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前EA/Playfish高管加入Supercell董事会访谈录

发布时间:2013-06-02 09:16:54 Tags:,,,

作者:Dean Takahashi

Kristian Segerstrale是社交游戏公司Playfish的联合创始人,曾经在EA公司担任执行副总裁主管电子游戏,现在他已经加入Supercell的董事会。位于芬兰首都赫尔辛基的Supercell成为时下最火的手机游戏公司,多亏了《Clash of Clans》和《Hay Day》的超高人气。这两款游戏每天产生数百万美元的收益,使该公司获得1.3亿美元融资;4月份时该公司的市值被估计达到7.7亿美元。

Segerstrale带领Playfish成为一家非常成功的Facebook社交游戏公司,并于2009年以超过3亿美元的价格卖给EA,而他本人也成为EA的电子游戏公司高管之一。EA是游戏零售业的巨头,为了适应游戏新世界,一直在社交、手机和在线游戏领域大量投入。2月,Segerstrale离开EA准备重新创业,而加入Supercell是其计划的一部分。

Supercell首席执行官Ilkka Panaanen在博客中表示:“Kristian对Supercell的重大意义体现在,他在平台过渡方面具有敏锐的产品直觉,以及他在经营大小工作室方面都有丰富的经验。Kristian的成就不言而喻……极少人能像他这样,在小工作室和大公司之间游走得这么完美自然。我很难再找到一个具有重要而丰富经验的人来帮助我们应对未来的挑战。”

kristian-segerstrale(from venturebeat)

kristian-segerstrale(from venturebeat)

在Supercell,Segerstrale将帮助该团队处理公司在手机游戏领域的快速发展问题。以下是我们对他的采访内容。

你为什么加入Supercell董事会?

Kristian Segerstrale(S):Playfish创始人的种子投资基金Initial Capital,第一笔投资就给了Supercell。我们下了一个很大的赌注。对我而言,离开EA而进入Supercell的董事会,是自然而然的事。我接下来主要关注的是帮助公司发展。在成功的游戏和一队人才的支持下,现在的Supercell处于令人惊喜的良好状态。他们志向高远,希望建立一个长期发展的公司。我经营过不少小工作室,了解如何管理公司规模,我希望我的经验能帮助Supercell在这个诸如平板和智能手机等个人设备越来越重要的领域中走得更远。

你在Supercell并不属于管理层,只是成为董事会的一员吧?

是的。但是他们的工作那么有趣,我不能参与真让我为难。

他们现在处于什么阶段?你认为他们现在的规模如何?还有多少机遇?

这得看你拿什么作为衡量标准。6周以前,他们公布了一份相当详尽的指标。在赢利方面,据我所知,今年的第一季度收入达到1.79亿美元,净利润超过1亿美元。相当了不起。在雇员方面,我不知道对外公开的人数是多少,但我记得他们说过不多于100人吧。

4天以前在巴塞罗纳休假时,我刚见过公司的人。让我印象深刻的是这个由年轻人组成的团体竟是如此的聪明和成熟。他们对自己面临的机遇非常敏锐。到目前为止,他们的成功都只靠两款iOS游戏,并且更加专注于欧美市场。他们的最终目标是将工作扩展到Android平台、开发新游戏,特别是打入亚洲市场。

另一件给我留下深刻印象的事是,不像历史上的许多团队,特别是在硅谷的,Supercell的人非常清楚自己想要什么和不想要什么。他们的员工人数从来没有暴涨过,他们在招聘员工方面仍然很理智,始终坚持公司的创立原则。Supercell的原则是吸此最佳人才,让他们自由地发挥自己的创意才能。

这是Supercell命运的有趣转变。它可以仅靠两款游戏就获得这么丰厚的收益,令人惊讶。它也尝试许多其他游戏,但挑选游戏时非常冷酷。

是的。Supercell的人不只是一群才华横溢的开发者,他们也非常了解游戏开发的方法和商业。有时候总会遇到不成功的项目。我觉得Supercell有一个非常好的方面是,与我工作过的其他许多地方相比,他们没有任何一种“放行”流程。这是一个创新。他们相信自己的员工是为了制作最好的产品而进入公司的。他们把游戏放在真玩家面前,看游戏是否吸引真玩家。如果是,那就继续做下去;如果不是,那就换一个角度继续尝试。另外,他们会庆祝自己从失败中积累了经验。他们对学习保持坦诚的态度。

一定程度上,尽管这支团队非常年轻,但他们能非常成熟的眼光看待游戏行业。他们没有把成功当成理所当然的事,只是执著于为玩家提供最好的体验。他们理解想做出最好的产品,就要承担标新立异的风险;毕竟有些创意是管用的,有些则行不通。

你要怎么帮助他们克服困难,比如制作一个常规发布的计划表、制作更多成功的游戏等所有大发行商所做的事?Rovio似乎经历了艰难的转变过程。它现在仍然很成功,但《愤怒的小鸟》的成功只是极个别的现象。在它之后就没有能够相提并论的游戏了。

我认为在这方面,Supercell的人才是重点,它努力挖掘最佳人才,并为他们营造最合适的环境。我得说,像计划表这类东西对他们来说是不那么重要的。如果你能留住最好的人才,并与你的玩家保持长期关系,那么发行游戏的数量就不如质量那么重要了。

也就是说,正如你所说的,所有公司的挑战之一都是,如何用新产品复制旧产品的成功。你怎么确定你是在升高水平线?但据我所知,规划、专注点、人才和公司发展方向,都是可以预见的。在新游戏、新平台和新玩家之间,今年我们将看到一些非常有趣的事。

你认为他们的经营方式与EA Mobile相当不同吗?

简直是天壤之别。在某种程度上,小公司的经营方式总是有别于大公司的。但我得说,Supercell最吸引人的一点是,那里的员工都是谦逊的人。《Clash of Clans》的制作者取得了那么大的成就,仍然行事低调。他们有雄心壮志,但也坦率真诚,能认真看待来自各方的反馈。

在一个没有“放行”流程的环境下,《Clash of Clans》及其更新并没有经历任何一种内部审批的循环过程。这使得公司可以快速响应,形成一种真正的创意先行的环境。

最大的区别可能是,Supercell的工作室都在赫尔辛基。所有人都在一个地方工作。虽然他们在旧金山有个办公室,但那里只负责市场营销和收购等事务。Supercell倡导更加平等、更加高效的公司文化。

你有没看过Bobby Kotick在动视业绩发布会上对手机市场的评论?他表示他们还没有打算在手机市场上多做投资,因为还没看到有什么手机游戏能产生年年入围排行榜这么大的影响力。他看到许多游戏的成功只能维持三个月,之后就从排行榜上消失了。那就是他们还不想进军手机游戏的原因之一。考虑到动视在三大主力品牌上投入那么多钱,这真是一个有意义的见解。

对此,你有何看法?你认为现在行业人士是否正确地理解手机游戏领域?

平板和手机密切相关,但仍稍有不同。当然,二者都在迅速崛起中。品牌价值对游戏机领域的许多发行商来说是至关重要的,但你要怎么制作一款成功的手机游戏并靠它产生长青树似的品牌价值,还有很长的路要走。个人认为,PC和游戏机花了很长时间才理解品牌价值产生的原理。历史上,无数PC和游戏机游戏的前赴后继才诞生了今天的长胜品牌,并让发行商知道了如何创造品牌价值。我认为手机和平板电脑也免不了这个长期过程。

也就是说,作为游戏行业的资深人士,我认为如果你能看看发展趋势——不只是看出售了多少部手机和平板,还要更深入地考察现在的人如何消费任何类型的媒体。娱乐方式正在经历一个迅速的转变,而且是朝着各种方向发展。人们的娱乐活动不再是一家人围坐在客厅里看电视连续剧、听音乐 或跟刚好在场的其他人一起玩电视游戏,相反地,人们要把娱乐随身携带,走到哪里玩到哪里。对于某些大发行商来说,这是一个很难适应的转变。

Bobby所说的也许没错,因为这种现象越来越多。所有业内人士都必须思考如何在这个“游戏即服务”的环境中创造长青树品牌。无论我们喜欢与否,将来是由消费者来选择如何体验娱乐活动。但也不能说你不应该投资手机游戏业,因为目前还没有产生一个长青树品牌。消费者可以选择在这些设备上玩游戏,但如何创造这种长期性是由我们自己去思考的。

到目前为止,Supercell的《Hay Day》和《Clash of Clans》都发展得不错。《Hay Day》刚满一岁,仍然很强壮,几乎在所有排行榜上都入围前五名。而九个月大的《Clash of Clans》也将继续成长。它每个月都在长大。这两款游戏的成长期都还很长。我认为Supercell面临的最重要的问题是,如何保持玩家基础以及发布有趣的更新和额外内容。在这方面,我认为学习榜样是Riot及其游戏《英雄联盟》、暴雪及其游戏《魔兽世界》——通过他们的服务和社区,这些游戏能够不断产生长期追随者。

对此,我还要说最后一点。想一想《使命召唤》或《战地》如何年年保持品牌魅力的,直到两年以前,开发商不得不开始重复营销相同的内容。直到最近,我们才开始提供让玩家从一个版本转移到另一个版本的服务。与培养手机平台的受众的效力相比,PC或主机游戏的品牌主张实在是太昂贵了。所以,我们现在以及接下来几年将经历的平台转变是非常令人兴奋的。当然,Bobby说的没错,很大程度上,这个转变还没完成。Supercell致力于完成这个转变。

你认为EA现在的处境如何?

现在我已经不在那家公司了,所以我不能对它做出最准确的评价。我认为如果你能看看EA过去几年的成就,你会发现它的收益和运营利润等都有增长。EA现在的状态很好。但问题是,EA如何带着这个势头继续走下去?

现在,大型主机游戏发行商面临的最大难题是,要把他们最优秀的人才放在哪个领域。是选择继续追随次世代主机,相信这是帮助公司发展的不竭资源?还是选择破釜沉舟,把最好的人才放在不太了解、更有风险、前途未卜的手机游戏上?根据Bobby的评论,你要思考一下在手机游戏和次世代游戏的投入比例是多少?这是一个大难题。EA非常依赖那些主机品牌和人才。显然他们现在还有发展的冲劲,所以我认为EA一开始是处于有利地位的,但之后将面临各种选择。现在的游戏机市场的情况很有意思,竞争力的重要性下降了,游戏公司与玩家的关系以及整体执行力才是王牌。

在你离开EA后,你的兴趣主要放在Supercell上了吗?

是的。过去12、13年,我一直是个斗志昂扬的企业家。我的兴趣是把小公司培养成大公司。与其他Playfish创始人一起,通过我们的种子投资工具和创办基金,我们已经投资了许多公司。正如我所说的,我们让弱小的Supercell成长为现在的Supercell,我们对其他公司也寄予同样的期望。我现在所做的是,帮助那些公司成长。显然,Supercell成长得不错,值得关注。成为董事会的一员表明,我可以尽最大的努力、以最好的方式、花更多的时间和精力帮助Supercell。你可能会看到我也与其他公司合作——虽然不是作为专业的执行副总裁,但在早期阶段,我在产品定位和公司发展方面都会起指导作用。

今年的游戏市场上演了一出有趣的比拼——《Clash of Clans》和《Puzzle & Dragons》之间的竞争。

是啊。 就一款游戏能取得的成功来说,《Puzzle & Dragons》确实是游戏业这几年来难得的一个传奇。我很欣赏GungHo公司(游戏邦注:《Puzzle & Dragons》的开发公司)。这场竞争会很精彩。
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Former EA/Playfish exec joins board of red-hot mobile gaming startup Supercell (interview)

by Dean Takahashi

Kristian Segerstrale, the co-founder of social gaming firm Playfish and former executive vice president in charge of digital gaming at Electronic Arts, has joined Supercell as a member of its board. Helsinki-based Supercell is one of the hottest mobile game companies around thanks to the popularity of two hit games, Clash of Clans and Hay Day. These games are earning millions of dollars per day, and they enabled Supercell to raise $130 million at a $770 million valuation in April.

Segerstrale saw great success with Playfish, a social gaming firm on Facebook, and sold it to Electronic Arts in 2009 for more than $300 million. He eventually became the head of digital games at EA, a retail gaming giant which has been investing heavily to adapt to the new world of social, mobile, and online games. He left EA in February to return to his startup roots, and his move to the board of Supercell is the first part in that plan.

Ilkka Panaanen, chief executive of Supercell, said in a blog post, “What makes Kristian great for Supercell is his unique mix of product instinct in platform transitions and his operational experience growing companies big and small. Kristian’s track record speaks for itself….Very few individuals move as seamlessly between startups and large scale public companies as Kristian, and I would be hard pressed to find someone with a more valuable and relevant set of experiences to help us in our decision making as we navigate the challenges that lie ahead.”

At Supercell, Segerstrale said he will help the team deal with the hyper growth that the company is seeing in mobile games. We interviewed him earlier this week and this is an edited transcript.

GamesBeat: Why are you joining the board at Supercell?

Kristian Segerstrale: Initial Capital, the seed investment fund of the Playfish founders, actually led the first investment round in Supercell. We hold a significant stake. It’s natural for me, having left EA, to take up a board seat. What I’ll be focused on moving forward is helping with growth across the board. Supercell is in this amazing position right now, on the back of these successful games and an amazing set of talent across the company. They have very large ambitions. They want to build the company for the long term. Having grown a couple of startups as well as overseen matters of scale, at EA most recently, I’m hoping to contribute some of that experience in helping to guide the company through the long term, in an industry that is more dependent on more personal screens, like tablets and smartphones.

GamesBeat: This is not going to be an executive role at the company, right? You’re going to remain a board member as far as your participation goes?

Segerstrale: That’s correct. But what they’re doing is so much fun that I’m going to have a hard time keeping away.

kristian segerstrale 2GamesBeat: What stage are they at? What is your understanding of how big they are now and how many opportunities they have?

Segerstrale: It depends on how you measure it. They released a fairly detailed set of metrics six weeks ago. In revenue terms, in the first calendar quarter of this year, I think they made $179 million in revenue and just over $100 million in profit. It’s fairly significant. In employee terms, I don’t know what’s publicly available, but I believe they have said that they’re less than 100 people.

I just met with the company four days ago at a retreat in Barcelona. The thing that impresses me so much about them is how resourceful and mature they are for an organization that is so young. They’re being very thoughtful about their opportunities. All of their success so far is based on two games on iOS, and it’s much more focused on the Western market. Ultimately, their opportunities span Android, new games, and especially new territories in Asia.

One of the things I found impressive about Supercell is that unlike many teams in recent history, especially in Silicon Valley, they’ve been judicious about what they pursue and what they don’t. They haven’t embarked on some crazy headcount explosion. They continue to be more judicious than ever about hiring and focusing on the company’s founding principles. What Supercell is about is trying to attract the best talent and give them the creative freedom to express themselves.

GamesBeat: It’s an interesting turn of fortune for Supercell. It’s astounding that it could make so much revenue out of just two games. It has also tried it with a number of other games before. It seems to have culled its herd quite ruthlessly.

Segerstrale: That’s right. It’s a combination of having a talented set of creators as well as a thoughtful internal approach to game development and understanding of the business. Sometimes projects aren’t successful. What’s beautiful about how they operate compared to many other places I’ve seen is that they don’t have any kind of greenlight process. It’s novel. What they do is that they trust the folks that they hire to create the best product possible. Then they get it out to real players and they see if the metrics hold up with real players. If they do, it’s ready to go. If not, then they might try again from a different angle, but they’ll celebrate that mix of failure and learning. They’re very transparent about all their learnings.

In some ways, despite the team being quite young, they exhibit a very mature approach to the industry. They’re not taking success for granted. They’re almost paranoid about providing the best experiences for players, and understanding that to deliver the greatest product, you have to take creative risks. Some of them will work out and others won’t.

clash of clansGamesBeat: How do you help them get into the hard part here, having something like a more regular release schedule, a broader base of hits, all the sorts of things a bigger publisher does? Rovio looks like they’ve had a hard time making the transition. It’s still very successful, but Angry Birds still looks like a one-hit wonder situation. It hasn’t followed it with something as big.

Segerstrale: I think Supercell’s north star on this is talent, trying to find the best talent and creating the best possible environment for it. I’d say that things like schedules are not as important to them. If you hold and retain the best talent and create long-lasting relationships with your players, then the quantity of game releases perhaps isn’t as important as quality.

That said, one of the things that is difficult, as you say, for any company, is how you follow such great success with additional titles. How do you make sure you keep setting the bar at a higher level? But everything I’ve seen says that the planning effort, the focus, the talent, the way that the company goes about thinking through its options moving forward, is incredibly prescient. Between the initiatives for different games and new platforms and new geographies, we’ll see some pretty exciting things this year.

GamesBeat: Do you see them operating in a way that’s very different from EA Mobile?

Segerstrale: It’s a pretty stark contrast across the board. In part, a small company will always operate differently than a big one. But I would say one of the most endearing things about Supercell is how humble everybody is here. The creators of a game like Clash of Clans that’s been so successful are still humble. They’re very ambitious, but very transparent, very interested in feedback from every direction.

In an environment where there isn’t a greenlight process–If you think about Clash of Clans and the updates and new things that happen in that game all the time, there is not an internal approval loop of any kind for that. It enables the company to move quickly, and it creates an environment that’s genuinely creatively led.

Probably the biggest point of difference, of course, is that Supercell’s studios are all in Helsinki. Everyone’s effectively in one place. They have an office here in San Francisco, but it’s more focused on marketing and acquisition and those sorts of things. It enables a flatter, faster culture.

GamesBeat: Did you happen to see Bobby Kotick’s comment about the mobile market on Activision’s last earnings call? He was saying that it was not yet a market where they were ready to invest more money, because you don’t see franchises having the same impact on the top lists every single year, year after year. He sees a lot of games being successful for three months and then disappearing from the charts. That’s one reason they feel like they can’t build a very large business in mobile yet. It’s an interesting observation given how much money Activision pours into three major franchises right now.

What do you think of that. Do you feel like mobile is understood well at this point?

Segerstrale: Tablets and mobile are closely related, but perhaps slightly different also. For sure, they’re still emerging. There are still a lot of things to work out as far as how you take a successful game and create the kind of perennial brand value or franchise value that has become so important for many of the publishers in the console world. What I would say personally is that it took the PC and console world a very long time to understand how that works. There were a lot of PC and console titles that came and went quickly for a long time before today’s anchor franchises came to exist and publishers figured out how to create that value. I expect it to take time on mobile and tablets as well.

With that said, being a keen student of the games industry overall, I think that if you just look at the trends – not just in terms of the amount of phones and tablets sold, but looking deeper at how people consume any kind of media right now — we’re very rapidly experiencing a shift from consumption of entertainment on the shared screen in the living room. We’re seeing that shift fairly quickly, and in an all-encompassing way, toward social experiences and shared experiences. As opposed to watching an episode of a TV series or listening to music or playing games on the sofa in front of the TV with whoever happens to be there, you take that entertainment with you and experience it whenever you want to and wherever you happen to be. That is going to be a very difficult transition for some of the large publishers to accommodate.

What Bobby says is absolutely true in that this clearly is emerging. Everyone has to figure out how this games-as-a-service environment is going to work in relation to creating longer-term franchises. Whether we like it or not, consumers choose how they will experience entertainment in the future. It’s getting it backwards to say that you shouldn’t invest in mobile because there haven’t been long-term franchises created there yet. Consumers are choosing to play on these devices and it’s up to us to figure out how to create that longevity.

Supercell has done well with both Hay Day and Clash of Clans so far. Hay Day just turned one year old and it’s still going strong. It’s in the top five pretty much everywhere. Clash of Clans, which I think is nine months old now, continues to go as strong as ever. It’s growing every month. Clearly there’s a fairly long arc for these products. I think the single most important thing for Supercell right now is finding out how to keep that player base happy, releasing interesting updates and additional content. Some companies I look up to on this are Riot with League of Legends and Blizzard with World of Warcraft – the products that, through their service component and their community, have been able to create a longer-term following.

One last thing I’ll say about that. If you think about how a Call of Duty or a Battlefield sustains itself year in and year out, until two years ago this was about having to re-market the same game every year, again and again. It’s only just now that we’re beginning to get a service component that takes players over from one version to another. It’s an extremely expensive pursuit, this franchise creation in the living room, compared to the efficiency of growing an audience on mobile platforms. That said, it’s a very exciting and interesting platform transition that we’re going through in the next couple of years. Certainly Bobby is right that it hasn’t been done in a major way yet. Supercell is focused on figuring out exactly how it’s done.

clash of clans mobileGamesBeat: What do you think of EA’s situation right now?

Segerstrale: Now that I’m outside the company, I’m not in the best place to comment on it. I think that if you look at EA’s track record over the last couple of years, there’s a growth in digital revenue and operating margins and all that stuff. EA is well-placed. The question is, what does EA do with that moving forward?

The hardest thing for the big console publishers from here on is choosing where they bet their best talent. Do they go after these next-generation consoles, believing that’s going to be a longer-term source of growth for the company? Or do you effectively burn your boats, if you like, and put them against something much less known, something that feels much riskier and much less proven? As per Bobby’s comment, how much do you invest in mobile versus next-gen? That’s going to be the hardest thing for both of those companies. They’re sitting on all those franchises and all that talent. Clearly they have a lot of momentum, and I think EA is initially well-placed, but they have a lot of choices to make. We’re in this interesting place in the market right now, where competition matters a lot less than your relationship with your players and your ability to execute overall.

GamesBeat: Is Supercell a good example of where your interests lie after EA?

Segerstrale: I’d say so. I’ve been a passionate entrepreneur for the past 12 or 13 years. I’m interested in growing smaller companies into bigger companies. With the other Playfish founders, through our seed investment vehicle and initial capital, we’ve invested in a number of companies. As I said, we led the seed round into Supercell, and we’ve taken similar stakes in other companies. What I’m doing right now is helping those grow. Obviously Supercell has done incredibly well and deserves a fair amount of attention. Taking a board seat reflects that, ensuring I can help Supercell in the best possible way with as much time and effort as is required. You’re likely to see me working with other companies as well – not so much as a professional VC, but rather at an earlier stage, helping navigate both product and company growth.

GamesBeat: It’s an interesting twist in the market — the race between Clash of Clans and Puzzle & Dragons this year.

Segerstrale: Yeah. Puzzle & Dragons is one of the most amazing stories in the game industry over the past year, in terms of just the sheer success that a single title can have. I’m a big admirer of GungHo [Online Entertainment, Puzzle & Dragons' developer]. It’s going to be fun.(source:venturebeat)


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