Supercell重新爲人氣而戰

Strange things were afoot in July as teenagers congregated in churchyards. Cars crashed as drivers stared at their smartphones. And Clash Royale — among the highest grossing games APPs since its launch last March — suddenly dropped out of the top 10. One cause of all these events was the launch of Pokémon Go — the mixed-reality mobile game that superimposed animated characters on to the real world for gamers to chase around cities and along roads, and had 50m players at its peak. It also caused an almighty pain for Ilkka Paananen, the 37-year-old co-founder and chief executive of Supercell, the Finnish gaming studio behind Clash Royale and Clash of Clans. Pokémon Go’s success “was a kick in our butt”, he says.

去年7月發生了一些奇怪的事情：青少年們在教堂墓地聚集；司機們盯着自己的智能手機，導致撞車事故。《部落衝突:皇室戰爭》(Clash Royale)自去年3月發行以來躋身於最盈利遊戲APP之列，那時卻突然掉出了前十名。所有這些事件的一個原因是《口袋妖怪GO》(Pokémon GO，又譯“精靈寶可夢GO”)的發行——這是一款“混合現實”手機遊戲，將動畫角色疊加至現實世界，讓玩家在市內各地和沿着道路到處搜索，最高峯時有5000萬玩家。它也給37歲的Supercell聯合創始人和首席執行官伊卡?帕納寧(Ilkka Paananen)帶來巨大痛苦，這家芬蘭遊戲工作室發行了《部落衝突:皇室戰爭》和《部落戰爭》(Clash of Clans)。帕納寧說，《口袋妖怪GO》的成功“是對我們的重大打擊”。

More than 100m people still play Supercell games daily, and it remains the world’s biggest mobile video game publisher by revenues. Its success is the stuff of legend — many games studios have proven one-hit wonders; Supercell has had four. In 2012, it released its first two games, Hay Day and Clash of Clans, both of which went on to generate more than $2m a day within a year, through its “freemium” model, which allows anyone to play for free, but requires in-app payments to advance through the levels. But in July, Clash Royale raked in an estimated $62m, roughly half of what it was making in April, according to SuperData Research. Pokémon Go was not the only problem either. Supercell had no games in the top 10 last summer.

每天仍有逾1億人在玩Supercell的遊戲，按收入計算，該公司依然是全球最大的移動視頻遊戲發行商。它的成功是一個傳奇故事——許多遊戲工作室只有一款成功遊戲，而Supercell有4款成功作品。2012年，該公司發行了最初兩款遊戲《卡通農場》(Hay Day)和《部落戰爭》，這兩款遊戲均在一年內實現了每日逾200萬美元的收入。它採用“免費+收費”模式：讓任何人免費玩，但需要在應用內付費才能升級。但SuperData Research的數據顯示，去年7月，據估計《部落衝突:皇室戰爭》帶來6200萬美元的收入，大約是4月收入的一半。《口袋妖怪GO》也不是唯一的問題。去年夏季Supercell沒有一款遊戲進入前十名。

Mr Paananen got a lot out of the experience — particularly new knowledge about how to fight business threats. His main realisation was that “we weren’t good at listening to our users”, he says. So after Supercell fell out of the top 10, the studio mobilised, thrashing out user feedback in troubleshooting meetings.

帕納寧從這一經歷學到了很多——尤其是有關如何應對業務威脅的新知識。他說，他的主要收穫是“我們不擅長傾聽玩家意見”。因此，在Supercell的遊戲跌出前十名後，這家工作室行動起來，在問題解決會議上激發用戶反饋。

Users had been complaining for weeks about specific features of Clash Royale, such as a smiling emoji that was sent to the game’s loser at the end of play. Users also felt the game merited further updates. So Mr Paananen’s team brainstormed ways to keep their games fresh, add features and incorporate player requests. The company is all the better for the experience, he says. “The true test of a company’s culture is when things aren’t going well, so this is what we were built for.”

玩家們數週來一直在吐槽《部落衝突:皇室戰爭》的某些功能，比如在遊戲結束時發送給遊戲輸家的笑臉符號。玩家們還覺得這款遊戲值得進一步升級。因此帕納寧的團隊想方設法讓遊戲保持新鮮感，增加功能，納入玩家心願。他說，這一經歷對該公司變成了好事。“對一家公司的文化的真正考驗是在事情進展不順的時候；這是我們的宗旨”。

Both Clash games are now back among the top 10 grossing games on Apple’s app store, partly because fickle mobile gamers have looked for a new challenge after the Pokémon craze.

《部落衝突:皇室戰爭》和《部落戰爭》現在重回蘋果(Apple)應用商店十大最盈利遊戲之列，這在一定程度上是因爲善變的手遊玩家在《口袋妖怪GO》熱潮之後尋求新的挑戰。

But for Mr Paananen the challenges have not stopped. For the financial year 2016, revenue growth at privately owned Supercell flatlined, which analysts have blamed on an increasingly competitive and crowded mobile games sector.

但是對帕納寧來說，挑戰並未結束。就2016財年而言，私人所有的Supercell的收入增長陷入停滯，分析師將此歸咎於手遊領域競爭加劇和進入者衆多。

This is all happening at a pivotal moment in Supercell’s history. Just a month before Pokémon’s launch, Chinese internet group Tencent acquired majority ownership of the group for $8.6bn. The seller was SoftBank, the acquisitive Japanese technology group that was selling assets after its debt tripled.

這一切發生在Supercell歷史上的關鍵時刻。就在《口袋妖怪GO》發行一個月前，中國互聯網集團騰訊(Tencent)以86億美元收購了這家集團的多數股權。出售方是收購意識較強的日本科技集團軟銀(SoftBank)，後者在債務增長3倍後出售資產。

Perhaps because of the luxury of private ownership, Mr Paananen talks about a focus on the longer term rather than short-term financial challenges.

或許是得益於私人所有，帕納寧把焦點放在較長期，而非短期財務挑戰上。

“We are well aware we will have our ups and downs — after all, this is a creative business,” he says with a shrug. “Have you ever seen a band whose songs are number one for more than five years in a row?

他聳聳肩說道：“我們清楚地意識到，我們的業務將會起起伏伏——畢竟，這是一家創意企業。你見過歌曲連續5年多高居榜首的樂隊嗎？”

“We don’t set any quarterly goals, even yearly goals feel too short-term for us,” he says.

他說：“我們沒有任何季度目標，就連年度目標對我們來說也過於短期了。”

Supercell’s games are notable for their depth of storytelling. Clash of Clans involves building a goblin army and fortifying a medieval village to fight off enemy clans, including moustached barbarians and wizards, against players around the world. The in-app currency is precious gems.

Supercell的遊戲以講述宏大的故事聞名。《部落戰爭》涉及打造一支小妖精軍隊和強化一箇中世紀村子的防禦，以抵禦敵對部落（包括留着八字鬍的野蠻人和巫師），在遊戲中與世界各地的玩家對抗。應用內的貨幣是珍貴的寶石。

The writers of television series Futurama and The Simpsons have even created an animated YouTube series called ‘Clash-a-rama’, based on its rich characters and plot lines.

《飛出個未來》(Futurama)和《辛普森一家》(The Simpsons)的編劇們在這兩款遊戲的豐富角色和情節的基礎上，創作了在YouTube上播放的動畫系列片《Clash-a-rama》。

Another thing keeping Mr Paananen confident is his company’s history of innovation, fostered by what he sees as a culture of true democracy.

另一個讓帕納寧感到自信的是，他的公司擁有創新的歷史，得益於他所稱的真正民主的文化。

Supercell, which employs just 224 staff, is structured as a collection of dozens of “cells” of game developers, each of which operates as its own team. Each cell, made up of roughly seven people, comes up with its own ideas for games, builds prototypes, and tests them. If the team like a game, it is put to the whole company for scrutiny. If the group agrees they like it, the game is played by employees as a further test.

Supercell只有224名員工，其架構是數十個遊戲開發者“細胞”的集合，每個“細胞”都運營着自己的團隊。每個“細胞”大約由7人組成，他們提出自己的遊戲創意，創建原型並進行測試。如果團隊喜歡一款遊戲，就會提交整個公司審查。如果遊戲獲得大家認可，就會讓僱員們試玩，作爲進一步測試。

Despite Mr Paananen’s 6 per cent stake in the $10bn company making him a multimillionaire on paper, he lives ordinarily. His social life includes attending monthly gaming conventions in local pubs and playing in his twice-weekly early-morning ice hockey games.

儘管帕納寧在這家價值100億美元的公司擁有6%的股份，從而讓他成爲紙面上的億萬富翁，但他仍像普通人那樣生活。他的社交生活包括每月參加當地酒吧的遊戲大會，以及每週抽兩個早上去打冰球。

Mr Paananen, who grew up in the town of Piikki?, two hours west of Helsinki, and whose parents were teachers, traces his leadership of Supercell back to a gaming obsession as a child, rather than an ambition to be a rich founder.

帕納寧在赫爾辛基以西兩個小時車程外的Piikki?鎮長大，其父母是教師。他認爲，他在Supercell的掌門人地位源於小時候對遊戲的癡迷，而不是創業致富的野心。

His management style is explained through the language of sport. “The best sports teams get a lot of strong and talented personalities to play together really well. It is super competitive, like the start-up world, and the element of luck is key to both,” he says.

他通過體育術語解釋自己的管理風格。他說：“最優秀的運動隊有許多強壯而有天賦的隊員，他們在一起配合得很好。隊伍擁有超強的競爭力，就像初創企業一樣，而運氣因素對兩者都非常關鍵。”

“I used to think the winning team was the one with well thought-out plans and everything beautifully organised, and split into boxes, and timelines and budgets, but that’s not how creativity works.”

“我過去以爲，勝方是計劃周密、一切都有條不紊的那個隊，他們列出框架、時間表和預算，但創意不是這樣子的。”

He is also undeterred by product failures, which he embraces as steps on the route to success. When Supercell kills a game idea, he often pops open some champagne to share with his staff. “[This culture], it’s really the thing that keeps people together at the worst times,” he says.

他也沒有因產品失敗氣餒，而認爲這是通往成功的必要步驟。當Supercell斃掉一個遊戲創意的時候，他往往會開香檳與員工分享。他說：“（這種文化）真的是讓人們在最糟糕時期凝聚在一起的東西。”