Wooga CEO阐述专注于剧情主导游戏的原因

原作者：James Batchelor 译者：Willow Wu

位于德国柏林的游戏公司Wooga近日宣布重组，裁员30人。

这是自2016年以来Wooga的第二次重组，他们之前关闭了Black Anvil核心工作室，决定把精力集中在三类游戏上：找物游戏、解谜游戏和三消游戏。而这次同样也是出于战略考虑——鉴于Pearl’s Peril和June’s Journey都收获了巨大的成功，Wooga决定他们日后将专注于剧情主导游戏。

我们邀请到了CEO Jens Begemann，让他来告诉我们为什么这次的战略转变是必要的。

“作为一个CEO，我的责任就是定期重新审视我们的战略，看看我们是否朝着正确的方向前进，或者是需要做出改变，”他说，“两年前，我们决定将焦点放在休闲游戏上，这是很重要的一步。随着市场变化节奏加快，我认为把聚焦范围收窄对当下的Wooga来说是一个正确的选择。

“剧情在休闲游戏中的作用越来越重要了。而且从过去几年的成绩来看，我们确实有能力做出高质量的剧情主导游戏，所以我相信我们在小众市场之外也能吸引更多玩家。另外一个原因就是我深信对于Wooga整个团队来说，拥有一个共同的目标有利于公司的更好发展。”

wooga-jelly-splash(from pocketgamer)

他继续补充说: “Wooga自成立以来也有九年了，我们经常在思考公司的架构以及运营方式。适应力就是我们最大的优势之一。但改变从来就不是一件简单的事，无论你之前经历多少次。”

当Begemann宣布新策略时，他同时也暗示了之前一种游戏类型对应一个工作室的结构会彻底改变。自从Wooga把游戏看作是live services后，他们把就游戏开发过程分为了两个阶段——游戏本身的创作+发行后的游戏更新&额外内容。

“这两个阶段都需要各种不同类型的人才，因此我们决定围绕着这两大核心进行重组—— Wooga分成了新游戏制作和在线运营两个部门，每个部门都有多个游戏团队。”

专注于剧情是一个合理的选择。目前为止，Wooga最受欢迎的产品是找物游戏Pearl’s Peril和June’s Journey，它们都是围绕着剧情而展开的游戏，开发者们也会在游戏发行后继续定期发布新章节。

上周，移动应用分析平台Apptopia的报告显示互动类剧情游戏(比如Choices、Episodes)单二月的盈利数额就达到了1400万美元。还有我们最近谈到芬兰游戏公司Seriously，他们的成功同样也证明了剧情对于休闲游戏的重要性。

由此看来，剧情是提高玩家沉浸度和留存率的一大关键因素。对于任何想在竞争日益激烈的市场中争取一席之位的公司来说，这两大指标就是他们的根基。

“如果我们能创作出一个精彩的故事，玩家自然就会好奇下一步的剧情发展，这就能让他们更加投入，”Begemann说。“还有一个重要原因是玩家知道每周都会有新的章节加入，也相信我们不会让他们失望。”

这就意味着Wooga必须提高工作效率，在一周之内写出新故事并转化成可玩性高的游戏内容。“既然跟玩家做了这个承诺，那么我们就必须按时完成工作，”Begemann说。

自2013年Pearl’s Peril发行以来，Wooga一直在优化他们的工作流程以保证游戏更新频率，除此之外他们也为某些不可预见的问题和更新延误做了后备计划。重组后的公司结构也有益于Wooga的进一步优化。

去年发行的June’s Journey就验证了这一观点。10月份游戏发行时，Wooga的剧本创作者已经写到第60章了，一年多的更新内容都安排好了。

“考虑到从写对话到最后做成游戏所花费的时间，提前规划很重要，”Begemann说。“故事在前期制作以及整体规划中占据着主角地位，所以我们希望剧本创作者从项目开始的第一天就加入团队。

“然而，没有人能够保证游戏一定会成为大热门，我们能做的就是通过不同的方法来降低潜在风险，比如进行早期测试发行，对玩家进行深入调研、采访等。对玩家了解得越多，我们就能更好地满足他们的需求。”

Wooga首席编剧Rebecca Harwick告诉我们Wooga也非常热衷于尝试不同类型的故事，通过不同的方式来吸引玩家。但提前计划依然很关键，尤其是考虑到产品生命周期的不确定性。

“我们的游戏就跟其它连载式产品一样，就比如电视剧和漫画，”她说。“刚开始时几乎没有人能够确定这个故事究竟会有多长。

“June’s Journey是围绕着一个谜团而展开的剧情，但我们意识到游戏不可能一直靠它吊住玩家的胃口，所以我们额外加入了一些篇幅不是很长的故事，但是主角的冒险故事依然还是整个游戏的主线，贯穿在各个章节中。原来的游戏是不会出现篇章结构的。”

Wooga坚信短期内专注于找物游戏是个正确的决策，Begemann明确表示这种剧情主导模式也会应用在其它类型的游戏上——不仅仅是解谜、三消，这些Wooga擅长的领域。

“有了这种新式的剧情主导设计，我们就可以利用各种不同的的游戏机制在不同的游戏类型中呈现出扣人心弦的故事。我们的目的就是为玩家提供沉浸式的游戏体验，就像是读一本书或者是看电影。找物和解谜游戏是我们反响最好的产品，自然也就成了我们实施策略的首选目标。”

尽管Wooga依靠这两大类游戏收获了相当优异的成绩，但这并不意味着这种配方在其它类型的游戏上也能行得通。

幸运的是，Wooga从Pearl’s Peril和June’s Journey上学到经验为他们的探索之路创造了良好的条件。正如上文所说的，新的组织架构将会进一步提升游戏团队的工作效率。

“通过休闲游戏讲述一个复杂的故事并非易事，”Begemann说，“Pearl’s Peril刚开始时我们根本就不知道这个故事有没有结局、什么时候该结局。我们必须要学会怎样利用对话、线索、游戏模式呈现出一个引人入胜的故事。显然，刚开始的时候我们做得并不是很好。”

Harwick补充说：“剧情创作其实是一个团队工作。故事不仅仅是靠编剧的对话呈现出来的，还需要游戏画面、机制、音效。画师们成为了故事的讲述者，他们不仅要关注游戏画面是否好看，还要注意它们能否匹配得上剧情、跟之前的内容保持连贯，并且营造出适合当下剧情的情感氛围。”

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Berlin-based games firm Wooga recently announced a restructure that led to the loss of 30 jobs.

The layoffs were prompted by a new strategy that will see the studio focus on narrative-driven titles, building on its biggest recent successes Pearl’s Peril and June’s Journey.

This is the second restructure in two years, following the decision in 2016 to concentrate efforts around three genres – hidden object, puzzle and match-three – which led to the closure of its core games team at Black Anvil.

We caught up with CEO Jens Begemann to find out why yet another shift in strategy was necessary.

“My responsibility as a CEO is to regularly revisit our strategy and see if we’re still on the right path or need to pivot,” he tells GamesIndustry.biz. “Our re-focussing efforts on casual in 2016 were an important step. With the market environment changing at a high pace, I’m convinced that an even narrower focus is the right thing to do for us today.

“We see stories becoming more and more important in casual games and in the last years were able to demonstrate our ability to develop high quality story-driven games, which makes me confident about our chances to grow our audience beyond a niche. Lastly, I strongly believe that having one unified goal to build the best story-driven casual games in the market for Wooga as a whole will allow all of us to get better at what we do every day.”

He adds: “We’ve been rethinking the way Wooga is organised and operates several times since being founded nine years ago. The ability to adapt is one of our biggest strengths. However, change is never easy no matter how many times you’ve done it before.”

When the newest strategy was announced, Begemann hinted that the firm’s previous structure – one studio per genre – would be overhauled. During our discussion, he elaborated further: since Wooga views its games as live services, the firm has identified two distinct phases of development – creation of the game itself, and post-launch updates and additional content.

“Both phases require special skill sets of the people working on the game,” Begemann explains. “When building June’s Journey we discovered that there’s a natural transition during soft launch, when the creative lead hands over to the product manager to bring the game to global launch and run it as of then. We decided to organise the company around these phases and thus have a New Games and a Live Games Unit going forward, with each unit having several game teams.”

The decision to concentrate on story is an understandable one. By far the best performers at Wooga are hidden object games Pearl’s Peril and June’s Journey, which build the gameplay around an ongoing story, with new chapters released on a regular basis.

Last week, Apptopia reported that interactive story games like Choices and Episodes have generated more than $14 million in February alone, while our recent discussion with Finnish success story Seriously demonstrated the benefits of building a narrative around casual game mechanics.

Story, it turns out, is a significant factor in player engagement and retention; metrics that are the lifeblood for any firm attempting to survive the increasingly competitive mobile market.

“If we manage to tell a compelling story, our players naturally want to find out what comes next, which makes them more engaged,” says Begemann. “Another important driver for engagement is that our players know there will be a new chapter every week and trust in us to not let them down.”

This weekly schedule has compelled Wooga to increase its efficiency when writing new stories and building them into playable content. “Promising such frequency once means you can never miss a deadline,” Begemann observes.

Since the launch of Pearl’s Peril in 2013, Wooga has constantly optimised its work process to produce regular content updates, as well as plan for any unforeseen complications or delays. The theory is that the new two-phase structure will assist with these efforts.

This was demonstrated with last year’s release of June’s Journey. By the time the app launched in October, Wooga’s writers were already working on the 60th chapter with more than year’s worth of content mapped out.

“Considering how long it takes to create one chapter from the first lines of dialogue up until the final implementation, planning ahead is key,” Begemann says. “Story becomes a hugely important component in planning and pre-production so we try to include narrative designers from day one on the project.

“However, you always have the risk of the game not becoming a hit so there’s never any guarantee. We try to mitigate that risk through different measures such as early validation releases, in-depth player research and interviews. The more we know about what our players really enjoy, the better we can cater to their desires.”

Head of writing Rebecca Harwick tells us Wooga is also keen to experiment with the types of stories it can tell through its games, in order to engage the audience in different ways. This also comes down to forward planning, especially as there’s no knowing how long the life-cycle of a title will last.

“Telling a story in an ongoing live game is much like any other long-running serialized format, like television or comics,” she says. “With very few exceptions, no one knows how long any of them will run when they start.

“With June’s Journey we knew that we couldn’t drag out a single mystery forever, so we designed stories that unfold over three to six chapters, but carried our core cast and their problems across those stories as a long-term arc. Another game might not even have an episodic or chapter structure for its stories.”

While Wooga will no doubt focus on hidden object games in the short-term, Begemann has made it clear the studio hopes to apply these practices to other genres – and not just the puzzle and match-three markets in which the company previously specialised.

“With this new story-driven approach we’re not limiting ourselves to any particular genre. We believe this is an approach that can work for any game by using a range of different gameplay mechanics to tell compelling stories,” the CEO says.

“The goal is to provide our players with experiences they can immerse themselves into every day, like reading a book or watching a movie. We’ve seen our biggest successes in hidden object and puzzle in the past, which makes those a natural starting point for us from which we aim to expand from in the future.”

The term “starting point” is crucial here. For all the success Wooga has enjoyed through its two biggest games, this is not necessarily a formula that can be replicated wholesale – particularly if the studio hopes to branch into more genres.

Fortunately, the lessons learned from Pearl and June put Wooga in good stead to explore what works and what doesn’t. As previously mentioned, the new structure will be vital to ensuring stories can be outlined and implemented efficiently – telling long-running stories for the broadest possible audience truly will be a team effort.

“Telling a complex story through casual games is not trivial,” says Begemann. “When we started working on Pearl’s Peril we had no idea if or when we would end the story. We had to learn how to use dialogue, clues and game modes effectively to tell the story in a compelling way. Obviously, we didn’t perfect that from the beginning.”

Harwick adds: “Narrative is a team effort. When a writer or narrative designer creates a story it’s told through dialogue, but also through the game’s art, mechanics, and audio design.

“Artists become storytellers. They have to keep track of more than just whether the art is beautiful, but also whether it supports the story, whether it maintains continuity with what came before, whether it conveys the mood of what’s happening.”（source：gamesindustry.biz ）