作者：Keith Andrew

取精华弃其糟粕，在拥挤的市场中寻找商机，这本可能是发行商要做的事。但依Spilt Milk Studio营销总监Andrew John Smith的说法，多数开发商正不得不自行解决这些费心劳力的问题。

然而，他们努力追寻的是那些能让游戏真正产生价值的发行商，避免作品毁于某些商家之手。

结果，Smith成了“Who Needs Chillingo?”的重要支持者。Who Needs Chillingo?这个新型开发商合作社旨在为寻求自主发行游戏的开发商提供支持。但是，与组织原则不同的是，Smith并不完全否定发行商的作用。

在数字时代，发行商的何种做法能够满足开发商诉求，就此问题Pocket Gamer采访了Smith。以下是游戏邦编译的相关访谈内容：

Spilt Milk Studios-logo(from abertay.ac.uk)

你缘何加入“Who Needs Chillingo?”合作社？

坦诚地说，我看到一条有关这个活动的tweet，觉得参与这项活动是个很有趣的事。帮助开发商逐渐脱离发行商的做法很不错，毕竟，让发行商赚足钱的游戏是由开发商制作完成的。

为何让合作社冠以Chillingo的名称？

我也在想这个问题，个人认为这与该公司的知名度大有关联。有大公司的品牌效应可以获得良好的公共关系，难道不是吗？毫无疑问，Chillingo是凭借自己的才能、技术和努力才取得了今天的成就。

同时，这种名字最容易被人记住，合作社的目标也很容易为众人理解。尽管这种做法看似很不厚道，但这也是独立开发工作室的优势，我们无需向任何人（游戏邦注：这里指其他公司的投资方）解释公司“被冠名”的事宜。

你们合作社的目标是什么？

正如合作社名称所示，这是场极其严肃的活动，旨在让小型开发商更有力量掌控iPhone市场，主要通过分享和培养他们的社交和媒体联系来实现。

合作社的名字充满挑衅含义，听起来很像我们恨所有的发行商。但我们更想做的是尝试摆脱发行商，而不是贬低他们的业务和贡献。

智能手机领域中已经完全没有发行商存在的空间吗？还是说你只是希望他们发挥不同的作用？

依我的经验来看，广义上的发行商有两种类型。

有些发行商意识到游戏是由一群有才华的人所制作，他们的任务是通过专业的公共关系和营销行为（游戏邦注：在数字时代中，分销已渐行渐远）让前途光明的高质量产品屹立于市场，同时承担此类行为产生的所有花费。

第二类发行商简直就是些魔鬼。他们已经忘记或者从未意识到，他们根本无法脱离我们开发商制作的内容，把自己的客户当成可随时替换的员工，最终遭遇失败。

我希望市场鼓励前者的行为并且驱逐后者，因为我深信只要将优秀游戏的营销做好，它们的销售额总会超过劣质游戏。

现在的玩家支持率非常重要，如果是像ngmoco这种知名发行商推出了一款烂游戏，人们很快就会遗忘这件事，但第二类发行商却会让游戏变得很烂。

你是否担心过许多工作室可能会因为失去发行商的帮助而消失？

我每天都在担心这个问题，我可能也会成为那群倒霉的人。

但我时常将注意力转移到另一个方向上，某些愚蠢的第三方公司只关心盈利，根本不理解在发布后不断跟踪支持游戏的价值所在。如果我不受这些人的监视，可以自由地去做正确的事情。我知道什么做法能够产生作用，因为我是真正负责游戏制作的开发商。

我得到的是第一手经验和资料，我所处的位置也比那些坐在办公室打电话的人（游戏邦注：指代某些发行商）好的多。

比如，我已计划为即将发布的iPhone游戏《Hard Lines》提供发布后数月的支持。只要人们对它还有兴趣，而且有可能产生更大的兴趣，我们便可以制定计划让游戏在发布后逐渐扩大。

现在我还无法完全确定我们会脱离发行商，但合作社确实会让我对“该做的事”的看法发生改变。

某些编辑辩解称发行商就是个过滤器，他们帮助Pocket Gamer之类的网站在决定报道何种游戏时分清优劣。你认为这种说法有道理吗？

我同意这种说法的部分观点。市场发展如此迅速，我觉得让网站编辑手工挑选游戏已不可能。过滤器确实需要，发行商也是种可以参考的方式，但是难道他们就是最好的吗？难道他们是唯一的选择吗？还是说他们只是传统游戏市场遗留下来的过时产物？

从一开始我就不认为发布阶段是App Store之类市场上最重要的阶段，但仍然有众多发行商在此倾注全力。

当然，游戏有好的开始很棒，获得大网站的报道也很棒，但这些游戏并不像它们当初在商店货架上（游戏邦注：指传统游戏）那样于一周后消失。

在市场中，游戏发布一年后和大促销的那个周末，玩家选择的渠道并无差异。如果游戏确实很优秀，那就肯定有更多的方式让其脱颖而出，所需要的可能只是一篇文章和一个商店链接而已。

开发商和媒体本身都需要担起责任。

因而我不会为庆祝下个游戏的发布而在伦敦奢华的酒吧提供免费餐饮，比起再三与国外同公共关系部门和大群高管磋商所有事宜相比，我可以更自由地使用网站内容，如特别文章、采访和专题报道等。

公共关系确实能够带来巨大的效果，这不是什么坏事，而且这场游戏我们所有人都必须玩。不幸的是，《游戏发展国》这款游戏并没有将公共关系这个元素考虑入列。

你认为自己能为开发商提供哪些普通发行商做不到的东西？

所有开发商都好似在前线战斗，我们努力并快速学习着市场中包含的技巧、陷阱和众多微妙之处。我们因此获得数量惊人的知识，我们应该尽量分享这些内容。

这并非某种共产主义式的想法，但这确实意味着我们可以给出发行商所具有的技巧、活跃度和公共关系，同时让开发商收获所有利益。共享的并不是盈利和设计技巧，只是建议和学识而已。

你认为开发商与发行商间的关系会有何种改变？

说实在，我觉得我们所看到的现状是，只有那些知道他们所要做的事并同开发商保持合理关系的发行商能够发展并存在下去。

坏消息用不了多少时间就会被公众知晓，如果有人受某发行商欺骗，后者肯定会看到开发商向他们提交的作品数大幅减少。

也就是说，作为开发商我们应当看清形势。我们并没有欠发行商钱，他们也不是我们的家丁，我们需要记住的是，正是我们制作的内容给他们带来了收入。任何关系都应该是互惠互利和彼此尊重。

这种微妙的平衡在行业内通行，如果过多开发商对发行商卑躬屈膝，这种平衡就会被破坏。

这本身就是个市场，双方都参与其中。如果多数人默认这种不公平的地位，那么剩余的人也会受到影响。最终损害的是参与其中的所有人，最重要的是会伤害到玩家。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Chillingo works hard, but too many publishers have become monsters says Spilt Milk’s Andrew John Smith

Keith Andrew

Sifting through the good and the bad, looking for that diamond in the rough might be the publisher’s domain, but according to Spilt Milk Studio MD Andrew John Smith, the majority of developers are having to undertake an equally arduous search all of their own.

Their hunt, however, is for publishers who can bring genuine value to their titles, rather than those that – in his own words – have turned into “monsters”.

As a result, Smith has become a notable backer of Who Needs Chillingo? – a new developer cooperative designed to support studios looking to self-publish – but, unlike the group’s mantra, he isn’t entirely sure that the ‘publisher is dead’ just yet.

We caught up with Smith to ask what publishers can do to appeal to developers in the digital age.

Pocket Gamer: How did your involvement in Who Needs Chillingo come about?

Andrew John Smith: Frankly I saw a tweet about it and thought, if nothing else, it’d be fun to join in. Any movement to help developers get a bit of the power back from publishers is a good one. We’re the ones making the games they get rich off, after all.

Why was Chillingo chosen to adorn the cooperative’s name?

I’m guessing here but I expect it’s much more to do with its prevalence – namedropping can be good PR right? Chillingo has managed to get where it is today through talent, skill, and hard work. No doubt about it.

But it’s also the most memorable name, so is an easy target for this kind of thing. It’s cheeky, but then that’s one of the nice things about being an independent dev studio – we don’t have to ask anyone if it’s ‘on brand’ to be cheeky.

What are the cooperative’s goals?

As it turns out, it’s a pretty serious movement to get more power and market reach to the smaller developers out there on iPhone, primarily by sharing and growing each other’s social and media connections.

The name sounds pretty aggressive and combative – as if we all hate all publishers – but it’s really more about trying to make do without them than it is belittling their businesses and contributions.

Is there no room at all for publishers in the smartphone space, or would you just like to see their role change?

In my experience there are two kinds of publishers, broadly speaking.

There are those who recognise that what they are doing is taking a promising, high quality product created by a talented group of people and getting the market to sit up and take notice of it through professional PR and marketing – distribution is less relevant in the digital age – along with shouldering all the costs that this sort of activity generates.

The second kind of publisher has become a monster. They’ve forgotten, or never realised, that it would be nowhere without the content that we the developers make, treats its clients as replaceable work-for-hire and, eventually, comes a-cropper.

I’d hope that the market will encourage the first kind and eventually see off the latter kind, because I truly believe that a good game well marketed will outsell a bad game well marketed.

The gamers’ voice is strong these days so honestly if someone like ngmoco releases a bad game, it’s pretty swiftly forgotten about – and the second kind of publisher will make bad games, believe me.

Don’t you worry that many studios will simply disappear without trace if left alone?

I worry about this every day – I might be one of the unlucky ones to disappear!

The thing that I always fall back on is that without some idiot third-party breathing down my neck, who’s only concern is hitting a milestone, or who doesn’t understand the value of constant and focused support of a game once it has been released, I am free to do the right thing. I know what works, because I’m on the coalface.

I’ve experienced all the lessons first hand and am in a much better position than someone sat at a safe distance in making judgement calls.

For example, my upcoming iPhone game Hard Lines is going to be supported for months – if not years – after release. As long as people seem interested in it – and in an attempt to generate more interest – we’ve got plans to massively expand the game beyond launch.

Now I’m not promising 100 percent definitively that we’ll be in a position to do so, but it’d take a huge and unexpected negative turn of events to change my perception of the ‘right thing to do’.

Some editors argue that publishers act as a filter, helping sites like Pocket Gamer determine the wheat from the chaff when deciding what games to cover. Do you think there’s any truth in that?

I’d agree, but only to a point. I think the market is so crazy that it’d be impossible for the writers on sites like this to manually pick games. There needs to be a filter, and publishers are certainly one way of filtering – but are they the best, the only one? Or are they just an outdated hangover from the traditional games market?

For a start, I’m not convinced that the launch period is the biggest most important time in a market like the App Store, yet it is where a lot of publishers still focus all their efforts.

Of course it’s great to get your game off to a big start, and so coverage on big sites is great, but these games don’t simply disappear after a week like they used to on shop shelves.

They’re no less accessible to your market a year after launch than they are the weekend of their big promotion, and so if the game is good there should be many more ways for it to float to the top – all it takes is an article and a link to the store.

This is where the developer, and the media itself, needs to take some responsibility.

So I’m not going to be able to offer free drinks and grub at a swanky bar in London for the launch of my next game, but I’m much more free to help out in terms of website content – features, interviews, exclusive content etc – than if I had to triple check everything with a PR department and a bunch of executives in a different country.

The PR world does revolve around perks and mutual back scratching, which is no bad thing; it’s just the game we all have to play. Unfortunately, it is an element missing from Game Dev Story.

What do you think you can offer developers that standard publishers can’t?

Developers are right on the frontlines in all this. We’re learning the hard, and fast, way about all the tricks, traps and nuances of the market, we’ve collectively got an amazing wealth of knowledge and we should share that as much as we can.

It’s not some communist ideal, but it does mean we should be able to offer all the dodges, perks and contacts that a publisher would offer, and at the same time leave the developer to reap all the rewards. No share in profits, no designing-over-the-shoulder, just advice and wisdom. Pretty neat.

What do you think will happen to the developer-publisher relationship?

I honestly think what we’re seeing is only the publishers that know what they’re doing and act reasonably towards the people who make them rich – us, the developers – are surviving or doing well.

It doesn’t take long for bad news to spread, and if someone gets shafted by a publisher, you can guarantee that they’ll see a drop off in developer submissions to their portfolio.

That said we need to grow some balls, as developers. We’re not in debt to publishers, they’re not the gatekeepers, and we need to remember that our content is what fills their coffers. Any relationship entered into should be a mutually beneficial and respectful one.

This delicate balance is an industry-wide one, and can be ruined if too many developers bend over backwards for the sake of taking bad deals.

It’s a market in and of itself, and market forces are at play. If the majority of people take bad deals, that’s all the rest of us will be offered – which is ultimately bad for everyone involved on the business end, and most importantly, the gamer. (Source: Pocket Gamer)