作者：Keith Andrew

信不信由你，游戏记者满世界跑活动不只是为了免费的酒水点心。你很难找到我们没有现身的重大游戏会议，我的意思是，就评选今年前五名游戏行业发言来说，我们是最佳并且公正客观的人选。

Develop 2012：PlayStation Mobile为独立开发者提供公平竞争的赛场

Playstation Mobile(from shacknews.com)

好吧，这个说法有点儿让人措手不及。

会议室里一半的座位是空的，发言也没有什么特别之处，但如果说在今年的开发大会上有一场台上发言明确地表达了关于游戏平台发展方向的观点，那就是索尼推出PlayStation Mobile（游戏邦注：这是索尼的Android和PS Vita游戏平台）的决心。

这个消息是索尼高级客户经理Agostino Simonetta透露的，为了争取人们对PlayStation Mobile的支持，索尼台词与当初的PS Minis相差无几。

的确，对于所有考虑从事PlayStation Mobile游戏的开发者而言，很难想象Simonetta的营销战略（也暗示单靠PlayStation这一品牌就足以给它的成功打包票），居然直到发言的最后都没有让听众反感。

Simonetta断言：“消费者们知道他们可以信任PlayStation。”

“这个品牌一直是品质的同义词。多年以前，对大多数人来说，‘PlayStation’就已经是‘游戏机’的代名词了。就拿我母亲来说，游戏机指的不是Xbox或梦工厂，而是PlayStation，直到现在也没有改变。”

Unite 2012：Peter Molyneux揭露游戏开发的五大要素

Peter Molyneux(from nisute.com)

在Unite 2012—-Unity的年会上，成为众人焦点的是Peter Molyneux。

如果你不晓得他的工作室22 Cans在这一年最后几个月里出现了多少媒体报道——无论是好是坏，那就很难想象这种发言会有那么多人在听。

Molyneux在本次大会上的发言内容是关于他数月前发布的iOS游戏处女作《Curiosity》，他在台上的大部分时间都在详述他认为开发一款成功游戏应该具备的五大要素。

那五大要素是什么，你应该会这么问吧？简单、愉快、惊喜、过瘾、独特。

Molyneux声称：“几乎全世界的人都在变成游戏玩家。”

“如果你真的想吸引这些人，那么你必须让游戏保持简单。现在，在人们看够你的游戏按下主页键以前，你只有十分之一秒的时间吸引他们。”

免费游戏峰会：Boss Alien的Jason Avent认为憎恨免费模式的人患有“排外症”

《CSR Racing》的收益峰值是1200万美元。

简单地说，单靠这个数字就可以知道，今年Boss Alien的Jason Avent要说的话最可能是如何积累玩家基础。

幸运的是，他在第二次免费游戏峰会上的发言没有令人失望，他谈到免费模式的运动——就手机领域的免费游戏来说，《CSR Racing》绝对是先锋。

Avent认为，如果玩家没有抱怨游戏内消费，那就说明你的模式可能太廉价了。“现在是免费模式的发展初期。此时，免费模式充其量就是一位狡黠的二手车推销员——我们仍然处于学习阶段。我们最终会变得更明智。当用户有需要时，我们提供他们想要的东西——这就是我看到的未来。”

社交游戏峰会2012：Marvelous AQL呼吁欧美开发者向日本学习社交游戏的经验

手机市场的发展步伐只是刚刚赶上这个论断，而这个论断通常出于洞察力很强的预言家之口。

Harry Holmwood是日本游戏公司Marvelous AQL欧洲地区的CEO。他在社交游戏峰会上的发言更像一出预言。

他表示：如果你想知道欧美游戏界的下一起重大事件，请向日本看齐。

尽管对许多欧美人来说，日本文化是很疯狂的，但卡拉OK、幻幻球似的弹珠机，甚至极其“I’m a Celebrity”式的游戏节目都在欧美地区广受欢迎。

与此类似，卡片收集类游戏现在也吸引了欧美玩家的目光——这类游戏只是改头换面使之更加迎合欧美玩家的胃口。《CSR Racing》的卡片收集设置就是绝好的例子。

Holmwood总结道：“欧美人其实并不喜欢收集卡片，所以《CSR Racing》将卡片收集与赛车相结合。这样它就不是单纯的卡片收集游戏——它是赛车收集游戏，因为欧美玩家喜欢收集赛车。”

csr racing（from pocketgamer.biz)

Develop 2012：Brian Baglow探讨独立开发者如何掌握营销艺术

营销顾问Brian Baglow在Develop 2012上的发言倍受关注，因为他承诺给大家发啤酒。

啤酒虽然没有兑现，但没有人抱怨。

Baglow全面分析了手机开发者在2012年应该考虑的事——从如何答记者问到成为思想深刻的领导者。

如果你同意的话，可以说他的发言简直是普及常识，是劝告所有刚刚从事手机游戏开发的人：

“开发者们告诉我，他们不能向媒体透露他们的游戏想法，因为别人会盗走创意。现在让我来揭露真相：除非你的游戏卖出10万份，否则没有人关心你和你的游戏。没人会模仿你的游戏。山寨很常见，但只有成功的游戏才会被山寨。”（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）

Chat attack: Top 5 conference talks of 2012

by Keith Andrew

Believe it or not, games journalists don’t just attend events around the globe for the free food.

Well, personally speaking, anywhere that serves decent quiche is a bit of a draw, but I’ve also been known to attend a talk or two – especially during the last twelve months.

In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find all too many events we didn’t sully with our presence, meaning we’re the perfect – and entirely impartial – folks to count down the top five talks of the year.

Develop 2012: PlayStation Mobile to let indies ‘compete on a fair playing field’

Okay, this one is a bit of a curve ball.

The room was half empty and the talk was nothing special, but if there was one presentation at this year’s Develop in Brighton that gave the clearest view as to the direction a platform was going in, it was Sony’s attempt to push PlayStation Mobile.

Delivered by senior account manager Agostino Simonetta, the line Sony used to try and garner support for PlayStation Mobile – its games platform for Android and PS Vita – was that it had much in common with PS Minis.

Indeed, for any developer in the audience considering signing up to support PlayStation Mobile, it’s hard to imagine Simonetta’s selling strategy – also suggesting the PlayStation brand alone would be enough to ensure it was a success – hadn’t put them off by the end of the talk.

“Consumers know they can trust the PlayStation brand,” claimed Simonetta.

“It’s always been synonymous with quality. Years ago, ‘PlayStation’ replaced the word ‘console’ for most people – for my mother, it wasn’t an Xbox or a Dreamcast, it was a PlayStation, and that hasn’t changed today.”

Unite 2012: Peter Molyneux reveals the 5 key ingredients to put in your development cooking pot

Stealing the limelight at Unite 2012 – Unity’s annual conference, this year held in the beautiful city of Amsterdam – was Peter Molyneux.

And if you consider the amount of press – both good and bad – his studio 22 Cans has generated during the final months of the year, it’s hard to imagine a better booking.

Molyneux’s keynote at Unite, however, came months before his debut iOS experience, Curiosity, had hit the App Store, with much of his time on stage spent detailing the five ingredients he thinks every successful game had chucked in its cooking pot during development.

What are the five ingredients, you ask? Keep things simple, keep things delightful, try to surprise your audience, engage them, and offer them something unique.

“Almost the whole world is becoming gamers,” claimed Molyneux.

“If you really want to engage those people, you’ve got to keep things simple. You have about a tenth of a second before people to get bored of your game and press that home button these days.”

F2P Summit: Freemium haters are ‘xenophobic’, says Boss Alien’s Jason Avent

At its peak, CSR Racing was making $12 million in revenue.

To put it simply, that stat alone means that, anything Boss Alien’s Jason Avent had to say this year was likely to garner an audience.

Luckily his talk at the second F2P Summit in London’s Shoreditch didn’t disappoint, with Avent’s take on the free-to-play movement – which CSR Racing has arguably led from a mobile perspective this year – standing as a particularly frank one.

“This is early days for freemium,” said Avent, claiming that iuf users aren’t complaining about the in-app purchases in a game, then your model is probably too cheap.

“At the moment, freemium is like a dodgy used car salesman – we’re still learning. We will get cleverer at all this eventually. Sell users what they want when they need it – that’s the future, I think.”

Social Gaming Summit 2012: Western devs, look to Japan for your next social gaming stars, argues Marvelous AQL

Such is the pace of the mobile market that merely keeping up often requires the kind of insight that’s usually reserved for fortune tellers on Blackpool pier.

Harry Holmwood – European CEO of Japanese gaming specialist Marvelous AQL – took to the stage at the Social Gaming & Gambling Summit in London with his own crystal ball, however.

His take: If you want to know what will be the next big thing in the west, look to Japan.

As crazy as Japanese culture may seem to many westerners, the likes of Karaoke, Peggle-like pachinko machines, even extreme I’m a Celebrity-esque endurance game shows have all become big hits in the US and Europe.

Likewise, card collection games are now taking hold in the west – they’re just being rebranded to make them more attractive to western gamers, with CSR Racing’s focus on collecting cards the perfect example.

“We don’t really like collecting cards in the west, so CSR Racing dresses itself up as this beautifully presented racing game,” concluded Holmwood.

“But it’s not – it’s a game where you collect cars, because over here we like collecting cars.”

Develop 2012: Brian Baglow on how indies can master the art of marketing

Marketing consultant Brian Baglow’s talk at Develop in Brighton attracted attendees aplenty because of the promise of beer.

The beer didn’t materialise, but no one complained.

Baglow stood up and gave a comprehensive account of everything a mobile developer needs to consider in 2012 – from how to speak to journalists to becoming a thought leader.

It was, if you like, a dossier on common sense, and the one talk this writer would recommend every developer just setting out on their mobile mission should

“Developers tells me that they can’t talk to the press about their game idea because someone will steal it,” said Baglow when talking about pitching to journos early.

“Lets do away with this myth now: Until you sell 100,000 copies, nobody cares about you or your game. People won’t copy it. Cloning is common, but it only happens to successful games.”(source:pocketgamer)