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业内人士设想和探讨Supercell的未来走向

发布时间:2013-11-01 17:33:21 Tags:,,,

问题:

Supercell仅凭两款游戏,就获得了30亿美元身价,背靠财力雄厚的日本母公司软银和GungHo,足见该公司究竟有多成功。

如果你是Supercell公司的CEO,接下来你会怎么做?你又如何确保公司不会只是昙花一现?

Supercell-GungHo-Softbank-Congratulations(from appannie.com)

Supercell-GungHo-Softbank-Congratulations(from appannie.com)

回答:

Mark Sorrell(免费游戏设计顾问)

我会继续做他们目前正在做的事情——进行大量小规模的创新尝试,推出另一款具有吸引力的游戏。

这里的运气元素影响甚大,Supercell和GungHo两家公司CEO都曾经发表过类似的言论,他们说的是对的。所以我还会继续掷骰子等待运气降临,我会下大赌注。

Stuart Dredge(《卫报》记者)

他所说的是:在内部团队持续试验新游戏理念,淘汰其中多数不合格创意,然后找到值得你投入巨大资源的游戏理念。

我也很有兴趣了解他们如何看待《Clash of Clans》在明年,后年甚至更多年后的情况——当你有一款游戏居于如此高峰,你是不是会开始用电视节目的角度来思考它在未来两三年的内容发展趋势?

我确信他们已经考虑到这一点,只是我很想知道他们将如何实现。

Ben Cousins(DeNA欧洲游戏工作室主管)

Riot Games有将近一千人受聘开发所谓的“一夜走红”的F2P热作。

事实上,如果你运营的是像Supercell那种基于服务的项目,那么就算只有几个产品也没有关系。麦当劳就是一个地地道道的例子。

所以如果是我,我会在那两款游戏上继续耕耘。最近我们可以看到,他们似乎在将这两款游戏推向更多平台和地区,这应该是Supercell当前关注的重点。

而重新投入小型游戏应该是第二个关注点,我们都知道Supercell的工作方式——这个过程不会太费成本或者难以管理。

如果你有一款新游戏在试发行阶段就取得了不错的留存率,之后就可以与其他两款热作进行交叉推广,从而降低获取新用户的成本——我们已经看到他们(接受投资之前)与GungHo在日本展开交叉推广所获得的巨大成功。

这家公司最应该避免的情况是,沉浸在自己的成功中不能自拔,或者因个人财富分配问题而分心,以及丧失前进方向。

Andy Payne(Mastertronic总经理)

我可能会准备开发第三款热作。很显然,我会将自己的关键人才分配到这个任务中,让他们集中发布第三款游戏——创造、迭代、破坏、创造等,同时继续保持《Hay Day》和《Clash of Clans》的发展,吸引新玩家和旧玩家,这样我就会聘请新人才来维护这两款游戏,使之保持新鲜感。

我还会任命一位商业开发者处理与游戏相关的所有外包授权项目及合作机会。

不过,我会让公司保持简单性,希望自己的运气够好!

Harry Holmwood(Marvelous AQL Europe首席执行官)

我现在纳闷的是,我们的话题中从来没有提到关于这些收入究竟是进入了公司的帐户,还是被创始人/股东拿走了?我想这实际上会给CEO带了相当的压力。

在游戏并购交易中,被收购公司的创始人在看到这两种情况——a)他们已经获得了自己梦魅以求的金钱,b)他们并不急于突然空降一个老板来指挥自己走向一个他们原本并没有兴趣的领域时,甚少人不会想法尽快退出这家公司。

如果创始人们现在已经是超级富豪了,但却不可能是新GungHo/Supercell合资公司的最高层时,他们应该掂量一下这究竟是不是自己想要的东西。如果不是,他们就应该开始寻找或者培养能够在一两年内与他们并肩作战走向所需方向的人才。

撇开这一点不谈,在我看来这家公司可以在两种完全不同的路径之间作出选择。第一种就是“变化不大”的方法——他们之前已经这样做了两次,显然甚为管用。也就是上文所提到的建议,进行一些小规模、快速、低风险的尝试,从中提炼出精华,找到最佳游戏理念。这是一个很棒的策略,但仍然需要依靠大量运气。在我过去漫长的游戏生涯中,我所发现的一个现象就是,当一家公司认为自己已经破译了成功的密码时,它就不可避免地会开始不断复制原来的做法。

但另一方面来看,尽管他们拥有杰出人才,但成功的热作却难以复制,应用市场上有诸多游戏,总会有后来者如法炮制,就此来看“变化不大”的方法就不是那么有效了。此时,正确的方法应该是将这些出色的游戏品牌推向游戏之外的授权领域。

目前来看,他们已经掌握了足够的资金往这两个方向行动。最大的挑战可能就是继续满足市场需求。市场需要发展,而发展则是我们这些局外人难以预测的东西。

Teut Weidemann(育碧在线专家)

Supercell现在有钱也有人去做别人之前不敢做的事情。他们可以大胆前进。钱已经不是问题了,他们之前就有钱了,但现在可以迈开更大的步伐。

实际上正因为他们现在有了庞大预算,所以应该去尝试一些冒险,因为这是一个独一无二的机会。他们已经没有什么限制条件了,应该成为本世纪的EA。

Oscar Clark(Applifier倡导者)

在这方面,我认为Teut说的完全正确……但即使是新合资公司的企业文化也并不适合他们(例如EA/Playfish就是如此),他们将依靠自己的实力尽快做一些惊人之举。

与此同时,我很惊讶他们没有去做Stuart所说的那些游戏领域之外的项目。我认为我们大多数人一开始就知道Ilkka/Kristian是已经实现伟业,并仍然保持创意激情的人。

我相信他们能够创造出比GTAV更轰动之作,可能靠他们自己的本领,也可能是靠获得其支持/影响的团队……

Kristian Segerstrale(Supercell董事会成员)

谢谢各位发言,这个话题非常有趣。

但要记住:Ilkka、Mikko以及创造了Supercell的团队。我很幸运能够在早期帮助他们完成了种子轮融资,在之后又给他们介绍了一些机会,但我对他们所获得的成功关系不大。这一切都要归功于Ilkka的远见和领导能力,以及该团队各类杰出人才。对于大家同时提到“Ilkka和Kristian”这两个名字,我真是受宠若惊,因为这实际上应该是“Ilkka和Mikko”两人的功劳。我认为他们在未来数年在新的公司结构中还有大好前程,这一点值得期待。(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

[Gamesbriefers] What’s next for Supercell?

By Gamesbriefers

A valuation of $3 billion. Large, deep pocketed, Japanese parents. Only two games, but my, how successful they are.

What would you do next if you were the CEO of Supercell. And how do you make sure that the company doesn’t stay a two-hit wonder for ever?
Answers:

Mark SorrellMark Sorrell Freemium game design consultant

I’d carry on doing exactly what they have reportedly done so far – making lots of small, creatively pure attempts to find another game that sticks. Then leverage the crap out of any success with the giant, billion dollar stick.

The element of luck is huge, the CEOs of both Supercell and GungHo are on record saying as such, and they are right. So I’d keep rolling the dice and waiting to get lucky. And then I’d bet big.

Stuart DredgeStuart Dredge Journalist at The Guardian

What he said: the strategy of constant experimentation in-house with new game ideas, killing the vast majority of them, and then finding one that’s worth slinging your weight behind in a big way.

I’m also interested in how they’re thinking about Clash of Clans, in terms of the next year, two years and beyond – when you have a game in this position, do you start thinking of it in almost TV-like terms (as in ‘this is going to be around for the next three years, what’s the arc of content?’).

I’m sure they are thinking about this, but would love to know how.

Ben Cousins1Ben Cousins Head of European Game Studios at DeNA

Riot Games have nearly a thousand people employed with their ‘one hit wonder’ F2P game.

The fact is, if you are running a service-based business like Supercell – then it’s fine to have only a few products. McDonalds are a notable ‘one hit wonder’.

So I would continue to plough resources into the two hit games as long as it makes sense. They seem to be doing this with the territorial and platform expansion we’ve seen recently. This should, IMO, be the company focus.

Re-investing in small titles would be the secondary focus, and we all know how Supercell work – this shouldn’t be a too costly or difficult to manage process.

Once you have a new title doing the right retention rates in soft launch, then the cross-promotion clout of the two hits will massively reduce the overall acquisition cost for new users – we’ve seen them do this with great success in partnership with GungHo in Japan before the investment.

The worst thing the company can do is get caught in their own success like rabbits in the headlights, or get distracted by the personal wealth generated and lose direction.
andy payne

Andy Payne MD at Mastertronic

I would be looking to make the 3rd hit, obviously. I would move my key talent to this task and get them to focus only on getting game 3 launched – so create, iterate, destroy, create etc whilst keeping both HD and CoC evolving and engaging new and existing players, so I would hire talent in to work on those to keep them fresh and lovely.

I would also appoint a biz dev to handle all outsourced licensing opportunities that will be coming their way, or indeed stoke those conversations.

Sadly, I would keep it simple and hope to have a fair share of luck!

harry holmwoodHarry Holmwood CEO of Marvelous AQL Europe

Sorry to answer with a question, and a derailing one at that, but one thing I haven’t seen written about is whether all this incoming money has gone into the company’s coffers or has a load been taken out by founders/shareholders? I think this actually has a substantial bearing on what the CEO should do.

I can think of very few gaming acquisitions where the founder of the acquired company hasn’t looked to exit the business as soon as practically possible, once they realise that a) they’ve got enough money to do what the hell they want forever and b) they’re not overly keen on suddenly having a boss (or a market) pushing them in directions they don’t necessarily want to be pushed.

If the founders are now super-rich personally, but are unlikely to be the people at the very top of a new Gung Ho/ Supercell supergroup, they should decide whether this is something they really want to be doing. If not, they should start looking for or nurturing those people who will step into their shoes in a year or two when it’s time to move on.

Putting the above aside, the company can choose between two different paths to my mind. The first is a ‘more of the same’ approach – the argument being that they’ve done it twice, and clearly it’s working. As previous posters have suggested, make small, quick, low risk things and throw out all but the winners. It’s a great strategy, but still one that depends on a lot of luck. One of the few things I’ve learned in the depressingly long time I have been in games is that, whenever a company thinks it has cracked the secret formula for success, it inevitably goes bust trying to replicate it.

If, on the other hand, despite their obvious talents, it turns out that having a big hit really is hard to replicate, with millions of apps out there, statistically someone ends up having a couple in a row, a ‘more of the same’ approach is not so good. The same argument is often made about fund managers. In that instance, the right approach would be to push heavily to turn those great iOS gaming brands into huge franchises outside of games.

It looks like they have enough cash to do both. The biggest challenge is probably going to be to keep the markets happy. Markets want growth, and growth from a position based around incredible outliers is going to be very hard to predict.

Teut WeidemannTeut Weidemann Online Specialist at Ubisoft

Supercell now has the people and money to do where no one dares to go before. They can play risky, daring. Money plays no role anymore. They had that before but maybe not at the scale like now.

Actually because they have the budgets now they should do go risky as this is a unique chance. No limits. They shouldplay on this. They could be the EA of this century.

Go Ilkka go!

Oscar ClarkOscar Clark Evangelist for Applifier

I think you have it spot on here Teut… But even if the corporate culture of the new organisation doesn’t work out for them (EA/Playfish for example) they will do something spectacular on their own terms as soon as they can.

In the meantime I’d be amazed if they don’t also do crazy amazing things outside games too like Stuart has said. I think most of us
remember Illka/Kristian from the early days; brilliant people who have achieved spectacularly already and who remain creatively passionate.

I’m sure these are the guys who will make the next bigger than GTAV thing happen; either themselves or through their support/influence…

I can’t wait to see what’s next!

kristian_segerstraleKristian Segerstrale On the Board of Directors for Supercell

Thanks guys – this thread is a really fun read.

Just to be clear: Ilkka, Mikko and gang built Supercell. I was incredibly fortunate to be able to help them early on by helping them raise their seed round and later on to be able to make some introductions and offer an opinion here and there, but I really had very little to do with their success. All that is purely down to Ilkka’s vision and leadership and the phenomenal talent at all levels in that team. I’m super flattered by the “Ilkka and Kristian” mention but it really needs to be “Ilkka and Mikko”. :) And for what it’s worth I think they have an incredible few years ahead of them in the new configuration. Will be a lot of fun to watch!(source:gamesbrief


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