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游戏行业可以从Mark Pincus身上获得什么启示?

发布时间:2014-06-11 10:50:59 Tags:,,,,

作者:Dean Takahashi

本周见证了Zynga的守护者的变更,即其创始人Mark Pincus放弃了主导角色,而他的继承者Don Mattrick获得了对这间社交游戏巨头的控制权。这一改变对于不得不做出这样选择的Pincus来说是个巨大的转折点。但这可能正是一个正确的选择,并且是不断变化的游戏产业的自然秩序的一部分。

Mark Pincus(from techcn)

Mark Pincus(from techcn)

Pincus是一位经验丰富的企业家,他在过去已经卖掉了好几家公司。他是少数在公司上市后还紧握住表决控制权的连续创始人之一。但该公司却因为未能成功过度到休闲手机游戏而遭遇了重创,所以他便找到了Mattrick,这位来自微软Xbox和艺电等硬核游戏公司的老手。不过情况有所改进,根据最新报道,Pincus决定摘下其首席产品执行官的帽子,并变成一位不具有行政职能的总裁。而Mattrick将接替他的位置。

Pincus已经掌管Zynga 7年了。根据天普大学和密苏里大学在2013年的一份研究,如果CEO的执政时间越长,他/她便越难对市场状况和消费者的喜好做出回应,并最终对公司的运行造成不利影响。根据对2000年至2010年美国365家公司的调查,CEO的平均执政时间是7.6年。最佳时间长度是4.8年。世界大企业联合会发现,自2000年到2012年,平均CEO的任职时间从10年下降到了8.1年。Pincus表示他已经决定是时候做出这一改变。

所以说Pincus是一个出色的管理者,特别是作为硅谷的一位公司创始人。当Facebook决定在社交网站上开启一个应用层面时,他便明确了一项可行的社交业务。对于《Zynga Poker》,Pincus创造了虚拟商品和微交易去支持这么一项免费游戏服务。他更是在无数想要成为最大的社交网站赢家的激烈竞争中脱颖而出。

Zynga创造了像《FarmVille》,《CityVille》以及《FrontieVille》等热门游戏。它吸引了数十亿玩家的注意,并将许多非游戏玩家变成休闲玩家。这推动着Pincus迫切想要通过游戏去改变世界。Zynga的出现使得传统的游戏产业领导者开始自愧不如。像艺电,THQ以及动视等等公司不能在快速发展的游戏平台上赶超Zynga。虽然这些公司中的许多人觉得Pincus很愚蠢,根本就不懂游戏,并认为他的做法是不利于游戏产业的发展。但事实上他们却没办法打败他。

但是Facebook阻止了Zynga的驰骋,并以避免Zynga过多的垃圾邮件以及拯救自身的社交网站为由去抵制它。之后Facebook自身也因为免费手机游戏的苏醒而遭遇重创,而Zynga也未做好迎接这一变化的准备。那时候,Pincus做出了一个明智的决定,先从iPhone上收手,并在Facebook上下双倍赌注。而像SGN等不幸的公司则在水还很浅的时候就一头栽进了手机领域。

但是在其他人热火如荼地学习如何在手机领域获取利益时,Zynga却找不到一款能够帮助他们赚钱的热门游戏。它的发展顶峰出现在2011年末,即它刚刚上市的时候。尽管他并未能避免收益下降对于公司价值的影响,但是Pincus还是想办法在首次公开募股时筹集到了10亿美元。当Zynga的用户和收益开始出现自由下降的时候,这些战争基金也变得没有了价值。

当Mattrick于2013年7月加入时,Zynga正处在向手机领域转变的中间阶段。在这一过程中它更是裁掉了1/3的员工,这也是因为下降的收益早已不能维持一支巨大的团队。像Supercell,GungHo Entertainment,King,Kabam以及MachineZone等在手机领域快速发展的竞争者们都清楚Zynga这一失败的机遇成本。为了尝试改变游戏,Mattrick花了5.27亿美元收购NaturaMotion(游戏邦注:一家具有高端图像的手机游戏巨头公司)。

今年春天,Zynga利用全新版本的《Zynga Poker》,《Words With Friends》和《FarmVille》大举进军手机领域。如果这些游戏大受欢迎,他们便可以将Zynga带向正确的方向。这也将提供给Mattrick更多时间去思考一些全新的内容。

Mattrick的任期快要满一年了。而在到达其CEO期满的时候还有6年多时间。他还吸纳了一位全新的游戏工作室负责人Alex Garden,他也是前微软的Xbox Live负责人。Garden想要做出改变。而Mattrick有效地发挥着自己管理者的作用,带来了许多优秀的人才。他将赌注压在了其它公司中一些很棒的人身上。

Zynga的复苏以及对于市场的重新占领可能会随着时间的发展而延伸。但该公司不可能永远屹立着。与此同时它的竞争对手也会继续在社交领域中打滚着。一些失意的员工也可能会逃向其它公司。

Pincus是否会在适当的时候做出牺牲去挽救那些自己所创造的内容?我们将在之后的几个月或几年时间内看到结果。Zynga是绝对有可能复苏的,但这需要花费一些时间。Pincus获得了资金去推动公司的发展,而Mattrick将代替他完成剩下的工作。

游戏产业中的领导者们可以从Pincus,这位从未被当成是有远见的游戏产业人士身上学到许多。他们可以学习他的成功也可以学习他的失败。他们还可以向他学习何时该果断地退居幕后,并让其他人接替自己完成剩下的工作。

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

The DeanBeat: What the game industry learned from Mark Pincus

By Dean Takahashi

This week saw a changing of the guard at Zynga, as founder Mark Pincus gave up his operating role while his successor, Don Mattrick, consolidated his control of the social gaming giant. The change was a big milestone for Pincus, who didn’t have to make such a move. But it was probably the right thing to do, and it is part of the natural order of things in gaming, where change is constant.

Pincus is a veteran entrepreneur who had been thrown out of past companies. He was one of those rare serial founders who held on to voting control of his company even after it went public. But the company’s results were so marred by the failed transition to casual mobile games that he brought in Mattrick, a veteran of hardcore game companies such as Microsoft Xbox and Electronic Arts, to right the ship. Things have been improving, and with the latest positive quarterly report, Pincus surrendered his chief product officer title and became a non-executive chairman. Mattrick brought in his own crew.

Pincus ran Zynga for seven years. A 2013 study by Temple University and the University of Missouri found that the longer a CEO is in power, the more likely he or she is to stop reacting to market conditions and customer desires, ultimately hurting a company’s performance. The average CEO holds office for 7.6 years, based on a review of 365 U.S. companies from 2000 to 2010. The optimal length is 4.8 years. The Conference Board found that average CEO tenure had dropped from 10 years to 8.1 years from 2000 to 2012. Pincus said he made his own decision that the time was right to change.

So Pincus had a good run, especially for a founder in Silicon Valley. He figured out a viable social gaming business when Facebook decided to open up an application layer on its social network. With Zynga Poker, Pincus found that virtual goods and micro-transactions could support a free-to-play game-as-a-service. He survived a huge wave of competitors that were in a race to become the biggest social network players.

Zynga came up with hits like FarmVille, CityVille, and FrontierVille. It amassed a billion players and turned nongamers into casual players. And it gave Pincus the ambition and vision to change the world through play. Zynga put the traditional game industry’s leaders to shame. The others, like Electronic Arts, THQ, Activision and many others, couldn’t figure out how to catch up with Zynga on the fastest-growing game platform in history. A lot of those people thought that Pincus was stupid, didn’t understand games, and was bad for the industry. Yet they couldn’t beat him.

But Facebook pulled the plug on Zynga and rebooted itself in the name of saving its larger social network from excessive Zynga spam. And then Facebook itself was disrupted by a resurgence in free-to-play mobile gaming, Zynga wasn’t ready. Pincus had made the wise decision (at the time) to pull back from the iPhone and double down on Facebook. Other unfortunate companies like SGN dove headfirst into mobile too early, when the water was too shallow.

But as others learned how to make money at mobile, Zynga wasn’t finding the right hits that could monetize. Its growth peaked at the end of 2011, right about the time it went public. But even though he didn’t avoid a train wreck in earnings that cratered the company’s value, Pincus managed to raise a billion dollars in an initial public offering. That war chest became invaluable as Zynga’s users and revenues went into a free fall.

By the time Mattrick joined in July 2013, Zynga was in the midst of a full transition to mobile. But it was trying to do so as it was cutting a third of its employees, as its declining revenues could no longer support a huge team. The opportunity cost of this failure was clear as rivals like Supercell, GungHo Entertainment, King, Kabam, and MachineZone grew faster in mobile. To try to change the game, Mattrick used a chunk of the war chest to buy NaturalMotion, one of the leaders in mobile games with high-end graphics, for $527 million.

This spring, Zynga is renewing its assault on mobile with new versions of Zynga Poker, Words With Friends, and FarmVille. If those games are hits, they could move the needle for Zynga in the positive direction. That will give Mattrick more time to come up with brand new franchises.

Mattrick is close to a year into his tenure. He’ll have about six more years before he hits his CEO half-life. He has reset the clock by bringing in a new game studios chief, Alex Garden, former head of Microsoft’s Xbox Live. Garden is bound to make his own changes. Mattrick has pretty much wiped the slate clean in management and brought in all of his own people. It is a calculated bet on people who thrived in other companies.

Zynga’s time to recover and retake the market will likely be stretched out over time. But the company doesn’t have forever. In the meantime, rivals will continue to try to take away its crown in social. Frustrated employees will defect to other companies.

Did Pincus give up the reins at the right time, so that he could save the thing that he created? We’ll find out in the coming months and years. It’s not impossible to turn around Zynga, but its’ going to be a lot of work. Pincus gets credit for getting the company half way there, and Mattrick will have to finish the job.

There are a lot of things that the game industry’s leaders could learn from Pincus, who never really got recognition as a game visionary. They can learn from his successes and his failures. They can also learn when it is right to step back and let somebody else do the job.(source:venturebeat)

 


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