给游戏投资者的Checklist：如何寻找下一个Supercell

原作者：Atomico games team 译者：Willow Wu

挖到一家前途大好的游戏公司或者是游戏产品不是那么容易的事，没有什么秘密捷径可以走，数据的作用也是有限的。

所以在Atomico，我们制作出了一套评游戏估框架供投资者们进行查对，我们认为这些特征是业内顶级游戏公司所共有的。

为了帮助那些刚起步的游戏公司，让他们了解怎么才能让公司运营得更好、如何向投资者们展示公司愿景，我们决定公开这份评估框架。

如果你准备好了要去寻求投资，我们希望它能成为你的备忘录。

游戏总体情况

首先我们要看的是游戏的总体情况。这第一关门槛很高，检测事项非常多，比如玩法差异、一个游戏是否能让玩家感到既新鲜又好上手，不至于完全陌生且晦涩难懂。

在这个阶段，风险投资者可能问到的关键问题还有：

-你的用户获取成本是多少？如何实现差异化营销？

-潜在市场机会有多大？

-目标平台是经久不衰、依然处于上升状态的平台，还是刚出现不久、存在较大不确定的平台？还是正在走向衰败的平台？

-你觉得对于应用商店（Google Play、Apple、Steam）来说，你的产品魅力在哪？品牌吸引力或者IP优势？

-你的种子资金/天使资金提供者的游戏专业程度有多高？

-谈谈你们以往的团队工作，你们会一起工作多长时间？

-当前/未来游戏的生产周期速度是否能够保持纵向一致？

单位经济指标

下面我们将深入单位经济，进行第二轮筛查。在天使投资人和早期基金组织的帮助下，游戏团队可以比较顺利地度过早期开发阶段，我们也和这些群体、组织一直保持着密切联系，所以这些刚成立的工作室即使是在pre-launch阶段我们也能追踪得到。

一旦某个游戏进入了测试发行/α阶段，我们会查看一些重要的指标比如用户增长率、收益增长率、用户获取、投资回报率（ROI）、用户获取成本(CAC)、留存率、日活跃用户平均收入(ARPDAU)还有收益的可持续性。

由于游戏类型的不同，具体的指标也会有很差异。再者，同一类型的游戏也有可能会有差距。现实中并没有什么金科玉律，有的是一些经验法则。

就休闲游戏来说，我们会把市场分为超休闲游戏、一般休闲游戏和包含midcore循环机制的休闲游戏。

超休闲游戏主要依靠广告获得收益，日活跃用户平均收入低，用户获取成本也低。这类游戏不需要下血本就能吸引到不少玩家，但是它的盈利能力跟其它类别的休闲游戏有所差距。

一般休闲游戏的收入来源并不完全依赖于广告，而是广告与IAP双管齐下。它的用户获取成本比超休闲游戏高，但盈利能力(ARPDAU)也比后者略高。

包含midcore循环机制的休闲游戏主要依赖IAP挣取巨额收益，但它们的用户获取成本相对也比较高。

midcore游戏也是差不多的情况，但是除了IAP氪金盈利和高用户获取成本外，它们还会包含极其丰富的异步/同步多人游戏内容。

虽然有些游戏已经产生了病毒式循环，降低了用户获取成本，也进一步增加了广告收入，但鉴于几大巨头公司的影响力，普通游戏工作室要在这样的环境中站稳脚跟还是一件很困难的事。

尽管如此，一个具有新鲜感、易上手、运行顺畅的游戏还是有可能杀出重围的。

竞争

接下来讲的是竞争，我们会以原创性、先发优势、现有规模、铸造坚固护城河的能力以及在全球市场获得成功的潜力为依据来进行评估。

市场中每天都有1500个左右的新游戏出现，大家都想从价值500亿美元的市场中分一杯羹，竞争非常激烈，但无论你是小公司还是大公司都有机会获得诱人的回报。

在这里，我们对游戏进行更进一步的细分：

-小公司和众多大公司在同一池子里竞争，拥有相似的产品，但是具有小众特色。

-小公司和众多大公司在同一池子里竞争，但是产品不一样。

-同一领域的领导者地位稳固，有大热门产品活跃于市场。

-在同期的新游戏中具有先发优势或者是其它方面的明显优势，市场竞争不激烈，有活跃于市场的产品但不算非常热门

-是某个新游戏领域的先发产品，对大公司来说进入壁垒高

-某某产品已经是这个领域的领导者吗？

-国际市场发展情况：在美国、欧洲、中国和日本都有成功经历。

-游戏所产生的网络效应是否能保证游戏体验在未来数年依然受欢迎，有益于公司业务的可持续发展。这要观察用户原创内容社区、已经存在的游戏内经济和社交系统。

团队

但这一切最终还是要归结到团队上。

如何评估团队的前景，你可以从这些问题入手：他们是有远见的创始人吗？意思就是他们是否清楚地知道他们想成为什么类型的公司、做什么样的游戏？他们是否畏惧创新，探索未知的世界？

其它一些重要问题包括:

-他们是否有坚持不懈的精神去争取成功？他们是否具有竞争天性，无论成功还是失败都愿意不断尝试？他们会一直为自己和公司设定高目标并且去实现吗？他们经常会去挑战不可能的任务吗？喜欢自创解决方案？

-他们克服过逆境吗（游戏邦注创业之旅，尤其是游戏行业，经常会遇到混乱棘手的情况，灵活性和韧性是实现成功的必要条件）？

-公司是人才聚集地，团队是文化塑造者？力求高执行标准，创造多元化和包容性的企业文化？

-对于产品体验，他们是不是完美主义者？他们是否热衷于研究什么能让一个游戏变得有趣、有粘性、独一无二，并且能和玩家产生共鸣？

-策略：他们有切实可行的计划吗？他们知道要达到下一个里程碑需要达成哪几个关键目标吗？

-他们有足够的执行能力吗？

-关于数据和技术：他们是以技术为主的吗？他们是否具备相关专业技能？他们是依靠数据/指标驱动的吗？他们是行动派吗？

接着我们来观察其它方面，比如新公司的文化：

-他们的工作氛围是开放、有益于互相协作的吗？

-团队是爱这个公司的吗？愿意为公司业务冒险？

-我们还要了解他们的凝聚力：他们之间是否有“心灵感应”。

-我们观察了很多热门游戏所需具备的要素。我们从这些游戏的成功以及失败中总结经验，构建出一种模式。我们相信留伤疤并不是坏事。

-他们是勇于冒险、敢于创新的人吗？他们是拥有创造力和逆向思维的思想家吗？我们要找的是独立、能够突破传统思维框架的人，他们聪明而且自信，在别人提出想法或改变时勇于质疑，甚至在承担重大风险时也是如此

用我们这套（有持续进行更新、校正的）评估模型来测试，Supercell毫不意外地获得了全垒打，获得了历史最高分。

每个投资者显然都有自己的标准，任何一套模型都不是绝对科学的。它们在更大程度上是科学、艺术和直觉的混合体，但我们的直觉是基于多年积累下来的丰富经验。其中包括:

-自2006年来与上千位创始人的对话经历。

-耗费大量时间研究那些资历深厚的公司，了解他们为什么能够成功，还有这过程中遇到的困难。

-就像Supercell的联合创始人Ilkka Paananen、Mikko Kodisoja，以及eRepublik Labs创始人、Atomico投资合伙人Alexis Bonte一样，Atomico的合作伙伴都是游戏领域的专家。

-利用我们的全球网络，无论是在King公司的Riccardo和Sebastian，还是在中国的腾讯团队，亦或是日本的SoftBank/GungHo，都能成为我们的研究对象。

-除此之外，我们还会研究那些尚未获得成功的游戏公司，分析其中的原因。

-我们自己就是企业家。

-我们经常举办研讨会或其它类似的活动，我们会和行业领袖和新生代人才进行探讨。

-我们会定期与投资游戏的朋友和合作伙伴交流，比如来自Lifeline Ventures、Makers Fund、IVP、Accel、LVP、Initial Capital、Index、Backed、Level-up和Sweet Capital等等基金组织的专业人士。

-我们也会玩游戏，而且玩得很多。

是的，有时我们仍然会犯错，但是我们建立的这套框架一直在帮助我们提高成功的几率。

由Atomico制作的游戏公司创始人核对清单

我们可以从上文总结出8个至关重要的问题。不管是见什么样的投资人，每个游戏公司创始人都应该提前进行自查，做好回答的准备：

-我的游戏是否有具有强大的吸引力、有新鲜感的同时又不会让玩家觉得完全陌生、晦涩？

-我的品牌吸引力/IP优势是什么？

-我的战略是怎样的？我要如何达到下一个里程碑？

-我要如何证明我的执行力？

-我们是技术主导还是数据/指标主导？

-我的团队真的爱公司吗？愿意为它冒险吗？他们能不能简洁地概括我们的目标？

-我们是敢于创新的风险承担者吗？如果是，要怎么说明？

下一步呢？

对于整个游戏世界来说，现在还是发展初期，还有很多领域尚未探索，更不用说充分开发了。

在近期的交流中，我们看到很多来自于社交平台、PC上Twitch和 YouTube的新鲜事物。

从拥有庞大开放式经济系统的《星战前夜》（EVE Online）到允许玩家自制内容、促使玩家主动“卖安利”的《漂泊世界》（Worlds Adrift），游戏与社交的界线变得越来越模糊。

这就解释了为什么我们认为未来会有一个融合游戏与社交的公司成为新的业界巨头。游戏让人们聚集到一起，一直都是如此。

Mattias和Alexis在90年代时用卡片或者是角色棋子玩《毁灭战士》和《文明》，那时候游戏已经是一种社交活动了。你可以在日益增多的电竞直播活动中感受到游戏让不同文化、不同人群产生了交集。

当然，在手游爆发的年代我们很容易就忘记这点，手游可以说是一种孤独的娱乐形式，你虽然是在跟几千人一起玩，但你不会知道谁在网络的另一端。

所以我们相信未来将会出现新一波的社交游戏——我们希望看到创新，就像是腾讯所做的那样：通过加入消息系统和其它元素来增加玩家的游戏内交流。

另外，在PC和主机平台收获巨大成功的游戏很多都未能在手游平台获得同样的成绩，他们还有机会创造更有深度、粘性更高的手游。

游戏结束

在竞争中成为大赢家会创造出强大的护城河。要想在由大公司主导的拥挤市场中取得突破，就必须将差异化创新和数据驱动结合起来。当你创新的速度足够快的时候，当你真正能够做到把创新和产业深度结合的时候，那你拥有的是一个非常高效的往前冲的速度，而这个速度在物理学里被称为逃逸速度（游戏邦注：此解释源于商汤科技联合创始人、CEO徐立的发言），游戏公司的收益规模也会迅速扩大。

这些主导企业能够掌控人才——这是一个巨大的优势，因为个人天赋和创造力对公司的成功至关重要。

强大的品牌和IP能够转化超群的KPI，比如Supercell的《部落冲突》或King的Saga提高了消费者的认知度，同时降低了每用户获取成本(CPAs)，这会有利于他们未来更好地发展。

它也可以造成网络效应，也就是说你的活跃玩家越多，游戏的影响力越大，进而就有更多用户来下载游戏。

加速率

游戏行业仍然在加速发展，受益于小规模成功推动实现里程碑的良性循环。

随着惯性轮速度的提升，机会也在增多。《堡垒之夜》（Epic Games/ People Can Fly）就是个典型例子——它在去年7月发行，今年的收入预计会达到18亿美元。在移动平台登陆三个月后，游戏的日收益超过了1百万美元，而且还在不断增长。

我们看到很多新兴公司的创始人之前都是欧洲巨头企业的员工，比如Space Ape(原先是EA Playfish团队)、Oh BiBi(原先是Gameloft团队), 还有Bossa(成员们在Bullfrog、Jagex、Ubisoft和Playfish都有工作过),就跟Supercell CEO曾在Sumea的收购公司Digital Chocolate工作是一样的。

这种加速增长不仅是因为生态系统中的人才回流，还受到资本释放的推动。这些人会成为新一代创始人、资深高管，相当于游戏业的PayPal黑帮。

就比如Supercell，他们投资了同是芬兰的Shipyard Games，而King也出资支持了瑞典游戏工作室Snowprint Studios。

另一个重要因素是，游戏行业的成功不可避免地吸引了越来越多欧洲核心游戏开发群体以外的关注。

无论是主流风投还是专业风投，还是腾讯、Nexon和网易这样的亚洲战略投资者，又或是来自娱乐、媒体和科技等行业的公司——包括狮门娱乐、环球音乐、微软、索尼、SoftBank等等，都想分一杯羹。

进一步的证据也表明(如果有必要的话)，欧洲游戏行业的成功远非昙花一现，而是会一直持续下去。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

There’s no silver bullet or magic formula for spotting the next great games company (or sure-fire hit game), and data alone will only get you so far.

So at Atomico we have developed a framework for evaluating games by zeroing-in on the characteristics we believe the best-in-class games companies share.

To help games founders prepare  –  as they consider how best to shape their business and pitch their vision to investors  –  we’ve decided to make our evaluation framework public.

We hope that it will become a handy checklist of things you should be able to discuss, if you are getting ready to go out and raise external funding.

Overall Games Fit

The first thing we look at is Overall Games Fit. This is a high level first pass, probing a whole range of factors such as ‘gameplay differentiation’, and whether a game feels ‘new and fresh’ as well as ‘familiar and comprehensible’ at the same time, along with a number of other considerations (see below).

Some of the key questions you can expect a VC to ask you about in this category are:

What are your acquisition costs and marketing differentiation?
What is the size of the addressable market opportunity?
Is the platform proven and growing, new and unproven or declining?
What would you say is your likely app store appeal (Google Play, Apple, Steam), brand appeal or IP advantage?
What is the level of games expertise of your seed and/or angel investors?
Tell us about your team track record and amount of time spent together?
Is the production cycle speed of present/future games in line with the vertical?
Unit Economics

Next, we drill into Unit Economics, which act as our second filter. Our close relationships with a number of angel investors and early stage funds, who help support teams through their early development, ensures the most promising games startups are already on our radar, even in their pre-launch phase.

Once a game is in soft launch/alpha, we look at metrics such as user and revenue growth rates, user acquisition (UA), marketing return on investment (ROI), cost of acquisition (CAC), retention metrics and average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU), and sustainability of revenues.

These metrics can be very different depending on the genre and even within a same genre. It would be misleading to say there is a golden rule here, but there are some rules of thumb.

The Atomico games team left to right: venture partner Alexis Bonte, senior associate Stephen Thorne, partner Mattias Ljungman
So for casual games we like to divide the market into super casual, standard casual games and casual with midcore design loops.

Super casual games are driven predominantly by ad based revenue with low ARPDAU, but also low cost of acquisition (CAC). This category attracts a lot of users cheaply, but its monetisation is not as intense as in other casual genres.

Standard casual games usually don’t have as strong ad-based revenue, but they have a healthy ad revenue and in app revenue mix. The cost of acquiring users is higher than super casual but the monetisation (ARPDAU) is slightly higher than super casual.

Finally the casual games with midcore design loops are great at monetisation (ARPDAU) through mainly being focused on deriving revenue from in app purchases  –  but their CAC can be much higher.

For midcore games it’s a pretty similar picture, but they are usually dominated by in-app purchases and high CAC with the added feature that they usually have strong synchronous or asynchronous multiplayer components.

This is a tough place to build a gaming business given the dominance of some of the juggernauts in the ecosystem. Although there are some that have games that have produced viral loops, which transforms the CAC and they can also derive revenue from advertisements.

Still with the right combination of innovation, familiarity and flawless execution, breakthroughs are still possible in this genre.

Competition

After that comes Competition, which we measure in the context of originality, first-mover status, existing scale, ability to build a powerful lasting moat and international success or potential for success.

This is critical in a market where 1,500 new games are created a day, which are all jostling for their share of the $50 billion mobile gaming market which represents 76 per cent of iOS and Google play revenue. Competition is intense but there are rewards for both the big and small players.

Here, we use highly specific subcategories (and questions) to differentiate between games such as:

‘Small player competing in a big pond of larger players, with a similar product but with a niche differentiation’
‘Small player competing in big pond of larger players with major differentiation’
‘Significant leader in its game vertical with existing large hit’
‘First-mover or significant lead in new games vertical, with low competition and an existing small hit’
‘First-mover in new huge games vertical with high barrier to entry for big players’
‘Is X already a leader in major game vertical, or verticals, with huge hits and a big brand’?
‘International Scale: Proven success in the US and Europe, China and Japan’.
Does this game create a network effect creating an experience which will be enjoyed for years to come, while also underpinning a sustainable business. These can range from active UGC creator communities, through to established in-game economies and social networks

Team

But in the end it all comes down to Team.

Here we grade the team’s vision, starting with: Are they visionary founders? And by that we mean, do they know the type of company and games they want to build? Are they unafraid of taking creative leaps frequently into the unknown?

Some of the other key questions in this category are:

Do they have the relentless hustle to win? Do they have naturally competitive DNA to win or fall over trying with experience of both? Are they a team that consistently setting and achieving 10-times goals for themselves and company? Are they constantly breaking-through the idea of ‘no that is not possible’ and a raw solutions hustler?
Have they overcome adversity (the start-up journey, especially in games, will always hit turbulence, so they will need agility and resilience to succeed)?
Are they a talent magnet and culture builder? Do they seek to build an execution machine, and an inclusive culture that others will break through walls for.
Are they obsessive over the experience of the product? Are they deeply passionate about understanding what makes a game unique, fun, entertaining and seductive while empathising with the users?
Strategy  –  do they have an achievable plan and do they understand the three-to-five mission critical objectives they need to achieve to hit their next major milestones?
Do they have the requisite execution capabilities?
Under data and tech: Are they technology-led? Do they have tech expertise? Are they data/metrics-driven? Do they move fast using facts?

Then we look into aspects such as the broader culture of the start-up:

Are they open and collaborative?
Do the team love the company and will they put themselves on the line for the business?
We also explore ‘cells cohesion’: is there ‘telepathic’ – i.e. instinctive  –  connectivity between people (e.g. across art, dev, QA, community)?
We look at the number of cells that can/have delivered a hit game. We also look for a pattern of them learning from their successes and failures. Scars, we believe, are good.
Are they creative risk-takers, unafraid of making creative leaps?Are they a creative and contrarian thinker? The attributes we like to see are independent, outside-of-the-box thinker that are intelligent and confident while questioning the status quo when proposing ideas or changes – even when taking significant levels of risk

Using our evaluation model that we are constantly fine tuning and updating, Supercell unsurprisingly smashed it out of the park, scoring our highest ever rating.

Obviously, every investor will have their own criteria and no model is an exact science  –  more a blend of science, art and gut feel (as ever, with start-ups) – but we base ours on the depth of experience we have accrued over the years. That includes:

Talking to thousands of founders since 2006.
Spending time with our portfolio companies to deeply understand their path to success – and the obstacles along the way.
Atomico’s entrepreneur Partners, like Supercell co-founders Ilkka Paananen and Mikko Kodisoja and eRepublik Labs founder and Atomico Venture Partner Alexis Bonte, all of whom are deep specialists in games.
Leveraging our worldwide network to gain insights into their success stories, whether that’s Riccardo and Sebastian at King, or the team at Tencent in China or SoftBank/GungHo in Japan.
Looking at games companies which haven’t succeeded, and asking why?
We have been entrepreneurs ourselves.
We’ve arranged seminars/workshops/events where we’ve discussed these topics with industry leaders and the next wave of games talent.
We speak regularly to our friends and partners at other funds that invest in games, people like Lifeline Ventures, Makers Fund, IVP, Accel, LVP, Initial Capital, Index, Backed, Level-up and Sweet Capital to name a few.
And, finally, we play games. A lot.
But to answer your question. Yes, sometimes we still it get it wrong – but the framework we’ve established helps us optimise our chances of success.

Atomico’s games founder checklist

From the above evaluation framework, here are the eight crucial questions every games founder seeking investment should ask themselves and be prepared to answer, no matter which investors they are meeting with:

Does my game feel ‘new and fresh’ with the vital ingredient of being seductive as well as ‘familiar and comprehensible’?
What is my probable brand appeal/IP advantage?
What is my strategy? How do I get to my next milestone?
How can I demonstrate my ability to execute?
Are we technology-led and data/metrics driven?
Does my team love the company and will they put themselves on the line for it?
Can they all sum up our mission in a few words?
Are we creative risk-takers? If so, how?

What’s next?

It’s still early days for games and there are plenty of areas that have yet to be explored let alone fully tapped.

At recent meetings with companies, we’ve seen any number of cool things being done within social, on PC, with Twitch and YouTube.

Boundaries continue to blur with the likes of EVE Online, which has an in-game open economy, and Worlds Adrift, where you actually get gamers not only creating content within the game, but talking about it to their friends and thereby marketing it too.

That social element explains why we think another giant will soon emerge, built on a fusion of gaming and social networking. People are united by games – they always have been.

From cards or chess to playing Doom or Civilization with your friends, as Mattias and Alexis did back in the early nineties – games are a fundamentally social activity; an ice-breaker between cultures and people as you can see in the growing number of esport live events where you are likely to bump into Stephen.

Of course that’s easily forgotten in the era of mobile games, which have become one-to-thousands – a solitary form of entertainment where you don’t know who’s on the other end of your connection.

So we believe there will be a new wave of social games coming through – and we expect to see innovations similar to what Tencent has achieved, by adding messaging and other elements to enhance that in-game communication between players.

Another huge trend is games within PC and console that haven’t replicated their huge success on those platforms on mobile yet. There’s an opportunity there to create deeper, more engaging games on mobile, that keep players coming back for more.

Game over

Winning big in games creates powerful defensive moats. A combination of creative differentiation and a data-driven approach is required to break through in a raucous marketplace dominated by the big-hitters. If they are able to reach escape velocity, however, games companies can enjoy huge economies of scale.

These leading studios are able to control the talent – a huge advantage given the critical importance of individual flair and creativity to a company’s success.

Strong brands and IP translate into superior KPIs: once established, brands and IP (e.g. Clash of Clans or King’s Saga brands) drive consumer recognition and lower Cost Per Acquisition (CPAs) – which further tilts the playing field in their favour.

It can also create a network effect, where the more engaged players you have, the stronger the game becomes, which in turn attracts yet more players.

Acceleration rate

The rate of acceleration in the games industry is, if anything speeding up. Fed by a virtuous circle of success breeding further success.

As the flywheel’s velocity increases, so does the opportunity. Fortnite (Epic Games/ People Can Fly) is a good example of this – it launched last July and now has a run rate of $1.8bn. And after just three weeks on mobile, it is now doing more than $1m-a-day in revenue – and growing.

This acceleration is playing out in Europe too. We’re already seeing a new wave of companies emerge from the European greats, including Space Ape (EA, Playfish), Oh BiBi (Gameloft), and Bossa (Bullfrog, Jagex, Ubisoft and Playfish), in the same way that Supercell itself emerged from Digital Chocolate/Sumea.

The acceleration is also supported not just by the flow of talent back into the ecosystem, which becomes the next generation of founders and experienced executives – the gaming equivalent of the PayPal Mafia – but through the release of capital too.

Supercell, for example, has invested in Finland’s Shipyard Games, while King are backers of Snowprint Studios in Sweden.

Another important factor is that the success of the games sector is inevitably attracting the attention of more and more participants from outside the core European industry.

Whether that is more VCs – both mainstream and specialist – or Asian strategic investors such as Tencent, Nexon and NetEase, as well as companies from other sectors, including entertainment, media and technology companies – ranging from Lionsgate and Universal Music to Microsoft, Sony and SoftBank.

Further evidence, if it was needed, that far from flash-in-the-pan, Europe’s success is here to stay.（source：pocket gamer ）