以《糖果传奇》为例：说说手游公司为什么不应该上市

    为什么在这个市场很难重复成功？让我们回想一下，过去行得通的是哪些游戏模式。像《愤怒的小鸟》（Angry Birds）、《开心农场》和《糖果传奇》这样的成功手游吸引了广泛的用户群体：这些游戏足够简单，儿童都可以玩，但又足够有趣，能够吸引青少年和成人。这些游戏都不是非常复杂，每一关的时间在5至15分钟之间，而且没有一个游戏“图像浩大”，可以在尽可能多的智能手机上运行。

    所有这些游戏都非常简单。真的不存在任何重大的技术壁垒，这意味着几乎任何中级水平的程序员都有机会一举成名。这给像Zynga这样功成名就的手游公司带来了重大挑战。比如，《糖果传奇》到2012年下半年才上市。几乎不知是从哪里冒出来的，令行业领导者Zynga大吃一惊。一夜之间，这家拥有数十亿美元投资的公司突然被一家初创企业夺走了市场份额。这样的市场冲击是颠覆性的，导致高预期和公司破产。

    更加糟糕的是，这些手游公司无一能掌控产品分销渠道，都依赖Facebook、谷歌（Google）、苹果（Apple）或微软（Microsoft）的应用商店。这些公司非常容易在分销渠道受到挤压。假设说，如果谷歌要求Zynga交出一半的利润来换取其最新游戏的分销，Zynga真的不能拒绝。这是因为，约80%的手机用户使用谷歌的安卓（Android）操作系统来运行他们的智能手机。数字分销市场的集中化可能是所有应用软件公司的软肋，特别是像King Digital和Zynga这样依赖众多应用软件内购买的公司。

    King Digital很可能尽快发布下一款轰动性游戏，但它也可能被证明是一大失败。看起来，手游公司的运营类似于风险投资公司：它们仅仅期望每8个或更多的游戏中有1个能热销。对于一家拥有高速增长预期的公司，这是个问题，因为这可能意味着收入不稳定。

    如果一家公司的产品属于一个成熟市场，投资者群体拥有长期增长预期，这样的不稳定在预料之内，但手游行业显然不是这样。收益不稳定是灾难性的，这最终会疏远公司与投资者之间的关系，无论其风险偏好高低。因此，在游戏公司找到出路之前，最好的办法或许是让它们重归私有化，到硅谷再修炼一番。（财富中文网）

    译者：早稻米

Why is it so hard to repeat success in this market? Let’s think about what has worked in the past. Successful mobile games like Angry Birds, Farmville, and Candy Crush have appealed to a wide audience: they are simple enough for children to play but interesting enough to draw in teens and adults. The games weren’t overly complex, lasting between five and 15 minutes per round and none were “graphic hogs,” allowing them to be used on as many smartphones as possible.

These games are all very simple. There are really no major skill barriers here, meaning that just about any mid-level programmer has a shot at making it big. This presents major competition issues for established mobile gaming companies like Zynga. Candy Crush, for instance, only hit the scene in late 2012. It basically came out of nowhere, taking Zynga, the leader in the space, totally by surprise. Overnight, the company, with its billions of dollars of investor capital, was suddenly losing market share to some startup. This level of market disruption is chaotic, leading to lofty expectations and broken companies.

To make matters worse, none of these mobile gaming companies control the distribution of their product, relying on Facebook or app stores owned by Google, Apple, or Microsoft to do it for them. These companies are highly vulnerable to being squeezed at the distribution end. If Google wants, say, half of Zynga’s profits in exchange for distributing its latest game, Zynga really can’t say no. That’s because around 80% of mobile phone users have Google’s Android operating system running on their smartphones. The concentration of the digital distribution market could be a major impediment for all “app”-based companies, especially those that rely on multiple in-app purchases, like King Digital and Zynga.

King Digital could very well come out with the next blockbuster game tomorrow, but it’s just as likely to come out with a flop. It seems that mobile gaming companies operate like venture capital firms in that they expect only one out of eight or more games they launch to take off. This is a problem for a company with high growth expectations as it could mean major lumpiness in the revenue stream.

Such lumpiness is expected if a product belongs to a mature market with an investor base with long-term growth expectations, but that’s hardly the case with mobile gaming. Erratic earnings is a recipe for disaster as it ultimately alienates investors across the entire risk spectrum. So until these gaming companies can figure out what works, it may be best for them to go private again and tinker around in Silicon Valley until they get it right.