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Perry Tam谈Storm8运营情况及发展目标

发布时间:2013-02-06 16:18:34 Tags:,,

作者:Jon Jordan

在快速发展的社交手机游戏业,改变是必然的事。

然而,成立于2009年的美国公司Storm8展现了惊人的稳定性。

它没有接受任何风险投资(尽管有传言),也没有被其他公司收购。

确实,这家员工人数不下175的开发公司具有4亿次下载量,2亿玩家和1千万日活跃用户,可以说,除了最老牌的公司,它现在对任何公司来说,都是一个可望而不可及的目标。

该公司首席执行官Perry Tam在最近采访中透露了Storm8获得成功的运营之道。Storm8也以TeamLava、Shark Party和FireMocha品牌分别发行休闲社交游戏、赌博游戏和硬核游戏。

storm8-growth-users(from pocketgamer)

storm8-growth-users(from pocketgamer)

自手机社交游戏兴起,你就已经是这一行的老手了,与前些年相比,你认为目前的产业环境如何?

我们在2009年创立了Storm8,那时我们是第一家以手机为平台开发社交游戏的公司。现在,手机社交游戏的环境已经改变了。

经过数年的发展,游戏的质量提高了,产值也随之增加。这就是为什么现在我们有了更大的团队、更长的开发周期来保证所有游戏的始终保持高品质。

现在,智能手机用户已经显著增多,所以我们要不断研究新的游戏玩法和不同的类型的游戏,以满足更广大玩家的需求。

不用说,自2009年起,竞争也变得相当激烈,各种应用商店中充斥着成千上百款游戏。

Storm8的游戏类型涵盖了休闲、硬核和社交/街机/赌博等,平台也拓展到iOS和Android/Amazon等,你认为哪一部分是发展最快的?

这些年来,许多类型都得到发展,所以我们认为我们的游戏网络潜力无限。

我们在2012年11月突破4亿下载量,很大程度上是因为我们不断向其他游戏类型拓展,包括社交街机和社交赌博等。

最近几个月以来,这两种类型都得到极大发展,特别是当我们开发这两类游戏时。

你们公司的许多竞争者似乎都专注于一种游戏类型,以一类玩家为受众。为什么你认为Storm8在覆盖了所有类型的游戏后还能如此成功?

一开始,Storm8就致力于构建自己的游戏网络——也就是建立吸引玩家的高品质游戏的网络。

我们的成功很大程度上归结为这些年来我们发行的广泛类型的游戏,但不仅仅如此。覆盖不同类型的游戏以吸引更大范围的受众,这一直是我们的战略,也是使我们从竞争中脱颖而出的原因。这种战略的优点在于,玩家开发成本低和玩家寿命长。

比如,当我们发行第一款社交街机游戏《Bubble Mania》时,仅仅三天就达到1百万次下载量,而且营销投入为零。这就是我们现在的游戏网络的力量。

另外,我们发现手机游戏的玩家寿命是单机游戏的三倍。

多亏了这个策略和我们的强力执行,我们才能够建立超过2亿的玩家基础,使我们的游戏下载量超过4亿。

Ngmoco最近宣布关闭其游戏《We Rule》和《GodFinger》。对于将老游戏的资源转移给新游戏,你们的策略是什么?

我们除了发行新游戏,还投入资源维持老游戏。

我们服务最长的游戏是《iMobsters》,它其实也是我们在2009年开发的第一款游戏。我们现在仍然在支持这款游戏,2012年,它在应用商店榜单的排名还在100以内——从发行日起已经保持了三年了!我们为它感到无比自豪。

4亿下载量、2亿玩家和1千万日活跃玩家,以上三个数字中,哪个最让你感到骄傲?为什么?

其实这三个数字都让我们感到骄傲,它们都是我们的游戏和玩家网络的发展历程上的里程碑——这是我们自建立Storm8起就在追求的目标。

2亿人玩我们的游戏,超过1千万人每天登录游戏,对于一家像我们公司这样年轻的公司而言,确实不得了。

听起来可能很了不起,但人们没有注意到的“数字”是我们的员工总人数。

Storm8发展到今天已经有超过175名员工,如果说有什么其他重大事件让我确实觉得骄傲,那就是这175多名员工共同造就了我们的成功。

Storm8的2013年发展战略是什么?

我们将继续巩固我们的游戏网络,开发新的社交休闲游戏,同时不忘了吸引中核玩家和硬核玩家。等这些项目就绪时我再透露消息吧。

Storm8的另一个拓展方向就是国际化。

一方面,我们正在为国际市场本地化我们的游戏;另一方面,我们将在关键地区/国家寻求合作,希望能找到了解当地市场、致力于不同类型游戏的推广的合作伙伴。(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

Storm8 CEO Perry Tam on how the social mobile outfit is playing the long game

by Jon Jordan

In the fast-moving social mobile gaming industry, change is the only certainty.

Founded in 2009, US start up Storm8 has demonstrated remarkable stability, however.

It’s not taken any VC investment – despite rumours it was going to – and hasn’t yet been snapped up by acquisitive companies.

Indeed, it could be argued that the 175 person-strong developer, which boasts 400 million downloads, 200 million players and 10 million DAUs – is now too valuable a target for all but the deepest pockets.

We caught up with CEO Perry Tam to get his views on the success of Storm8 – which also publishes games under the labels TeamLava (casual social), Shark Party (casino) and FireMocha (hardcore).

Pocket Gamer: Given you’ve been around since the start of the mobile social scene, how does the current environment compare to previous years?

Perry Tam: The mobile social gaming space has evolved since we founded Storm8 in 2009, when we were one of the first companies to develop social games for the mobile platform.

Over the years, games have become higher quality, resulting in production value to go up. This is the reason why we now have much bigger teams and longer development cycles to ensure consistent high quality in all our games.

The smartphone user base today has also increased dramatically, which is why we’re continuously getting into different gaming genres and developing different types of games to cater to a wider audience.

And needless to say, competition has grown considerably since 2009, with hundreds of thousands of games now available in the various app stores.

Storm8 has spread itself across casual, hardcore and social/arcade/casino on iOS and Android/Amazon, so in which parts of that matrix are you currently seeing the most growth?

Growth has been spread across many genres through the years, which is why we see such a big value in our network of games.

We surpassed 400 million downloads in November 2012 and this was driven partly by our continued expansion into different genres, including social arcade and social casino.

In recent months, both these genres have seen pretty dramatic growth, especially as we expanded our portfolio of games in each of these two categories.

Lots of your competitors seem to be focusing on just one type of gamer or genre. Why do you think Storm8 has been so successful despite covering all types of games, albeit through different labels?

From the beginning, Storm8 has taken on a network approach – that is building a network of high quality games that our network of users love.

We attribute much of our success to the wide variety of games that we’ve launched through the years, not despite of it. Covering different types of games to attract a wider audience has been a key part of our strategy and is what sets us apart from competitors. The benefits of this approach are to lower the cost of acquisition and extend a user’s lifetime.

For instance, when we launched our first social arcade game, Bubble Mania, we achieved one million downloads in just three days without spending a single dollar on marketing. This was made possible by leveraging the strength of our existing network.

In addition, we’re seeing that a player’s lifetime is three times longer within a mobile game network than with just a single game.

Thanks to this strategy and our exceptional execution, we’ve been able to build our user base to more than 200 million players, worldwide who have downloaded our games more than 400 million times.

Ngmoco has just announced it’s shutting down some of its games like We Rule and GodFinger. What’s your strategy in terms of when to move resources from legacy titles into new games?

We spend resources to maintain existing games in addition to launching new titles.

Our longest serving game is iMobsters, which is actually the first game we developed back in 2009. We are still serving this game and, in fact, it was on the App Store’s top 100 grossing list for 2012 – three years after it first launched! We’re super proud of it.

Of the following numbers, 400 million downloads, 200 million players and 10 million DAUs, which are you most proud of and why?

We’re equally proud of all three of these milestones as it points to the strength of our gaming and player network, which we’ve strived to achieve since the beginning of Storm8.

The fact that 200 million players worldwide play our games, and that more than 10 million come back to our games every single day is pretty humbling for a young company like us.

And it may sound cheesy but the one ‘number’ that people don’t pay as much attention to is our headcount.

Storm8 has grown to more than 175 employees today and if there’s one additional milestone that I’m really proud of, it’s our 175+ employees who are the true reason for our success.

What can you tell us about Storm8′s strategy for 2013?

We will continue to build on our network of games, adding new social casual titles as well as games that target mid-core and hardcore gamers. We will keep you updated when those titles are ready.

Another area of expansion for Storm8 is international.

We are localising our games for international markets and will continue to seek out the right partners in key areas/countries to really understand the local market and drive the right distribution for different games.(source:pocketgamer)


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