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Kabam公司首席执行官周凯文:如何打造一款热门游戏

Kabam公司首席执行官周凯文:如何打造一款热门游戏

Michael Casey 2014年11月19日
Kabam是目前最火的手游公司。该公司创始人周凯文最近登上了《财富》“40位40岁以下商业精英”榜单。近日,周凯文接受了《财富》专访,畅谈了创办Kabam的经过,以及如何开发一款热门视频游戏。

    一款看起来流畅好玩的游戏,在开发的时候往往没那么简单。

    这也正是Kabam公司开发令人爱不释手的手游时遵循的理念。Kabam公司通过免费模式提供游戏,然后通过额外的付费内容赚钱。8年时间里,在联合创始人兼CEO周凯文的领导下,Kabam已经从一家名不见经传的小公司成长为一家年收入3.6亿美元、估值超10亿美元的大企业。据报道,就在上个月,Kabam还获得了一笔来自阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的1.2亿美元投资。

    周凯文位列《财富》“40位40岁以下商业精英”榜单第25名。在该名单发布几天后,他接受了《财富》专访,畅谈了他挺过2008年金融危机的经历、开发一款成功游戏的秘诀,以及该公司准备如何将中国作为下一个增长点。

    《财富》:并非每个游戏公司高管自己都爱玩游戏。你是个游戏玩家吗?

    周凯文:我从小就很喜欢游戏。高中时我还是一个有世界排名的《星际争霸》(StarCraft)玩家。它很有意思,就在前几天,我妻子让我看了一段YouTube上的视频:一个父亲把他儿子的所有游戏光盘扔到了草坪上,然后开着割草机碾过去。当我还小的时候,情况并没那么糟,不过我父母当然希望我做一些有意义的事。所以现在我把自己喜欢的事情变成一笔大生意,也算是美梦成真了。

    Kabam的第一款热卖游戏是什么?

    第一款特别成功的游戏是通过Facebook分销的《亚瑟王国》(Kingdoms of Camelot)。它是一款描述中世纪骑士的战略游戏——也是我喜欢的那种。当时也生出了一些枝节,尤其是在通过互联网交付游戏的技术方面。我们当时不可能开发出你在Xbox或PlayStation上看到的那种游戏。所以我们没法开发体育竞技游戏。我们当时无法通过互联网交付那种水平的图形能力。所以我们选择了即时战略游戏。比如你可以想想《卡坦岛》(Settlers of Catan)或者《风险》(Risk)这种战略游戏,它们不需要很多很酷的图形效果,而更多的是决策,然后经历这些决策的结果,并且与其它玩家进行对战。

    你说过你进军付费游戏是受了2008年金融危机的影响,你能谈谈这方面吗?

    从2008年到2009年,我们损失了90%的收入,都没钱发工资了。我们说:“我们的广告收入短期内没法恢复,该怎么办?”与此同时,所谓的“迷你游戏”正在吸引很高的参与度。而且我们发现了一个更大的趋势,那就是很多游戏正在涌向Facebook,并且采用免费模式。当时我们把所有赌注压在了游戏上,决定只开发游戏,不依赖广告收入——也就是只让玩家为游戏(的高级内容)付费。时间证明,这是一笔很好的生意。

    A game that feels seamless and easy to play is often far from easy to make.

    That’s the idea behind the addictive mobile games developed by Kabam, which has harnessed the “free to play” model of offering free games but while layering on extra content for a fee. In eight years, co-founder and CEO Kevin Chou has taken the company from a tiny startup to $360 million in revenue and a $1 billion valuation. Last month, the company reported a $120 million investment from Alibaba.

    Just days after landing at no. 25 on our 2014 40 under 40 list, Chou spoke to Fortune about nearly going under during the 2008 financial crisis, the secret sauce to a great game, and how the company is setting its sights on China for future growth.

    Fortune: Not every gaming executive is a gamer themselves. Have you always been one?

    Kevin Chou:I’ve loved games since I was a little kid. In high school, I was a world-ranked StarCraft player. It’s funny, just the other day, my wife was showing me this YouTube video where a dad took all his son’s games and threw them out on the lawn in a big pile and drove a lawn mower over them. When I was a kid, it wasn’t quite that bad, but certainly my parents wanted me to do something productive. So it’s been a great dream come true to turn something I loved into a great business.

    What was Kabam’s first big hit?

    The first game to become a runaway success was Kingdoms of Camelot [distributed over Facebook]. It was a medieval strategy game about being a knight—it was the type of game I love. There were complications back then, in terms of the technology of delivering a game over the Internet. You couldn’t create the type of games you would expect to see on an Xbox or PlayStation. So we couldn’t create a sports game. We couldn’t deliver that level of graphic capability over the Internet. So we went with a strategy game because, if you think about playing Settlers of Catan, or Risk, there aren’t a whole lot of cool graphics you need. It’s much more about making decisions, working through consequences of those decisions, and battling against other players.

    You’ve said your decision to move into the pay-to-play environment was influenced by the 2008 financial crisis. Can you talk about that?

    We lost 90 percent of our revenue from 2008 to 2009. That’s a lot of salaries you can’t afford to pay anymore. We said, “We’re not going to recover our advertising revenue anytime soon. So what do we do about this?” Meanwhile, “mini games” were driving a lot of engagement. And we saw a broader trend that gaming was coming to Facebook and using this free-to-play model. That is kind of when we went all in on gaming. We decided to just build games and not depend on on ad revenue—just ask the players to pay for the (premium content) on the games. And it turned out to be a great business over time.

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