视频游戏行业正发生巨变，似乎有很多领头公司也失去方向了，不知道下一步要走向何方。

技术变革的风暴，经济衰退以及社交媒介的激增，都让很多曾经实力雄厚的领头公司无能为力。那么身处这一行业的人接下来又将如何行动，这些变化对他们来说意味着什么？

guitar-hero

首先，外行的人很难理解视频游戏这一领域。相对于其他技术领域来说，华尔街给予这个行业的关注度太少。一个高管最近表示，他觉得这个行业不够透明，难以理解。美国动视公司（Activision）的首席执行官鲍比·科蒂克（Bobby Kotick）最近发表的一连串言论以及他所做出的决定，令人大为困惑，为何这个行业的巨头公司会如此脱离实际呢？

其次，过去30年，市场发展很迅速，特别是掌机领域在过去5年中发展更为快速。所以我们很有必要了解早期许多游戏公司的经营理念——他们最早是以大型游戏机的形式出现，有些公司甚至还开发餐馆中的弹珠游戏机以及其他娱乐设备。随后他们就发现了用户的消费潜力，把条码烙在磁盘或者胶卷，装入盒子，运送到零售点，希望能够大卖。游戏邦认为，视频游戏行业与消费者包装产品如吉列公司（Gillette）存在更多相同之处，后者通过卖便宜的剃须刀和换置刀片，以次计算客户的终身价值；卖赔钱的掌机和游戏，赚取授权使用费，这两种商业模式真的存在不同吗？问题的关键在于许多公司都持有这种观点，通过产品填充渠道，把精力分散至各个平台，游戏授权上。

这就带来了第三个问题——许多游戏公司深受规避风险的困扰，他们对风险的厌恶程度几乎达到了偏执状态，游戏邦发现，许多公司已经多年深陷这种困境，他们只希望数字发行渠道，用户直接购买途径以及最近的在线游戏和社交游戏能够尽快退出舞台。他们还祈祷，希望全能的零售商能做些改变，尽量照顾到他们的利益，以避免“渠道冲突”，同时又不愿意踏入手机、社交或者在线游戏等“危险的”或者“低利润”领域。他们最关心的是讨好用户，投资可调整型的合作项目，一心关注游戏能否大卖。

游戏发行商首领们所面临的一个棘手问题是——为什么要踏入这个行业？取悦消费者，提供神奇的游戏体验，建立领先的品牌和娱乐性游戏，打造一个不断完善的利润机器？这个“为什么”的答案应向用户，合伙人，工作室和其他相关人群公开。游戏邦获悉，唯一深谙此道的是EA Sports总裁皮特·摩尔（Peter Moore），他始终致力于开发大量基于零售的游戏，同时在社交，手机和网络平台上也颇有建树。

那么我们在此为何唯独挑美国动视觉公司来说呢？这绝非出于笔者个人喜好，而是因为鲍比·科蒂克这些年来真的取得了非凡的成就。他很幸运，能够凭借暴雪公司和《使命召唤》（Call of Duty），创造斐然的成绩，但在应对过时的商业模式上，他似乎有点迷失方向。

首先，他忽视了社交游戏，手机游戏以及应用软件这个利润可观的行业。他表示，“我们的发展空间就是目前已有的游戏作品。我们（美国动视公司）不认为App Store是个值得开放游戏的平台。将社交游戏视为商业机会，是另外一码事。如今我们并未看到进入这一市场的机会。”

真的吗？在社交游戏中毫无机会？据游戏邦了解，Facebook有6亿多的用户，它的私募市场价值是美国动视公司的5倍。虽然Zynga仍未上市，但市值已是EA的1.5倍。苹果的App Store的下载量也超过了100亿次。用户青睐它们提供的游戏体验和运营模式。iPad和平板电脑是任天堂（Nintendo）的DS和索尼（Sony）的PSP的真正竞争者。

不管你是否认同，所有人（包括一些企业高管们）和用户都越来越喜欢手机游戏和社交游戏。时间是我们所拥有的唯一等量产品。如果我们的用户现在都爱玩前两年大家并不知道的东西，那我们也只能面对现实，满足他们的需求。许多视频游戏的高管们认为Facebook游戏可能“质量低劣”，“不那么有艺术性或者吸引力”甚至可能“糟糕透了”。这可能没错，但他们打算怎么留住新平台的用户呢？

如果这还不够糟，那么上周美国动视公司叫停了《吉他英雄》（Guitar Hero）项目就应该是一种预兆了。毫无疑问，音乐游戏销量下滑得很厉害；要知道，《吉他英雄》自发行来已经吸金30多亿美元，这样一个大型娱乐游戏项目能难免沦落至此，其他视频游戏的前途可想可知。难道美国动视公司如此缺乏创造力，智慧或者商业意识，找不到新的方式从成千上万的粉丝身上创收吗？游戏除了零售磁盘和塑料吉他还有其他的选择吗？美国动视的董事会以及该游戏的相关决策团队在哪里呢，难道他们都同意毁掉这个品牌吗？品牌资产，业务增长，以及灵活应对行业格局的变化，对企业在市场竞争中的发展极为重要。

想象一下，如果电视节目《米奇老鼠俱乐部》（Mickey Mouse Club）1959年停播后，迪士尼就抛弃了米奇老鼠这个品牌，那么今天的娱乐世界将会完全不同。与此相反，迪士尼通过不断改革，尝试新的事物，以各种形式再现了该电视节目的动画形象，让米奇活在虚拟世界，视频游戏和在线游戏中，还成为各种商品和数码产品的注册商标。

视频游戏行业如今面临着一个发展瓶颈，而该行业的高管们考虑的是销售游戏光盘，而不是建立媒介品牌，更是让这个行业迷失了方向。如果传统游戏想要生存和发展，那就最好尽快向互联网和游戏媒介输入新思想，新策略，以及新鲜的人才血液。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Why Activision’s Bobby Kotick Is Completely Wrong On Social

The video game business is changing rapidly and it seems like several leading companies have lost their vision of why they do what they do.

The perfect storm of technology change, an economic downturn, and the explosion of social media has paralyzed many stalwart companies who have been leaders. So what’s next and what does this mean for all of the people who work in the business?

First, video games as a business has been hard to understand for people not in the business. Wall Street has paid little attention to the sector relative to other technology areas. A top executive shared with me his thoughts recently that the business is “opaque” and “hard to understand.” A recent string of inexplicable statements and terrible decisions by Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick has got to make us all wonder how the biggest player in the industry can be so out of touch with the new realities (more about that later).

Second, the market has evolved rapidly over the past 30 years and even more radically over the past 5 years with the latest console cycle. It’s important to understand the DNA of many of the early game companies – they started as arcade coin op vendors, some even as providers of pinball and other entertainment machines to restaurants. They then discovered their digital elixir’s power over their audience, burned the code onto a disc or cartridge, put it in a box, shipped it to retail and hoped it sold through.

The fact is the video games business has more in common with a consumer package goods (CPG) business like Gillette than it does with a modern technology business. Is there really a difference of business models between selling cheap razors and refill blades in order to calculate life time client value and selling money-losing consoles and games to generate license royalties? A key problem is that many companies share a vision of stuffing the channel with product to amortize their commitment to a particular platform, licensor or franchise. (In 2006 I wrote about how the games business was a media business, not a product business).

This leads to the third problem – many game companies are afflicted by risk aversion bordering on paranoia. Many companies have stuck their heads in the sand for years hoping stuff like digital distribution, direct consumer purchase and most recently, online items and social games just go away. They are still worshipping at the alter of the almighty retailer and will do what’s best for them to avoid “channel conflict” while not venturing into “risky” or “low margin” areas such as mobile, social games or direct to consumer online products. They care most about kissing up to buyers, paying for shakedown-style co-op programs and focusing on sell through.

The tough question for game publisher CEOs – why are you in business? To delight your customers, to provide amazing user experiences, to build leading brands and entertainment franchises, to create a profit machine built on rationalizing? The answer to this big “why” should be transparent to your customers, partners, studios and everyone else who matters. The only leader I know of who publicly “gets it” is Peter Moore, President of EA Sports, who is walking the line of growing massive retail-centric franchises while building value in both social, mobile and web platforms (See details of his future vision here.)

So why am I picking on Activision? It’s nothing personal and Bobby Kotick has achieved incredible success over the years. He’s very fortunate to have Blizzard and Call of Duty delivering stellar results, but he seems lost in a time machine perspective of a past business model that will never return.

First, he dismisses social, mobile and apps as a viable business. He said, “The place where you have the opportunities for growth is within the communities of franchises we control. We (Activision) don’t view the App Store as a really big opportunity for dedicated games. It’s a different question assessing [social games] as a business opportunity. Right now we don’t see an opportunity for us to participate in that market.”

Really? Not an opportunity in social games? Facebook has over 600 million users and has a private market capitalization 5 times greater than Activision’s. Zynga’s market cap is now 150% that of EA even though Zynga is still private. The Apple App store has sold over 1 billion apps. People like those experiences, business models. The iPad and tablets are real competitors to Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PSP product lines.

Whether we like it or not, all of us (including executives) and our customers are spending much more time on mobile and social experiences. Time is the one commodity of which we all have equal amounts. If our customers now spend more time doing something they didn’t do 2 years ago we must adjust to that reality and meet their needs. Some video games execs say Facebook games may “be lower quality”, “not be artistic or engaging” or may just “suck.” That may all be true but what are they doing to engage their customers on that new platform?

If this weren’t enough bumbling, last week Activision quietly announced it was killing the Guitar Hero franchise. There is no doubt music games have declined dramatically; however, GH has sold over $3 billion since launch and it’s a monster ENTERTAINMENT franchise. Does Activision not have the creativity, intelligence or business sense to find a way to monetize the millions of fans of the franchise in new ways? What options exist for the intellectual property beyond just selling discs and plastic guitars at retail? Where is Activision’s board and executive management team on this or did they all agree to destroy an iconic brand? Brand equity, growing businesses and responding to disruptive changes (these are the issues that have kept my consulting practice busy lately) are vital for any company to grow in a competitive market place.

Think about if Disney killed Mickey Mouse after the Mickey Mouse club TV show ended in 1959? The company and the entertainment world would be radically different today. Instead Disney innovated, tried new things, brought back the TV show in several incarnations and grew with the times where Mickey today lives in virtual worlds, video and online games, licensed on physical and digital products.

The video game industry faces a major hurdle, specifically the DNA of video game company leadership is thinking about shipping plastic boxes, not building media brands. It’s time for new thinking, strategies and new executive blood with Internet and media DNA if these traditional game companies are to survive and prosper.（Source：businessinsider）