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推动中国独立游戏发展的三大元素

发布时间:2016-04-26 10:25:49 Tags:,,,,

作者:Hao Wu

我已经不记得自己在中国开发了几年的游戏,并且我总是希望能够开发一款独立游戏。而在过去一年里我终于梦想成真了,我开设了一家属于自己的游戏工作室,我们也开始致力于创造第一款游戏《Stardust Command》。如今在中国做出这样的决定还是非常困难,但是过去几年里中国市场的三大改变正在掀起这里的独立游戏革命。

中国游戏经常被说成是山寨货并且回顾过去我们也很难去反驳这一说法,而最近中国独立社区的崛起将逐渐去改变这种情况。所以这股独立热潮是源起何处?谁是开发者?他们的动机是什么?我们可以在推动中国独立开发产业的三大元素中找到这些问题的答案。

1.手机游戏产业的缓慢发展

中国拥有世界上最多的手机游戏开发者,在2015年每天大概有300款手机游戏会出现在中国市场中。在中国大多数人玩电子游戏的时间都不长,所以对于很多人来说手机便是他们能负担得起的第一台用于玩电子游戏的设备。因此从2011年到2015年这里的手机游戏产业取得了巨大的发展。很多人开始选择游戏开发并不是因为他们想要创造游戏,而是因为所有人都知道手机游戏能够创造巨大的收益。到2015年末共有超过20000家公司在开发手机游戏,这一数量甚至超过世界上其它国家游戏开发公司数量的总和。在中国有句俗话说得好,林大鸟多,所以这里自然会出现各种山寨品,并为“中国制游戏”烙下不好的名声。2015年之后,中国市场被腾讯和网易这两大巨头所垄断了。这两家公司在中国市场所占的收益比例已经超过了70%,而其它公司只能去争夺剩下的30%的收益。这也导致许多媒体和一些较小的游戏工作室不得不选择关门,投资者们也不得不更谨慎地去考虑钱的投入。但并非所有中国开发者都只是为了钱去开发游戏,手机游戏产业的低潮也赶走了许多“淘金者”。而最终留在这里的便都是那些带有热情且愿意为游戏献身的人。自然地这些人会组合在一起,组成团队,工作室或者联盟并开始致力于掀起中国游戏开发的第二股浪潮。总之他们便是中国的独立开发革命分子。

2.重返中国市场的主机平台

在2015年以前,即PS4和Xbox One成为10多年来唯一能在中国合法出售的主机前,主机游戏在中国是“不合法的”。中国错失了在第一代任天堂(NES或Famicom)之前和之后的所有内容。让我们想象一下在一个没有Nintendo 64,PS1,PS2或PS3的世界会怎样吧。而任天堂真正能够在中国销售主机的唯一原因便是与当地一家名为“小霸王”的公司合作并以“学习机”的形式出售给孩子们。你可以从下图看到办公室风格的键盘是当时主机的主要卖点,而控制器是隐藏于视野之外的。

Nintendo learning machine(from gamasutra)

Nintendo learning machine(from gamasutra)

而现在解除了禁令的主机在中国开启了一个全新的市场。游戏开发者可以面向PS4和Xbox One创造游戏了,我们也希望这些游戏可以拥有英语版本从而能够向世界上的其它市场展示中国独立游戏产业的能力。

3.伟大的Gabe来到了中国

最近几年Steam在中国吸引了很多人的注意。大多数中国玩家都曾在下载《魔兽争霸2》的时候打开这个平台,即很多粉丝都受到推动去下载并使用Steam平台去玩游戏。很长一段时间Steam拥有许多中国用户,但是他们的库存中却只有1款游戏。然后《侠盗猎车手5》便出现了,有好几年中国玩家都希望能够角色扮演守法的美国公民并体验游戏中美国人的生活。《侠盗猎车手5》面向中国玩家进行了非常出色的市场营销,所以在这里开发者决定不去山寨这款游戏而是购买这款游戏。与此同时《侠盗猎车手5》的Steam版本也非常便宜(游戏邦注:那时候正处于促销阶段)。同时因为在中国的高人气,《侠盗猎车手5》还拥有完全本土化的中国版本。根据SteamSpy,在《侠盗猎车手5》的购买和玩家数量排行榜中中国市场名列第2。而虽然Steam拥有许多中国用户,但那时候他们的库存中也仍只有2款游戏可供中国用户下载。

然后Gabe Newell出现了。在看到《侠盗猎车手》在中国的出色表现后,他也开始瞄准中国用户的荷包。关于中国用户的荷包通常都不是指Visa或Master卡,而是中国本土的银联。中国人一般没有Paypal账户,他们更多地使用支付宝。在经过一次大更新后,Steam现在已经能够支持这些中国本土的支付方式了,并且在使用币种中还添加了人民币这一选择。这便是面向中国市场的区域定价,通常这也意味着中国的游戏比世界上其它市场的游戏(除了印度市场)更便宜,即比美元便宜了大概20%(但是在中国你只能使用人民币去购买游戏而不能切换成其它区域)。除此之外Gabe还提供给了中国用户“春节促销”的福利。如今中国用户已经能在Steam上找到9款游戏,并且他们在这些游戏的购买数量上的排名为第4。这对于1年前还没什么人知道Steam来说已经是非常好的成绩了。

除此之外现在的中国已经拥有一个能够支持除免费游戏以外等其它游戏的游戏市场,并且中国游戏玩家也越来越习惯于在游戏中花钱了,也就是说这一市场将只会不断向前发展。

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

The Three Factors Driving China’s Indie Revolution

by Hao Wu

I’ve been developing in China for longer than I care to remember and always wanted to develop an indie game. Over the course of the last year this dream has become a reality and I’ve opened my own game studio and we’ve begun work on our first game, Stardust Command. Until recently doing this in China would be almost impossibly but due to three major changes over the last few years China is undergoing an indie revolution.

This is may be because “Chinese games” are often portrayed as copycats and while this may be historically accurate, the recent upsurge in the Chinese indie community aims to set this right. So, where is this indie upswing coming from, who are the developers and what are their motivations? The answer to all these questions can be found in three events that have given the Chinese indie scene a much needed shot of caffeine.

1. The slowdown of mobile gaming industry

China has the largest number of mobile game developers in the world and in 2015 around 300 mobile games were released everyday into the Chinese market. You see, the majority of people in China don’t have a long video gaming history and for many, mobile phones were the first affordable device capable of playing video games. Because of this there was a huge boom in the mobile gaming industry from 2011 to 2015. Massive amounts of resources were gathered to develop games not because they wanted to make games, but because everyone knew that mobile game could make a lot of money. There were more than 20,000 companies developing mobile games by the end of 2015, this was more than the rest of the world combined! There was a saying in China, “林大鸟多”(The bigger the forest is, the stranger the bird species gets), so you get copycats, clones, and all those unethical practices that made the headlines, and gives the negative reputation to “games made in China.” After 2015 was the market was monopolized by tech giants, namely Tencent, and Netease. These two companies made up of 70% of market revenue with everyone else having to compete for the 30% leftover. This forced a lot of medium and smaller game studios to shut down and investors became much more conservative with their money. For a while things looked gloomy. But not everyone who made games in China was driven by money alone and the low tide of mobile gaming industry washed many “gold rushers” away. The people left behind were the people with passion and commitment gaming. Naturally these individuals bond together, form teams, studios, and alliances and begin working on the second wave of Chinese gaming development. In short, these are China’s indie revolutionaries.

2. The re-entry of consoles in China

Console games were “illegal” in China, up until 2015 when the PS4 and Xbox One became the first consoles legally sold in China for over a decade. The Chinese missed out on everything before the first Nintendo (NES or Famicom), and everything after it. Imagine growing up in a world without Nintendo 64, PS1, PS2, PS3 etc. The only reason that Nintendo was actually allowed to sell consoles in China was due to their partnership with a local company called “小霸王” and were sold as “Learning machines” for kids. As you can see from the picture below the office-style keyboard is pushed as the main selling point and the controllers hidden from view.
The lifting of bans on consoles opens a whole new market in China. Game developers can make games for PS4 and Xbox One, and hopefully some of them will be available in English for rest of the world to see what the Chinese indie scene is capable of.

3. Great Gaben arrives in China

Steam has gained a lot of traction in recent years in China. Most Chinese gamers had their first encounter with Steam in China while trying to download Dota2, where fans were “forced” to download and use Steam to play. For a long while, Steam had a lot of Chinese users, but they only had 1 game in their inventory! Then came GTA 5, for years the Chinese wanted to role-play law abiding American citizen and experience American life in games (mostly reckless driving, and shooting pedestrians in the head part). GTA 5 was marketed so well to the Chinese that a big portion of them decided to not pirate the game and buy the game. The steam version was also very cheap (during sales of course). GTA 5 also has a fully localized Chinese version, which contributed massively to its popularity in China. According to SteamSpy, China ranked 2nd in GTA 5 purchases and players. For a while, Steam had a lot of Chinese users, but they only had 2 games in their inventories (guess which).
QQ图片20160407001030

Then came Gabe Newell. After seeing how well GTA 5 did in China, he set his gaze on Chinese wallets. Now, Chinese wallets typically don’t contain Visa or MasterCard cards but China’s home grown Union Pay. Chinese typically don’t have a Paypal account, but instead use Alipay (from the maker of Taobao). After a massive update Steam began supporting these Chinese payment methods and also added the Chinese currency. This means regional pricing for China which typically means that Chinese games are much cheaper than rest of the world (except India) and about 20% cheaper than American Dollars (but you must be physically in China to buy games on steam with Chinese Yuan, so don’t switch your Steam region yet!). Not only that but Gabe greeted Chinese people with “Chinese New Year Sales”. Now, Chinese users average 9 games on steam and ranked number 4 in purchases. That’s not bad considering a year ago no one really knew what Steam was!

The takeaway from all of this is that China now has a games market capable of supporting more than just free-to-play games and as Chinese gamers become more and more accustomed to paying, the market will only grow. We’ll be charting out progress with Stardust Command on our Twitter and Facebook.(source:Gamasutra

 


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