Snowprint《索尔加德传奇》能否打破King的midcore诅咒

原作者：Craig Chapple 译者：Willow Wu

得益于《糖果传奇》 系列的成功，King一直以来都稳坐全球手游巨头公司的宝座。

初代《糖果传奇》依然是全球最畅销的手游之一，事实证明续作《糖果果冻传奇》和《糖果果苏打传奇》的盈利能力也是不可小觑。系列新成员《糖果好友传奇》也为King带来了丰厚的收益，尤其是经过了一年多的测试发行之后。

但是到目前为止，King一直都没能在midcore领域收获好成绩。他们尝试测试发行过不少游戏，从《英雄》（Hero）到《恒星：银河指挥官》（Stellar:Galaxy Commander），然而市场反馈一直都不理想。

众所周知，King将打造一款手游版本的《使命召唤》，但是游戏会是什么类型、什么时候发行我们还不得而知。

八月，King终于正式发行了一款midcore游戏——由Snowprint Studios开发的《索尔加德传奇》（Legend of Solgard）。

这两家公司颇有渊源。Snowprint CEO&联合创始人Alexander Ekval曾在King担任产品总监。2012年，King收购了Alexander Ekval和Tommy Palm共同创立的Fabrication Games。Snowprint成立于2015年四月，King在2016年对它投资。

《索尔加德传奇》这个项目从一开始到现在已经有三年了。游戏混合了King所擅长的三消玩法以及RPG元素。

The early Snowprint team（from pocketgamer.biz）

这款游戏是King新的第三方发行计划的一部分，同时也是King对midcore市场的又一次尝试。他们最终应该也会进入其它游戏领域。

但是这并不意味着发行《索尔加德传奇》会相对容易一些。毕竟他们耗费了整整三年的时间。这对手游来说并不正常。

Alexander Ekvall告诉PocketGamer.biz，“在Snowprint，我们的目标就是创造出有深度、有个性的游戏，让玩家对游戏保持好奇心，不会很快就厌倦游戏。

“我们想设计出一种全新的游戏体验，能让玩家在进阶的过程中不断学习新东西。我们想让玩家一起讨论他们喜欢/讨厌的生物，制定新的战略，克服游戏中各种不同的挑战。

“努力实现这一点，同时又不让游戏变得过于复杂，或者创造出过于小众的东西，这一直以来都是一个平衡方面的难题。”

Ekvall表示之所以选择与King合作，是因为他们在手游领域拥有不可撼动的地位，有能力为小型工作室提供非常优越的基础条件以营销资源。

他强调说虽然团队之前与King在《糖果传奇》系列上有过密切合作，但是除了King之外，Snowprint还有几名投资者持有工作室的股份，《索尔加德传奇》的开发以及游戏世界的相关设定都是他们自主决策的。

当然，Ekvall对《索尔加德传奇》未来在市场的表现以及帮助King打破midcore魔咒抱着十分乐观的态度，他称这个游戏是“回合制RPG游戏的革新”。

他表示Snowprint团队成员都拥有丰富的工作经验，曾在EA、DICE、Rovio和Zynga这样的大公司工作过。他们开发过热门游戏、提供技术支持，还参与过几个大型3A游戏的制作。因此，相对于其它工作室，Snowprint要创造新式且易上手的游戏是有巨大优势的。

Ekvall的乐观心态和资深人才的聚集能不能让《索尔加德传奇》大获成功？这得由时间来告诉我们了。根据App Annie的数据，截止10月9日，《索尔加德传奇》在美国App Store畅销榜的排名是第501位。至于其他国家，比如英国和德国，它的排名在200上下浮动。

如果King和Snowprint的目标是成为midcore市场的领导者，那么显然要做的还有不少。但无论是King还是其他投资者都不仅仅是为了一个短期成果而投资这个人才济济的团队。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

King remains one of the biggest mobile games companies in the world thanks to the Candy Crush Saga franchise.

The original release for mobile is still one of the world’s top grossers, while sequels Jelly Saga and Soda Saga have proven highly lucrative.

They’ve now been joined by Candy Crush Friends Saga, which will no doubt provide great returns for the company too, particularly after testing it for more than a year in soft launch.

But one area the company has so far failed in is the midcore space. It has tried soft-launching a number of titles, from Hero to Stellar: Galaxy Commander, but without success thus far.

King is known to be working on a Call of Duty mobile game, but there are no details as yet on the form this game will take and when it, or if, it will be released.

A close history

In August though, King finally launched a midcore title: Snowprint Studios’ Legend of Solgard.

King has previous with Snowprint. Not just investing in the studio back in 2016, its CEO Alexander Ekvall, who co-founded the company in April 2015, previously worked at the publisher as director of product. This followed King’s acquisition of his last company, Fabrication Games.

Snowprint has been working on Legend of Solgard for three years now. The title utilises a mix of match-three gameplay – an area King is well-versed in – with RPG Elements.

The title is part of King’s new third-party publishing initiative and acts as another way to crack the midcore market, presumably eventually in other categories too.

But that doesn’t mean the journey to launch was any less challenging. It’s taken three years to get to release, after all. Unusual for a mobile game.

“At Snowprint we aim to make games that have depth and personality so we can keep our players entertained and curious for a long time,” Snowprint CEO Alexander Ekvall tells PocketGamer.biz.

“We want to deliver new experiences where players keep learning new things about the game as they progress. We want players to have discussions about creatures they love and hate and discover new tactics to overcome the many different forms of challenges in the game.

“Trying to achieve this without over complicating things or creating something that feels to niche has been and continues to be a tough balancing act.”

King’s next act

Ekvall says the studio chose to work with King because of its huge standing in the mobile games sector and ability to add invaluable marketing and infrastructure capabilities to a small studio.

He stresses however that while the team does work closely with the Candy Crush outfit in several functions on the publishing side; it has several investors with stakes in the studio besides King, and acts autonomously when it comes to the development of Legend of Solgard and the game universe around it.

Ekvall is, of course, bullish on Legend of Solgard’s chances on the market and to break King’s curse in the midcore arena, calling it an “evolution of the turn-based RPG genre”.

He points to the team that has a “track record of developing and supporting top charting mobile games coupled with the experience from some of the largest triple-A titles”, which he says puts the studio in a strong position to create an innovative and approachable mobile game. The team’s past experiences include working at studios such as EA DICE, Rovio and Zynga.

Time will tell of Ekvall’s bullishness and the team’s experience will pay off with Legend of Solgard. According to App Annie, it currently charts at 501st as of October 9th on the US App Store top grossing rankings. In other countries such as the UK and Germany, the title flits in and out of the top 200.

Perhaps there’s work to be done, then, if the goal is to be a market leader in the space. But King and its other investors likely wouldn’t have backed such an experienced team simply for short-term results.（source：pocketgamer.biz ）