作者：Benjamin F. Kuo

2010年8月，NeoPets创始人在比佛利山创建的新兴公司Meteor Games声称已指定Zac Brandenberg出任公司CEO。Brandenberg此前带领的是Hydra，他在采访中谈到Meteor如何走向社交游戏市场，公司如何希望能够复制Neopets所取得的成功以及Brandenberg在Hydra就职期间学到的经验。

Zac，感谢你接受我们的采访。能否谈谈Meteor Games公司的背景？

Meteor Games是游戏设计工作室，专注于休闲社交游戏。我们目前在开发Facebook平台上的应用，作品包括《Island Paradise》、《Ranch Town》和《Sweet Shop》。《Island Paradise》已运营超过一年的时间，游戏风格与传统的Facebook休闲社交游戏一样。比如在《Island Paradise》中，你会得到可用于饲养动物和种植作物及树木的土地，

island-paradise

公司是如何创立起来的呢？

2007年末，Adam和Donna Powell创办了这家公司。Adam和Donna曾于1999年创建称为Neopets的虚拟世界网站。他们将该网站带到美国并帮助其发展壮大，最终于2005年出售给Viacom。带着建设另一个虚拟世界和流行游戏的想法，他们于2007年创建了这家公司。经营1年至1年半后，我们在知识产权上有所创新，故事情节和公司资产都得到发展，开始进军3D领域。而当时多数Flash游戏，尤其是Facebook上的游戏，都是2D游戏。因而我们希望能够制造出更具沉浸感的游戏，也就是大型多人在线类型的游戏。随后机会来临，我们开始将资源投入到逐渐崛起的社交游戏中。我们都很适合设计和开发此类游戏，因为我们已经拥有这些基础设备，公司创始人也很精通游戏设计。因而，我们在2008年末和2009年初重新定位公司目标，今年（游戏邦注：采访时间是2010年9月份，以下文章均以此为准）8月份发布了《Island Paradise》。

自那时起，我们发现社交游戏市场改变了许多，包括许多新公司加入、社交游戏迅速增长以及传统游戏工作室对此萌生的兴趣。因此我们现在的目标是回到Meteor Games最早设立的发展方向，即制作更具沉浸感、更充实、更具内容和互动性的游戏。我们要开发的游戏与Facebook以及其他社交网络上的多数游戏存在差异，这些游戏相对简单，游戏机制也不断重复。然而，我们要创造的是更具沉浸感的游戏，我们的玩家将乐于参与其中。我们专注的是开发优质和新型和游戏机制，让用户可以在多种平台上玩游戏，而不仅局限于Facebook，并提供独特的游戏体验。

为何会做出此等改变？

公司凭借《Island Paradise》获得巨大的成功，这款游戏发展十分迅速。2009年晚秋和冬季间，其玩家数已达到800至1000万。但和每个同类型的简单农场类游戏一样，我们也遇到了各种问题，用户数逐渐减少。我们此前也曾想过开发更注重细节和内容的游戏，于是这便成了公司的目标。

你们的社交游戏采用何种运营模式？

目前我们的游戏中有金币和货币两种。从本质上来说，你在游戏中可以通过种植或参与某些活动获取金币，金币能够用来购买更多的农作物或动物。对于游戏中的货币你需要用钱购买，这些货币可以用来深化游戏体验。你可以购买更多的空间，扩大岛屿面积，购买某种树木和道具以及某些装饰品。这些虚拟道具只能用游戏内的货币购买。也就是说，游戏是免费的，但游戏内非付费玩家所获得的体验与付费玩家并没有显著的差别。你依然可以扩大岛屿面积，获得与付费玩家相同的等级。

你刚刚进入公司，而且原先从事的是不同的行业。你能说说如何将自己的网络广告经验运用到这片领域吗？

我先前从事的是广告业，过去十年中大部分时间在做网络广告和互动。在那期间，我对其他领域也萌生兴趣而且有所尝试，包括网络和电子商务等。因此，我的从业背景主要在消费者营销、广告和盈利化方面。这些经历之所以对Meteor Games有用，是因为我们正在探索的核心问题是为玩家制作好的游戏。在制作好游戏的同时，我们也想要通过这些游戏来盈利。将公司创始人、当前执行团队包括我自己结合起来，公司不仅有制作令人诧异的游戏产品的经验（游戏邦注：Adam和Donna在1999年发布的Neopets构建出独特的虚拟世界），也有奖数字产品成功营销和盈利的团队，这是非常重要的。

以下这个问题可能稍微有点偏离主题，你曾经在Hydra待过很长时间，能否谈谈你从这段经历中学到了什么？

我角色自己从这段经历中学到了你必须设定自己的目标和任务并招募优良的团队。如果你有合适的团队，就可以尽快朝制定的目标前进。另一个学到的东西我自己也无法做到尽善尽美，那就是在快速实现目标的同时需要保持对行业动向的认识。你需要不断观察、改变运营并进行创新。以上就是我认为我们现在正做的事情。我们持续关注正在开发的互动游戏，如何使用平台，为玩家制作何种类型的游戏。我们发现这个行业发展非常迅速，事情变化得也很快，很像十年前游戏在线的演变方式。正因为如此，我们需要在发展公司的同时保持睿智的头脑，需要不断探索成长和扩张的新方式。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Interview with Zac Brandenberg, Meteor Games

Benjamin F. Kuo

A few weeks ago, Beverly Hills-based Meteor Games, the latest startup from the founders of NeoPets, announced that it had hired Zac Brandenberg as its CEO. Brandenberg was most recently head of Hydra, and we thought we’d both get some insight into how Meteor is approaching the social games market, how the firm hopes to repeat the success it saw with Neopets, and also what Brandenberg learned from his time at Hydra.

Zac, thanks for sitting down with us today. What’s the story behind Meteor Games?

Zac Brandenberg: Meteor Games is a game design studio, focused on casual social games. We’re currently developing applications on Facebook. Some of our titles include Island Paradise, Ranch Town, and Sweet Shop. Island Paradise was launched by the business slightly more than a year ago. These are what you might consider traditional, Facebook casual social games. On Island Paradise, for example, you get a plot of land, you can raise animals and farm crops on them, grow trees, etcetera.

How did the firm start?

Zac Brandenberg: The company was founded in late 2007 by Adam and Donna Powell. Adam and Donna had founded a virtual world website in 1999 called Neopets. They created Neopets, brought it to the US, helped it grow, and eventually sold it to Viacom in 2005. They launched this business in 2007, with the concept of building another virtual world and large scale game. After about a year or year and a half into the business, we were really innovating the intellectual property, developing storylines and assets, and starting to go in a 3D direction. As a comparison, most Flash games, and particularly on Facebook, are 2D. So we were looking at creating a more immersive property, a massively multiplayer online style game. Then, the opportunity came to steer our resources into the explosion in social games. We were well suited to design and develop those games, because we already had the infrastructure in place, and the founders were experts in game design. So, we refocused in late 2008 and early 2009, and launched Island Paradise in August of that year.

Since then, we’ve seen lots of changes in the social gaming market, including lots of new players, lots of growth, and also lots of interest from traditional gaming studios. Because of that, where we want to go now with the business is back in the direction that Meteor Games was originally focused on, which is more immersive, more fleshed out, more content driven, interactive games. That’s different from most games on Facebook, and on social networks as a whole, which are relatively simple games, with the same gaming mechanics over and over again. Instead, we’re creating more immersive games that our players are able to engage with. We are focused on well developed, new mechanics in gaming, and providing users the ability to play on numerous platforms, not just Facebook itself, and provide an innovative experience.

Why the interest in that area?

Zac Brandenberg: The company had a lot of success with Island Paradise, which grew very rapidly. In late fall and winter of 2009, it had reached 8-10 million players already. But, like every one of those type of games, and every one based on relatively simple farming–we reached whatever the critical mass was, and started to see some attrition to our user base. We’ve also wanted to be able to develop more detailed, more content driven games, which was what the company wanted to do.

What’s the business model you have for social games?

Zac Brandenberg: We currently both have a premium product we sell, by the way of premium items. We also have in-game currency, which is not premium. What that means, is that essentially, when you play the game, you collect gold when you farm or engage in any activity. With that gold, you can buy more crops or animals. With the premium currency in the game, you actually have to pay hard dollars, and you can use that premium currency to advance where you are in the game. You can buy more space, you can expand the size of your island, you can buy certain trees and items, or certain decorations. Those virtual items are only available for purchase with premium currency. That said, the games are free to play, and the experience is not significantly different for users who are not spending actual dollars in the game. You can still expand your island, and still gain the same levels as paying players.

You just joined recently, but from a different industry. Can you talk about how your Internet ad experience might be applied here?

Zac Brandenberg: I’ve been in the advertising space, and in online advertising and interactive for much of the last ten years. During that time, I had either interest or activities in other areas, including in online, some in ecommerce, some efforts that were more retail-driven, and traditional properties with an Internet presence. So, my background is primarily in consumer marketing, advertising, and the ability to monetize properties. Where that brings value to Meteor Games, is one of the core things we’re looking to do is make great games for our players. At the same time we are making great games, is we want to monetize those games. Having the combination of the companies founders and the current executive team, including myself, we not only have experience in creating incredible gaming properties, having build the unique an dindustry leading virtual world like Adam and Donna did in launching Neopets in 1999, we’ve also got a team which has successfully marketed and monetized digital properties, which is important.

A bit off topic, but it was a long and tumultuous experience for you at Hydra. Can you talk about what you learned from that experience?

Zac Brandenberg: I would say that one of the takeaways from Hydra, and there are a lot, is that you have to set your goals, set your targets, and corral a great team. If you’ve got the right team, you can move as fast as you can towards that target. One of the other things I learned form that, and which I didn’t necessarily execute to perfection, is that while you’re rapidly pursuing that goal, and pushing towards whatever your objective is–with Hydra, it was to be the largest CPA network in the United States–is you need to remain cognizant of industry changes. You have to be continually looking, and reinventing elements of your business, and innovating. That’s what I think we’re doing here. We’re constantly looking at the interactive games we’re developing, how the platform is being used, what types of games we are making available to our players, and staying cognizant that this industry is moving very fast, and things are changing rapidly, very similar to the way games evolved online ten years ago. Because of that, we need to remain mindful, as we grow our business, that we need to continue to find new ways to grow and expand.Thanks! (Source: Socaltech)