作者：Mantin Lu

好几年来，全球游戏产业的发展趋势一直未见停歇，据估算，到2019年其收益将到达1186亿美元。而作为这部分收益最大贡献者，中国市场更是通过不断扩展海外市场去赚取更多收益。

macro_money_dollars_rings(from gamasutra)

这种扩展将不断延伸着。单单2016年，中国游戏公司便创造了多个并购协议：掌趣科技收购了Webzen19.24%的股权，腾讯收购了Supercell 84.3%的股权，Youzu更是100%收购了Bigpoint。其实早在2011,年，甚至是2004年早期，一些中国游戏公司便开始了并购策略。例如盛大在2010年收购了Eyedentity，腾讯在2011年和2012年分别收购了Riot和Epic。

毫无疑问，中国游戏市场真的非常强大且充满吸引力。而就像我之前曾经提过的，单单在手机领域，中国手机游戏市场便拥有100亿美元的收益，即占据369亿美元全球手机游戏市场份额中的27.1%。随着游戏市场的快速改变，特别是手机游戏市场，我们变得很难去预测下一个刮起风潮的游戏类型会是什么以及一款游戏的热门度将能维持多久。

就像在手机游戏领域，对于游戏开发者来说最“安全”的选择便是发行多款游戏并去了解每一款游戏的表现，如此他们便能为之后的发展选择最有前途的一个。为了测试市场，一些开发者每年至少需要发行10件作品。

此外，一些拥有更高质量的游戏也伴随着更高的成本，就像《看门狗》等AAA级游戏便花费了6800万美元；根据育碧首席执行官Yves Guillemot的估算，面向Xbox 360和PlayStation 3的游戏所需要的平均开发预算为600万美元。而对于手机游戏来说，iOS游戏的平均预算为18万美元左右。如果是拥有更复杂图像的更高质量游戏的成本则更高。就像《真实赛车2》的成本便为200万美元。

为了能够进入强大的中国市场并为长久的开发获取足够资本，大多数西方开发者在中国公司接近他们时都选择接受了合并或投资请求。

还有一种情况是，一些游戏产业外部的公司也开始收购游戏公司去扩展自己的领域。例如中国注册公司中技控股biang收购了Jagex去开拓全新业务。所以在中国，西方游戏公司的收购计划变成了一种主流趋势。

但是我并不能乐观看待这种趋势的发展。虽然游戏公司并购能够创造某种协同作用，如共享人才，技术和现有的用户基础，但是对于非游戏公司收购游戏公司来说，这却是另一种情况。

事实上，公司并购的成功率并不像我们想象中的那么高，反而具有非常高的风险。根据一些研究以及最近Harvard Business Revies的报告，收购的失败率大约在70%至90%之间。根据几个月前发布在HBR上的另一份研究，超过60%的收购甚至会破坏股东的利益。有许多公司，甚至是一些已经获得成功的公司都在收购决定中遭遇了失败，例如在2012年收购了OMGPOP的Zynga。

当然，我非常清楚当一家大公司主动接近你并表示他们想要收购你们公司时你会有怎样的感受。

你可能会脑子一片混乱并想要尽快达成这一合作，然后开瓶香槟与同事们一起庆祝。但请在这么做之前先冷静下来好好进行思考。

就像结婚那样，你不能只是因为对方有钱或者有名而能够造福于你的PR而答应对方的求婚。以下便是你在遇到这种情况时需要考虑的一些情况：

不要匆忙答应任何提议。尝试着争取更多时间去做些调查与评估。你需要时间去了解你的投资者。就好像你不可能在认识一个人几周后便决定嫁个对方。如果这是一次收购，那么你与投资者间的关系将变得更加复杂。而如果你的潜在投资者非常一意孤行，你可能就需要进行反复斟酌了。

你应该尝试着去咨询那些曾与你的潜在投资者合作过的人。或者你应该尝试着与那些已经和投资者合作过但却在合作中遭遇失败的人进行交谈。

就像之前提过的，你不能只是因为对方有钱或有名气便答应合作。你应该了解你们之间是否存在其它潜在协同作用。你是否能从投资者身上获得什么好处？这是否能将你带进一个全新市场？你是否能够获得全新玩家？或者你是否能够获得像技术，工具，IP，人才，消费者服务没，分析或本土化等优势？

尽可能与潜在投资者进行沟通。询问对方问题。不要表现得过于强势从而让对方能够真正开怀地面对你。找出潜在投资者对你们感兴趣的原因，了解对方的战略意图。是关于你所发行的游戏还是你所创造的IP？再或者是关于你的引擎或开发工具，或者你的团队？了解对方的意图非常重要。如果你的潜在投资者对你们的一项业务感兴趣，你最好能够了解自己的其它业务之后会有怎样的发展。

明确在并购后你的潜在投资者打算如何与你进行合作？他们是否打算完全控制你的业务？或者你可以继续保持独立？他们是否打算整合两家公司？如果你的潜在投资者对你的团队感兴趣，你可能需要让团队成员转向创造他们的产品而不再是你自己的产品。当然，我认为你还是应该选择与那些能让你继续主导自己业务的人合作，否则你一定会对此感到厌倦并选择离开。

了解你的潜在投资者会如何处理两家公司不同的企业文化。他们是否会将你们公司整合到自己强大的企业文化中。或者你的业务将保持独立而你也将继续保留原有的文化？我认为企业文化对于致力于特殊产品的特殊团队来说非常重要。而强迫改变企业文化是不可能有好结果的。

当一家大公司主动靠近你希望给予你们投资或要求进行并购，你要清楚对方肯定想从你身上获得一些东西。你并不需要努力去迎合对方。你必须进行足够的交流，询问所有重要的问题，并告诉对方任何薄弱点，最终确保这一战略意图能够长期带给双方利益。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

What to Do before You Say Yes to an Investment or M&A Deal

by Mantin Lu

The growing trend of global game industry has been unstoppable for years, and the revenue is estimated to continue towards 2019 to reach 118.6 billion USD (1). China market, as the top revenue generator, is expanding overseas in order to create more value.

The expansion is indeed ongoing. In 2016 alone, multiple M&A deals were made by Chinese game companies: Ourpalm acquired 19.24% of Webzen (2), Tencent acquired 84.3% of Supercell (3), and Youzu, 100% of Bigpoint (4). Actually, as far back as 2011 or even earlier in 2004, some Chinese game companies had started the move of M&A strategy. Some highlighted deals including Shanda acquired Eyedentity in 2010 (5), Tencent acquired Riot and Epic in 2011 and 2012 (6) (7).

Undoubtedly, China game market is powerful and appealing. As I mentioned in my previous article, for mobile segment only, China mobile game market hits 10.0 billion USD, sharing 27.1% of the 36.9 billion USD global mobile game market (1). As the climate of the game market changes rapidly, especially mobile, it is hard to predict what type of titles would be the next big hit, or how long a title would keep standing on top.

Let’s use the situation of mobile game here, a “safer” move for game developers is, to launch multiple titles and then to review the performance metrics of each, so that they will pick the most promising ones for further maintenance. Some developers need at least ten products per year to test the market.

Furthermore, A high quality game comes with high costs: AAA games like Watch Dogs spent 68 million USD; Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot estimated that the average production budget for the generation of games following Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 would be 60 million USD (8). For mobile games, on the other hand, the average cost for an iOS game is around 180,000 USD (9). Mobile games with high quality and complex graphics cost even higher. One of the examples is Real Racing 2, which costs 2 million USD (10).

Source: R-Style Lab 2016

With the appetite of getting into the promising China market, and the needs of abundant capital for continuous development, most of the western developers agree with closing the M&A or investment deals when China companies approach them.

Another fact is that, some companies outside of game industry are also acquiring game companies to expand their territory. Zhongji Holding, a Chinese listed company, acquired Jagex as its new core business (11). The western game company M&A becomes a mania that sweeps many industries in China.

As this trend continues growing, I am not one hundred percent optimistic to that phenomenon. For a game company acquires another game company, it makes sense, since that creates synergy including sharing of talents, technology knowhow and existing user base, etc. However, for non-game companies acquire game companies, that is another story.

Actually the success rate of M&A is not that high but the risk is considerably high. There are numbers behind my statement: a collated research and a recent Harvard Business Review report show that the failure rate for M&A ranges from 70% to 90% (12). In fact, more than 60% of M&A deals actually destroy shareholder value according to another study published on HBR a few months ago (13). A lot of companies, even some considered successful companies, failed in M&A moves including the M&A deal of Zynga over OMGPOP in 2012 (14).

But sure enough, I can imagine how you feel when a big company approaching you and telling you that they want to “marry” you, no, I mean, they want to acquire or invest into your business.

You might feel that your head is in the clouds, you might want to close the deal as soon as possible, and then open a champagne to celebrate with your buddies immediately. But please, calm down and really think twice before you act. Will you marry someone at the first sight? The potential impact to both your business and your personal emotion of choosing an investor is huge.

Like marriage, you can’t just marry a company just because a single reason such as it has money or it has a big name that you think you might benefit in your PR. Here is a list of things that you should keep in mind when that situation comes:

Don’t rush for any deal. Try to buy more time so that you can do due diligence. You need time to know your investor as long as possible. Same as you won’t decide to marry someone after only a few weeks of getting to know each other. Your investor will most likely work very closely with you after the investment. If it’s an M&A deal, the relationship would be even more complicated. If your potential investor is very pushy, red flag.

You should try to talk to people who have worked with that investor. Or even better, try to talk to those people who had worked with that investor and failed in the venture. People could act very nice during good times, but what matters most is how they act when the times are difficult.

Like what mentioned above, you shouldn’t agree to a deal just because of the amount of money involved or just because of the big name of the company approaches you. You should also see if there are other potential synergy between two entities (I know, I know, no one want to mention synergy now). Is there anything you can leverage with the investor’s business? Will that bring you to a new market? Will that bring you new diversified players? How about technology, tools, IP, talent, functions like customer services, QA analytics or localization?

Communicate with your potential investor as much as possible. Ask questions. Show vulnerability so that the other will open up more to you. Find out the reason why the potential investor is interested in your business, find out his or her strategic intent. Is that the game you published? The IP you created? Your game engine or development tools? Your team? The intent is critical. If only a piece of your business was interested by your potential investor, you’d better figure out what would be the future of the rest of the components of your business.

Find out how your potential investor want to cooperate with you after the deal. Would they want to have a full control of your business? Or you can remain independent? Would they want to integrate the two entities? If your potential investor is interested in your talented team, they might want to put your people to work for their product instead of yours. Of course, I think you should work with someone that you can still have say to your business, unless, you are tired with it and want to retire.

Find out how your potential investor want to deal with the cultural difference of two entities. Are they gonna integrate yours into their own spectacular culture that work great for years with their team? Or your business will stay as a separate entity that you can keep your own culture? I believe culture is something very unique to a particular team working on a particular product. Forcing a complete culture change is something that would never work out. Inevitably there would be a blending of the culture of two entities; however, I strongly recommend you to keep your own culture after the deal if possible.

When a big guy approaches you for an investment or M&A deal, there is surely something he wants to take from you. There is no need to sugarcoat it. Just that it’s essential to intensively communicate, ask essential questions, open up and share vulnerabilities to make sure the strategic intent will benefit both parties in the long run.（source：gamasutra）