本文原作者Christopher Dring 译者ciel chen

Ian Chamber作为Mind Candy的CEO正努力地将这家创造了《Moshi Monsters》的公司从悬崖边上解救上来

Ian Chamber并不想谈论公司最近的历史

“我们已经谈过很多过去了，”他坐在位于伦敦总部的公司董事会会议室里跟我们这样说道。“公司在过去经历了艰难的几年，这并不是秘密。我是一年前加入到公司的，是为了公司未来而来的。”

Chamber有着如此积极的向往是有充分理由的。在过去的几年里，Mind Candy公司没有被老天眷顾。公司曾经创作了《Moshi Monsters》，这款数字网络儿童游戏/平台曾为公司带来过利润丰厚的品牌授权业务。很多年来，它都一直是儿童市场上的领军角色，它催生了与之相关的书籍、玩具、服装以及各种各样的东西。该公司的创始人Michael Acton-Smith包揽了无数奖项。他和他的公司已然曾是一个真正的英国成功故事。

《Mind Candy》是不是进入智能手机市场的步伐迈得太慢了？也许。但不管怎样，随着面向儿童的其他产品逐渐增多，这个品牌开始在市场上沉溺踪迹。玩具销量大幅下降、用户数量骤减，而《Mind Candy》想实现多元化的努力——包括其力作《World Of Warriors（勇士世界）》最后没能得到足够的资金来弥补失去的收入。

12个月前，当Chambers担任这家公司的CEO时，这家公司正欠着债务无力偿还，并且面临破产的威胁。

“我不会从事一项我觉得没有潜力的业务，”Chambers，他曾经在很多游戏公司呆过，包括Ubisoft、IGN和GAME，“我来的时候清楚地知道这家公司所处的境地。请记住，我们还有每个月25万的孩子们在玩着《Moshi》的页游——它还有希望复活的。”

“媒体上报道的故事都围绕着债务。就和其他正在成长的企业一样，它也在寻求融资。所以这笔债务是很正常的。在这种情况下，你需要展示出来的是进步。”

Chambers就在这上面（展示进步）成功了。债务已经重组，新的投资已经投入到业务中（达到150万美元），投资者也对公司充满了信息。那么，到底是什么让有钱人相信说Mind Candy是值得拯救的呢？

“我们创造了一个新的愿景，”Chambers坚持道，我们问他：“‘《Mind Candy》的特别指出在哪？’他回到说特别在它能创造世界。

“我们试图想要创建一个生态系统。中心是我们的业务线：‘创造激发想象力的世界。’然后关键内容有人物、故事、技术、人性化的大家庭。如果我们对IP有这种权利，那么我们在它创造点什么好呢？”

“我们想要的不仅仅是单件产品。人们经常会对我们说他们看过我们的新的《Petlandia》书。但是《Petlandia》不仅仅是一本书而已。它就是我们正在创造的产品之一。”

啊是了——《Petlandia》。这是一个网络概念游戏，在这里人们可以创造出虚拟的宠物。已经有65万人玩了这个游戏了，而Mind Candy通过称之为‘人性化平台’已经开始盈利了。公司还退出了定制版实体书籍，里面的主角是他们自己拥有的宠物。据Chamber说，从刚开始到现在已经售出了价值100万英镑的定制书了。

Petlandia（from gamesindustry.biz）

“宠物市场相当吸引人——它是一个价值1000亿美元的全球市场。还有很多颠覆性的科技、可穿戴设备、个性化狗粮……所有你能想到的应有尽有，”Chambers说道。“有相当多的生意都是因为人们对自家宠物的爱而产生的。”

公司现在正与“宠物名人”节目进行交流，试图让他们参与到《Petlandia》中，目前已经有关于它的视频和T恤了……公司希望能通过社交媒体让猫猫狗狗红起来，到目前为止，看上去似乎真的奏效了。

“这种书是按需求印刷的，我们经过制作然后寄出去，”Chambers这样解释道。“书以主人和宠物以及他们生活的地方、还有各种各样人性化的细节为特色。非常简洁，人们很喜欢。我们能达到这样的净推荐值（用来衡量客户体验和预测商业增长）真的是超过了我们的预期。我们收到了6000个回复，现在仍有81分。这个市场真的很令人吃惊，我们卖出了4万本书。”

《Petlandia》已经见证了65万只宠物被玩家创造，卖出了4万定制书

Chambers说道，尽管Petlandia是吸取资金的关键，然而光靠它还是不够有说服力。

“我们需要更多的好想法。我们研究Moshi的模式有一段时间了，我和Micheal(Acton-Smith)坐在一起，想象着如果把这种个性化平台应用到《Moshi》会如何。于是《Moshi Monsters Egg Hunt》就应运而生了。而原本的《Moshi Monster》页游是六选一的怪物领养模式，在《Egg Hunt》手机版中则是孵化你自己个性化定制的怪物，然后你要看护照顾好它。我们希望我们的APP能跟网页版的《Moshi Monsters》一样，让玩家和宠物之间建立起深刻的羁绊。”

手游《Egg Hunt》发行开始时便引起了广大玩家的关注。在第一周我们就登上了免费儿童应用排行榜的第二名，仅次于YouTube，获得了超过60万次的下载量。这款是为孩子们精心制作的，它邀请孩子们每天上线，但不会占用他们太多时间，甚至包含着教育性质的内容。它是家长们的最好选择，而且没有应用内购买项目，完全免费。

Chambers正确地预测道：“你接下来应该会问我们要怎么盈利。这就要归结于我们的《Monshi Monster》所以留下的宝贵财产了——我们有授权合作伙伴，还有我们的个性化平台，这样我们就可以把我们的授权产品——日历、T恤、海报等等周边（个性化的怪兽定制版）销售给家长们。”

“在游戏中，一旦到了合适的时候，你就可以跟全世界分享你自己创建的角色。因为这这个年龄段，孩子们的朋友不在社交媒体上，而是在操场上。所以这时家长们就可以购买个性化怪兽定制版的交换卡片，会有孩子所拥有怪兽图案。而且每张卡都会有一个密码——有了这些卡，你可以在学校给你的朋友，跟他们交换他妈呢的，然后你输入密码到他们的游戏里，他们的怪兽就会出现了。这种分享是需要亲身操作的，而这正是五到六岁儿童的分享方式。”

“要进行更大范围的零售就有赖于我们的交换卡了。游戏中每一段内容和角色都有一张交换卡，每张卡背面都有可以刮开，你可以选择刮开或者拿去交换——这是使用即失效的一种卡。你可以用刮开后显示的数字代码得到游戏中的物品。这是一个实体版数字游戏交换卡片。”

他还说：“我们不希望出现孩子向妈妈要1.99英镑来买游戏内项目的情况出现。现在真的有人解决这种问题了吗？这是个开放性的问题。但是我们很自信我们有我们的模式——我们有已经成熟的IP。这很重要——是《Pokemon》去年的成功让我们知道一个IP的力量有多强大。”
书籍、日历、宠物手办、海报、Youtube视频（公司创造了一系列《Moshi Monsters》短片为《EggHunt》的发行做铺垫）……Mind Candy似乎越来越不像一家游戏公司了。

Mind Candy通过努力，再次把《Moshi Monsters Egg Hunt》的品牌建立起来了

“不是这样的。《Moshi Monsters: Egg Hunt》就是一款游戏没毛病，而且这款游戏才是所有体验的核心部分。《Petlandia》的话嘛……是拉，目前为止，从我们构建《Petlandia》的角度来看，他确实是一款有数字内容的实体产品。我觉的一只能在你的手机游戏里的宠物是可以在任何地方存在的，而我们有游戏程序员、有原画师以及其他你所希望的一切——他们正在《Moshi》上做努力。”

“我觉得与其说我们不再是一家游戏公司，我想不如说我们是一个成功的IP企业。你得关注用户的所有娱乐方式——App就是其中一种。我对Facebook的机器人Alexa非常感兴趣，这种和科技对话感觉让人着迷。你可以看到我们那里有HTC Vive,并且一直在致力于做VR产品的原型。等到了合适的时候，做AR产品对我们正在做的事来说也是自然而然的事。”

“我不会想说它是‘游戏’还是‘不是游戏’，我只会觉得它是一种娱乐形式，而我们所使用的娱乐途径恰恰占了天时与人和。”

Mind Candy还在酝酿着一些其他方面的东西——Chamber告诉我们，公司正在测试《Moshi Monster》的概念版订阅BOX，然后是《勇士世界（World of Worriors）》很快就会浸入PS4平台。

Chamber说：“企业经历了不同的周期，而现在我们有了一个清晰的蓝图。蕴藏着两个不同世界的两个IP正在成长。这正是投资我们的好时候，资金可以让我们继续保持增长，而我们的债务已经根据我们的增长计划进行了重组。”
“我们有实际的数据证明我们上升的势头。《Petlandia》并不是一个用幻灯片制作的IP——它是我们为之骄傲的作品，我们让人们喜欢上了它。我们从开始到现在已经卖出了价值1百万英镑的书籍了。这绝对不是件简单的事。”

“《Moshi》作为一个品牌给我们留下了所有的遗产，我们有着所有的内容并且还会继续创造更多。并且我们始终和品牌授权商保持着很好的关系。”

“这就是我们得到投资的原因，自从公告发布以来，还有很多其他的投资者来找我们，我们会找找合适的投资者的。”

“所以我们的处境现在已经开始正向发展了。”

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Ian Chambers, the man in charge of Moshi Monsters firm Mind Candy, doesn’t want to talk about the company’s recent history.

“We have talked about the past,” he tells us sitting in the board room at the company’s London HQ. “There’s no secret that the company has had a few difficult years. I joined a year ago and really it’s about the future.”

There’s good reason for Chambers’ eagerness to look forward. The past few years haven’t been kind to Mind Candy. The company was built on Moshi Monsters, the online digital kids game/platform that spawned a hugely lucrative licensing business. For multiple years, it was a leading light in the kids market, spawning books, toys, clothes and everything in-between. It even had a movie and an album that briefly kept Madonna from topping the charts. The company’s founder Michael Acton-Smith would collect numerous awards. He and his company had become a true British success story.

Chambers joined Mind Candy in a difficult situation

Was Mind Candy too slow at moving to smartphones? Perhaps. But regardless, as can happen with kids IP, the brand began to fade from the playground. Toy sales plummeted, user numbers fell, and Mind Candy’s efforts to diversify – including the ambitious World of Warriors game – didn’t do enough to replace the lost income.

When Chambers came on-board as CEO 12 months ago, he joined a business that was failing to service its debt, and facing the threat of bankruptcy.

“I wouldn’t have joined the business if I didn’t think there was potential,” says Chambers, whose CV includes stints at an eclectic line-up of games companies – including Ubisoft, IGN and GAME. “I knew exactly the state of the business when I joined. Let’s keep in mind, we still have 250,000 kids playing on Moshi web every single month. The wheels haven’t come off this business.

“The stories in the press are all around the debt. As with any business that’s growing, it was looking at financing this and that. So there was this debt taken out. That’s perfectly normal. What you need to show in any situation like this is progress.”

Chambers has succeeded in doing just that. The debt has been restructured, fresh investment has been put in to the business (to the tune of $1.5m), and the investors are speaking confidently of the company. So what is it that has convinced the money men that Mind Candy is worth rescuing?

“I knew exactly the state of the business when I joined. Let’s keep in mind, we still have 250,000 kids playing on Moshi web every single month. The wheels haven’t come off this business”
“We’ve created a new vision,” insists Chambers. “We asked: ‘What is Mind Candy exceptional at?’ The answer is creating worlds.

“What we are trying to create is an ecosystem. At the centre is our business line: ‘creating worlds that fire the imagination.’ Then the key things are characters, story, tech, personalisation and family. If we get that right for the IP, then what do we create around it?

“We don’t think about just a single product. Often people are saying to us that they’ve seen our new Petlandia book. But Petlandia isn’t just a book. That’s just one of the products we are creating.”

Ah yes, Petlandia. This is an online concept where people can create a virtual version of their pet. 650,000 people have done so, and Mind Candy has monetised this via what it calls its “personalisation platform”. The firm has created a physical book that people can order, and it features their own pet. Chambers says it has sold £1m worth of these books from a standing start.

“The pet market is fascinating – it is a $100bn global market. And there’s loads of disruption in tech, wearables, personalised dog food… you name it,” begins Chambers. “There is an incredible number of businesses cropping up in this space because of people’s love for their pets.”

The company is talking to ‘celebrity pets’ to try and get them involved in Petlandia, it has created digital videos and t-shirts… the firm hopes to tap into the social media boom around cats and dogs, and so far it appears to be working.

“The book is print-on-demand that we create and send out,” Chambers explains. “It features the owner and the pet and where they live, and various other little personalised details. Very simple. And people love it. We have this Net Promoter score [which measures customer experience and predicts business growth] that is off the scale basically. We’ve had 6,000 responses and it’s still at 81. It’s an incredible market that we’ve tapped into. We’ve sold 40,000 books.”

Petlandia has seen 650,000 virtual pets created and 40,000 books sold

Chambers says that although Petlandia is key, it wasn’t enough on its own to convince the investors.

“We needed more than one idea,” Chambers said. “We have been looking at the Moshi formula for some time, and Michael [Acton-Smith] and I were sitting there and imagined what would happen if we applied this personalisation platform to Moshi. That’s where Moshi Monsters Egg Hunt was born. So whereas Moshi Monsters is adopt one of six monsters, in Egg Hunt you hatch your own unique moshling, which you can look after and care for. That connection we want to build through the app needs to be powerful. As it was with Moshi Monsters through the web.”

The Egg Hunt app is off to a strong start. In its first week it reached No.2 on the free kids app charts, beaten only by YouTube, and was downloaded more than 600,000 times. The app has been carefully built with kids in mind. It invites kids to play every day, but doesn’t demand much of their time and even includes educational elements. And best of all for parents, it’s completely free with no in-app purchases.

“”We don’t want that situation where kids are asking mum for £1.99 for an in-app purchase”

“Your next question will be how do we monetise it,” Chambers correctly predicts. “This is where our Moshi Monsters heritage comes in. We have our licensing partners, and we also have our personalisation platform, where we sell items to parents – calendars, t-shirts, posters, whatever – featuring this personalised moshling.

“In the game, once you get to the right point, you can share your character with the world. Now, at that age, your friends aren’t the ones on social media, they are in the playground. So parents can buy personalised trading cards, featuring their kids’ moshling. And each one has a secret code. You get these cards, you give one to your friend at school, they give you their card, and you put that code into their game and their moshling appears. So the sharing happens in person, the way that five and six-year-olds share.

“How this works on a grander scale with retail, is that we have normal trading cards. There is a trading card for every piece of content and character in the game. Each card has a scratch panel at the back, and you can either scratch or swap. It is a one-time use. You can then use the code behind the panel and the item will appear in their game. It is a digital-physical trading card game.”

He continues: “We don’t want that situation where kids are asking mum for £1.99 for an in-app purchase. Has anyone really cracked this issue yet? That’s an open question. But we are feeling very confident that we have a formula. We have the IP. That’s the important thing. The success of Pokemon last year shows how strong a character IP can be.”

Books, calendars, pet avatar creators, posters, YouTube videos (the firm has created a series of Moshi Monsters shorts to launch Egg Hunt)… Mind Candy doesn’t seem to resemble a games company anymore.

Moshi Monsters Egg Hunt is Mind Candy’s effort to establish the brand once again

“That’s not true,” Chambers insists. “Moshi Monsters: Egg Hunt is a game and that is the heart of the whole experience. Petlandia… yeah, right now, in terms of how we’re building Petlandia, it is digital content and physical products. But I see – and there are no plans for this yet – but I see your pet being in a game on your phone. The pet is a character that can live anywhere, and we have game developers and artists and all the things you’d expect. They’re just working on Moshi right now.

“Instead of me thinking of us as not so much a games company anymore, I think of us as being a successful IP business. You have to look at all of the ways your audience interacts with entertainment. So apps are one way, I am fascinated by Facebook bots. I am fascinated by Alexa, and talking to technology. You can see we have a HTC Vive over there, we have been prototyping VR stuff. At the right time we will do that. AR… that is a natural fit for what we’re doing as well.

“I don’t think of it as ‘games’ or ‘not games’. I just think of it as entertainment”

“I don’t think of it as ‘games’ or ‘not games’, I just think of it as entertainment, and we use the channels that are right for the audience at the right time.”

There are other things bubbling behind the scenes at Mind Candy. Chambers tells us that the firm is trialling a Moshi Monsters subscription box concept, and then there’s World of Warriors, which is coming to PS4 soon.

“Businesses go through different cycles,” Chambers opines. “We now have a clear vision. Two worlds – two IP – that are growing. And the investment was made at the right time to enable us to continue that growth. The debt has been restructured based on our growth plans.

“This is based on us proving the momentum. We have real numbers. Petlandia is not an IP created on a powerpoint slide. We have made something, we have people engaged with it, and we have sold £1m worth of books from a standing start. That is no mean feat.

“With Moshi, we have got all the heritage of that brand, we have all the content, and with more coming. But we also have these wonderful relationships with licensees.

“This is money being invested. We’ve had other investors come to us since the announcement, too, and we’ll look at that.

“This is not a scenario where there are some negative connotations.”（source：gamesindustry.biz ）