作者：Craig Chapple

不可否认独立游戏领域正在崛起。随着数字商店，尤其是移动平台上的应用商店变得愈加拥挤，小型开发商即便推出高质量的游戏也越发难以获得关注。

包括PS4、Xbox One及Wii U等次世代主机比以往更具独立友好性，鼓励小型开发商以自主发布形式在这些平台发布游戏。

尽管这些平台至少目前比iOS和Android更为成熟和完善，但这些系统不久也将遭遇极为困难的曝光度这种相同的问题，尽管这些平台之上的游戏竞争并没有移动平台那样惨烈。

Steam似乎正走向自主发行，有相当一部分游戏通过审核，Valve也承诺有朝一日将废除相关门槛令游戏更容易在其商店亮相。

那么这是否意味着发行商再次突显其重要性？这正是前Zenimax Online Studios营销总监Steve Escalante（刚创立面向独立开发者的发行公司Versus Evil）的想法。

他在采访中表示，传统发行商现在必须目光长远，通常只关注那些销量达到200万以上的游戏，这部分是因为独立开发者在过去几年自主发行大潮的涌现，当然也不要忘了还有移动行业变化的影响。

他称当前的曝光度日益成为一大问题，小型开发商现在可能比以往更需要帮助，才能让自己的游戏获得用户关注。

为此我们询问了他关于Versus Evil如何与Stoic合作发布《The Banner Saga》，独立领域的发生了什么变化，以及发行商在新游戏行业中处于什么地位。

Banner Saga(from develop-online)

为何成立Versus Evil？

Versus Evil只是一家游戏发行商。我在这一领域已经有些年头了，也知道行业中有不少需要发行支持的独立工作室。

我刚开始的时候就立即意识到，我们要真正在这个行为中发挥一番作为，就不应该再采用旧式的发行方式，而要专注于首先让合作伙伴获得成功，以此让我们的公司立足。

你们提供了哪些其他发行商所没有的服务？

首先，我要说我们提供了任何发行商所能提供的最好的服务。其不同之处在于我们的发行方式与以及我们同开发工作室打交道的方法。这要归结为我们的态度和信念。

我们是一家普通而简单的发行商，但我们很谨慎地看待这种关系，就好像我们随时可能被淘汰出局一样。这意味着我们会尽自己最大的能力服务开发工作室，为他们提供高质量的工作，听取他们的意见并分享商业交易、机遇、挑战等整个过程中的相关信息。

Versus Evil还会自掏腰包营销和推广这些游戏。这不仅仅是PR，而是通过我们精心策划的媒体计划而增加覆盖率的营销手段。我们努力确保合作团队拥有可靠的产品计划，以便为其创造收益。我们的另一点不同之处在于，我们在收益分成上比较慷慨，以便确保开发团队获得成功。

对于独立领域来说，现代游戏发行商的角色是什么？

我相信其他人的回答一定同Versus Evil有所区别，但我的观点是确保独立工作室保持独立性。这并非易事，有些人可能会认为独立工作室被大型发行商收购也是一种成功。我同意这种说法，但我个人偏好就是让他们保持独立性，这样他们就可以继续开发自己想做的游戏，而这正是独立领域诞生的根源。

从商业角度来看，我们的角色是帮助独立开发者获得他们可能没办法或没时间获得的服务和解决方案。许多独立开发者会自己测试产品，管理自己的网站或社区，以及销售渠道。虽然这有助于让他们在这些商业领域中发挥积极作用，但也会让他们在制作游戏过程中分神。

多数独立开发者只想制作自己想做的游戏。制作游戏很困难，制作好游戏更是难上加难。如果我们可以接过这种压力，让工作室摆脱财政负担，他们就可以专注于制作游戏。

帮助8人独立团队创造上百万美元的版税是一件很棒的事情，并且可以确保他们能够发展自己的粉丝群体。

过去几年中的发行领域发生了什么变化？

这要取决于你指的是多少年前，但我审视Versus Evil如何适应这个领域时就会发现有几个非常明确的要点。

1.多数主流发行商忽略了那些销量介于10万至100万份的游戏。过去几年来，我不时听到好友称其领导的游戏开发团队被某某公司所忽略，就是因为他们的销量无法突破200万份。

2.独立开发者现在有了更多渠道选择，PC（Steam）、主机（次世代）、移动（iOS和Android）。

3.外部融资源帮助独立团队为项目集资，而无需让自己的公司或产品作出妥协（Kickstarter、Indiegogo）。

4.独立游戏社区是一个彼此间非常社交性，非常富有支持性的社区。

对我来说，所有这些要点都要归结为第一点，它让行业为独立工作室找到了制作自己想做游戏的出路，因为他们已经厌倦了被发行商拒绝的状态了。

这个市场是由要求一款游戏创造成百上千万美元的主流发行商创造的。这主要是因为他们的成本和基础设施负担过重，导致他们不得不关注这些能够盈利的游戏，并在之后反复推出续作。我理解这一点，但市场上仍然存在小型独立团队实现创收的空间。

进入次世代主机时代，发行商的角色会再发生变化吗？

我可不这么认为。我认为独立开发者进入次世代平台所面临的挑战与独立手机游戏公司所面临的挑战一样。开发者最终在数字平台（无论长尾效应的影响有多大）只会拥有有限的销售体验。用户在这个平台究竟会搜索多少个页面，查看产品缩略图并据此购买游戏？

有许多数据可以反映这一现象——即身居苹果榜单前列的重要性，位于谷歌SEO搜索结果首页的重要性，以及出现在《纽约时代》最畅销书单的重要性，拥有好评等优势的重要性。

从开发角度来看，进入数字平台的门槛已经被降低了，但出色的营销、PR和社区管理需求却在不断增长。数字商店已经充斥大量新内容，甚至可以说拥有优秀社区的游戏也可能被队列中的其他游戏排挤出去。

发行商的角色就是让这些游戏脱颖而出，帮助创建社区，创造推广活动，以便提升游戏的成功机率。

Banner Saga(from develop-online)

发行商对开发商来说仍然很重要吗，是否认为其重要性仍将持续保留？

是的，还要记住许多开发者仍然需要次和发行类型的服务（如果他们无法自主实现的话）。这些帮助可能来自发行商、外包项目、众筹渠道、投资者、好友和家庭，当然还有血汗产权。有些开发者可能最终会雇佣一个外部团队来解决这些需求。

我认为有许多领域最好使用富有经验的团队来执行营销和PR战略。Versus Evil的宗旨是确保我们能通过这个新模式以及发布游戏的新方式幸存下来。

对于多数开发者而言，他们只是单纯地想制作游戏而无需担忧其他事宜。这是他们的激情和专注点。你可以说Versus Evil团队亦是如此。我们关于钻研自己在这个过程中的角色，并且乐于从事这一工作。并非每个团队都需要发行商所能提供的服务，但对于需要发行商的团队来说，我们的确可以提供一种新发行模式，确保他们维持自己的核心价值，并创造自己想创造的产品。（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）

Versus Evil: Publishers are still relevant to indies

By Craig Chapple

GM Steve Escalante says old-fashioned publishers may have forced developers into self-publishing, but they still need help with marketing efforts on increasingly crowded digital stores

It could be argued that the rise of the indies is reaching its peak. As digital stores, particularly on mobile, become more crowded, small developers are finding it harder to get noticed even with quality games.

Next-gen consoles PS4, Xbox One and Wii U are more indie-friendly than ever, encouraging small developers to release games on their platforms with a number of self-publishing efforts and support of indies.

But while more curated, currently at least, than iOS and Android, these systems could soon suffer the same fate in terms of extremely difficult discoverability, even if not quite to the tune of hundreds of thousands of titles all competing for consumer attention.

Steam appears to be heading toward self-publishing, with a raft of titles moving through Greenlight and Valve promising to make it even easier to get on their store by one day abolishing it, and breaking what it calls “bottlenecks”.

So does this mean publishers are becoming increasingly relevant again? Former Zenimax Online Studios marketing director Steve Escalante, who just set up a new indie-focused publisher Versus Evil, thinks so.

Speaking to Develop, he said the fact traditional publishers now have to aim high, often only looking at titles that will sell two million plus units, is partly what caused the wave of indie developers self-publishing over the last few years – of course not forgetting the industry-changing impact of mobile.

And he says now the issue of discoverability is becoming a major issue, small developers may need more help than ever bringing their games to the attention of consumers.

We asked him just what Versus Evil is up to having published already work with Stoic on The Banner Saga, what’s changing in the indie revolution and where publishers now sit in the new game industry.

Why have you formed Versus Evil?

When I was asked to lead Versus Evil, it was simply to be a publisher of games. I have done this for so long and knew there were plenty of independent studios out there that needed publishing support.

Once I got started however, I quickly realised that in order for us to truly make a difference in this industry then we should not embrace the old practices of publishing, but to build from the ground up a company focused on making its partners successful first and foremost.

What do you bring to the table that other publishers don’t?

First, I would say that we offer most, if not all, of the services of any publisher. The difference is our approach and how we work with the development studios. That boils down to our attitude and philosophy.

We are a publisher, plain and simple, however we approach the relationship like we can get fired at any time. This means we serve our development studios to the best of our ability, provide them with quality work, get their input along the way and share information about business deals, opportunities, challenges, etcetera throughout the entire process.

Versus Evil also commits their own dollars to marketing and promoting these games. This is not just PR, but adding our marketing expertise by increasing reach through a well thought out media plan. We work very hard to make sure the teams we work with have a sustainable product plan that can generate revenue for them each and every month. And to this point, what also sets us apart, is we share in the revenue generously in order to ensure the team is as successful as possible.

What is the role of a modern game publisher when it comes to indies?

I am sure others can answer this differently than Versus Evil, but my point of view is to make sure independent studios remain independent. This is not easy and some would argue that their getting snatched up by a major publisher is also a win. I agree that is a win, but my personal preference is that they remain independent so they can continue to develop the games they want to make which is how this industry was founded.

From the business perspective, our role is to help give the independent studios access to services and solutions they might not have available or the knowledge or time to get them done. A lot of indies test their own products, manage their own websites or communities and manage their distribution. While it’s important for them to play an active role in all of these business needs, it also takes them away from making the game.

Most indies just want to be able to make the games they want to make. Making a game is hard and making a good game is even harder. If we can take the stress and some of the financial burden away from the studio so they can focus on making their game then that’s a big help right there.

Generating a couple million dollars in royalties for an independent game studio of three-to-eight people is also a great thing and helps ensure they are able to grow their own fan base.

The barriers to entry on the digital platforms have been lowered from the development point of view, but there is an increase in the need for good marketing, PR, and community management

What has changed in the publishing landscape over the last few years?

It depends on how far back you want to go but once I started looking at how Versus Evil can fit in this space a few points became very clear.

1. Most major publishers are ignoring games that can sell units in the 100,000 to one million range. For years, I have heard from my friends leading development teams that Company XYZ passed on it because it can’t sell more than two million units.

2. More channels are accessible to indies; PC (Steam), consoles (next-gen), mobile (iOS and android)

3. External funding sources are helping independent teams fund their project without having to sell their company or their product short (Kickstarter, Indiegogo)

4. The independent games community is a very social, very supportive community to each other.

All of these points really go back to #1 which, for me, translates to the industry found a way for independent studios to create the games they want to make because they were tired of being told no.

This market was created by the major publishers who require a title to make tens of millions of dollars. This is mainly caused by the fact that they are so overburdened with costs and infrastructure that they must focus on those titles that can make that kind of money and then get them into the sequel churn. I get it. But, that still leaves all of these amazing products that can achieve good, solid revenue for small independent teams.

Moving into next-gen, is the role of the publisher changing again?

I don’t think so. I think the same challenges facing indie mobile gaming companies are going to face indies going next-gen. At the end of the day the digital storefront, regardless of the benefits of the long tail, has a limited shopping experience beyond what gets displayed. How far will a customer just search through the many pages of digital games looking at the thumbnail of the product and buy based on that?

Too many data points can reflect this reality; the importance for being in the top on Apple, the importance of being on the first page of Google for SEO, the importance for books to be on the NY Times bestselling list, the importance of good reviews, etcetera.

The barriers to entry on the digital platforms have been lowered from the development point of view, but there is an increase in the need for good marketing, PR, and community management. The digital storefronts are so overloaded in bringing in new content one could say that the titles with a good community will get bumped in front of other titles in the queue.

The role of the publisher is to help these titles rise above the noise, help build that community, create the promotions and activities, and more so that the game has a chance of being successful.

Are publishers still relevant to developers, and do you think they will continue to be?

Yes, as reflected in my answer above. It’s also important to remember that many developers still need funding and publishing type services (if they can’t do it themselves). This can come from publishers, work-for-hire projects, crowd-sourcing, investors, friends and family, and of course sweat equity. Some developers may eventually hire internal teams to solve these needs that may reduce the need.

There are so many disciplines in implementing a marketing and PR strategy that I do feel using a knowledgeable group is a good thing. Versus Evil was set up to ensure we can survive with this new model and new way of launching titles in mind.

For the most part the developers, indie or otherwise, still just want to make games and not worry about all the other stuff. That’s their passion. That’s their focus. You can say the same about the Versus Evil team. We geek out about our role in the process and have a terribly fun time doing it. Not every team will need the services a publisher can provide, but for those that do, there is a new publishing model that is available to them that will allow them to keep their core values and create the products they want to create.（source：develop-online）