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Kristian Segerstrale分析EA的发展与变化

发布时间:2012-11-30 15:59:28 Tags:,,,

作者:Steve Peterson

在过去几年里EA一直朝着一些全新的游戏领域扩展着,包括手机游戏和社交游戏。该公司已经基于Origin创建了自己的数字平台——专门为自己的游戏以及超过70家开发商旗下的游戏而开放。EA一直致力于将每年发行一次的游戏推向更多平台,并变成一种“全天候在线”的服务,让游戏不只局限于一个平台上。很显然这种策略正在发挥功效,在过去5年里该公司的数字收益以每年40%的比例快速增长着。

GamesIndustry International最近与EA数字业务执行副总裁Kristian Segerstrale讨论了该公司的愿景,以及该愿景是如何影响着他们的盈利,设计和游戏体验。Segerstrale是社交游戏公司Playfish的前CEO,更早前他还是Glu Mobile的副总裁。

Kristian Segerstrale(from thestartupkids)

Kristian Segerstrale(from thestartupkids)

当你谈及创造了一款游戏并将其推向不同平台时,要知道不同用户在游戏中的消费也会有所不同。而你们又是如何适应这种情况?

这一点非常重要。这是一个不明显但却相对复杂的问题。但是从整体上来看也有许多值得肯定的事。就像去年的《FIFA 12》,我记得我们那时在E3中宣布《FIFA 12》有20%的收益是来自游戏内部的微交易。而这却是一款需要玩家预先付款的主机游戏。

说到《战地3》,共有超过150万的玩家购买了这款游戏的付费服务,这也再次表现出了用户粘性的深度盈利潜能。我在E3中只是阐述了在《FIFA》发行9个月后仍然坚持留在游戏中的玩家数量;但是在特定时间内仍会出现400万至500万玩家在玩这款游戏。我们发现如果能够维持每用户游戏时间长达数分钟,那么有关用户粘性的盈利便只是关于设计问题,如此我们便能够为持续游戏的用户创造更多机遇和价值。不管这么做是否需要玩家掏腰包,他们都可以因此节约时间,获得更加完善的游戏体验或突显于玩家社区。

这的确是种巨大的变化,但是我想说的是,作为一家公司,我们总是比那些包装零售游戏公司高级得多。一直以来我们都在重申着一个目标,也就是成为最强大的纯数字游戏公司。所以我们的所有投资,不管是收购还是为了发展技术所进行的工程建设都是围绕着这一目标而展开。通过收购Playfish,我们能够进一步完善免费游戏设计,并且我们的设计目标始终都是创造出更多有趣的新内容并因此推动玩家持续消费。

EA开发团队围绕着授权游戏而进行的重组活动是否让你能将市场营销者与设计师的身份结合在一起?本身作为市场营销者兼设计师,我认为一开始便带入设计元素能够帮助我们获得更有效的盈利。

我也是这么认为的。EA在这一点上也在逐渐完善着。的确,我们最好在一开始便整合市场营销和设计元素。当比较去年的“FIFA Ultimate Team”模式与今年的变化,你会发现我们公司在这点上真的做出了很大的完善。现在我们已经能够在适当时间面对适当用户发送适当消息并提供他们所感兴趣的适当内容。因为我们始终带着明确的发展目标,也就是成为最强大的纯数字游戏公司,而我们的长期市场发展方向也始终指向了免费游戏。我们必须不断学习,公司的许多设计师们也在不断发展。也许在今年发行的游戏中你只能看到一点点变化,但是在明年,后年甚至是更久后的游戏中,你一定能够感受到更多不一样的设计惊喜。

似乎《FIFA 13》在今年取得了不错的成绩,其销量比去年提升了40%。这是否归功于“FIFA Ultimate Team”模式?

的确是这样的。尽管《劲爆美式足球》也很出色,但《FIFA》却是维系起我们与现实世界的运动,并将现实事件带进游戏中的先驱——游戏中呈现出一种有趣的微交易环境,并且玩家可以进入与现实生活中同步的比赛中。这种设定比市场上的其它体育游戏有趣多了,虽然《劲爆美式足球》的游戏玩法也很类似,但却仍不及《FIFA》。我认为将现实世界与这种体育游戏体验连接在一起将对今后的美国足球文化产生巨大的影响。

在过去,体育游戏总是顺着某一特定的体育运动的人气发展起来,其销量也是随着该体育运动的人气变化而变化。但是按照你的说法,如今的游戏开始把握主导权了。

FIFA(from gamesindustry)

FIFA(from gamesindustry)

EA Sports和《FIFA》的开发团队在这方面都做得很好,即他们能够有效把握住有关足球(特别是在北美)内容的发言权。如果你看过EA Sports的告示,你会发现他们始终坚信游戏本身能够影响体育运动。他们将自己的游戏当成是现实中的体育运动的重要组成部分。而我认为这是一种非常重要的心态——这并不是一款简单的电子游戏,它是一种真正的体育运动。

有时候我们只是肤浅地看待某些事物。在人们游戏方式发生改变以及对于电子游戏产业的看法的改变这整个过程中,我们仍然处在早期阶段。这是一个非常有趣的过程,并且这种早期的变化能够推动着我们继续前进。从创造性和设计角度来看,这也是鼓舞我向前走的主要动力。

不管是从收音机转变成电视,还是从书本转变成电子书,我们可以发现一种新平台的早期阶段总是在对现有的内容做出改变,而不是重新进行设计。并且随着时间的发展,你将开始面向新平台创造更多不同的内容,我们现在所面对的手机和社交平台便是如此,不是吗?

完全没错。因为我们现在正处于一个新平台发展的早期阶段,所以我们所看到的内容大多都是沿用一些已知的元素。而当我们的设计心态开始发生改变时,这一平台便会迎来真正的转变,如此我们便能够重新开始设计这一新平台。也许在1至2年后,我们便能够看到现在所做的会创造出怎样的结果。

我认为手机平台最强大的一点便是开发者可以在此推出各种新内容,并按照自己的想法不断地进行调整与改变,这也是现在的主机游戏所不能做到的。你认为主机平台是否应该向手机平台那样快速回应用户的需求与改变?

当然了。并且我认为这种改变不该只是停留于设备上,还应该是关于生态系统的改变。如今的各种设备上都带有记账机制,连接机制,不断更新的政策等等内容,从而让其不再只是纯粹的硬件设备。当我们在思考生态系统时,我们总是会面向所有生态系统而努力去完善它们。最后不得不说的是,消费者就是“上帝”,只有他们感到开心,我们才会跟着开心。

如果我们的硬件更新速度非常缓慢,或者某些平台上的游戏内容更新较慢,消费者便不可能感到开心。发行商就必须有发行商的样,所以我们就必须学如何更好地处理不同环境并面对各种平台。就像生态系统也在不断发展变化着,所以我对于这些平台未来的发展始终都抱着乐观的态度。

改变人们的公司运营惯例比改变一种技术还复杂。

的确如此。我们还必须掌握用户粘性,盈利潜能以及生态系统的价值这三大元素之间的关系。如果用户愿意投入更多时间于游戏中(用户粘性),那么不管是用户,平台还是发行商都能够获得更多价值。提高用户粘性的一大关键因素便是实时更新和反馈。所以我们便在游戏中添加了受数据驱动的机制,从而让玩家在《FIFA》游戏过程中也能够获得最新的结果和更新内容,但是大多数情况下还必须由第一方授权我们(发行商)去做出改变——特别是在跨越多种设备进行同步更新时。

如今你们拥有极高的运营效率,并且总是能够快速推出各种新内容?

确实如此。过去我们还对Playfish开玩笑道,这个产业的时钟频率已经提高了100多倍。过去手机平台上最出色的游戏每个月会进行一次更新;随后社交游戏的更新从每周变成每天,再到现在的一天四次。可以看出业务运行频率已经发生了完全的改变。整个游戏产业亦是如此,我认为比起两年前,现在的产业模式真的更加完善了。

如今世界上无时无刻都有玩家在玩着足球游戏,并且他们也希望能够看到各种分数变化。

的确,发行商能够为玩家量身定制一个世界之窗——这也是其它媒介不能做到的。我所扮演的角色真的非常有趣,即推动着EA的转变并将游戏产业的最新变化第一时间整合到公司中。这也是我为何希望公司能够做出改变并以更加灵活的方式走向未来的主要原因。就像你所说的,改变业务惯例是件非常困难的事。我们已经完成了组织变革,将公司中的不同结构整合到其它不同结构中,并通过在社交平台和手机平台的学习去推动着我们授权业务向前发展。这是一个非常棒的发展方向,而我们需要努力去实现它。

体育游戏让我们能够更轻松地创造出即时环境——因为现实世界无时无刻地在提供着即时数据。而面对像《死亡空间》等游戏,你便需要创造各种数据。

的确,拥有现实世界的数据保障为我们提供了更大的便利。就像我们在《战地3》便有效地利用了这一点(《战地》拥有非常出色的用户粘性)——因为Battlelog功能以及同步推出的各种新地图包和工具,我们呈献给玩家一个巨大且充满活力的社区,从而推动着他们愿意长时间留在游戏中。这是从社交游戏吸取的另外一大经验,即要想在游戏中留住玩家就需要先为他们创造一个强大的社交社区。无需提供用户生成内容视频,而只是呈现出他们的游戏方式便可。我想大多数玩家都希望我们能够提供给他们更具社交性的游戏内容。

带有Autolog 2系统的《极品飞车》应该是最出色的版本之一;即玩家可以以一种全新的方式与好友分享自己的成绩。Criterion便始终都贯穿着这一原理,所以我们超级期待他们能够为我们呈现出更有趣的游戏玩法。

设备属性是否仍然约束着游戏体验?

是的。很幸运的是EA通过收购和专门化等方式已经获得了这方面的专家。而现在这些人员与授权小组正一起致力于研究最适合设备和授权游戏的组合。

我认为整合用户的所有反馈也非常重要,因为现在的你们已经能够设计出用户真正感兴趣的内容了。

没错。我们的数据系统需要承受住各种挑战,并且有时候信息量也会超过其最大负荷。所以我想说的是,比起数据本身,其内部的重要情报更加重要。所以设计师应该更加灵活地看待所有数据。

我们必须维系起数据收集者与基于数据制定设计决策之人的关系。另一方面,设计师必须进一步理解各种数据所代表的意义,并判断哪些是重要的数据哪些又是无用的数据。我们将有效结合艺术与科学当成一大目标。我们既希望基于艺术去创造出优秀的游戏体验,同时也希望使用数据去完善并发展艺术。

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

EA: Building a bridge between data miners and designers

By Steve Peterson

Electronic Arts has made a huge effort for the past several years to expand into new areas of gaming, including mobile and social games. The company has also built its own digital distribution platform with Origin, both for its own games and for games from more than 70 other developers. EA is attempting to take games that were once a yearly release and turn them into 24/7/365 services on multiple platforms, where the game becomes a larger concept than just a single platform. It would certainly appear that the strategy is working, as the company’s digital revenue has been growing over 40 percent every year for the last five years.

GamesIndustry International recently caught up with EA’s executive vice president of digital, Kristian Segerstrale, to discuss the company’s vision and how it affects monetization, design, and the play experience. Segerstrale was formerly the CEO of social game company Playfish, and before that he was a vice president at Glu Mobile.

Q: When you’re talking about taking a game and spreading it across multiple platforms, there can be different expectations among the users about how they will pay for games. How do you reconcile that?

Kristian Segerstrale: I think you’re putting your finger on a super-important topic. I don’t think it’s obvious, and it’s not easy. I think there are a couple of very encouraging things that we’ve seen, though, across the board. One is that even if you look at something like last year’s FIFA 12, one of the things that we announced at E3 at the time was that 20 percent of the revenue of FIFA 12 had actually been generated in-game through microtransactions. That’s a console product where people pay upfront.

If you think of people having bought Battlefield 3, more than 1.5 million players having bought the Premium service, it again shows that the depth of the monetization potential of engaging users. What I showed at E3 on FIFA was just how many people are still engaged 9 months after launch; we still have between four and five million people in any given week playing the game. What we’ve found is that if we’re able to generate sustained minutes per user of play, monetizing that engagement is actually a question of smart design whereby we can create opportunities and value for our consumers that is ongoing. That’s true whether that is through player packs, being able to upgrade things, by saving time, by finding some way of personalizing your experience or helping you be more individual in the player community.

I think you’re right; there is disruptive change, but what I would say is that as a company, we are probably more advanced than most other packaged goods game companies. We’ve stated a long time ago that our aim is to become the number one digital pure play game company. Really all of our investments, whether you think of the acquisitions we’ve made or the huge engineering group we have behind the scenes in terms of the enabling technology, have been aimed at that. We’ve spread out the Playfish talent all across EA in such a way as to really enhance our free-to-play designs, and how do we think about designing in such a way we can operate ongoing services whereby consumers have new and interesting things to spend their money on over time.

Q: The reorganization of EA’s development teams around a franchise, has that enabled you to put marketers in with designers? As a marketer and a designer, I feel that monetization is most effective when it’s integrated with design from the start.

Kristian Segerstrale: I think so. EA has definitely gotten better. I totally agree that they have to be integrated from the start. If you think about FIFA Ultimate Team last year versus this year, the velocity at which we are learning as a company about this is really quite tremendous. Now we can target the right message at the right consumer at the right time with the right offer that’s interesting for them.. It stems from one division and the clear aim of the company to become the number one digital pure play, and our collective conviction that in the long term the market is entirely free-to-play. We must learn now. So many of the designs across the company are evolving. You see that a little bit in this year’s games; you’ll see that a lot more in next year’s games and beyond then you’ll see a different complexion in design altogether.

Q: It seems like FIFA 13 is doing very well this year, with sales up 40 percent over last year. Do you attribute some of that to the efforts of FIFA Ultimate Team?

Kristian Segerstrale: Yes. I think that FIFA in general – and Madden has also done well – but FIFA is really the frontrunner in the whole company of connecting the emotion of the real-world sport and the events that are happening in the real world into the game in a really meaningful way… in such a way that it both creates an interesting microtransaction environment and you can play the match, the actual match that’s going on in the real world right now that’s interesting. That’s better than any other sports game on the market, and Madden is close behind but it’s not quite there yet. We’ve really been able to connect the real world with this sporting experience. I think it’s had a really big impact on the overall cultural phenomenon of soccer in the United States.

Q: In the past it’s been that sports games would follow the popularity of a given sport, and the sales of the games would track along with the rise and fall of the popularity of the sport. What you’re saying is that the tail is starting to wag the dog.

Kristian Segerstrale: What EA Sports and the FIFA team in particular have done so well is they’ve been able to insert themselves right at the center of the conversation around soccer, especially in North America. If you ever read the EA Sports manifesto, they have this deep-rooted belief that the games themselves influence the sport. They see themselves as much a part of the sport as the actual sport that’s going on in the stadium. I think it’s really an important mindset; it is not a computer game, it is part of the sport.

I do think we have barely scratched the surface of what’s possible. We are still very much in the early stages of genuinely transforming how people play games and genuinely transforming how we think about the computer games industry as a whole. It’s incredibly exciting, and some of the early signs are that it’s working, it’s very encouraging. From a creative and a design perspective, that’s what gets me really going.

Q: The early days of a new platform always take existing content and move it over rather than designing for the new form; this happened with the transition from radio to TV, and now its books to e-books. Over time you start to create differently for new platforms, and that’s where we are at with mobile and social platforms, isn’t it?

Kristian Segerstrale: I think you’ve nailed that point exactly. We are at such an early stage of this that some of the things you are seeing now are literally an application of what we know and had before in new and interesting ways. I believe personally that the really big shift will come as we shift the mindset of design, such that we design from the ground up for that. One or two years from now is really when you will see the results of what’s going on right now.

Q: In some ways I think the more disruptive thing about mobile platforms is how you can roll out new content and changes as often as you wish, and that is not the case with the console business model currently. Do you think that consoles should be as responsive to consumer needs and changes as mobile platforms?

Kristian Segerstrale: I think that’s exactly right. We think more about ecosystems than about just devices these days. Almost any device comes with a billing mechanism, a connectivity mechanism, a policy on updates, and all those things that makes it more than just a piece of hardware. When we think about ecosystems, we work very closely with all ecosystems to work through how do we make these really great. At the end of the day the consumer is our collective boss, and if the consumer is happy all of us are going to be happy one way or the other.

The consumer can’t be happy if on your specific hardware updates come out slower, or the experience isn’t updated as quickly as on some other platform. I think that’s where all of us have work to do; we have work to do to learn as a publisher to deal with that environment better and to be faster and to be better across the board. Ecosystems also have an evolution to go through. I think most of the time there’s a fairly deep understanding that this is going to be looked at moving forward, and I’m really pretty optimistic on that.

Q: Changing people’s business practices can be more difficult than changing technology.

Kristian Segerstrale: I agree with that. I do think there’s a very profound insight right now, understanding the link between engagement and monetization potential and value of an ecosystem. The more minutes of engagement we have with a consumer, the more valuable it is for the consumer, for the platform, for the publisher. One of the key enablers of engagement is that real-time update and feedback. Part of it is us making games which are more data-driven, so that FIFA can get the latest results and update on the fly, but a large amount of it is also for the first parties to enable us as publishers to change things around quickly where need be – particularly when it’s synchronized updates across multiple devices.

Q: You’re operating at a higher frequency now, aren’t you, with pushing out new content so quickly?

Kristian Segerstrale: Absolutely. We used to make this joke at Playfish that the clock frequency of the industry has been increased by 100x. We used to make this comparison, look, there’s a new version of FIFA every year coming out. The most advanced games for some mobile platforms used to have an update every month. Then social games initially began to do an update every week, then every day, then updates four times a day. That clock frequency of how you have to operate as a business just changes entirely. That’s something that the whole industry, I think now more than two years ago, has really come to terms with and I’m feeling good where that stands.

Q: There are soccer games happening all the time all over the world, scores are coming in, and players expect to know that.

Kristian Segerstrale: Exactly, and the fact a publisher can create a window into that universe that is tailored to you and your likes is really something that is very hard to do in any other medium. It’s been a really interesting thing in my role, really driving the transformation of EA and pulling effectively some of the innovations that have happened at the fringes of the industry right into the core of where the company is going. That’s why I’m very hopeful that as a company we’re able to turn the corner and navigate the future in a far more nimble way as a result.
As you said, business practices are the hardest thing to change. What we’ve really done with the organizational change, folding in the different parts to different parts of the company, was to take all those bits of learning from social and mobile and all those other places and plow them into the center of how we drive the key franchises forward. It’s a very exciting position to be in, and clearly we need to deliver on it.

Q: Sports games make it easier in some ways to create a real-time environment, because there is real data coming in from the world all the time. With something like Dead Space, you have to create all the data; doesn’t that make it more difficult?

Kristian Segerstrale: We or the other players. It’s clearly easier for something where there’s a real-world data feed going on all the time. That said, what we’ve done so well in Battlefield – the engagement levels in Battlefield are staggering – because of Battlelog, with the rollout of the various new map packs and stuff, you have this huge, super-vibrant community that contributes to the overall game play, the overall reason why you should be playing. That’s another lesson from social, figuring out how to make people really count in the game to make them a very important social community. It doesn’t have to be UGC (user generated content) videos; it can just be the way they play, that they ultimately contribute to events in the game. I think what you will see more from us going forward is to empower people to share and be more social.

If you look at Autolog 2 for Need For Speed, we’re very excited about the upcoming release. It’s one of the best Need For Speeds ever. If you play Autolog 2, you actually have a whole new way of sharing with your friends. I think at Criterion they’ve really taken that to heart. We’re super-excited about prolonging interest in the game play.

Q: The nature of the device still constrains the overall experience, though.

Kristian Segerstrale: That’s right. Where EA is in a fortunate position is through acquisition and specialization we actually have folks who really purely eat, sleep and breathe the device specifically. But now those groups are combined with the franchise teams in a way which enables us to find the combination that’s best for the device and right for the franchise.

Q: I think the integration of all the feedback that comes from consumers is so important, because now you can design for what the consumers are interested in.

Kristian Segerstrale: Exactly. In some ways the challenge has been with our data systems that are in place already, there is almost too much information. I would say it’s no longer about the data; it’s about the intelligence from the data. Getting designers to speak data fluently is very interesting.

It’s going to be a bridge built from both ends – data folks who are able to serve up the data in a format and in a way which makes it easy to pick up and design decisions and design input from that. On the other hand, the designers have got to become more numerate to understand what the data really means and what is statistically significant and what isn’t. We think that’s the goal: To get to the perfect combination of art and science. We’re fundamentally about the art and creating awesome experiences, but we want to use the data to augment the art.(source:gamesindustry)


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