作者：Dan Pearson

当Wargaming在2013年宣称将把《坦克世界》带到Xbox时，有人说这是西方市场中主机上的免费游戏的新一轮黎明—-因为在那之前该市场一直在抵制着其势不可挡的市场力量。虽然已经在PC上获得了巨大的成功，拥有大量忠实的用户，但是《坦克世界》还是想结合市场营销常识与强大的信誉去征服主机世界。

两年半之后，虽然在Xbox和PlayStation上都出现了一些出色的免费游戏，但《坦克世界》仍然是这里最受欢迎的游戏之一，并且也收到了许多评论，其最近问世的Xbox One版本更是被认为是最出色的的一个版本。现在，其创始人Victor Kislyi更是在TGS展会上宣称该游戏将进军PS4平台，并进一步拉拢其它平台上的用户。

我们与该公司欧洲分部的市场营销和通讯总监Keith Anderson（游戏邦注：他曾在艺电，Lionhead和Wizards of the Coast等公司工作过）就其准备发行《战舰世界》以及将其带到索尼平台的一些计划展开讨论。

处理Wargaming在欧洲市场的事物应该不是件简单的任务，这是否代表这是你们公司所面临的最大市场？

“这主要取决于你的目标。对于《坦克世界》来说，这里是第二大区域，即我们是这款游戏面向全球市场的第二大主机区域。显然，如果你着眼于《坦克世界》所创造的数据，你便会向东边市场拓展，特别是CIS区域（即包括俄罗斯,乌克兰,哈萨克斯坦等中亚国家），这里也是《坦克世界》的家乡，我们可以看到在这里这款游戏的玩家数量在不断增加。显然美国拥有一个非常强大的主机市场。不过我们认为欧洲在这些区域中的表现都不错，而真正让我们感到兴奋的还是《战舰世界》现在在欧洲的发展。我们觉得自己能够有效地完成游戏的公测，并且非常期待这款游戏的最终发行。显然我们在欧洲已经拥有一些期盼着这款游戏的问世的忠实粉丝。

我们想知道你是否是战争游戏的忠实粉丝，如果你喜欢我们创造的这类型游戏，你便一定会喜欢《战舰世界》。我们希望给予那些已经不再玩《坦克世界》的玩家重新回来并开始尝试一些新内容的机会。这款游戏会让他们觉得熟悉，同时它也会呈现出一些完全不同的策略，并且玩家能够在此控制这些巨大的舰船。这是与《坦克世界》完全不同的体验，但同时这也会带给玩家有趣的战争游戏体验。

同时我们也认为这款游戏能够为WarGaming大家庭吸引全新的玩家，在二战期间有许多国家并未拥有强大的坦克营，但它们却拥有海军，所以我们认为这款游戏能够有效引起这些玩家的共鸣。而游戏中一些来自二战的巨大舰船的图像也非常形象化。就像Warspite，Bismarck和Tirpitz等战舰都能够有效吸引一些新玩家的加入。”

这真的很有趣，即让那些来自主要经历海战的国家的玩家觉得游戏与自己相关而自然被吸引。你是否看过像这样的区域忠诚度？你是否认为德国玩家更倾向于使用德国坦克，或者美国玩家更倾向于使用美国硬件？

“我们的确看过这样的区域忠诚度，特别是在提到高档汽车时。我们注意到玩家总是更倾向于购买来自自己国家的船只或坦克。但当玩家开始游戏并前进时，我们注意到他们也会开始走向不同区域。这便是游戏玩法的多样性，你将能够看到一些来自不同国家的玩家的不同游戏风格。

特别是在《战舰世界》中，我们是先从美国和日本海军开始的，因为我们想要推动这款游戏在这两个区域中的发展。坦克为我们开拓了欧洲和CIS市场，但我们也看到了《战舰世界》在亚洲市场的发展机遇。同时在美国历史中，美国舰队所参与的太平洋战争也给美国人民留下了深刻印象，所以我们发现美国玩家对于《战舰世界》拥有较高的反响度。”

基于这三条开发主线，如果将坦克，飞机和战舰结合在一起便能形成一个强大的完整体。你们是否讨论过这种情况？

“是的，我们讨论并考虑过这样的情况。但是我们现在并未这么做，因为它们的游戏玩法都是不同的。《坦克世界》需要的是一张8×8千米的地图，《战机世界》需要的是16×16千米的地图，而《战舰世界》则需要一张32×32千米的地图。所以单纯从游戏维度来，如果想要创造一个动态游戏玩法与多元的游戏机制，我们便很难将所有的这些战斗区域整合到同一款游戏中。所以虽然我们想过这种可能性，但是我们却并未找到能够解决这样问题的方法。所以到现在为止我们还未这么做过。我只能说我们正竭尽全力地专注于创造每个战斗领域中最出色的游戏。”

world of warships(from gamesindustry)

欧洲是一个让人棘手的市场，特别是当你在运行一款MMO游戏或致力于一款免费游戏时。基于常见的分裂和本土化问题，你将面对较高的用户获取成本与较低的ARPU数值，至少在手机平台是如此。你的经历是否也是如此呢？

“显然我们刚刚接近主机平台，而从消费上看来这是一个与PC完全不同的市场。带着《坦克世界》我们来到了手机平台，虽然一开始只拥有少量的评论，但现在我们在整个欧洲市场已经拥有不错的ARPU。作为一款游戏，坦克世界已经红了4年了。当我们在4年前创建WarGaming时，我们一直都在追赶着《坦克世界》的发展。我们的游戏及其游戏玩法已经吸引了玩家的注意，我们也非常幸运能够向外扩展。所以你需要先将一款优秀的游戏带到市场，并支持游戏背后的社区，确保这些玩家们有理由继续留在游戏中不断挑战，我们也是如此才拥有这些追随游戏多年的玩家。这意味着我们的ARPU非常健康。此外，这也提供给我们足够强大的基础去确保我们能够继续发展。不管是对于《坦克世界》还是《战舰世界》，这都是我们现在所坚持做的事。

所以对于我们来说欧洲是一个非常健康的市场也是一个充满活力的市场。我们已经在这个市场站稳了脚跟。所以我们发现随着玩家基础的不断成熟，我们也能够寻找一些帮助他们更好地享受游戏的方法，并鼓励他们在游戏中消费更多钱—-因为这些玩家真的很喜欢游戏以及游戏体验。而我们也并未止步于此。我们一直继续推动着游戏的发展。单单今年我们便参加了欧洲的两个电视活动，即基于20个国家，7种语言。我们也计划带着《坦克世界》参加第四季度的电视活动。同时我们也使用了YouTube Gaming服务，并积极参与了他们的全新频道。但这并不是说我们放弃了像Twitch等其它平台。我们始终都在寻找推动发展并获取新用户的新领域。

从中也可以看出我们计划前往更多平台。几年前，我们只有面向一个平台的唯一一款游戏。而现在我们已经出现在多个平台上，并且也创造了多款游戏，同时也成立了WarGaming Labs。所以我们是以一种非常健康的姿态去巩固我们的核心产品，但同时我们也不断推动着游戏在免费市场的发展以及我们在此的用户获取。如此我们便能够向玩家展现一款他们喜欢的高质量产品，而他们也会给予我们相应的奖励。”

说到不断发展的市场，你提到接触一些全新的用户。在我看来Wargaming游戏的目标用户群体已经非常明确了：主要是18至45岁的男性玩家。你们是否尝试着进行怎样的扩展，或者你们是否制定了怎样的计划去吸引不同的用户群体？你是否认为这是有价值的尝试，或者这只是在花些冤枉钱而已？

“不是这样的，扩展目标用户始终是一件值得做的事，从表面看来你只是获得一些新用户，但通常情况下你都需要为这些用户去优化自己的游戏。当我们着眼于目标用户时，我们知道哪些属于核心用户，没错，就是你说的那些男性玩家。但是我们现在想要做的是发展我们在各个平台上的用户。所以当我们想要转向Xbox等平台时，我们便需要调整游戏去适应这些平台，从而发展我们的用户群体。

转向主机也是如此。拥有一款运行多年的游戏的有趣之处是，我们也开始看到用户的变化了。所以我们需要讨论‘我们该如何让父子们一起玩游戏，我们该如何将游戏变成是对他们来说具有奖励性的体验？’虽然我们拥有许多较年长的玩家，但事实上我们拥有三大用户群体，即较年轻的第一人称射击游戏导向型玩家，中年的稳定玩家以及较年长的军事历史爱好者。我们也发现许多较年长的玩家开始与他们的孩子一起玩游戏，这真的是一个非常有趣的发现。

world of warplanes(from gamesindustry)

所以我们考虑了各种选择，即关于如何使用我们多个品牌去瞄准全新用户，如何将游戏带到不同的平台上并呈现出符合相应平台的体验。而《World of Dancing Unicorns》便是我们暂时不考虑的内容。”

尽管这可能会非常有趣。

“对于我们当前的游戏，我们清楚其中的核心是什么。我们真正迫切的是发展WarGaming Labs。这么做能够让我们着眼于其它游戏理念，并拥有属于自己的真正的全球发行平台，然后帮助一些新开发者将他们的新游戏，新理念带到市场上。这些游戏有可能瞄准的是那些我们未曾考虑过的全新玩家。而关于WarGaming的发展的一个要点是，现在的我们是作为真正的全球发行商之一。我们不断发展自己在CIS，亚洲，欧洲以及北美的发行平台。我们知道免费的WarGaming游戏已经在盒装产品领域站稳了脚跟。我们也获得了一些曾经在世界各地的大型且优秀的游戏公司工作过的人才。我们认为在WafGaming Labs的帮助下，我们一定能够迎来全新的发展机遇，全新的游戏以及全新的潜在用户。”

我认为《Masters of Orion》便是这一方向上一个有趣的转变。这是一个人们所认识的名字，这也是跳脱舒适区的第一步。而这是否是因为你们想要在业务模式和内容提供方面丰富游戏类别？或者这是你们巩固业务的一种方式？对于这样的IP是否带有任何特定的情感？

“我认为我们早就想要向不同区域扩展了。而关于《Masters of Orion》的真相其实是，它是Victor最喜欢的一款游戏。Wargaming是从策略类型起步的，而Victor的很多灵感都是来自自己的年轻时光。当雅达利衰败时，对于他来说最大的机遇便是去拯救游戏，即找到一家能够创造他喜欢的游戏的工作室。说实话，我认为这是一个充满热情的项目，并且这也非常适合我们公司，这是推动像Wargaming Labs这也的初创内容起步的一种有效方法。”

你们似乎一直与微软维持着一种成功的合作关系。因为全新主机时代的到来，一些缺口也逐渐被填满，但是PS4缺仍是当下最成功的主机平台。你们与微软签订的是终身合同吗？我们是否能够看到你们将品牌进一步扩展到其它设备上？或者你们会至始至终只与微软合作？

“关于你的问题，我想骄傲地宣称我们将前往Playstation 4了。Victor将出席东京游戏展并会登上索尼的舞台宣称《坦克世界》将进军Playstation 4。并且像往常一样，我们将调整游戏去适应这一平台。除了在Playstation 4上创造最吸引人的视觉效果外，我们还会设定专属于该平台的功能，如完整的双重冲击控制集合。

对于我们来说这是一次重要的决定，我们也非常开心能够这么做。这也将兑现我们要把游戏带到更多平台上的承诺。除此之外，所有拥有PSN账号的用户都能在Playstation 4上免费玩《坦克世界》。所以你即使没有Playstation Plus账号也能玩这款游戏。

在Xbox，不管是360还是Xbox One，我们的表现都不错，但对于我们来说真正有趣的是与索尼的合作，即将游戏带到PS4上。当我们公开这一消息时我们将得到Playstation玩家的欢迎，因为他们将基于专属于PS4的服务而免费获得坦克，而如果他们拥有Playstation plus服务的话便能够获得一些额外时间。我们同时也会在Playstation上呈现两张新地图，即Playstation上的玩家将能够跳进其中一个地图并开始游戏。所以我们真的非常开心能够与索尼展开合作。”

似乎主机将成为你们未来的业务方向。这是否意味着《战舰世界》也会加入这一行动？

“如今关于产品方面我们已经没有其它可分享的新内容了。我将重新回去迭代我之前所说的内容。我们承诺会将最优秀的游戏带给更多平台上的不同玩家。当我们把游戏带到这些平台上时，我们会确保这也是针对于该平台的特殊体验。就像我们的《坦克世界》在One和PS4上所做的那样。但对于我们的其它作品却还没有其它消息。我们现在真正专注的是发行PC版本的《战舰世界》。而现在一切已经都准备好了，只剩启动马达了。对于PC版本的《战舰世界》我们还有很多要做的事，但同时我们也不会错过其它任何产品的全新发展机遇。”

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Wargaming “Our ARPUs are very, very healthy”

By Dan Pearson

When Wargaming announced in 2013 that they’d be bringing World of Tanks to the Xbox, it was taken by many as being a herald of a new dawn for free to play on console in the West – a market which had so far stubbornly resisted its overwhelming market forces. Already a huge success on PC, with a well engaged audience, both time and cash rich, World of Tanks had the combination of marketing nous and core credibility to change the minds of a console generation.

Two and a half years later and there have been many notable additions to the free-to-play stable, on both Xbox and PlayStation, but World of Tanks remains one of the most popular and well received by critics, with the recent Xbox One edition reckoned by many to be the best available. Now, founder Victor Kislyi has announced onstage at TGS that the shooter will be coming to PS4 too, expanding the company’s ambitions to yet another audience.

We spoke to Marketing and Communications Director for Europe Keith Anderson, whose career involves stints at EA, Lionhead and Wizards of the Coast, for an update on the company’s plans as it prepares to launch World of Warships and bring its guns to bear on Sony’s platform.

Being given the keys to Wargaming’s European Empire is no small deal – does it represent the biggest market for the company as a whole?

“Well, it depends what you’re looking at. We’re the number two region globally, for World of Tanks. We’re the number two region globally for consoles. Obviously, if you look at numbers for World of Tanks, the further east you go, into the CIS region in particular, which is the homeland of World of Tanks, you see the numbers significantly increase there. Obviously America’s got a very, very strong console market. But we think Europe performs very well in both those areas, and what we’re really excited about is the growth we’re seeing right now for World of Warships in Europe. We definitely feel we’re leading the way through open beta, and we expect very big things for launch. We’ve obviously got some very keen naval enthusiasts in Europe, and they’re certainly showing it in World of Warships.

“We want to make sure that if you’re a war gaming enthusiast, if you love the kind of games we make, you’ll definitely love World of Warships. We want to give lapsed players, players who have stopped playing Tanks for a while now, the opportunity to come back and start something new. It’ll feel familiar to them, and at the same time it provides a completely different strategic take on- with nova warfare, with controlling these huge, colossal, mega warships. It’s a very different experience to Tanks but it’s a phenomenally good war gaming experience.

“Then what we’re also looking at is opportunities to bring new players into the WarGaming family, and there’s many countries that didn’t have strong tank battalions during World War II, but had great navies, and we’re seeing uptake from these players. There’s something about images of the big ships from World War II that is just so iconic. The Warspite, the Bismarck, the Tirpitz, that’s attracting a new audience in too, so we’re really excited about that.”

That’s an interesting point, attracting new players because they feel it’s more relevant to them, coming from a country that was more involved in naval warfare than aircraft or tanks. Do you see much regional loyalty like that? Do you see German players predominantly using German Tanks, or American players predominantly using American hardware?

“We do see regional loyalty, especially when it comes to premium vehicles. We do notice that players absolutely like to invest in vessels or Tanks from their country. But that said, when players start playing the game and progressing, we do notice that they start progressing across other trees. It’s great to see the diversity of game play, and different player styles that some of the different nations and trees give you.

“For World of Warships, in particular, we did start off with the American and Japanese Navies, because we wanted to invest in growth regions for World of Warships. Tanks does amazingly strong for us in Europe and CIS, but we saw a massive opportunity to engage an Asian audience with World of Warships, and that’s working out very well for us. Likewise, the Pacific engagement with American fleet were massive and iconic in American history, and we’re seeing American players respond very well to World of Warships on that front too.”

The logical conclusion to these three strands of development; Tanks, Warplanes and Warships, would seem to be a single online universe where they’re all combined. Is that something that’s been discussed?

“It’s definitely something that’s been discussed and thought about. It’s not being done now, and the primary reason for that is because the games play very differently. For World of Tanks, a map is 8×8 kilometers. For World of Warplanes, a map is 16×16. And for World of Warships, it’s 32×32. So, just the sheer dimensions of the game create a diversity of game play and a difference in mechanics that makes it very hard to respect the game play of each of these different fields of combat and bring them together in a single game. So, the guys have definitely thought about it, but as of yet we haven’t got a solution to it. So for now, the answer would be no, it’s not on the table. I can just say that we’re absolutely focused on making the best game in each of these fields that we can, and we think we’re doing that absolutely with the launch of World of Warships. But it’s definitely something that’s been thought about.”

Europe is a tricky market, particularly when you’re running an MMO or working in free to play. On top of the usual fragmentation and localisation issues, you have higher user acquisition costs and lower ARPU rates, at least on mobile. Have your experiences reflected that?

“Well, we’ve just gone onto console, obviously, and that’s a very different market in terms of spending than PC. We’re on mobile, with World of Tanks, and starting off from some of the first comments you made there about Europe, we find that we have very healthy ARPU rates across Europe. World of Tanks as a game has been great for four years now. When we started WarGaming, before my time four years ago, you talk to the veterans of the company from back then, and the company has always been chasing the growth of World of Tanks. Our game, our game play has really appealed to its audience, and we’ve been very fortunate to be able to grow from the core outwards. So you bring a great game to the market, you support the community that’s behind your game, you make sure that they’ve got every reason to stay on board and keep playing, and we’ve seen our fans now persist over the years. That means that our ARPUs are very, very healthy. In addition, that gives us a lot of foundation to go and invest very heavily, to make sure that we keep on growing. And that’s what we’re doing right now, across Tanks, across Warships.

“So, for us Europe’s a very, very healthy market, it’s a vibrant market. We’re stabilizing right now. So we’re finding that as our audience matures, we’re able to find ways that are great for them to enjoy the game more, and that encourages them to spend more in the game. Because they’re really enjoying it, and they’re loving the experience. What we’re definitely not doing is resting on our laurels. We’re driving growth very aggressively. We’ve engaged in two TV campaigns across Europe already this year, in twenty countries and in seven languages. We’ve got a massive Q4 TV campaign for Tanks planned. We’re working with YouTube Gaming right now, and investing very heavily in their new channel. And that’s not to say we’re not investing in the other channels at the same time, like Twitch, for instance. We are. It’s just that we’re always looking for new areas to grow, we’re looking for new areas to acquire new audiences.

“I think that shows in our strategy as well going to more platforms. A few years back, we were one game on one platform. Now, we’re on multiple platforms, we’ve got multiple games in our portfolio, we’ve just announced things like WarGaming Labs. So, we’re in a very healthy position of being able to stabilize our core products, but absolutely being able to still push for growth, and push for acquisition, in a free to play market that we feel we understand very well. Ultimately we’re able to deliver a quality product to our players, and they love it, and they reward us for that. I don’t think you can ask for more.”

Talking about growing markets, you mentioned reaching new people. I imagine that demographics for Wargaming titles have been fairly predictable, along the lines of an awful lot of games of this type: largely male, 18-45. I presume that’s probably true going forward. Is that something that you’re going to try to expand, have you got any plans to try and engage different demographics? Do you think that’s a worthwhile thing, or is it going to be just throwing good money after bad?

“No, broadening a demographic is always a great thing to do, because obviously you’re going to gain new audiences, but often you have to modify your game for that audience. And when we look at our demographics, we know who the heartland of our player is, which you’re right, it’s a largely male player. But what we’re looking to do is grow our audience across platforms. So, when we look to move to platforms like the Xbox, obviously we change our game and make our game native to that platform, and we grow our audience there.

“The same with moving blitz to console. One of the interesting things about having a game that’s now been running for multiple years, is we start to see our audience evolve. So we’re having discussions internally to say, “How do we get fathers and sons playing together, and how do we make this a rewarding experience for them?” Because we’re seeing a lot of our older gamers- and we do have quite a lot of older audience in World of Tanks, we’ve got three key audiences, our younger, more first person shooter oriented gamer, our middle aged, stable gamer, and our senior, military historian enthusiasts. We’re seeing a lot of our older gamers starting to play with their kids, and this is a great thing to see.

“So, we’re looking at a lot of options of, how do we target new audiences with our brands, not just with the same brand, how do we take it to different platforms and give them an experience that’s relevant to their platform and grow it that way. I think one of the things that we won’t be looking to do very soon is World of Dancing Unicorns…”

Although that would be amazing.

“We know where our heartland is, for our current portfolio. But what we are really looking forward to is growing WarGaming Labs. What this does, it allows us to look at the other ideas for games that people have out there, and take our truly global publishing platform and help new games, new ideas, new developers bring their products to market. And these might be games targeting new audiences that we haven’t thought about, because it’s not in our DNA. One of the things about the growth of WarGaming is, we’re one of the only truly global publishers out there right now. We’ve grown our own publishing platform through CIS, through Asia, through Europe, through North America. We know free to play WarGaming started its roots in box product. We’ve got professionals that have worked at some of the biggest and best gaming companies in the world. We certainly think that with WarGaming Labs we can absolutely look at new growth opportunities, new games, and absolutely new potential audiences, with this kind of project.”

I think Masters of Orion is an interesting shift in that direction, actually. It’s a known name, it’s a first step outside of that comfort zone in some respects. Was that motivated by a desire to just diversify the catalog, in terms of business model and what you’re offering? Is that a way to stabilize the business, or was there any particular emotional attachment to that IP?

“I reckon that there has been the strategy in mind that we’re looking to grow into different areas. But I think the real truth of Master of Orion is, it’s one of Victor’s favorite games. Wargaming did start off very much in the strategy genre, and I know that Victor was inspired in his younger years, by Master of Orion. I think that when Atari collapsed, it was the ideal opportunity for him to step in and save the franchise, and get a studio that he liked to make a game that he loved. Honestly, I think it’s a project of passion, but I think it’s also a great fit for us, and it’s a great way for us to start off an initiative like Wargaming Labs.”

You seem to have a very successful ongoing partnership with Microsoft. In terms of the new generation of consoles, it’s closed some of the gap now, but PS4 is still certainly the most successful console in the generation at the moment. Is your contract with Microsoft an exclusive lifetime contract? Can we ever expect to see the brand spreading onto other machines, or is it just going to be Microsoft all the way forward?

“So, in answer to your question, we’re very proud to announce that we are coming to Playstation 4. Victor will be on stage at the Tokyo game show, so by the time the embargo lifts, he’ll have gotten on stage with Sony, and will have announced World of Tanks on Playstation 4. As always, we will be adapting the game to meet the platform. So, in addition to making the most outstanding visuals on Playstation 4, we’ll have platforming exclusive features, including complete dual shock controller integration.

“It’s a pretty awesome announcement for us to make, we’re very excited to do it. It shows our commitment to bringing our games to multiple platforms, to audiences wherever they’re going to be. In addition to that, World of Tanks on Playstation 4 will be free to play to all PSN account holders. So you will not require a Playstation Plus account to play World of Tanks.

“We’re doing exceptionally good business on the Xbox, on both the 360 and the Xbox One, but for us it’s really exciting to be engaging with Sony, to bring the game to the PS4. We will be having a few very good deals for PlayStation players when we make the announcement, they get a free premium tank with PS4 exclusive camo, they’ll get premium time if they’re a PlayStation plus holder when the game launches, all that kind of thing. Then for an exclusive limited time, we’ll also have two new maps on the PlayStation, which players on the PlayStation will be able to jump into and play first. So we’re very excited about this new partnership with Sony.”

That seems like a real commitment to consoles as a future line of business. Does that mean we’ll see Warships follow suit?

“We’ve got no other news to share, at this stage, about our products. I’ll just go back and reiterate what I said before. We are committed to bringing our great games to as many players across as many platforms as possible where it makes sense to do so. And when we bring games to these platforms, we ensure that we bring a unique experience to that platform. So we’re committed to that, I think we’ve showed that for Tanks on the One and the PS4. But we’ve go no other big news on our other products. I think we’re really focusing right now is getting the PC launch of World of Warships underway. It’s actions stations, it’s full steam ahead. We’ve got a lot to do still on PC for world of Warships, but we won’t be closing the door on any new opportunities for any of our products.”(source:gamesindustry)