游戏邦在:
杂志专栏:
gamerboom.com订阅到鲜果订阅到抓虾google reader订阅到有道订阅到QQ邮箱订阅到帮看

分析现今手机市场中独立开发项目的发展

发布时间:2013-04-09 16:37:53 Tags:,,,,

作者:Leigh Alexander

Giordano Contestabile说,随着手机游戏行业达到一定的成熟度,新的商业机遇便会大量涌现出来。这位资深游戏执行官长期负责《Bejeweled》系列,但是最近他却离开PopCap而加入Tilting Point Media—-旨在资助手机市场中已有的独立项目和新项目。

“我喜欢PopCap,我的几个好朋友也在那里工作。但如果你看看今天的手机市场,再看看iOS排行榜上名列前茅的游戏,便会发现其中75%都是独立开发者的成果。”所以他决定重新定位自己的工作。

同时,像Activision或PopCap的母公司EA等主要发行商也都在手机领域有了大量投入,并且发行了上百款手机游戏—-“但他们的手机市场份额却都未超过10%。手机市场的准入门槛相对低,所以能为独立开发者提供更多机遇。”

随着硬件的升级和手机市场中竞争的加剧,预算和产值也迅速上涨。在手机游戏推广方面,营销开始发挥越来越关键的作用。所以现在,开发者发布游戏后除了时时跟进,还要更新内容、与玩家保持联系。

对于独立开发者,手机游戏开发变得越来越昂贵

Contestabile表示:“玩家的眼光越来越敏锐了。许多人玩的第一款游戏就是手机游戏,随着他们对游戏了解的加深,自然想玩更好的游戏,更有趣的游戏。我看到问题是,即使有创意有才能的独立开发者很多,但是他们却很难在手机领域取得成功,因为手机市场开始变得昂贵了。”

就像EA Partners打算借它的发行影响力建立独立游戏工作室,Tilting Point旨在挖掘和培养手机领域的新人才。由EAP之前的主管(包括前总经理Tilting Point在内)成立的Tilting Point,计划在未来3年内投资4000万美元用于独立工作室的建设经营。Tilting Point目前打算全面投入营销和开发工作,并通过发行和维护新手机游戏提供服务和支持。

tilting point(from gamasutra)

tilting point(from gamasutra)

其他大发行商往往一边资助独立工作室一边开发自己的游戏,而作为产品管理和收益副总裁的Contestabile却认为,Tilting Point一边开发自己的游戏,一边投资独立项目(因为那样就难保他们对自己的游戏偏心),而这应该能够有效吸引独立开发者的注意。

Contestabile指出:“作为独立开发者,你可以和若干发行商合作,但大多数发行商本身也是开发商。他们真的会像推广自己的游戏那样尽心尽力地推广你的游戏?他们会把最好的资源放在自己的项目上还是你的项目上?”

Contestabile表示公司目前的计划是,与已经小有成就的独立开发团队合作。他解释道:“这个团队可能是一家新公司,但我们要求组成这个公司的团队必须经验丰富。我们的观点是:市场风云变幻,一般游戏在9个月内就会被挤出市场;如果我们投资于一个未知的项目中,那么等到游戏做出来时有可能早就没有竞争力了。”

Contestabile补充道:“在过去一个月,我见到的山寨版的《Clash of Clans》可能就有50个。我们对山寨不感兴趣。但如果我们看到有开发者说,‘我们正在学习,不断汲取灵感,并且我们也在创造全新的机制或背景,并且是市面上见不到的’这便是我们的理想目标。我们一直在寻找那些能着眼于玩家现在喜欢和玩的东西,然后在此基础上翻新和改进的开发者。”

手机倾向于电视

Contestabile认为,平板和手机最终会与电视连接,进一步成为千家万户的客厅娱乐活动。他发现游戏开发者已经注意到这个需求,这使他迫不及待地想把复杂高端的手机游戏体验带进家庭,带进客厅。

“你真的在做一款随处可玩的游戏?我们也在留意这种游戏。我们当然关注平板和手机,同时我们也希望能够落实行动。”

产品管理团队只是提供开发协作,包括商业模式—-Contestabile强调工作室不打算强制使用哪种模式。

“全球80%的收益来自免费游戏,意味着其他20%来自付费游戏,也就是说,付费游戏领域的竞争反而不那么激烈。特定的游戏必须采用适合它的商业模式。如果你做的是付费游戏,我们将始终提供样片或免费版本……如果可以的话,我们希望玩家可以免费试玩。”

“现在最让我兴奋的是,近10亿玩家拥有智能手机。他们当中绝大部分人玩游戏。当然,我肯定他们当中大多数人以前是不玩游戏的。现在却有几千万的人开始玩游戏,玩游戏正在成为一种主流现象。”

“我认为玩游戏的人开始了解和关注游戏,他们会选择更有深度、更高品质、更高价值的游戏。就这一点看,我想游戏业将会有一场大爆发。玩家面临的问题是,如何找到一款更适合自己的游戏?我希望能有公司做到这一点。”

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

Leaving PopCap: Why this mobile exec is pinning hopes on indies

By Leigh Alexander

Alongside a certain maturation in the mobile space comes vast opportunity for new business, says Giordano Contestabile. The veteran games exec recently left his longtime role as PopCap’s Bejeweled franchise manager to join Tilting Point Media, which aims to fund established indies and new IP on the mobile market.

“I love PopCap, and some of my best friends are there,” he says of his decision to take on a new role. “But if you look at the mobile market, and you look at the top games on iOS, 75 percent of them are made by independent developers.”

Meanwhile, major publishers like Activision or PopCap parent Electronic Arts have made massive investments in the mobile space as strategic arms of their business, and have published hundreds of games — “but none of them have a market share [on mobile] bigger than 10 percent,” he says. “Mobile is a space where the barrier of entry is much lower, and there’s much more opportunity for independent developers to play.”

Alongside advances in hardware and competition on the mobile markets, budgets and production values are increasing rapidly. Marketing begins to play an increasingly-essential role in mobile visibility, for example, and these days a developer is expected to sustain a relationship with a game for months after launch, providing content updates and an enduring connection with the community.

For indies, mobile is becoming an expensive proposition

“Players are becoming more discerning,” Contestabile says. “For a lot of people, their first games were mobile games, and now they’re learning about games and they want better, more immersive games. The problem I saw was that there are so many indie developers with great ideas and skills, but it’s going to become more difficult for them to succeed in mobile, because it’s starting to become an expensive proposition.”

Just as EA Partners aimed to lend its larger publishing footprint to established independent game studios, Tilting Point hopes to nurture and publish new talent in the mobile space. Fittingly, Tilting point — which plans to invest $40 million in independent mobile studios over the next three years — was established by EAP executive heritage, including former general manager Tom Frisina. Tilting Point now plans to fully fund marketing and development and offer services and support through the launch and maintenance of new mobile games.

Other larger publishers often fund and support independent studios, but Contestabile, who’ll act as VP of product management and revenue, believes the fact that Tilting Point isn’t also developing its own games should be appealing to indies.

“There are several mobile publishers you can work with as an indie, but most of those publishers are also developers themselves,” Contestabile notes. “[Are they] really going to promote your game in the way they promote theirs? Are they putting their best resources to [your] game or their own?”

Currently, Contestabile says the company plans to work with indies that have an established track record of quality. “The team might even be a new company, but the team that forms this company, for us, has to have a lot of experience,” he says. “And we look at the concept: The market is changing so fast, and the average game will be out in nine months, but if we’re to invest in what we think would work now, once the game is out, the game will be completely non-competitive.”

“I probably saw 50 Clash of Clans clones in the last month,” Contestabile notes. “We’re not interested. But if you find a developer that says, ‘we are learning out there, and we take inspiration but we’re innovating with a completely new game mechanic, or setting, or production value, something you haven’t seen on mobile yet’ … that would be our ideal target. Someone who looks at what people play and like, but wants to add more novelty and more polish.”

Mobile leans toward television

A focus on high production values assumes that eventually tablets and phones are going to form an important connection to the television and migrate further into the living room, Contestabile believes. He says he’s already seen games that take this into account, and that make him long to bring a complex and higher-end portable experience home with him to the living room.

“Are you really making a game that can be played anywhere? We’re also keeping an eye on that,” he says. “While we’re definitely focusing on tablets and phones, we hope that’s the assumption.”

The product management team in particular will assist with every aspect of development including the business model — which, Contestabile enforces, the studio will not aim to force or prescribe.

“Globally, 80 percent of the revenue does come from freemium. But that means 20 percent comes from premium games, and that means there’s much less competition in the premium space. The business model has to be the one that works better for the specific game. If you do a premium game, we’re always going to get some kind of demo or free version… we’re always going to get people to try it for free, if they can.”

“My underlying excitement now relies on the fact that nearly one billion people now have smartphones. The majority of them are playing games,” he continues. “Of those, I’m convinced a majority of those were not playing games before. You have hundreds of millions of people who are new to games, and games are finally becoming a mainstream phenomenon.”

“I believe people that play games start knowing and caring about them, and they go to games that are deeper, better and higher value,” Contestabile adds. “I think there’s going to be an explosion, in that sense. The challenge is how do I find the games that are better for me? I hope there will be companies that do that.”(source:gamasutra)


上一篇:

下一篇: