作者：Craig Chapple

亚洲最大的游戏公司之一的Nexon已经在免费游戏市场获取了巨大的成功，现在该发行商正在努力提高自己在西方市场的占有率。

这家来自日本的公司最近在欧洲和北美收购了不少公司，并投资于像Rumble Entertainment，Brian Reynolds的SecretNewCo以及John Schappert新组建的PC和手机工作室Shiver Entertainment中。

Owen Mahoney（from develop-online）

尽管凭借着轰动了十年的游戏《枫之谷》和《地下城与勇士》（为该公司创造了超过20亿美元的收益）在东方市场取得了巨大的成功，Nexon仍在寻找着为西方市场定制游戏的最佳方法。

尽管公司在美国和欧洲的组合业务运营超过了1亿美元，Nexo的首席财务官Owen Mahoney相信他们仍有发展的空间。

巨大的机遇

Mahoney表示，尽管公司已经在该区域创建了发行业务，它还需要投资于西方开发者所创造的新IP，而随着对于三个免费市场以及连接速度的完善的认识逐渐提升，现在便是做出这一行动的最佳时机。

他说道：“我们知道在那一市场中存在着巨大的机遇，并且现在我们也更加了解那里的免费游戏。这是第一点。”

“其次，直至最近宽带速度才真正开始支持西方市场的免费游戏。在最好的情况下，旧金山的宽带连接速度可能是5兆到8兆。而在东京的连接速度却高达100兆。所以我们谈论的是一个巨大的差别。”

西方免费游戏的崛起（游戏邦注：Zynga起着主要的领头作用）告诉我们美国和欧洲还未完全无视免费游戏中的机遇。Boss Alien的《CSR赛车》和Supercell（该公司以15亿美元卖掉了51%的股份）的《Clash of Clans》的成功表明开发者已经开始体会到这种成功了。

但是Mahoney表示尽管出现了一些大受欢迎的游戏，比起已经达到饱和的休闲领域，对于在线沉浸式免费游戏内容，这一市场仍存在一个缺口。他解释，这里缺少瞄准追求更长且更深入体验（比起基于较短游戏循环的传统西方游戏类型）的玩家的免费游戏。

Mahoney说道：“对于那些想要尝试更具沉浸式的免费游戏内容的玩家来说，他们总是会有更多需求。”

“比起只是提供优秀的游戏，市场上存在更多需求，而我们认为做到这点的最佳方法与我们在韩国和中国等市场所采取的方法一样，即将更多富有创造性，有趣且独特的游戏带向市场。如果游戏足够有趣和独特，它们自然就能找到市场，并找到愿意尝试的玩家，之后我们便只需要超级服务于市场便可。通过有效地服务玩家，我们将能够做好一家公司的本职业务。”

Mahoney表示这种玩家“超级服务”也是帮助Nexon在东方市场取得巨大成功的关键，即将游戏当成是一种服务而不是“发行后就置之不理”的东西。

着急盈利是“一个基本问题”

他认为，当提到免费游戏的设计时，美国和欧洲开发者还可以从亚洲开发者身上学到许多经验教训。

西方开发者可能犯的最大问题便是始终将免费业务模式当成赚钱的方法。Mahoney表示，经过多年的反复实验，Nexon已经领悟到准寻90%不付钱的用户以及10%至11%付费用户的重要性。

他利用这些非付费玩家去创建一个活跃的社区，如果缺少了这一社区，游戏世界也就缺少了许多乐趣。

他说道：“我认为那些第一次接触免费游戏的人常会犯的一个问题便是急着从用户身上赚取利益。”

“我们从反复的实验中学到的一大经验教训便是不管做什么都必须照顾好所有玩家，即也包含90%不会花钱的玩家。你需要真正超级服务这些用户。”

“不断想办法从用户身上获取利益是一个大问题。我想这是免费游戏开发新手会犯的唯一大问题，他们将其当成是盈利的机遇，但却最终会吓跑用户。”

“用户都是聪明的，他们会意识到你在教唆他们买东西，如果不买东西就不能在游戏中继续前进，这便意味着除非他们立刻花钱，否则便不可能感受到游戏乐趣。这样就不再是一款免费游戏了，这应该说是一款付费游戏，但你却厚着脸皮说它是免费游戏。”

“对于最近一些大型发行商所推出的游戏，我发现最大的批评便是，为什么你不让我一开始就为游戏花钱，这样我便能比之后依靠支付墙消费享受到更多乐趣，因为这真的不是一款免费游戏。”

既然已经走在投资之路上，并在不断发展的免费游戏领域打滚了数十年，我相信在不远的未来Nexon一定能够成功占领西方市场。

（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）

Nexon’s lessons in free-to-play from the East

By Craig Chapple

CFO Owen Mahoney talks to Develop about the publishing giant’s plans for Western expansion, and what Europe and the US can learn from Asian developers

One of Asia’s largest games companies, Nexon has had has huge success in the free-to-play market, and the publisher is now looking to further increase its stake in the Western market.

The Japan-based firm has made a number of acquisitions in Europe and North America in recent times, making investments in the likes of Rumble Entertainment, Brian Reynolds’ SecretNewCo and John Schappert’s newly formed PC and mobile outfit Shiver Entertainment.

Despite having success in the East with its ten-year hit title MapleStory and Dungeon Fighter, the latter of which has generated over $2 billion in revenue for the company, Nexon is looking to create games better tailored for the Western market.

While the company’s combined business operations in the US and Europe total just over $100m, Nexon chief financial officer Owen Mahoney believes there is still room for growth.

A huge opportunity

Speaking to Develop, Mahoney says although the company has built up its publishing operations in the regions, the firm needs to invest in new IP created by Western developers, and with an increased understanding of three free-to-play markets and improvement in connection speeds, now is the perfect time to make its move.

“We know there’s a huge opportunity in the market, and there’s a much better understanding of free-to-play out there now. That’s number one,” he says.

“Number two is, broadband speeds do not really favour free-to-play in the western markets until recently. My connection in San Francisco is probably 5mb to 8mb on a good day. My connection in Tokyo where I have an apartment is about 100mb. So we’re talking about an order of magnitude difference.”

The rise of free-to-play in the West, spearheaded by Zynga at the height of its powers, shows that the US and Europe haven’t been completely oblivious to the opportunities in free-to-play. The success of Boss Alien’s CSR Racing and Clash of Clans by Supercell – a company which just sold a 51 per cent stake in its business for $1.5 billion – shows developers are already tasting its successes.

But Mahoney says despite a few popular titles, there is a gap in the market for online, immersive free-to-play content, rather than the arguably saturated casual sector. He explains there is a paucity of free-to-play games targeted at immersive gamers who are after a longer, more involved experienced than the traditional Western-style short play cycles.

“Overall I’d say there is much more demand from players who want to play immersive, free-to-play content,” says Mahoney.

“There’s much more of a demand for that than there is a supply of great games, and we think the best way to approach it is the same way that we have in other completive markets like Korea and China, which is to bring extremely creative, fun, unique games to the market. If they’re fun and unique, they’ll find a market, they’ll find good players who want to play them, and then we just super-serve that market really, really hard. By serving players well then we’re going to do well as a company.”

Mahoney says this ‘super-serving’ of players is why Nexon has had such big success in the East, treating games as a service, rather than “fire and forget”.

Too much monetisation ‘a fundamental mistake’

He says there are many other lessons US and European developers can learn from their Asian counterparts as well when it comes to designing free-to-play games.

The biggest mistake Western developers can make, he says, is to treat the freemium business model as a way to monetise your users all the time. Mahoney says through many years of trial and error, Nexon has learned it is important to  look after the 90 per cent of consumers that aren’t paying, as well as the ten-to-11 per cent of paying users Nexon receives.

He adds these non-paying players help build a vibrant community, without which the game world would be a lot less fun for everyone.

“I think the fundamental mistake that a lot of people who look at free-to-play for the first time make is they try too hard to monetise the user too perfectly,” he says.

“What we’ve learned from a lot of experience in trial and error is actually what you need to do is take care of all the players, meaning very much including the 90 per cent who are not buying anything. You need to really super-serve those players as well.

“It’s a big mistake to try to monetise users all the time. I would posit that maybe that’s the single biggest mistake that companies who are new to free-to-play make, they look at it as an opportunity to monetise like crazy their customer.

“Customers are smart, and they recognise they are being pushed to buy stuff, and they can’t progress in the game unless they buy stuff, which means they can’t have fun in the game unless they buy things right away. This isn’t really a free-to-play game, this is a pay-to-play game, but you’re calling it a free-to-play game.

“I’ve seen even very recently from some very big publishers, the single biggest critique of some of those games is, why don’t you just make me pay up front for the game, I’d have more fun, than to put all this stuff behind little paywalls, because it’s not really free-to-play.”

Already on the investment trail, and backed by over a decade of experience already in the burgeoning free-to-play sector, you can expect to hear more from Nexon in future as it aims to break the Western market.(source:develop-online)