作者：Neil Long

凭借《愤怒的小鸟：星球大战》，世界上最大的游戏系列也成为这个星球上辨识度最高的游戏系列。这款游戏不仅高居全球应用商店排行榜之首，而且其周边产品也已经全面占领全球各大玩具商店——正好赶上圣诞节。

Petri(from edge-online)

在Rovio工作室正式宣布将于2016年发布《愤怒的小鸟》电影以前，Petri Jarvilehto就已经忍不住透露了Rovio的下一步举动。这位执行副总裁谈论了关于如何吸引更多观众，并肯定它的下一个项目将会比《愤怒的小鸟：星球大战》“大非常、非常多”。当要求他进一步爆料时，他却说：“我们不回应传闻，特别是关于我们已经开始做的事。”

Rovio证实它已经签约《Despicable Me》的制作人John Cohen制作《愤怒的小鸟》电影，而Marvel工作室的前任总监将担任执行制作人。Rovio将自行制作和筹资、重复利用它的龙头游戏《愤怒的小鸟》系列获得的大量收益。当然，该工作室没打算放弃电子游戏。

Jarvilehto表示：“关于《愤怒的小鸟》，以后我们还有一大堆事要做。但同时，我们觉得现在也是着手新游戏和开拓新领域的好时机。”

他继续道：“我们当然还瞄准着更大的游戏，我们已经获得相当大的成就了，同时也觉得我们必须再接再励。”

Jarvilehto做过主机游戏，在Remedy Entertainment公司参与制作过《Alan Wake》和《Max Payne》等大投入的游戏。“在从事主机游戏这么多年以后，转向手机和平板，我确实发现后者更有趣得多。快节奏的开发尤其有意思。主机游戏漫长的开发周期让我觉得太落后了——我更喜欢新时代。我认为在手机和平板电脑上会发生更多振奋人心的事。”

那种振奋部分来源于当下手机与平板电脑之间的互相联系。“在未来，我们会看到比现在的社交性更强的玩法体验。我相信未来会更令人兴奋。”

从Rovio的最新游戏中，我们已经可以窥知它的未来走向。Jarvilehto将《愤怒的小鸟：星球大战》的发布比作发售主机游戏的前20%的内容，他认为从本质上说，发布是服务。一旦游戏发布，Rovio的“活跃团队”将接手，并继续发布后面的80%和更新内容。

Angry-Birds-Star-Wars(from edge-online)

Jarvilehto解释道：“对于《愤怒的小鸟》，我们已经制定了相当复杂的第一年计划。我们已经知道要做什么更新，什么时候发布。游戏的价值应该非常对得起99美分的价格——因为有一支专门的维护团队将在接下来的一两年内支持游戏的更新。”

Rovio的榜首游戏和无处不在的营销战略是出于健康的合作精神。它与著名品牌合作，发布如《愤怒的小鸟里约》和《愤怒的小鸟：星球大战》等游戏。它与营销公司合作生产玩具、公仔、帽子、卫衣和其他服装等。你现在可以购买到《愤怒的小鸟：星球大战》的积木——一种产品就有三个不同的品牌。

“我们认为可以和其他公司合作的项目还有非常多。但我们还想走得更远，也就是说，以多样的合作方式促进我们自己的内部开发。”

在电子游戏方面，它已经和牛津独立游戏开发商Exient合作，将《愤怒的小鸟》三部曲移植到主机平台上。Rovio非常欣赏Snappy Touch和Mystery Coconut的游戏《Casey’s Contraptions》，所以它购买了那款游戏的版权。经过修改后，它以《Amazing Alex》为名，在今年夏季重新发布了。

Rovio的积极进取精神应该受到赞扬，但作为游戏开发商，其游戏的技巧性不免让人产生一点儿势利性的质疑。我们认为《愤怒的小鸟》不是一款“正宗的游戏”，这恼怒了Rovio。

Jarvilehto争论道：“在我们的关卡设计中，绝对有大量科学根据，大量技巧和大量创意。我认为我们在这方面没有得到应有的赞誉——至少与我们的努力不相符。许多关卡你可以直接通过，但如果你想得到三颗星，那就非常像玩益智游戏了。我们努力让玩家展开横向思维。如果你想找到所有秘密，你可能得从后面射击小鸟或想一个完全不同的解决方案。我们认为这很重要，也非常有乐趣。”

Angry-Birds-Star-Wars-Deathstar(from edge-online)

毫无疑问，Rovio看到它还将带着现在的成功走得更远，这令该工作室极为振奋。就像《星球大战》，《愤怒的小鸟》的流行横扫了玩具制造、各种商品等其他媒体。芬兰最著名的游戏工作室将很快超越电子游戏领域，成为当之无愧的休闲娱乐界的巨人。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Bigger than Star Wars: What’s next for Angry Birds developer Rovio

by Neil Long

The world’s biggest videogame series met one of the planet’s most recognised universes in Angry Birds Star Wars. Not only did it top global App Store charts, but related merchandise has swamped toy stores across the world, too – and just in time for Christmas.

Petri Jarvilehto spoke to us before Rovio confirmed that it would be releasing an Angry Birds movie in 2016, but he couldn’t resist dropping a few hints as to Rovio’s next move. The company’s executive vice president for games talked about entertaining a much larger audience, and that its next project would be “much, much bigger” than Angry Birds Star Wars. When questioned further, he added: “We don’t comment on rumours, especially the ones we’ve started.”

Rovio has since confirmed that it has signed up Despicable Me producer John Cohen to produce the Angry Birds film, with former Marvel Studios chairman David Maisel on board as executive producer. It is also producing and financing the film itself, re-investing the colossal revenues it has gathered from its flagship bird-flinging series. Rovio isn’t about to abandon videogames, though.

“We have a huge amount of incredibly great Angry Birds things lined up for the future,” says Jarvilehto. “But at the same time, we feel that the time is pretty much right to introduce new IPs and keep pushing into other directions as well.”

“We are certainly targeting much bigger games,” he continues. “We’ve managed to achieve some pretty awesome things, and at the same time we feel like we need to push this to the next level.”

Jarvilehto’s background is in console development, having spent years at Remedy Entertainment working on big-budget titles like Alan Wake and Max Payne. “Coming from a long background in console games to working on mobile and tablets, I’m actually finding this much more enjoyable,” he says. “The rapid speed at which we operate is incredible fun. The long development lifecycles that you see on consoles feel so much like the old world – I’m enjoying the new world a lot. Mobile and tablets is where I think more of the exciting things are happening.”

Part of that excitement is in how, here in the new world, mobiles and tablets are all connected to each other. “In the future there’s going to be even more social experiences around gameplay than what we’re seeing today,” says Jarvilehto. “I believe that it’s going to be an exciting future.”

We can already see a little of Rovio’s future in its latest game. Releases are thought of internally as services, says Jarvilehto, who compares the release of Angry Birds Star Wars to shipping the first 20 per cent of a console game. Once the game goes live, Rovio’s ‘live team’ takes over and continues to release the next 80 per cent, update by update.

“For Angry Birds Star Wars we have the first year planned out in pretty intricate detail,” explains Jarvilehto. “We already know which updates we’re going to be doing and when those are going to go live. It should be a pretty good value proposition for 99 cents – a dedicated live team that’s going to support the game for the next year or two.”

Rovio’s chart-topping games and ubiquitous merchandising is down to a healthy collaborative spirit. It worked with famous brands to release games like Angry Birds Rio and Angry Birds Star Wars. It works with merchandising companies to produce toys, plushes, hats, hoodies and all manner of other apparel. You can now buy Angry Birds Star Wars Jenga – three different brands in one product.

”We think that there’s alot of things that we can do working with other companies,” says Jarvilehto. “We think we should move even faster, though. That means complimenting our own internal development with collaboration in multiple ways.”

For its videogames, it has worked with Oxford-based indie Exient to port its Angry Birds Trilogy to consoles. Rovio liked Snappy Touch and Mystery Coconut’s game Casey’s Contraptions so much that it bought the rights for the game. It was tweaked and re-released as Amazing Alex this summer.

Rovio’s rampant entrepreneurial spirit is to be admired, but there’s still a little snobbery in some circles over its skills as a games developer. We ask whether the perception that Angry Birds isn’t a ‘proper game’ annoys Rovio.

“There’s definitely a lot of science, a lot of skill and a lot of creativity involved with our level design,” he contends. “I don’t think we do get as much credit on that as we should – at least not compared to the effort we put in. Many of the levels you can pass straight away, but if you want to get three stars they are much more like puzzles. We are trying to push the players to engage in lateral thinking more. If you want to find all of the secrets you might need to shoot the birds backwards or think of a completely different solution. We think that’s important, and it’s a huge amount of fun to do as well.”

There’s no question Rovio is having a huge amount of fun seeing how far it can take its current success, too. Like Star Wars, Angry Birds’ popularity has spawned an array of toys, merchandise and other media. Finland’s most famous games studio is fast transcending mere videogames to become an entertainment giant in its own right.（source：edge-online）