当前的数码游戏发行领域已经发生了重大变化，原来以低成本游戏唱主角的智能手机平台，已经逐渐成为高质量游戏占优势的天下。NaturalMotion Games/NaturalMotion公司首席执行官Torsten Reil日前在[a]list的采访中谈到了他对iPhone游戏发展前途的看法。以下是游戏邦所整理的访谈内容：

Backbreaker

请问《Backbreaker》从发行到现在的市场反应，是否符合你们的期望？

是的。我们在一年前面向iPhone平台发行了这款游戏，又在12月份推出了《Backbreaker 2》。我们之前从来没想过它的市场反应会这么乐观。

你们是一家英国游戏公司，为什么会想到开发美式橄榄球游戏呢？

我们只是想开发一款画面质量、动画效果都很棒的游戏。我们的游戏开发技术可以让动画效果看起来更真实，让游戏更好地在iPhone平台上运行。美国是我们最主要的市场，但同时我们也认为一款真正成功的游戏，它放到哪都能吸引大量玩家。比如《Backbreaker》在英国就有很广泛的用户基础，在法国、德国等其他欧洲国家的市场反应也不赖。

听起来很有意思，我知道这款游戏在英国有不少粉丝，但并不清楚它的影响力究竟有多大。

越来越多玩家都开始为它着迷，我们的美式橄榄球联盟游戏在英国Wembley Stadium很快就脱销了，我认为最重要的是让游戏越超体育范畴，吸引更广泛的用户群体。

我们的游戏设计原则是，让用户觉得游戏好玩而且容易上手。这也正是《Jenga》这款游戏的设计原理，人人都知道怎么玩这款游戏，虽然它对物理真实度的要求很高，开发难度不小，但这正是我们公司擅长的项目。我们总能鉴别出具有市场潜力的项目，然后让它成为现实。

最近的手机领域也开始出现所谓的AAA级游戏，iPhone有相当长一段时间是以独立开发商为主导的平台，但现在大家都看到像《Infinity Blade》这类高端游戏在这个平台上同样很有市场。

我完全同意这个说法，《Infinity Blade》现在成了这个平台的销售冠军，之前没听说过这款游戏的玩家，一旦接触了《Infinity Blade》，就会对它爱不释手。可见对高质量内容来说，手机平台确实是一个极具发展潜力的市场。

人们有时候总会因为一家公司主打产品的特点，比如说游戏开发引擎，而对该公司形成一种固有的印象。请问《Backbreaker》的出世是否有助于改变大家对NaturalMotion的看法？

它只会加强人们对NaturalMotion的印象，不会而且也没有必要改变他们对我们的看法。因为对我们来说，游戏开发技术实在太重要了。使用这些技术创建成功的游戏、开发可靠的物理技术就是我们的发展目标，另外不管是从技术层面上还是其他方面，我们的用户反馈一直都很不错。

手机游戏现在的发展成果很惊人，是否认为今后还会有更多基于NaturalMotion开发技术的AAA级iPhone游戏问世？

过去三年中，这一领域的最大的变化就在于手机平台支持运行掌机风格的游戏，它为开发商创造了大量发展机遇。手机游戏不会削弱掌机游戏的势力，相反是为后者打开了另一扇市场大门。iOS游戏的巨大市场需求让我们非常吃惊。

是否还会推出更多类似《Backbreaker 2》植入KFC品牌的市场推广活动？

我们认为执行这类活动的前提是，在游戏中植入的品牌必须与游戏风格相得益彰。肯德基的营销案例很成功，当时我们在游戏中添加了很多鸡肉舞之类的玩法设置，用户好评如潮，极大推动了游戏销售，与肯德基的合作效果很理想。

你们自产的游戏是否推广了NaturalMotion的多种游戏开发引擎和技术？

从市场反馈、道听途说的消息，以及用户反应来看，情况确实如此。 《Backbreaker》现在的下载量是340万次，我们发现很多人通过这款游戏了解了NaturalMotion公司，这也就提高了我们的曝光率和知名度，同时也带动了我们其他业务的发展。

《Jenga》是一款与《Backbreaker》极为不同的游戏，是不是出于尝试不同风格的考虑，才推出了这款游戏？

部分原因是这样的。一方面，我们希望创建一款结合了NaturalMotion开发技术、好玩易上手、具有社交属性的游戏，同时又认为《Jenga》是一款多数开发者都难以创建的游戏，但我们还是看出了它的发展潜力，因为我们有丰富的物理技术经验。虽然我们对体育类游戏更熟悉，但《Jenga》实在是一个不容错过的好题材，所以我们就动手做了。开发《Backbreaker》则是一个战略性的选择，因为我们的技术最适合开发这类游戏。

你们从《Jenga》和《Backbreaker》这两者的市场营销活动中获得了什么经验？

我最大的感触是，游戏优化和口碑营销对产品的市场推广极为关键。如果一款游戏稳居排行榜前列，我们就知道这是大家对它的认同和推崇。用户就会向周围的朋友推荐这款游戏，并从互动体验中找到乐趣。这就是《Backbreaker》、《Jenga》快速走红的原因，我们也从中学到了重要的一课——-好游戏一开始就得抓住用户的心。另外，我们的游戏在发行前也会做重点推广活动，这种策略也很有成效。

这些大获成功的游戏有没有为你们开拓新的发展机遇？

《Backbreaker》让我们积累了更丰富、更灵活的游戏开发经验，了解到用户的需求。它还为我们带来了一些主动找上门的合作客户，比如说肯德基。希望明年开发的游戏可以让我们掌握更多经验，获得更多发展机遇。

可否谈谈明年的NaturalMotion游戏开发计划，或者你们将推出的重量级作品？

我们已经有一揽子的游戏发行计划了，现在还不便透露具体细节。总之，明年会是不平凡的一年，我们的发展势头会更强劲。

你认为NaturalMotion的数码游戏发行与游戏开发业务有没有什么关联？

这是件事具有两面性。我们是一个传统的游戏引擎公司，为《Red Dead Redemption》、《Grand Theft Auto IV》这类游戏提供开技术和工具，也知道不少数码游戏发行公司也很关注我们的开发技术，我认为这的确是一个很有利的发展机遇。从NaturalMotion Games这方面来讲，我们致力于开发具有社交属性的游戏，也清楚如何考察用户的游戏体验效果，通过App Store我们马上就能了解用户对游戏的看法，玩家对《Backbreaker 2》所提出的一些要求和建议等。

现在的游戏公司只要点击下鼠标，就能看到用户反馈信息。对数码游戏公司来说，利用和分析这种反馈信息极为重要。

没错，你确实可以轻松地获得用户反馈信息。我们从中可以发现，游戏有难度对一些玩家来说更好更有挑战性，但对另一些用户来说则不然，他们会要求游戏增加一个加速代码，我们就只好在两三周后满足了这个要求。通过这些用户评论，我们可以和玩家进行直接的双向沟通，推动产品销售。对数码游戏公司来说，获得用户好评很有助于加深人们对游戏的印象。另外，我们也会根据用户反馈意见，不时优化游戏设计，推出免费的《Backbreaker2》更新版本。

最后还有什么话要总结吗？

数码游戏发行业务、掌机硬件对现在游戏产业的发展影响深远，也为这一领域带来了巨大的商机……这一行中还会涌现更多赞助广告的市场营销案例，大家将会看到更多游戏成为传统品牌的展示窗口，它助于形成游戏开发商、用户和品牌的多赢局面。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Feature: The NaturalMotion of iPhone Games

The digital publishing scene is undergoing a transformation right now, between being almost exclusively low budget titles to the rising importance of high-quality titles now possible on the increasingly powerful smartphones. NaturalMotion is riding the rising tide with their technologies and with their games. We talked with Torsten Reil, CEO for NaturalMotion Games / NaturalMotion,

[a]list: Talk to me about the response so far to Backbreaker. Has it exceeded your expectations?

Torsten Reil: Absolutely. We released it on iPhone a year ago and released Backbreaker 2 in December. We never could have expected the response we got to the first, which was one done internally in Oxford and Backbreaker 2 that was done by IdeaWorks in England.

[a]list: Is there a reason that a British company decided to “tackle” American football?

Torsten Reil: The reason we did that was to create a game that’s high end in graphics and animation. Our technology makes animation look realistic and Endorphin for iPhone makes tackles look that much better. The U.S. is our major market, but we’ve found that if you make a successful game it can appeal anywhere; for instance, Backbreaker has its highest penetration percentage level in the U.K. and sales in other European countries like France and Germany aren’t bad either.

[a]list: That’s interesting. I know it has a following in the U.K. but we’ve never been sure of how big.

Torsten Reil: It’s getting more and more popular, and we have NFL games in Wembley Stadium that sell out almost immediately. The important part is going beyond the sports following and appealing to a larger crowd.

The way we design our games is [for users] to be able to hand off the phone and have fun straight away in the game. That was exactly the idea behind Jenga; people know how to play it and we thought we could contribute to something to it. [Jenga is] difficult to make because it relies upon realistic physics, but that’s what we do as a company. We see something with potential and we picked it up for the project.

The other other thing with Jenga and Backbreaker is we use console quality pipelines; it comes pretty close to what you can do on console version.

[a]list: It’s been interesting to see the rise of AAA mobile titles. iPhone has been a platform for indie-style titles for a while, but now you’re seeing things like Infinity Blade doing really well.

Torsten Reil: I totally agree. What’s fascinating is seeing something like Infinity Blade get to the top of the download charts. Even people who haven’t seen the game before are impressed when they get their hands on it; there’s an even bigger market than people think for high quality content.

[a]list: Sometimes companies get pigeonholed because of their specialties, like for game engines. Has Backbreaker helped change how people perceive NaturalMotion?

Torsten Reil: It’s added to it. It hasn’t necessarily changed, because our technology business is important to us as well. It’s changed things because we’re using our own technology and creating something that’s successful and creating believable physics technologies is our goal and the feedback we’ve gotten is great, whether it’s from the pipeline or something else.

[a]list: It’s pretty incredible now what can be accomplished on mobile platforms. Do you expect to see more AAA titles on iPhone using your technologies?

Torsten Reil: What’s changed over the past three years is that mobile games can run console style games and it opens up new possibilities, that’s for sure. It doesn’t diminish consoles but it opens up a whole new market. We’ve been extremely positively surprised for the demand for these sorts of games on iOS.

[a]list: Would you look to do more promotions for Backbreaker 2 like the one with KFC?

Torsten Reil: The way we look at it, it has to be the right brand and contribute to the game. KFC worked really well, and we were able to have some gameplay elements incorporated like the Chicken dance.. We got a ton of feedback on that, and it also meant a great deal for sales of the game, so it was extremely encouraging.

[a]list: Have your own games helped promote your various game engine technologies?

Torsten Reil: I think so, yes, from feedback and anecdotes and customer reactions. For Backbreaker, we’re at 3.4 million downloads. And we find that people know us and that’s helped with exposure for the company and it’s helped with both businesses.

[a]list: Jenga is, to say the least, a very different sort of game than Backbreaker. Was it a conscious effort to try and make your game offerings have as much variety as possible?

Torsten Reil: A bit. On one hand, we’re trying to think of the ways to combine the three things we want to do. They have to fit our technology, be easy to pick up and be socially accessible. We thought [Jenga] was beyond what most devs can do, and we saw and opportunity because of our physics background. We’re familiar with sports, but Jenga was too good to pass up. Choosing to do Backbreaker was more of a strategic decision, based upon where our technology was.

[a]list: What sort of marketing lessons have you learned from the release of Jenga and Backbreaker?

Torsten Reil: I think the biggest lesson is how much polish and word of mouth make a difference. The game was on the charts and still is and we know that’s [a byproduct of] people showing it off.

They hand it off to their friend and they get a kick out of it. That’s what you get out of Backbreaker 2 right off the bat and the same with Jenga and that’s important to us – making sure the game grabs you from the start. We’ve also gotten our games featured at launch, which has helped.

[a]list: Has the success of these games opened any new doors?

Torsten Reil: What’s happened with Backbreaker is it gave us experience development-wise and knowledge of what people want. People are also approaching us, like KFC, and what we’ll hopefully find, is that we’ll build up more experience and momentum with the next game.

[a]list: Any big plans in the next year for big releases or things based around your technology?

Torsten Reil: We’ve have a pretty packed released schedule, and I can’t talk specifics, but we have very big plans. It’s an exciting time for us and it’s great to see all the momentum that we’ve gathered.

[a]list: How have your experiences in digital publishing affected the development of NaturalMotion as a company?

Torsten Reil: It’s interesting because there’s really two sides of it. We’re historically an engine company for games like Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto IV, but we’re also seeing digital publishing companies looking at our technology and I think that’s a really strong [business opportunity]. It’s a big trend on the technology side. On the NaturalMotion Games-side we’ve focused on socially connected games and we’ve also learned how to see how people play and reflect on that. We can see what people say about the game immediately on the App Store. What people were looking for we gave them for Backbraker 2, like hurdling and the like.

[a]list: It’s funny how much that’s changed in just a few years – now feedback from fans is just a click away. It’s also vital to capitalize on for any digital company to stay afloat.

Torsten Reil: You’re right in that with digital feedback you can act upon it easily. We knew the difficultly was good for some people, but some people asked for a pro mode and we added that in two or three weeks. Seeing customers’ reviews allowed us to react to customer feedback and we saw a major sales surge. Seeing positive feedback from people, that’s crucial with digital publishing to keep your game in the minds of people. We’re following the same strategy of free updates over time for Backbreaker 2.

[a]list: Anything you’d like to end with?

Torsten Reil: It is really interesting what’s happening in the game industry right now with digital publishing and console quality hardware. There’s a huge amount of commercial opportunities…

When it comes to in-game sponsorships, I think you’ll see more games get exposed to more brands, and if there’s value it’s a win for the game maker, the customer and the brand.（source:thealistdaily）