开发者谈动视暴雪手游业务所面临的困境

原作者：Jon Jordan 译者：Willow Wu

2018年，动视手游业务的收入是1900万美元。

跟去年73亿的订阅收入比起来，这要计算舍入误差都很难。

动视总裁兼COO Coddy Johnson曾表示要在接下来的数月甚至数年的时间将“手游业务是我们的重中之重”这句话付诸行动，而这种收益规模的差异正体现出了动视所面的任务有多么艰巨。

我们并不是要无视动视暴雪能够维持手游业务逐年增长，事实证明斥资59亿美元收购King也是一个成功的商业举措。

现在手游在收入中所占的比例和主机、PC游戏相当，虽说利润上还是有所差距。

然而三年过去了，将King纳入旗下并没有让动视或者是暴雪将重心向手游倾斜。此外，尽管做了很多尝试，King还是无法在三消之外的领域取得突破。

activision blizzard(from news.cheatcc)

当然，暴雪在移动领域的成果有目共睹——2018年，跨平台CCG《炉石传说》获得了2.22亿美元的订阅收入。

但正如玩家对暴雪在2018年嘉年华上公开《暗黑破坏神：不朽》所表现出的消极反应，在现有IP基础上创造手游仍然是一个棘手的问题，如何说服这些变幻难测的粉丝参与到F2P游戏中真的让他们头痛。

进入中国市场

动视暴雪已经将《使命召唤》和《暗黑破坏神》的改编权分别授予腾讯和网易，希望让它们成为大热门产品。

另一家中国公司智明星通（Elex Wireless）近几年一直在开发《使命召唤》策略/4X游戏。《使命召唤:全球行动》在去年年末测试发行。

动视也把原本要搁置的小龙斯派罗IP交给韩国发行商Com2uS，他们的回合制RPG游戏《小龙斯派罗：英雄之戒》（Skylander: Ring of Heroes）于去年六月测试发行。

鉴于移动平台在游戏产业年收入中所占的比例最大（500+亿美元），而且中国/东南亚有着规模最大的手游市场（250+亿美元），动视暴雪决定让这些亚洲手游资深开发者使用他们的IP也不足为奇。

尽管如此，鉴于《暗黑破坏神：不朽》所遭受的批评，这种亚洲商业模式的成功如何/是否能够抵消游戏在西方可能遭受的名誉受损是一个很有意思的问题，尤其是考虑到中国市场对于pay-to-win的有强烈需求。

手游困境

高层大换血、资深人才流失和大规模裁员，暴雪员工的工作士气已经遇到了低谷。

从他们一直以来专注于PC的策略来看，暴雪对于手游的常见设计模式比如F2P氪金、注重meta的核心循环抱着极其保守的态度。

像《魔兽争霸》《星际争霸》《暗黑破坏神》甚至《守望先锋》系列都不太适合移植到移动平台上。

因此，在这种情况下，暴雪比较靠谱的做法就是将筹码压在反响不佳的MOBA游戏《风暴英雄》上。这个聚合式IP使用了暴雪多个游戏中的角色，具备了移植手游所需的的灵活性，能够将IP和盈利机制搭配起来。

同类型的西方游戏，比如《星球大战：银河英雄传》《漫威：神威战队》就是值得参考的成功模板。

动视的手游业务状况和暴雪不一样，但同样困难重重。

令人惊讶（可能吧）的是动视的手游发展史其实是挺悠久的。尽管应用商店中只有《使命召唤》的助手APP和2011年的《使命召唤：黑色行动僵尸》（6.99美元）两款产品，但多年来，动视陆续设立(和关闭)了若干内部和外部手游工作室，发行(和砍掉)了20多个移动应用，其中就包括6款《使命召唤》游戏。

它们虽然不怎么成功，但这并不意味着《使命召唤》粉丝从未知道这一系列游戏的存在。

或许这就是为什么动视的新手游没有像暴雪的《暗黑破坏神》那样遭受大规模抵制。事实上，人们无法用《使命召唤》这个品牌来保证同IP手游的成功反映出了核心粉丝和普通手游用户之间还是存在着明显的隔阂，即使是腾讯（或者King，他们应该还没结束《使命召唤》手游的开发工作）也会觉得这是个很棘手的问题，除非他们能把游戏做成《堡垒之夜》那样的跨平台玩法。

所以，尽管《使命召唤》《暗黑破坏神》这样的IP有一定的号召力，但是动视暴雪要如何将“手游业务是我们的首要关注”这一壮言转化为可观的商业成果，或者至少是逐渐增长，我们难以预料。

然而，手游市场已经非常成熟了，想让新游戏进入收益榜的前排是一件非常困难的事，这就是为什么Supercell要砍掉那么多项目。但这也突显出那些已经拥有成功产品的开发商的价值。

鉴于动视暴雪当下的净现金流有25亿美元，也许证明他们对手游极其重视的最好办法就是再去收购一个类似King这样的公司。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Activision made $19 million from mobile games during 2018.

That’s hardly enough to qualify as a rounding error compared to $7.3 billion of overall bookings Activision Blizzard generated during the year.

The difference in scale does, however, contextualise the size of the task the company faces as it attempts to put the words of president and COO Coddy Johnson – “mobile is a top priority for us” – into action over the coming months and years.

This isn’t to ignore that Activision Blizzard contains a growing mobile games business. The $5.9 billion acquisition of King in late 2015 has proven to be a fine commercial move.

Mobile games now account for the same proportion of revenue as console and PC games, although not quite so profitably.

Yet, three years on, the King acquisition doesn’t appear to have had much impact in making Activision or Blizzard more mobile-focused. Nor, despite many attempts, has King managed to break out of the match-three genre.

Sure, Blizzard has a decent mobile track record, generating $222 million in bookings from its cross-platform collectible card game Hearthstone during 2018.

But as the reaction to Diablo Immortal’s announcement at Blizzcon 2018 demonstrated, creating mobile games based on existing IP remains a tricky proposition in terms of aligning the vagaries of fanbase anticipation with the stark realities of free-to-play mobile game design and monetisation.

Going Chinese

That Activision Blizzard has licensed Call of Duty and Diablo to Chinese companies – Tencent and NetEase respectively – in the hope of making them into mobile hits speaks volumes.

Indeed, another Chinese company – Elex Wireless – has been working on a strategy/4X game using the Call of Duty licence for a couple of years. Call of Duty: Global Operations has been in soft launch testing on Android since late 2018.

Activision has also licensed the otherwise dormant Skylander IP to Korean publisher Com2uS, which has turn-based RPG Skylander: Ring of Heroes in soft launch.

Of course, given mobile is the biggest single games sector by annual revenue ($50 billion-plus), and China/Southeast Asia the biggest single mobile gaming territory ($25 billion-plus), Activision Blizzard’s decision to have some of the most successful Asian mobile games developers working on its key licences is to be expected.

Nevertheless, given Diablo Immortal’s reception, it will be interesting to see how – or if – this focus on Asian commercial success can be balanced against the potential for Western reputational damage, especially given the strong pay-to-win demands of the Chinese market.

Blizzard need wizards

This is particularly relevant for Blizzard; a company already experiencing morale issues in terms of upper management changes, a brain drain of senior talent and more generalised job losses.

Given its historic PC focus, Blizzard is the least open part of Activision Blizzard to mobile gaming mores such as F2P monetisation and metagame-over-gameplay design loops.

Franchises such as WarCraft, StarCraft, Diablo and even Overwatch aren’t amenable to being ‘taken mobile’ in any holistic sense.

In this context, then, Blizzard’s best bet for mobile success is likely the under-performing Heroes of the Storm. As an already mashed-up-IP featuring characters from across Blizzard’s discography, only it looks like providing the flexibility required to successfully combine IP and monetisation in a mobile-friendly manner.

It helps that Western-developed games in this genre such as Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and Marvel: Strike Force provide a template for success.

Calling out Call of Duty

The situation for Activision when it comes to mobile game is different but no less challenging.

Surprisingly, perhaps, it has a long history of mobile games. Although it only has a Call of Duty Companion App and 2011’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies ($6.99) currently live on app stores, over the years it has set up (and closed down) internal and external mobile game studios, launching (and canning) over 20 mobile apps, including six Call of Duty games.

That these games were unsuccessful meant Call of Duty fans didn’t even notice their existence, however.

This may have saved Activision from a Blizzcon-style backlash, the fact it couldn’t leverage Call of Duty’s brand to make Call of Duty mobile games successful suggests a strong disconnect between core fans and mobile gamers that even Tencent (or King, also thought to still be working on a Call of Duty game) will find it hard to overcome unless they can pull off Fortnite-style crossplay.

So, despite the latent power of licences like Call of Duty and Diablo, it’s difficult to see how Activision Blizzard can translate its “mobile is a top priority for us” from being a well-meaning soundbite into something commercially substantial, at least via organic growth.

Yet it’s also worth pointing out mobile games are a mature sector. That makes it very hard to launch new products into the top grossing charts, which is why Supercell kills so many games. But it also underlines the valuation of developers who have already demonstrated successful products.

Given it’s holding more than $2.5 billion in net cash, perhaps Activision Blizzard’s best bet for demonstrating the importance of mobile would be another King-scale acquisition.

（source：pocket gamer ）