PG电子官方网站：电脑游戏《我的世界》为何持续卖座

To celebrate selling 10m copies of its computer game Minecraft, Swedish start-up Mojang decided to treat all its workers to a surprise trip last year.去年，为庆典电脑游戏《我的世界》(Minecraft)销量超过1000万份，瑞典初创企业Mojang要求，为所有员工命上一份惊艳之旅。After breakfast at its Stockholm headquarters, employees were whisked off in limousines, private jets and a fleet of Ferrari and Lamborghini super cars to Monte Carlo. Two days of partying ensued involving casinos, helicopter trips to restaurants and dancing on a yacht with Norwegian group Ryskopp as a DJ set.早饭后，员工们就从斯德哥尔摩总部抵达，再行搭乘豪华轿车、然后换乘私人飞机、最后攀上一长溜法拉利(Ferrari)和兰博基尼(Lamborghini)超跑，回到了蒙特卡洛。接下来是倒数两天的派对：泛舟赌场，乘直升机去餐馆设宴，在游艇上参与舞会，舞会的唱片骑师(DJ)是挪威人组Ryskopp。

This year, it plumped for just a boozy ferry trip across the Baltic. Not that Mojang has had a bad year: Minecraft, a sort of digital version of Lego in which players use blocks to build a virtual world, helped bring in SKr2.1bn in revenues (up 38 per cent on the previous year) and SKr816m of profit in 2013.今年，公司旅游大跌为一次波罗的海渡轮酒会之旅。这并不是因为Mojang去年效益不欠佳。事实上，它那款玩家能用方块建构虚拟世界的数字版乐高(Lego)游戏《我的世界》，在2013年构建了21亿瑞典克朗的收益（比上一年快速增长38%）和8.16亿瑞典克朗的利润。Carl Manneh, Mojang’s chief executive, says: “This year we wanted to do something completely different and this is something most Swedes – at least from Stockholm – do when they are young and stupid.”Mojang首席执行官卡尔曼内(Carl Manneh)说道：“今年我们曾想要做到些几乎有所不同的东西，而现在这个东西是大多数瑞典人——最少是斯德哥尔摩人——年长不懂事的时候玩游戏的。

”Since it was created five years ago, Minecraft has become a technology phenomenon and one of the biggest-selling games in history. By the end of June it had sold about 54m copies, a figure that is rising all the time – in 24 hours at the start of this week, 18,537 people handed over 20 or the equivalent for a PC copy.自5年前问世至今，《我的世界》已沦为科技界的一个奇迹，也沦为了史上买得最差的一款游戏。截至今年6月，这款游戏已总计卖出大约5400万份，并且这个数字还在之后减少。

仅有不久前那个周一的一天时间里，就有18537名用户出售了这款单价合20欧元的电脑游戏。Minecraft’s success is all the more remarkable for what it lacks: the graphics are blocky and unsophisticated, it has few characters and not much of a plot. Instead, players set about building just about any kind of virtual world they can imagine: creations include entire cities, sets from films, space shuttles and even a replica model of Denmark.鉴于《我的世界》是一款像素方块视觉效果、画风坚硬的游戏，也没多少人物和情节，它的顺利就更为令人惊叹。在这款游戏中，玩家可按照自己的想象建构任何种类的虚拟世界，还包括整座城市、影片场景、太空船，甚至是丹麦的拷贝版。

Mojang’s approach to business has also been different. It has taken no outside investment, rebuffing numerous venture capitalists and other would-be backers that include Napster founder Sean Parker. Minecraft has become wildly successful on smartphones and tablets despite eschewing the dominant free-to-play – “freemium” – model of games such as Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans.Mojang的经营方式也跟别的公司不一样。它不拒绝接受外部投资，断然拒绝了无数风险投资家和其他潜在投资者，其中还包括Napster创始人肖恩帕克(Sean Parker)。尽管《我的世界》没像《糖果消灭传奇》(Candy Crush Saga)和《部落战争》(Clash of Clans)等游戏那样采行主流的“免费+电子货币服务”(freemium)模式，但它在智能手机和平板电脑上仍然大获得顺利。

It also has Mr Manneh as chief executive rather than its co-founders, Markus Persson – creator of Minecraft, better known as “Notch” – and Jakob Porser. Messrs Persson and Porser wanted to concentrate on making games and so approached Mr Manneh, Mr Persson’s former boss at another Swedish start-up, to run and develop the business itself.Mojang的首席执行官也不是它的两位牵头创始人马库斯佩尔松(Markus Persson)和雅各布波尔塞(Jakob Porser)，而是佩尔松在另一家瑞典初创企业的前上司曼内。佩尔松和波尔塞期望集中精力制作游戏，因此就把曼内从那家初创企业凿来，负责管理和拓展Mojang的业务。

佩尔松是《我的世界》的创作者，大家更喜欢叫他“诺奇”(Notch)。“A lot of indie game developers are trying to do everything themselves – they’re game developers, marketers, CEO and all of the ‘hats’ that basically take time away from what they’re really talented at,” Mr Manneh says. In open-necked shirt with sleeves rolled up, he is sitting in a leather chair in a room that not only has a pool table, pinball table and jukebox but a wall covered in gilt-framed, old-fashioned portraits of the first 20 or so Mojang employees in different guises. Mr Manneh is portrayed as a golf player.“许多独立国家游戏开发者企图自己照顾一切，他们既要研发游戏，又要负责管理营销，还担任首席执行官，顶着各种‘头衔’，显然没有时间做到自己确实擅长于的事情，”穿著进领有衬衫、袖口刮的曼内躺在一间屋子里的皮椅上说道。这间屋子里不仅有台球桌、弹珠台和自动点唱机，它的墙上还贴满了镶着金框的老式画像，所画的是Mojang最初的20来位员工，每个人都装扮成有所不同的身份。

曼内在他那张画像上，是高尔夫球手的打扮。The three men are the sole owners of Mojang and Mr Persson remains chairman but keeps his distance from his CEO. “In operational areas, he’s very good at letting go and letting people handle it, [people] who are more interested and experienced in those areas,” Mr Manneh says.Mojang几乎归这三人所有，佩尔松还保有着董事长的头衔，但尽可能不介入首席执行官的工作。曼内说道：“在经营方面，他很擅于放权，让对这些事情更加感兴趣也更加有经验的人去处置。

”Not that Mr Persson does not create mischief for his CEO. An active blogger and presence on Twitter, he created a stir in 2011 when he announced he had sold Mojang to Mr Parker, only to say later it was an April Fool’s joke. Earlier this year, Mr Persson tweeted that there would be a Minecraft movie from Warner Bros – the studio that developed The Lego Movie – leading to a deluge of calls to an unsuspecting Mr Manneh. (Nearly all Mojang’s 37 employees are on Twitter and they post much of what they are up to every day.)这并不是说道佩尔松会给他的首席执行官添乱。佩尔松常常写出博客、在Twitter上发帖子。2011年，他宣告一并Mojang卖给帕克，引发轩然大波，后来才告诉他大家那是个愚人节的笑话。

今年早些时候，佩尔松在Twitter上说道，华纳兄弟(Warner Bros)要拍电影一部关于《我的世界》的电影，结果从不知情的曼内电话都慢被打爆了。华纳兄弟拍过《艺矮小电影》(Lego Movie)。（Mojang的37名员工完全全都上Twitter，每天都在上面直播自己在做到的事情。）The two men’s relationship dates back to 2009 when Mr Manneh was CEO of JAlbum, a photo-sharing website where Mr Persson worked. In his spare time Mr Persson developed Minecraft and within a few months it was making nearly as much money as JAlbum, which had more than 1m users.佩尔松和曼内两人的关系可追溯到2009年，当时曼内是照片共享网站JAlbum的首席执行官，而佩尔松当时在那家网站工作。

佩尔松利用业余时间研发了《我的世界》，几个月后这款游戏建构的收益就慢跟上有逾100万用户的JAlbum了。Eventually Mr Persson quit JAlbum to found an independent games studio with Mr Porser, a fellow game developer. The plan was to develop other games but instead Minecraft became a bigger success than anybody imagined. “It was fun to build the blocks but I couldn’t really see the potential,” admits Mr Manneh, his voice trailing off. However, it was soon clear that Minecraft alone was making more than JAlbum.后来佩尔松从JAlbum请辞，跟同为游戏开发者的波尔塞一起创立了一家独立国家的游戏制作公司。他们原本的计划是再行研发一些别的游戏，可《我的世界》火得惊人任何人的想象。

曼内说什么地否认：“搭积木很有意思，但我当时知道没有能认识到它的潜力。”然而，情况迅速就明朗了：单是《我的世界》，赚到的钱就多达了JAlbum。

Now, Mr Manneh says, his role is to act as a “big filter”, adding: “The most common word I say is ‘no’.”曼内说道，如今他扮演着的角色是一个“大过滤器”，他还说道，“我说道的最少的一个词就是‘不’”。Some games companies that enjoy big success have looked to cash in as much as possible – such as Finland’s Rovio, which has licensed Angry Birds to brands from soft drinks to fishing rods. Mojang has taken a lower-key approach. Perhaps its most high-profile partnership is the most obvious one: Lego. Minecraft is widely seen as the game the Danish toymaker should have made in its attempt to conquer the digital world but its own plan, Lego Universe, flopped.一些游戏公司大获得顺利后都考虑到尽量地将名气所求，比如研发《气愤的小鸟》(Angry Birds)的芬兰公司Rovio就将游戏形象许可给了从软饮料到鱼竿等各种品牌。

Mojang则采行了更为高调的方式。它最著名的合作伙伴也许就是最显而易见应当跟它合作的那一个：丹麦玩具制造商乐高。

人们普遍认为，乐高在吞并数字世界时原本应当制作出有《我的世界》这样的游戏，但乐高自己的开发计划，即《乐高宇宙》(Lego Universe)，却没取得成功。Instead, the privately owned toymaker is now collaborating with the Swedish start-up on a second batch of Minecraft sets, due in a few months. In a striking reversal, Mojang executives even think the small newcomer can take children back to the original spirit of Lego.现在，这家未上市的玩具制造商正与Mojang合作，制作《我的世界》的第二批场景，预计将在几个月后问世。

Mojang的高管甚至指出，有意思的是，规模并不大、历史也很短的Mojang反而能让孩子们新的领会乐高最初的精神。Vu Bui, Mojang’s chief operating officer, says most Lego sets these days offer “a perfect picture of something that you want to build, and then it’s done”. By contrast, the Minecraft sets will encourage people to tear them apart and rebuild. “I know that at Lego part of its culture is to want people to remember they can rebuild things,” he adds.Mojang首席运营官乌布伊(Vu Bui)回应，如今，大多数乐高场景不会获取“你想建的某种东西的极致图景，然后你就把它竣工了”。

《我的世界》的场景则有所不同，它希望人们将场景拆除、然后修复。他补足说道：“我告诉，乐高的部分文化就是，期望人们忘记自己有修复的能力。”Mojang remains dependent on one product but Minecraft’s continuing success has dulled questions about developing other games. Mr Porser developed Scrolls, a cross between a board game and collectible cards, but it has failed to come near the success of Minecraft.Mojang依然只倚赖一款产品，不过《我的世界》的持续顺利，让研发其他游戏的任务变得不那么严峻了。

波尔塞研发了一款介于棋牌游戏和可收集卡片游戏(collectible cards game)之间的游戏《Scrolls》，但这款游戏颇高《我的世界》顺利。The pressure has been tougher on Mr Persson to follow up Minecraft. He announced plans in 2012 to launch a game called 0x10c but soon shelved it. Instead his first post-Minecraft game was the release in June of the throwaway Cliffhorse, knocked out in a few hours, according to Mr Persson’s tweets.佩尔松仍然面对相当大压力，要发售一款新的游戏。

2012年，他曾宣告要发售一款取名为《0x10c》的游戏，但迅速就不了了之了那个计划。直到今年6月，他才发售了《我的世界》之后的第一款游戏——颇显坚硬的《Cliffhorse》。佩尔松在Twitter上说道，他只花上了几个小时就鼓捣出有了这个游戏。

Mr Manneh is unfazed by the lack of a follow-up, explaining that Minecraft continues both to grow and to be improved. “In a way we’re following Minecraft up by iterating Minecraft and that’s the nice thing about it – it’s ever-evolving,” he says.曼内推倒不担忧没新产品的问题，他说明说道，《我的世界》还在发展、还在改良。他说道：“反复《我的世界》也是我们为《我的世界》找寻接替者的一种方式。这款游戏的魅力在于，它在大大演变。

本文来源：PG电子官方网站-www.jxgah.com