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Imangi联合创始人谈对山寨游戏的看法

发布时间:2012-08-06 15:51:30 Tags:,,,

作者:Keith Andrew

《神庙逃亡》获得了超过1亿下载量的消息来得正是时候,因为这恰好赶上了《神庙逃亡》诞生1周年纪念日之际。

Imangi工作室联合创始人Keith Shepherd(游戏邦注:Imangi Studios是由Keith Shepherd和Natalia Luckyanova夫妇于2008年所成立)在最近采访中谈到了《神庙逃亡》的成功带来的影响,以及他们是如何看待游戏发行后相继涌现出来的各种克隆游戏。

temple run(from pocketgamer)

temple run(from pocketgamer)

1年中获得了1亿的下载量让你们变成了一家特别的公司。而你们又是如何看待这种变化?

我们都觉得很惊喜。老实说,这是任何独立开发者的梦想,但是却没有人真正奢望这种事情会发生在自己身上。

《神庙逃亡》的成功让我们一夜成名,而我们也很感激能够拥有如此强大的用户基础。

对于《神庙逃亡》的下载量你们报以了何种期望?

当发行一款新游戏时我们总是希望能够尽最大努力做到最好,但我们也会尽可能压低期望值。

我们的目标是创造一款可以迅速上手,且能够同时迎合各种年龄层用户喜好的游戏,并且为了创造这样的游戏我们愿意投入数个月的努力——《神庙逃亡》便花费了我们5个月的时间。

我们真心希望自己所创造的游戏能够赚回成本,对得起我们的付出,并能够支撑我们今后的创作。

你是如何看待所有以《神庙逃亡》为“灵感”而诞生的游戏?

我们真的很荣幸看到有这么多人因为我们的游戏受到启发,但是有时候我也会因此觉得很沮丧。

因为我们真正想看到的是别人受到我们游戏的启发而创造出一款独特且有趣的新游戏。

另一方面,当我们看到那些在游戏玩法,屏幕布局,升级,道具储存以及图标等元素上完全复制我们游戏的作品,我们真的非常难过。

我们已经发现了好几款彻底抄袭我们游戏内容的作品出现了,而这一点也是我们所不能容忍的。

我们投入了大量的时间和努力创造出了这么一款备受玩家喜爱的游戏,但是那些“山寨游戏”却彻底让玩家们感到失望,并伤害了我们彼此的利益。

你们的游戏下载量在iOS和Android平台上所占比例分别是70%和30%。这是否也是你们所期待的结果?

我们不清楚你们是如何理解这种百分比,因为我们的游戏在App Store和Google Play上的发行时间完全不同。

当《神庙逃亡》在iOS平台上广受欢迎时,我们收到了许多人希望我们将这款游戏推向各种平台的请求。也正是这时候我们才开始思考是否将游戏尽可能推向更多平台。

继App Store后我们的第一个停靠点是Google Play,紧接着便是亚马逊,并且我们也真心希望将游戏带向更多平台。如果世界各地的人都能玩我们的《神庙逃亡》该是一件多棒的事啊!

Temple Run brave(from pocketgamer)

Temple Run brave(from pocketgamer)

你认为App Store与Google Play的生存法则有什么不同?

如果将App Store比作一个更具文明性的区域,那么Google Play则更加原生态。而对于开发者来说这两大平台的区别可以分为两点。

首先,审核过程便具有很大的区别。App Store具有审查过程但是Google Play却没有。我想正是因为拥有审核过程才让App Store(比Google Play)拥有较高的整体应用质量水平。

当然了,在Google Play随时都可以推出一个更新内容也很棒,但是我却不确定这是否能够超过App Store的审核过程所带来的好处。

其次,客服支持也有所不同。我们发现Android拥有比iOS多出100倍的客服支持问题。而在这么一个分裂的生态系统中开发游戏则是开发者所面临的一大挑战。

我们经常能够听到一些定制Anroid ROM版本的手机中出现各种漏洞的问题。这便导致开发者很难去追踪并修改相关漏洞。

另外一大元素是,苹果能够帮助开发者处理所有与支持和漏洞有关的问题,但是在Goole Play,开发者则需要自行负责。所以在iOS平台上我们总是能够获得较大的收益。

尽管如此,将《神庙逃亡》推向Android平台对我们来说也是有利可图的。如此我们不仅获得了全新的用户基础,并取得了今天如此辉煌的成绩,同时在Google Play上我们也拥有更大的完善空间。

你们是否还瞄准了其它平台?

当然了。我不便在这里透露更多,但是我们一定会尽己所能将《神庙逃亡》推向更多平台。(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

Temple Run clones ‘flattering’ and ‘frustrating’ in equal measure, says Imangi

by Keith Andrew

News that Temple Run had passed 100 million downloads couldn’t have come at a better time.

Not only does such a total mean Imangi’s game has joined an elite list of smartphone games to pass the 100 million mark, it’s also been timed perfectly with Temple Run’s first birthday.

It was a no brainer for us, then, to catch up with studio co-founder Keith Shepherd to find out how Temple Run’s success has impacted the developer, and just what those involved think of the cluster of clones that have come to market post launch.

Pocket Gamer: 100 million downloads in a year puts you in pretty special company. How does that feel?

Keith Shepherd: It feels amazing. Honestly, this is something that you dream of as an indie developer, but never really expect will happen to you.

We’re just blown away by Temple Run’s success and really thankful that we have such an awesome fan base out there.

What kind of expectations did you have for Temple Run download wise?

When launching a new game we always hope for the best, but try not to get our hopes astronomically high.

Our goal has always been to make quick pick up and play games that are fun for all ages to play and to make games that we can build in a few months’ time – Temple Run took five months.

We’re happy if we can cover our costs, pay the bills, and continue doing what we love.

What do you make of all the Temple Run ‘inspired’ games that have launched since?

It’s very flattering that so many people have been inspired by our game, but it can also be quite frustrating at times.

What I love to see is when people are actually inspired by our game and create an interesting new game that actually feels unique.

On the other hand, it’s very frustrating when others outright clone our game down to the exact game play, screen by screen layouts, power ups, store items, and iconic branding.

We’ve even seen cases where people have outright stolen assets from our game, which is completely unacceptable.

We take a great deal of time and effort to create games that our fans love and some of the ‘inspired games’ out there end up disappointing the fans and that hurts everyone.

There’s almost a 70-30 split between the share of iOS and Android downloads. Is that what you were expecting?

I’m not sure how much you should read into those percentage splits since we didn’t launch on the App Store and Google Play at the same time.

Once Temple Run became so popular on iOS we started getting a ton of emails from people wanting Temple Run on every platform imaginable. That is when we started to get serious about trying to get the game on as many platforms as possible.

Our first stop after the App Store was Google Play and then Amazon, and we hope to bring it to as many platforms as we can. It would be great if people can play Temple Run everywhere!

What do you think the main differences are between life on the App Store and Google Play?

In my mind, the App Store is a more civilised place and Google Play is a bit more like the wild-west. The biggest differences I see in the two platforms that impact us most as developers can be split into two areas.

Firstly, obviously the review process is a big difference. The App Store has one, Google Play doesn’t. I think having a review process in place does actually help keep the overall level of quality on the store higher for the App Store than Google Play.

It is pretty nice to simply be able to push out an update on a whim on Google Play though, but I’m not sure if that outweighs the benefits of the App Store review process though.

Secondly, there’s customer support. We see about 100 times the customer support issues on Android than on iOS. I think this really speaks to the challenges of developing in such a fragmented ecosystem.

We’re constantly hearing about bugs on some random phone I’ve never heard of with some custom ROM version of Android that I’ve never heard of. This makes it really hard to track down and fix bugs.

Another factor here is that Apple handles all billing related support and questions, whereas on Google Play, the developer is responsible for this. So you end up with high support volume that what you’d see on iOS.

All that being said, it’s still been worth it for us to release Temple Run on Android. It has allowed us to reach an entire new fan base and helped us get to where we are today, but there is definitely a lot of room for improvement on Google Play.

Any other platforms on the radar?

Absolutely. Nothing to announce yet, but we’re working to get Temple Run on as many platforms as we can.(source:pocketgamer.biz)


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