作者：Keith Andrew

芬兰外包公司Grand Cru首席营销官Thorbjörn Warin在最近的Pocket Gamer Mobile Mixer论坛上指出，“如果你正在把游戏做成服务——也就是我们所说的免费游戏，那么你的公司就应该表现得像个服务公司。”

“你必须分析指标，但不要被它们牵着鼻子走——那样你会变成另一个Zynga，而现在再也没有人想成为Zynga了。”

Warin不知道的是，在拥挤的观众席上，正好坐着Zynga的前员工——论坛主持人Chris James（游戏邦注：他是《Pocket Gamer》发行商Steel Media总经理）巧妙地指出这一点。

Warin玩笑道：“哦，我没有恶意。Zynga做过一些了不起的事。”全场大笑。

这就是Mixer论坛的氛围——参与者坦率地发表自己对各种重大问题的看法，当然是以非常友好的方式。论坛讨论的话题包括如果你还没在手机应用领域获得成功，那么你是不是太迟了？

排行榜问题

PapayaMobile的Chris Hanage开场说道：“排行榜之外也有生命力——这是非常重要的一点。”

“然而，如果你在没有大量营销预算的情况下发布游戏，那么一夜成功是不可能的。闯进排行榜尤其困难，除非你是巨头公司，但有很多工具可以用来循环和交叉营销。”

所以，答案就是采用免费模式来增加关注？

世嘉的Mike Masuku反驳道：“所有人都把注意力放在免费排行榜上，但其实还可以使用其他商业模式。”

“对我们而言，我们的《足球经理》和《Sonic Dash》使用了不同的商业模式，但都赚钱了。”

Warin表示同意，指出“太多人做免费游戏了——有些游戏其实采用付费模式更能赚钱。”

赢利问题

Applifier的Oscar Clark补充道：“人们很容易注意到那些名列收益排行榜的游戏，但有许多没有登上排行榜的游戏也仍然有赢利潜力。”

“对于小型工作室，一天挣个1000美元还是可观的。”

Masuku指出，甚至对于大公司，谋生也不总是件容易的事。

“在世嘉，我们仍然在学习如何制定赢利策略，但我们不应该太关注赢利策略，而应该更加重视留存率。

“所以我们不再看人们喜欢报告的愚蠢的KPI（关键业绩指标）了，我们开始关注如何留住玩家。”

panel(from pocketgamer)

然而，为了获得玩家，你必须选对平台。

座谈小组的所有成员都同意，现在真正值得关注的平台只有两个——iOS和Android。但不久后会不会出现第三个选择？Windows Phone会不会后来居上？或者黑莓会不会起死回生？

King公司的专家Tommy Palm表示否定。

他表示：“两大巨头相争是一个很好的局面——我不希望出现第三个或第四个平台。”

对于同样的话题，世嘉的Masuku指出，虽然世嘉对上述两大平台都支持，但该公司自然会把主要精力放在“能回报你的投资的台平”。

然而，Applifier的Oscar Clark却把讨论引向一个稍有不同的方向。

他补充道：“现在，平台大战只有两个竞争者——苹果和谷歌，但再过几年，肯定会出现大屏幕的竞争。我们将不再考虑硬件的问题，而是转向思考软件的跨平台生存问题。”

主机游戏的问题

但像任天堂这样的公司还有这样光明的未来吗？这家公司到现在仍然埋头做自己的硬件，不理会其他平台。

他补充道：“任天堂会（在五年内）专注于设备服务。”

“在三、四年内，我们不会关注硬件——我们只关注软件。游戏机会有市场，但受众不多，大众市场的玩家不会理解为什么那些主机游戏不能在他们的平台上玩。”

然而，触觉学方面的专业公司Immersion的Peter van der Linden提出异议，表示并非软件平台在多种设备上普及，而更可能的是设备支持多个平台。

他解释道：“你有的所有设备将整合成一部——三星照相机不是一个例子。我认为那就是大势所趋。我们将会有一台支持多功能的设备。”

Masuka补充道，那种设备不会是来自索尼、微软或任天堂的那种传统的游戏主机。

世嘉的Masuka玩笑道：“游戏主机已死。”

“我们的商业是这样组织的：我们有一支专注于开发主机游戏的团队，我们借用他们，让他们去做手机游戏，但我还没看到做手机游戏也能做主机游戏的情况。老实说。甚至我们的主机业务也主要依赖PC——未来是数字化、云端软件的时代。”

至于任天堂继3DS后将推出的新掌机，Masuka表示不看好：“它不可能有市场。”

他总结道：“我的口袋太满了，我唯一想放进去的设备就是我的手机了——我认为另一部掌机是没有希望的。”

确实，如果Grand Cru的Warin说的话是可信的，那么终极掌机其实已经在这里了。

他的结论是：“我认为没有什么游戏设备能超越iPad mini了。对于大众市场，没有什么能打败iPad mini。”（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）

‘No one wants to be Zynga anymore’: Lessons from the Pocket Gamer Mobile Mixer

by Keith Andrew

“If you’re doing games as a service – and that’s what we should be calling free-to-play now – then you have to act as a service company,” offered Thorbj?rn Warin, CMO at Finnish outfit Grand Cru at Pocket Gamer’s latest Mobile Mixer.

“You have to analyse the metrics, but don’t be driven by them – that would make you Zynga, and no-one wants to be Zynga anymore.”

Unbeknownst to Warin, a former Zynga employee happened to be sat in the packed crowd in Cologne’s Hyatt Hotel – a fact delicately pointed out by Mixer host (and MD of Pocket Gamer publisher Steel Media) Chris James.

“Oh, I didn’t mean it,” joked Warin, to much laughter. “Zynga has done some good stuff.”

Such was the atmosphere at the Mixer – a forum where a multitude of pressing issues were discussed in a frank, but undoubtedly friendly manner. Topics such as, if you haven’t already made it on mobile, is it too late?

Chart life

“There is life outside the charts – that’s a really important point,” opened PapayaMobile’s Chris Hanage.

“However, if you’re looking to try and launch a game without significant marketing budget, then becoming a success overnight isn’t likely. Breaking into those top positions is especially hard unless you’re the big guys, but there are lots of tools out there to recycle and cross-promote users.”

Is the answer, therefore, to adopt free-to-play and try to garner attention that way?

“Everyone focuses on the free-to-play charts, but there are different business models you can use,” countered Sega’s Mike Masuku

“For us, we have Football Manager and Sonic Dash – both use different business models, but both are making money.”

Warin agreed, noting that there are simply “too many people making free-to-play games – some games that actually would make way more money as premium.”

Money matters

“It’s very easy to fixate on the guys who have hit that massmarket potential, but there’s a huge amount of content out there that isn’t top ten of the top grossing chart that’s still profitable,” added Applifier’s Oscar Clark.

“For small studios, $1,000 a day isn’t bad.”

Even for the bigger guys, life isn’t always so easy, revealed Masuku.

“At Sega, we’re still learning about what we need to do to monetise, but we need to move away from focusing on monetisation and focus on retention.

“So we’ve stopped looking at the the silly KPIs everyone likes to report, and we’ve started focusing on how to keep people in our games.”

The Mixer panel

To get gamers in the first place, however, you need to be on the right platform.

As all the panel agreed, there are only two platforms really worth caring about now – iOS and Android. But will there soon be a third option? Will Windows Phone win out, or will BlackBerry bounce back?

King games guru Tommy Palm said he hoped not.

“It’s nice to have two giants competing with each other – I don’t want a third or fourth platform,” he claimed.

On the same subject, Sega’s Masuku noted that while Sega supports both the aforementioned platforms vying for the third spot, the company naturally focuses its efforts on “the platforms that return your investments.”

Applifier’s Oscar Clark, however, took the discussion in a slightly different direction.

“Right now there are only two players – Apple and Google – but in the next few years there’s going to be a battle over the big screen,” he added. “We’re going to stop thinking about the hardware, and it’s going to be able software living across multiple platforms.”

The Nintendo question

But where does such a wide open future leave the likes of Nintendo – a company that, to date, has refused to operate on anything other than its own hardware?

“Nintendo will be a service on a device [in five years' time],” he added.

“We’re not going to care about the hardware in three or four years time – it’s all about the software. There will be a console market, but it’ll be a niche audience, and massmarket consumers won’t understand why those games aren’t available on their platforms.”

Peter van der Linden of haptics specialist Immersion countered, however, suggesting that, rather than software platforms stretching across multiple devices, we’re more likely to see devices that do multiple things.

“All the devices you carry and merging into one – the Samsung camera is an example of that – and I think that’s the way things are going to go,” added. “We’re all going to have a device that slices, dices and cleans the carpet.”

And that device, added Masuka, won’t be a traditional console from Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo.

“Consoles are dead,” joked Sega’s Masuka.

“Our business is structured in a way that we have a console team that focuses on console games, and we borrow them and put them on mobile, but I haven’t seen it working the other way, and I can’t to be honest.

“Even our console side of the business is mainly PC – the future is digital, and it’s about keeping the software in the cloud.”

On the idea of another Nintendo handheld after the 3DS, Masuka said he “couldn’t see room for it.”

“My pockets are getting tighter, and the only device I want to keep on me is my phone – I don’t think there is an opportunity for another handheld device,” he concluded.

Indeed, if Grand Cru’s Warin is to be believed, the ultimate handheld is already here.

“I can’t think of any gaming device ever better than the iPad mini,” he concluded. “For a mass market, nothing beats the iPad mini.”(source:pocketgamer)