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游戲邦注：本文原作者為椰島工作室（Coconut Island Studio）聯合創始人、業務發展經理Wen Chen，他是一名富有創作激情的游戲人，于2009年與Wesley Bao 、Ye Feng 在上海共同創辦了椰島工作室，該公司目前已成為中國領先的獨立游戲工作室之一。

EA、2K和育碧等許多國際游戲公司在中國都設有工作室，它們正是中國獨立開發者誕生的搖籃。

例如，椰島工作室的兩名聯合創始人Wesley和Ye，之前就是科樂美上海工作室成員；玩夠互動（GameGou）公司首席執行官He Dongxu就來自Gameloft中國工作室；手機游戲《虛擬乒乓球》開發者Wang Xi也曾為科樂美效力。

椰島工作室作品--《Finger-Balance》

與許多國際大型企業駐中國分公司的情況一樣，這些開發者走上獨立路線的原因在于，即使是最資深的中國員工也只能負責產品開發的事務，對游戲設計提出自己的想法簡直是遙不可及的夢想。如果中國獨立開發者要根據自己的創意來開發游戲，唯一的選擇就是自立門戶。

對獨立游戲開發者來說，他們在自立根生之前，都要先了解自己的處境以及本土市場的中國特色——絕大多數中國玩家都很癡迷免費體驗的MMORPG游戲，因為他們不費一文錢就可以玩游戲（除非需要加快游戲進程或者購買道具）。如果他們想換換口味，或者想在個人電腦或掌機上離線玩游戲，那么他們就會通過BitTorrent下載免費游戲，或者花80美分從游戲商店購買盜版軟件。

由此可見，獨立開發者的游戲在本土市場幾乎沒有生存的土壤。

除此之外，中國獨立開發者還面臨難以發行游戲以及成功創收等不利因素。首先，獨立的個體無權在中國發行游戲，而本土傳統游戲發行商并不是很理解獨立開發者；其次，即使游戲真正發行了，它也很快就會被黑客破解，成為四處均可免費下載的東西，所以針對中國市場開發游戲并不是個劃算的選擇。

那么獨立的個體為什么不能在中國發行游戲？

這主要是因為中國發行市場設置了多道準入門檻。最基本的一點是，你得具有發行游戲的相關許可證，而獨立開發者基本上不具備獲取該許可證的資質。如果要申請該許可證，企業至少得提供六名計算機科學或出版編輯專業員工的文憑及相關證件。

即使是以一家公司的身份示人，這些開發者也同樣需要絞盡腦汁，為自己的游戲找到創收出路。但蘋果App Store的問世掃清了這一障礙，因為它讓開發者掌握了獨立的主導權，并且不再需要死守中國市場。

所以，中國正涌現越來越多的iOS和Android平臺的獨立游戲開發者，但并非所有人都能通過獨立路線生存下來，因為大家仍然面臨不少挑戰。一是文化鴻溝，傳統的中國游戲開發商一般只創建武俠題材的RPG游戲，因為這類游戲在中國最有市場；但獨立開發者的主要用戶卻是海外玩家，他們如果將一款帶濃郁中國特色的RPG游戲引進西方市場，即使是經過大量的本土化處理，也不太可能為西方用戶所接納。

另外，語言障礙也是中國獨立開發者的瓶頸之一。他們的英語閱讀能力沒問題，但對話、聽力和書寫還存在較大困難。而這種語言能力，恰恰是海外市場推廣極為重要條件之一，如果你不能讓世界聽到自己的聲音，那就沒有人會意識到你的存在。

總而言之，任何地區的獨立開發者的日子都不太容易，而中國市場尤其具有挑戰性，不過我們仍相信即使是中國市場，也終會迎來獨立開發者的時代。（本文為游戲邦/gamerboom.com編譯，轉載請注明來源：游戲邦）

Coconut Island’s Wen Chen on the difficulties of being an indie developer in China

Who: Indie game developers

What: Boom!

Where: China

When: The past two years

Why: Lots of international game companies, including EA, 2K and Ubisoft, have major studios in China, which is where many Chinese indie game developers came from.

For instance, the two co-founders of Coconut Island Studio, Wesley and Ye, worked for Konami Shanghai; the CEO of GAMEGOU, He Dongxu, came from Gameloft China; and the programmer of Virtual Table Tennis, Wang Xi, was employed by Konami.

They chose to go indie because, just like many in other international companies in China, even the most senior local employees only take charge of production; to have any say in the design of a game is an unattainable dream. If we want to make games with our own ideas, we have to establish our own indie studios.

hoW: There are some basic background features of the Chinese game market you need to know before you can understand the situation for indie developers here.

The majority of local gamers are addicted to free-to-play MMORPGs, which you can play without spending a penny (if you don’t buy special power-ups or gear). If they need a change and want to play offline games on PC or console, then they either download them for free through BitTorrent or just buy it pirated from a game store for 80c per title.

So, sadly, there really is little space in the Chinese home market for an indie game.

Furthermore, there are other factors which make it hard for Chinese indie developers like us to make a living through creating and monetising indie games in the Chinese game market. Firstly, as a private individual you can’t publish a game in China and the local traditional game publishers don’t have much idea of what indie is. Secondly, even if it gets published, the game would easily get cracked and be provided as a free download everywhere, which means it’s not economical just to make games for the Chinese market.

Why can’t private individuals publish games in China?

There are multiple barriers to entry. First, you need a licence to publish games, and the requirements for getting such a licence precludes an individual from publishing games. To get a licence, a company must have at least six professional staff who have specialised certificates in computer science or editing.

Even as a company, we had to figure out a way to monetise our games worldwide, which was difficult until the Apple App Store appeared. It cleared away all of the barriers for us to go indie, because we don’t have to target just China.

As a result, more and more developers are making indie games for iOS and Android. Now everything seems beautiful, doesn’t it?

However, only some indies can live developing indie games, because there are still several challenges. Firstly, there’s a cultural issue; traditional Chinese game developers love to develop martial-arts related RPGs because they are very popular in China. Yet, as our main audience has changed to foreign customers, it’s hard for an exotic local RPG to get a good reception in the western world, even with good localisation.

Language is also a huge issue for Chinese indies. They can read English but speaking, listening and writing are much harder tasks. Without these essential abilities, especially for marketing (crucial for indies), you can’t let the world hear your voice, so that they don’t know the existence of your game.

The life is not easy for indie developers anywhere and the Chinese market throws up some huge challenges, even for Chinese developers. That said, we believe the indie’s era will come, even in China.

Wen Chen is co-founder and business development manager of Coconut Island Studio, a Shanghai-based indie game studio. An enthusiastic gamer, Wen Chen founded Coconut Island Studio with Wesley Bao and Ye Feng in 2009. It’s becoming one of the leading indie game studios in China.

Wen Chen is co-founder and business development manager of Coconut Island Studio, a Shanghai-based indie game studio. An enthusiastic gamer, Wen Chen founded Coconut Island Studio with Wesley Bao and Ye Feng in 2009. It’s becoming one of the leading indie game studios in China.（source:pocketgamer）

網載 2015-06-01 23:05:17