the company was willing to wager a bit more on. Halfbrick spent nine months building that game before it was released to the App Store. That game has been downloaded over 14 million times.

These days, in between readying a big content add-on for Jetpack Joyride, Halfbrick continues to determine its next gamble. Between Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, Larsen says the company prototyped upwards to 50 games, but have yet to greenlight them.

“We are creatively satisfied with the amount of new stuff we can make,” he says. “We’re really good at rapid prototyping and nuggeting. … Some products we make because they’re completely stupid and make no sense but we wanted to do it – but they could spawn another idea.”

Having an established name in the mobile space helps Halfbrick with discoverability in the chaos that is the app store, but the company is already looking forward.

Looming tech advances in the mobile space – and the increased availability of internet-connected television sets – both have the company excited, says Larsen. One area of particular interest is asynchronous multiplayer. As the technology in that field improves, Larsen says the company is considering a multiplayer only game.

“There’s a lot of opportunities that will come about – 4G connectivity, airplay, Apple TV – that stuff is exciting,” he says. “As long as that keeps increasing, there will be opportunities for us. It’s up to us to keep the gameplay design and theme relevant.” (source:GAMASUTRA)


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