作者：Mike Rose

主机游戏正走上衰败的道路？为什么这么说？因为那些将过去15年的时间投身于主机游戏的资深开发者正迅猛地转向手机游戏领域。

因为iOS和Android系统所掀起的热潮，手机游戏开发可以说是当今最赚钱的行业，我们也可以注意到几乎每隔一周都会有一家著名的开发者或发行商宣布进军手机游戏领域。

总部位于英国的Playbox从去年开始进行转型，并将自己使用了6年的公司名称改为了Atomicom。它的最后一款主机游戏是面向PlayStation 3，Xbox 360以及PC的《Bang Bang Racing》——-而现在它已经变成了一家专注于手机游戏的工作室了。

Gary Nichols可谓是见证了过去20年间电子游戏产业中的各种“变迁”。一开始（1994年）他还只是Psygnosis（游戏邦注：现已停止运营）的PR经理，直到2005年当他加入Playbox时才真正走上现在的发展道路。现在他正竭尽全力推动着Atomicom游戏朝着手机领域发展。

“我们是在2009年开始打算进军手机领域，”他说道。“但是那时候我们获得了一定的投资并有机会与Ian Hetherington（游戏邦注：Psygnosis的联合创始人）合作开发两款主机游戏，所以我们便选择继续待在主机游戏领域中。而进军手机领域的计划只能再耽搁一年了。”

坎坷的道路

Nichols强调道，向手机领域转型并不像在公园里散步那样轻松，Atomicom的第一款游戏《Switch》（面向采用Tegra 2双核处理器的Android系统）在一开始便经历了各种坎坷。但是随后该工作室进行了重组，创建了自己的跨平台手机技术，发行了手机版本的《棒棒赛车》，并获得了超过100万的下载量（包括付费，OEM订单和免费下载版本）。

bang bang racing(from gamaustra)

“开发手机游戏比主机游戏简单多了，最重要的是在此我们不会遇到那种会扔出一些莫名其妙理由的古怪发行商，”Nichols说道。“在主机游戏发展道路上我们遇到了各种各样的阻碍，也多次遭到发行商的‘宰割’，而因为手机游戏开发预算较少，所以我们可以不再与那些传统的游戏发行商合作了。”

让我们再次回到坎坷的开始阶段—-Nichol说道，一开始Atomicom便犯了一个“大错误”，即完全专注于Android而未曾考虑到iOS。该团队快速意识到Android的Google Play是销售游戏的绝佳平台，但却未察觉到这并不是他们获利的唯一渠道。

Nichols解释道，“在Google Play上，那些不愿为游戏花钱的用户比例以及游戏盗版率都太高了。当然了，这也推动着我们去发展自己的手机技术，所以这种经历也是有价值的。”

“可以说现在我们完全面向跨平台业务，我们可以开始努力提高现有游戏和未来游戏的销量了。我们同样也计划着面向PC和Mac发行更多内容，从而实现进一步开拓。”

对于Nichol来说，比起多年的主机游戏开发经验，手机游戏开发存在着其固有的挑战——但是他也表示这是自己在游戏开发领域打拼这么多年最兴奋的一次。

“在这里我们可以直接获得自己应得的报酬，而无需与发行商展开合作，不用再面临游戏发行后未能收到相应版税的情况，”他说道。

在Kickstarter为游戏集资

当Atomicom最终加入手机游戏开发领域这股潮流时，他们也在另一面墙——Kickstarter上碰了壁。该公司计划通过这个大众融资网站为自己的下一款游戏《Super Off-Road》筹资，但是却未能取得好成绩。Nichols也承认他并不清楚具体原因。

super off-road(from gamaustra)

“我认为部分原因可能是我们未发布一份样本，或者是我们在选择Kickstarter之前未获得足够的追随者，”他说道，“可能因为我们的游戏未打破常规—–它是玩家们所熟悉的类型。我们同样也不断努力提高游戏在其它并不推荐kickstarter项目的网站上的曝光度”。

Nichols现在已经开始计划进入下一个步骤了。对他来说现在最迫切的便是为玩家创建一份可玩的样本。与此同时Atomicom也决定用上自己摸索到的经验，再次尝试通过Kickstarter集资。

他总结道，“一次失败并不等于永远的失败，我们将再次尝试Kickstarter集资活动，但这一次我们将侧重于UK版本的游戏。因为只有这么做才能让更多用户注意到我们的游戏。”（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）

The rocky transition from console to mobile development

By Mike Rose

What’s that coming over the hill? Why, it’s a barrage of veteran game developers, all charging headfirst into mobile game development having spent the last 15-plus years with their heads down in console development.

Mobile game development is where all the money is now, thanks to the iOS and Android boom, and it seems like every other week another big-name dev or publisher is announcing its fresh new mobile transition.

UK-based Playbox made the transition last year, going as far as to change the company name it had used for over six years to Atomicom. Its last console game was Bang Bang Racing for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC — it is now a mobile-focused studio.

Gary Nichols has seen every transition the video games industry has been through for the last 20 years. He started out as PR manager for the now-defunct Psygnosis back in 1994, before Playbox took over his life back in 2005. Now he’s pushing the mobile revolution as hard as he can with Atomicom.

“Originally we wanted to move into mobile in 2009,” he admits to Gamasutra, “but we had secured investment to build two console titles with the legend that is Ian Hetherington [Psygnosis co-founder], so we continued on console for a while longer. It wasn’t for another year that we could start to plan it properly.”

Bumpy ride

The transition to mobile wasn’t a walk in the park, he notes, and Atomicom had a rocky start with its first title Switch, a Tegra 2-powered Android launch title. However, the studio regrouped, built its cross-platform mobile technology up, and launched a mobile version of Bang Bang Racing, which has now seen over 1 million downloads (that includes paid, OEM orders and free downloads).

“Ongoing development is so much easier than console, and above all there’s no wacky publisher telling us something should be yellow instead of red for reasons only the Mad Hatter would comprehend,” says Nichols. “We’d had a lot of bumps in the road on the console side and been ripped off a number of times by publishers and with the smaller budgets around mobile and the potential to never have to work with a traditional game publisher again we set on that path.”

Back to that rocky start — Nichols says that Atomicom made a “big mistake” from the get-go, in that it focused solely on Android and didn’t bother with iOS. The team quickly learned that Google Play for Android is a great place to sell games, but not if that’s you’re only source of revenue.

“On Google Play, people generally don’t like to pay for games and the piracy rate is just off the scale,” reasons Nichols. “It did however help us get our mobile tech set up, so it was worth it for that.

“Now that we’re completely cross-platform, we should start to see a healthy improvement in our sales for our current catalog and our future titles. We’re also planning to release more content on PC and Mac shortly so that will be another avenue for us that we want to explore.”

Compared to Nichol’s many years of experience with console game development, mobile development has its challenges, he says — but this is the most excited he’s been about game development in a long while.

“This is money we have earned ourselves, not money we’ve got from a publisher milestone after having worked all through the night to get signed off, knowing that when the game is released we’ll never see a royalty,” he says.

Going off-road

As Atomicom finally gets into the swing of mobile game development, it has now hit another wall of unknown — Kickstarter. The studio is attempting to fund its next game Super Off-Road via the pledge website, but so far, the campaign isn’t doing too well. Nichols admits that he has no idea why the Kickstarter isn’t doing better.

“I think this is partly due to us not having released a demo, or maybe because we haven’t created a big following previously to launching the Kickstarter,” he notes. “Some of it could be that the game isn’t doing anything out of the ordinary – it’s a known genre and game type. We also struggled to get coverage on a lot of websites who just won’t feature Kickstarter campaigns.”

Nichols is now looking to the next step for the game. Getting a playable demo ready for consumption is his first port of call, at which point Atomicom will possible look to give Kickstarter another go, taking into account everything it has learned.

“It’s not the end of the world,” he finishes. “We’ll try again on Kickstarter but focus on the UK version instead. That way it might be easier for us to get noticed.” （source：GAMASUTRA）