Kabam新任CEO Tim Fields谈公司品牌重塑后的目标和战略

原作者：James Brightman 译者：Vivian Xue

最近移动游戏公司Kabam正在进行一次重大的品牌重塑，去掉了企业logo里的炸弹图案，使整个品牌拥有更加鲜明、时尚的外观。Kabam的产品营销高级总监Callie Jenkins告诉我们：“多年来公司发生了巨大的变化，我们希望我们的品牌能彰显我们的形象和信念。”

虽然炸弹图案消失了，但这家公司的动力和热情仍在。2017年，韩国网石游戏（Netmarble）斥资8亿收购了Kabam温哥华工作室，随后Kabam对剩余团队进行合并，组建为一家独立公司Aftershock。如今，全新的温哥华工作室凭借《漫威超级争霸战》引领Kabam的业务增长。

“我们致力于提供优质的软件和娱乐服务，吸引全球范围内的玩家。因此我们所采取的策略是把世界各地的玩家联系起来，使他们成为朋友，享受共同游戏的乐趣。我们增进了与玩家的交流，提高信息透明化，加强了我们的社区管理团队建设，以使我们能够更好地与玩家讨论产品的待改进之处。”

Kabam的新目标使我回想起了几年前EA公司的“玩家至上”（Players First）理念。

Kevin Chou辞职后，Tim Fields接任公司CEO，他说：“在立项阶段，我们首先考虑的从来不是‘这个项目我们要投入多少资金？’而是‘我们如何才能让90多个国家的2亿玩家爱上这个游戏和其中的角色，并把它推荐给朋友，这样他们便能天天一起玩游戏？’”

“游戏赚钱时，我们当然很高兴。这棒极了。这意味着玩家们喜欢我们的游戏。他们本不需要向我们支付一分钱，所以每当他们在游戏里消费，哪怕是一美元我都感到很满足了，如今和过去的主机游戏时代不同，人们完全可以不花钱尽情享受游戏。”

Epic Games的《堡垒之夜》大概是整个“玩家至上”理念的缩影。这款游戏大热的部分原因是它使玩家可以随时随地吃鸡，因此索尼一开始因PS4不支持跨平台联机遭到消费者控诉，并最终迫于压力妥协。2018年，玩家们的期待与过去几年相比有了很大改变，作为旁观者的Kabam学到了很多。

“真正重要的不是平台，而是平台另一端的人，”Fields强调，“当玩家坐公交时，他们应该能用口袋里的任何设备玩你的游戏。当他们回到家，如果他们家里安装了智能电视，那么理想状态下，他们能够马上在电视上体验你的游戏。”

“这完全可能成为一种常态。并且《堡垒之夜》这样的游戏已经展示了这种可能性，同时它们使我们明白，某些在技术上一直是可行的事物（跨平台联机），会由于一些非技术原因无法向玩家开放（跨平台联机带来的利益损失），但却是玩家真正想要的。想到我无法直接将游戏进度从一台设备转移到另一台上，我必须注册不同的账号，不得不接受由于非技术原因带来的种种不便，这是很荒谬的事。并且到了2025年，甚至更早，这些操作将显得十分愚蠢。”

MARVEL Contest of Champions(from itunes.apple.com)

“无论我身在何处，都能随时拿起手边的任何设备登录然后和朋友打一局游戏，这是我的愿望，也是Kabam希望为玩家们创造的世界。回归现实，我们还在试图与三星达成合作，和小米合作，因此我们和梦想还有些距离。但未来的路已经很明晰了，因为从根本上看，这是玩家们的期待。”

科技使世界的联系日益紧密，游戏可运行的平台越来越多。一旦任何游戏能在任何平台上运行，移动游戏发行商和PC、主机游戏发行商之间的界线将会消失。这会使Kabam陷入与Epic Games、EA等公司的直接竞争中，不过Fields目前主要关心的不是这个。

“我做了25年游戏，甚至更久，事实上我最开始做游戏时完全想不到有朝一日它能赚钱。一路走来，我从未见过市场像今日这般复杂而有趣、挑战性与回报性兼具，”Fields说道，“造成这一结果的原因主要是如今人人的口袋里都有一个PlayStation，并且我指不仅是美国西海岸的人。在埃及开罗、印度勒克瑙、中国各大城市，很多人随身携带这些设备。它们不仅外形酷炫，更重要的是这些设备把人们联系起来。因此如今我们的市场体量相当可观。”

“过去最成功的游戏，比如前年大获成功的《使命召唤14》，这些游戏的安装量和玩家数量虽然令人惊叹，但和F2P移动游戏相比差远了。如今市场规模大得惊人，但市场情况也复杂得多，比如和2012年相比，我们需要适配种类繁多的设备。”

“也许你正在使用价值1000美元的iPhone，相比之下，Reliance Jio正在印度大力推广4G手机，好像是50块一台？你想想，我们必须使游戏在两款设备上都能平稳流畅地运行，甚至要让两款手机的用户一起畅快地游戏。此外，随着过去几年技术的进步，实时聊天翻译的出现再次证明我们有能力把人们联结起来，不过这仍然很复杂。”

对于任何一家大型移动游戏公司来说，使游戏在不同的地区市场、不同的设备和操作系统上完美运行都是一大挑战，但用户获取和留存更为关键。

“从营销的角度来看，五年前当Supercell发行《部落冲突》时，用户获取方式和今日有着很大不同，”Fields说，“所以，我们看到Supercell、Zyngas、Kabams，特别是一些小型移动游戏公司在不断合并重组，因为如今花钱获取用户真的非常难，除非你有雄厚的财力。这也是为什么过去几年内，排行榜前10甚至前20几乎没什么变化。”

“你很难像六七年前那样通过营销获得认知度。现在市场上要么是像漫威这样的超级IP，要么是靠疯狂砸钱营销起来的品牌，或是二者的结合体。没错，这使市场更具挑战性。虽然潜在玩家数量很诱人，但市场合并、高安装成本以及我们刚谈到的技术复杂性加剧了挑战。”

上任CEO Kavin Chou曾经谈到过将斥巨资(数千万美元）打造主机水准的画质，但比起画质，Fields显然更关注提高游戏的社交粘性。

“我觉得为游戏考虑研发和营销预算是很有意义的，特别是如果你像Kevin一样出色，懂得如何通过风投筹措资金。但今时不同往日，”Fields说，“现在Kabam是网石的全资子公司并保持独立运营，我们的目标是让世界各地的玩家爱上这些精彩的游戏。的确，我们的研发预算在不断上升，这总是让我们很愧疚，但无关紧要了。”

“现在手游的画质确实都快赶上PS3了……但是，我们追求的不仅仅是视觉效果，当然它对于《漫威超级争霸战》和《变形金刚：试炼战斗》这样的游戏来说非常重要，因为它能抓住玩家的眼球，但更重要的是降低游戏的入门门槛和增加RPG玩法的深度，从而使游戏看似简单，又能让玩家沉浸其中。接着融入社交元素，让游戏成为真正具有深度的、社交化的长期体验。”

“玩家把我们的游戏推荐给他们的朋友，这是我们成功的原因之一，比如《漫威超级争霸战》，有些玩家四年来每天都会玩这个游戏。并且我预计、并且我相信未来几年里他们仍然会天天玩这个游戏。“

Kabam几年前曾靠原创IP《卡络米特王国》（Kingdoms of Camelot）大火了一把，不过他们也有一些极为成功的非原创IP游戏，《漫威超级争霸战》就是最好的例子。然而，制作IP游戏并非易事，即便是那些顶级IP，从EA《星球大战》系列的坎坷发展中可见一斑。一些游戏公司过度依赖外部IP，比如THQ和Glu Mobile。

“我们的目标是让玩家玩到自己喜爱的角色，无论是他们自创的角色还是一些陪伴他们成长的人物，比如《复仇者联盟》之类的，”Fields说。“我们对IP的力量保持怀疑，除非我们的员工对它充满了热情……我指的是游戏的开发者，真正做游戏的人。因此，我们不会盲目追求或创造IP。从根本上看，如果连做游戏的人对它不感兴趣，根本不想花5年时间去制作它，那有何意义呢。”

“近几年来，我们与漫威紧密合作，产生了巨大的协同效应。这对我们的业务来说不是必要的，但很重要，只有这样我们才能在未来继续获得顶级IP授权，为粉丝提供超棒的人物和剧情。此外，我们很乐意继续创作自己的IP，只要我们认为它达到了我们的成功标准。”

Kabam的新IP必须满足两个条件：一是游戏必须能获得2亿左右的玩家。第二，员工对这个游戏足够热情，愿意为它进行长达5-10年的研发。

“从创造一个新IP到成功将它推向市场需要10亿美元投入。按照现在的情况这个数字一点都不夸张 ”Fields说，“这得花个十年吧？比如说《古墓丽影》，从94、95年第一部电影问世到成为一个真正强大、成熟的IP，差不多是十年。因此我需要确定团队对项目是否有毅力和热情，之后才会投入精力创作它。”

无论是原创品牌还是外部授权品牌，发展壮大品牌的一个方式是进行跨媒体运营。Fields说这正是Kabam未来项目的追求。

“假设我们几个人创造出了一个超棒的IP，迫切地想要把它推向市场。我们该怎么做呢？做一个IP游戏吗？也许。或者我们可以学习Wonderstorm对《龙王子》（Dragon Prince）的做法，”Fields思考道。

“你可以让IP在单一平台或媒体上传播，或者，你可以像我刚说的那样思考‘我们应该如何让全球任何平台上的每个人与它互动？’事实上，我认为这是一种探索新IP的更为有趣的方式。我希望能在接下来的十年里与Kabam优秀的同事们一起钻研这个方面。”

他补充说道：“做游戏是我们的本职工作，但我们一直对跨媒体运营很感兴趣，也在寻找这方面的人才。嘿，《Gloomhaven》的制作者们，我们想与你们联系，让我们来思考一下如何利用我们的资源制作一个优质的硬核桌游。那些擅长制作动画的人，让我们聊聊吧。我想看到《漫威超级争霸战》Netflix动画片吗？当然！显然漫威可能对此有他们自己的想法，但我们也非常乐意做这些。”

除了跨媒体以外，Fields还密切关注AR等新兴技术，苹果、谷歌及其他公司都对这一块进行了大量投资。虽然他承认，迄今为止，相关应用从某种程度上是“噱头”，但他仍然抱着很大期望，尤其是对《精灵宝可梦Go》这类基于位置信息的应用。

“我对这类应用更加感兴趣，因为我一直在思考‘嘿，我们怎样让人们与他们位置附近的人交朋友？如何让拥有共同喜好的人们在现实世界中相聚？’这比通过取景器看到东西更令我感到兴奋，因为它使人们着迷，但人们因这种着迷而聚在一起。”Fields说。

“因此我会继续密切关注整个行业的动态，继续推进技术创新。因为我相信这个领域的发展空间还很大，并且Kabam对此非常感兴趣……我们渴望在未来的游戏中带来基于位置信息的内容。”

到头来，Fields只是想通过优质的娱乐把人们联系起来。Netflix已经意识到了《堡垒之夜》带来的威胁，但2019年的竞争将异常激烈。

“20年前，我常常对我的设计师说‘我们的竞争对象不是PlayStation上的其它游戏。我们要和所有令人愉快的体验竞争——谈情说爱、享受美食、观赏电影。’这些都是人们消耗时间的选择,所以我们的游戏其实是在争夺人们的时间。

“我认为这对游戏开发者和任何类型的内容创作者来说都是一个非常值得思考的问题。这也是为什么我总是把盈利放到后面考虑。只要玩家喜爱你的游戏、愿意花时间玩你的游戏，游戏盈利的潜力是无限的。”

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Kabam recently went through a major rebranding, removing the bomb icon from its corporate logo while giving the brand an overall sleeker, edgier look. “Our company has changed a lot over the years, and we wanted to ensure that our brand also reflected who we are and what we believe in,” Callie Jenkins, Kabam’s Senior Director of Product Marketing, told GameDaily.

The bomb may have vanished, but the oomph behind the Marvel Contest of Champions studio is still there. Kabam has weathered some upheaval as part of the company was spun-off into an independent entity called Aftershock, while the studio behind Contest of Champions is now leading the way, headquartered in a brand-new Vancouver tower. South Korea’s Netmarble then came along in 2017 to purchase the new Kabam for a reported $800 million.

“We are very focused on building excellent software and entertainment for players and engaging people globally. And so our approach with the players is we connect players from around the world so that they can make friends with other people and really enjoy playing these games with each other. And we have connected people on a global scale. We’re having more conversations with them, being more transparent with them, and beefing up our community teams as well so that we can have those discussions with the players to improve our products for them.”

Kabam’s new focus reminds me of EA’s ‘Players First’ mantra from several years ago：

We’re proud to finally unleash our new brand onto the mobile gaming world. It’s dynamic, always evolving, and emotionally charged. Check out the video below with your speakers turned up. pic.twitter.com/j83buq1rLu

— Kabam (@kabam) January 8, 2019

Tim Fields, who took over as CEO after Kevin Chou exited the company, explained, “We don’t start from asking, ‘How much money should we spend developing this?’ We start by asking, ‘How do we get something that’s going to get 200 million people across 90-plus countries to fall in love with this game and to want to take these characters and go on adventures with their friends, and tell their friends about it so that they can get to play the games together every day?’

“And it is always nice when the games generate the kind of money that we talk about in the past sometimes. That’s wonderful. That’s certainly a reflection of how much our players love what we do. They don’t have to pay us a penny, and so whenever they do, in many ways it’s a lot more gratifying when somebody gives me a dollar here than it was back in the console days. Because here, they can play the game and enjoy it as long as they want to without doing that.”

Epic Games’ Fortnite is perhaps the epitome of the whole players first idea. Epic’s game rose to the status of cultural phenomenon in part because they made the battle royale title playable whenever, wherever. Sony got caught up in the cross-platform maelstrom at first, then relented due to consumer pressures. Players’ expectations in 2018 became something very different from recent years past, and Kabam has learned a ton from being on the sidelines.

“Fundamentally, the platform is not important, the person at the other end of it is important,” Fields stressed. “That’s what matters. And when a user is on the bus, they should be able to play with whatever device they happen to have in their pocket. And when they walk into their home, if they’re wealthy enough to have a Smart TV on the wall, ideally that experience should jump to the Smart TV.

“There’s no reason to imagine that wouldn’t be the case. And I do think that games like Fortnite have obviously shown the way and shown us that what has been technically possible for a long time, is beyond technically possible, is actually something that consumers expect. The idea that I wouldn’t be able to carry my progress from one device to another, that I’d have to have different accounts, or that I would have to deal with this friction that we’d all just sort of grown up understanding we had to deal with, you know that’s ridiculous. And by 2025, maybe earlier than that, that’s going to seem very silly.

“The idea that every device I talk to, wherever I happen to be, can’t simply hear my voice, log me in, and get me back playing with my friends again, on whatever screen and input mechanism happens to be nearby and most convenient, that’s I world I believe in. And that’s a world Kabam would love to be a part of. Now, you know, in real life I still got to figure out how to get on a Samsung phone, I still got to work with Xiaomi, so we’re not quite in that future yet. But I very definitely believe in what you’re saying as a very clear way things will go because, fundamentally, that’s what players want. That’s what I want, as a gamer.”

Technology has enabled the world to become more connected than ever, and games are running on more and more devices. In a world where any game is playable anywhere, the distinction between mobile publisher and traditional publisher begins to vanish. That would put Kabam in direct competition with Epic, EA and others, but that’s not Fields’ primary concern right now.

“I’ve been making games 25 years now, professionally, and for actually quite a few years before that, before I realized anybody would ever actually pay for getting to play these games. And I have never seen a more complicated, more challenging, or more interesting and rewarding landscape than the one we’re in right now,” Fields noted. “And the reason for that, at its heart is, because we all do carry a PlayStation in our pockets, and I’m not talking about just folks on the West Coast of North America. In Cairo, in Lucknow, India, in cities in China that frankly I can barely pronounce, people are walking around with these amazing devices in their pockets. And even cooler than the visuals is that they connect everybody. So, the size of the stage upon which we get to perform these days is just breathtaking.

“The best types of games that we built in the past, you know, the most successful Call of Duty [games] of yesteryear, for example, the types of installs and total number of players those could reach are, while impressive, a fraction of what we can do with mobile free-to-play. So the size of the stage is just amazing now. But, also the complexity of that market from a device standpoint is much more sophisticated and complicated than it was in 2012, for example.

“You’re probably on a thousand dollar iPhone right now, like folks on this call probably have. Take that and compare it to the phones that Reliance Jio is flooding India with right now, and now recognize that we have to make these games play beautifully on both of those devices. Those are devices that cost about fifty bucks, right? And, we even let those people play together. And have a great experience together. And then, some of the standards that we’ve seen in technology over the last few years, with the real-time chat translation means that again we have the ability now to bring people together, but that’s also incredibly complicated stuff.”

Making everything smooth across devices, operating systems and geographic markets is one big challenge for any major mobile company, but perhaps even more critical is user acquisition and retention.

“From a marketing standpoint, five years ago when Supercell first launched Clash of Clans, the market for user acquisition was a lot different than it is now,” Fields described. “And so, we have seen consolidation because it just is really difficult to go acquire users through paid channels unless you’ve got a pretty mighty war chest — which is why you see consolidation with the Supercells and the Zyngas and Kabams, and a sort of smaller number of players on the mobile side in particular. And the relatively stagnant nature of the Top 10 or even Top 20 charts, over the last few years, sort of reflects that.

“It’s very hard to have the marketing muscle to break into the public awareness the way you could six or seven years ago. Now that takes either phenomenal intellectual properties, something like Marvel, or a huge war chest of user acquisition money, or both. And so, yeah, that has made the market more challenging. More exciting, for the reasons I just mentioned with regard to all the players, but also more challenging because of the consolidation and high cost for install and just the sheer technical complexity that we just talked about.”

Kevin Chou was quoted in the past about Kabam’s massive console-level budgets (tens of millions of dollars) with visual fidelity to match, but Fields is less worried about graphics than he is ensuring Kabam’s games act as social glue.

“I think that thinking about the development budget and the marketing budget for these kind of games is valuable, particularly valuable if you’re somebody awesome like Kevin, who really understands going out and raising money from VC. But that’s not the world that we’re in anymore,” Fields stated. “Kabam is now wholly owned by Netmarble and we’re still independently run though, and our mission, our goal, is very much to entertain players around the world with these wonderful games. And, it is true, development budgets continue to rise. That’s always regrettable, but it’s really quite beside the point.

“It’s true that the graphics these days do seem to be about PlayStation 3 level quality in terms of shaders and what we can deliver there… But, more than being visually beautiful, which I think is very important in games like Marvel Contest of Champions and Transformers Forged to Fight because it attracts people’s eyeballs initially, but what’s a lot more important is giving them this hugely accessible core toy and this deep RPG gameplay that, while it might look quite simple on the surface, actually keeps them engaged for weeks and months at a time. And then it gives them the social elements that make these games truly deep, ongoing social experiences, so that they’re making new friends.

“They’ve been sharing together with these friends for months and years at a time. And that’s how we’ve accomplished the successes that we have, with games like Contest of Champions, where we’ve got people who played every day for more than four years now. And, frankly, that I expect will play for the next several years, every single day. I know I will.”

Kabam made a big splash some years ago with its original IP Kingdoms of Camelot, but some of Kabam’s greatest success have come from licensed IP, Marvel being the primary example. Playing the licensed game can be tricky, however, even with the best of the best, as we’ve seen with EA’s ongoing stewardship of the Star Wars video games. Some companies have had an overreliance on licenses. The old THQ and Glu Mobile come to mind.

“Our goal is to give players the chance to play with characters that they love, either those that they create or ones that they grew up caring about, the way they do about The Avengers, or similar,” commented Fields. “We are largely IP agnostic, excepting the following. It’s a pretty hardcore passionate bunch here at Kabam … I’m talking about the developers, the people that make the games themselves. So, we’re not interested really in chasing intellectual property or building IP that doesn’t resonate with the folks. Fundamentally, if the kids here don’t care about it and want to spend the next five years of their lives building it then we’re not going to do that.

“In the last few years, we achieved these great synergies with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is not essential to our business, but it is very important, so we will continue to work with the best IP holders in the world, when there are characters and stories that we want to work with them to tell and bring to life for our fans. Beyond that, we’d be happy to continue to create our own new IP when we thought [it could meet our criteria for success].”

Kabam essentially needs a new IP investment to hit two key metrics. One is the game must be able to garner around 200 million players. And two, will Kabam’s staff be energized by it to the point where they’ll commit to working on it for 5-10 years?

“Creating a new IP and bringing it to market successfully, that’s a billion dollar problem. No exaggeration at this point,” Fields said. “And that’s going to take you about ten years, right? If you look at anything from Tomb Raider, between the time the first one came out in ’94, ’95 roughly, to the time there was a movie in place and you could, by any standards, call that a strong, established IP, that was a decade. That was a fortune. And so, what I need are this, teams with the stamina and passion for a project to want to stay in the ring for a decade. And when we’ve got that, then we will go spend energy on that intellectual property.”

One way to grow a great brand, whether licensed or not, is to engage in transmedia. Fields said Kabam is definitely interested in pursuing that route with upcoming projects.

“Let’s say that the four of us sit down and come up with an IP tomorrow and, gosh, we love this thing, we really want to get it out there. What’s the right way to do it? Is it just through a video game? Maybe. Or do you do what groups like Wonderstorm are doing down in LA with the Dragon Prince?” Fields pondered out loud.

“Should you be thinking about IP as something that is expressed in a single platform or single medium, or, like you and I were talking about just a second ago, should I be asking instead, ‘Okay, how do we bring this thing to every person on the planet on whatever platform it is that they care about, interactive or otherwise?’ And actually, I think that’s a far more interesting way to think about new intellectual property. And I do hope to spend some energy on that with all these wonderful folks here at Kabam over the next decade.”

He added, “We make games, that’s what we do. But, we’re always interested in partnering with people who can help us think about transmedia opportunities, and if that’s a wonderful physical toy, cool. And if that’s a board game by somebody, then that’s wonderful. Hey, guys who make Gloomhaven, come talk to us. Let’s figure out how to make a board game that awesome and hardcore out of something we do. Folks who build animation, let’s talk about what that would look like. Do I want to see a Netflix cartoon for Contest of Champions? Absolutely, yes I do. Obviously Marvel might have their own thoughts on that, [but] that’s the kind of stuff we’d love to do.”

Aside from transmedia, Fields is also closely watching emerging tech like AR, which Apple, Google and others are all highly invested in. He admitted that so far, the applications have been somewhat “gimmicky,” but he has high hopes, especially for location-based apps like what Niantic did with Pokemon Go.

“To me, that is far more exciting because it asks the question, ‘Hey, how do I let people make friends with others who are in their physical proximity? Or, how do I let people converge in a real world location out of some shared love of something going in a game?’ And that one, to me, gets me incredibly excited, more so than seeing something through a viewfinder. Because it ties into that, what’s obviously coming across as an obsession in this discussion, but is an obsession with using games as a way of bringing humans together,” Fields remarked.

“So I’m really eager to continue to watch us as an industry across the board, continue to move that forward. Because I think there’s so much more that can be done there, and Kabam is interested in that… and eager to start to bring location based [content] to life in our games going forward.”

At the end of the day, Fields just wants to connect people with great entertainment. Netflix has recognized the threat of Fortnite, but the competitive landscape in 2019 has never been tougher.

“I used to tell my designers 20 years ago, ‘Your competition is not other games on a PlayStation, your competition is kissing that person you’re excited about. Your competition is the best meal you can have. Your competition is what the most awesome movie is.’ What I’m competing with, whatever game we build, is the total sum of pleasurable human enterprise out there, because that’s where you and I, each, could go spend our time on instead. And so that minute that you choose to spend playing a game, truly I’m competing with every other wonderful thing in the world.

“I think that’s a very valuable way for game builders and content builders of any kind to think about this problem. The only thing that matters is your attention, is that you care. Which is why I put monetization so far down the list of things that matter. If they love you and are willing to spend time on you, then there’s unlimited money in that.”（source：GameDaily.biz）