電腦遊戲《我的世界》爲何持續賣座

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，爲慶祝電腦遊戲《我的世界》(Minecraft)銷量達到1000萬份，瑞典初創企業Mojang決定，爲所有員工奉上一份驚喜之旅。

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 Röyskopp as a DJ set.

早飯後，員工們就從斯德哥爾摩總部出發，先乘坐豪華轎車、然後換乘私人飛機、最後登上一長溜法拉利(Ferrari)和蘭博基尼(Lamborghini)超跑，來到了蒙特卡洛。接下來是連續兩天的狂歡：遊賭場，乘直升機去餐館赴宴，在遊艇上參加舞會，舞會的唱片騎師(DJ)是挪威組合Röyskopp。

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，公司旅遊縮水爲一次波羅的海渡輪酒會之旅。這並不是因爲Mojang去年效益不佳。事實上，它那款讓玩家能用方塊構建虛擬世界的數字版樂高(Lego)遊戲《我的世界》，在2013年實現了21億瑞典克朗的收入（比上一年增長38%）和8.16億瑞典克朗的利潤。

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首席執行官卡爾•曼內(Carl Manneh)說：“今年我們曾想做些完全不同的東西，而現在這個東西是大多數瑞典人——至少是斯德哥爾摩人——年輕不懂事的時候玩的。”

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年前問世至今，《我的世界》已成爲科技界的一個奇蹟，也成爲了史上賣得最好的一款遊戲。截至今年6月，這款遊戲已累計售出約5400萬份，並且這個數字還在繼續增加。僅不久前那個週一的一天時間裏，就有18537名用戶購買了這款單價合20歐元的電腦遊戲。

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.

鑑於《我的世界》是一款像素方塊視覺效果、畫風粗糙的遊戲，也沒有多少人物和情節，它的成功就更加令人驚歎。在這款遊戲中，玩家可按照自己的想象構建任何種類的虛擬世界，包括整座城市、影片場景、太空船，甚至是丹麥的複製版。

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的經營方式也跟別的公司不一樣。它不接受外部投資，回絕了無數風險投資家和其他潛在投資者，其中包括Napster創始人肖恩•帕克(Sean Parker)。儘管《我的世界》沒有像《糖果粉碎傳奇》(Candy Crush Saga)和《部落戰爭》(Clash of Clans)等遊戲那樣採取主流的“免費+增值服務”(freemium)模式，但它在智能手機和平板電腦上依然大獲成功。

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的首席執行官也不是它的兩位聯合創始人馬庫斯•佩爾鬆(Mar­kus Persson)和雅各布•波爾塞(Jakob Porser)，而是佩爾鬆在另一家瑞典初創企業的前上司曼內。佩爾鬆和波爾塞希望集中精力製作遊戲，因此就把曼內從那家初創企業挖來，負責管理和開拓Mojang的業務。佩爾鬆是《我的世界》的創作者，大家更喜歡叫他“諾奇”(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.

“許多獨立遊戲開發者試圖自己打理一切，他們既要開發遊戲，又要負責營銷，還兼任首席執行官，頂着各種‘頭銜’，根本沒時間做自己真正擅長的事情，”穿着開領襯衫、袖口捲起的曼內坐在一間屋子裏的皮椅上說。這間屋子裏不僅有檯球桌、彈珠檯和自動點唱機，它的牆上還掛滿了鑲着金框的老式畫像，畫的是Mojang最初的20來位員工，每個人都裝扮成不同的身份。曼內在他那張畫像上，是高爾夫球手的裝扮。

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完全歸這三人所有，佩爾鬆還保留着董事長的頭銜，但儘量不干預首席執行官的工作。曼內說：“在經營方面，他很善於放權，讓對這些事情更感興趣也更有經驗的人去處理。”

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.)

這並不是說佩爾鬆不會給他的首席執行官添亂。佩爾鬆經常寫博客、在Twitter上發帖子。2011年，他宣佈已將Mojang賣給帕克，引起軒然大波，後來才告訴大家那是個愚人節的玩笑。今年早些時候，佩爾鬆在Twitter上說，華納兄弟(Warner Bros)要拍一部關於《我的世界》的電影，結果毫不知情的曼內電話都快被打爆了。華納兄弟拍過《樂高大電影》(Lego Movie)。（Mojang的37名員工幾乎全都上Twitter，每天都在上面直播自己在做的事情。）

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.

佩爾鬆和曼內兩人的關係可追溯到2009年，當時曼內是照片分享網站JAlbum的首席執行官，而佩爾鬆當時在那家網站工作。佩爾鬆利用業餘時間開發了《我的世界》，幾個月後這款遊戲創造的收入就快趕上有逾100萬用戶的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.

後來佩爾鬆從JAlbum辭職，跟同爲遊戲開發者的波爾塞一起創辦了一家獨立的遊戲製作公司。他們原來的計劃是再開發一些別的遊戲，可《我的世界》火得超乎任何人的想象。曼內不好意思地承認：“搭積木很有趣，但我當時真的沒能認識到它的潛力。”然而，情況很快就明朗了：單是《我的世界》，賺的錢就超過了JAlbum。

Now, Mr Manneh says, his role is to act as a “big filter”, adding: “The most common word I say is ‘no’.”

曼內說，如今他扮演的角色是一個“大過濾器”，他還說，“我說的最多的一個詞就是‘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.

一些遊戲公司大獲成功後都考慮儘可能地將名氣變現，比如開發《憤怒的小鳥》(Angry Birds)的芬蘭公司Rovio就將遊戲形象授權給了從軟飲料到魚竿等各種品牌。Mojang則採取了較爲低調的方式。它最知名的合作伙伴或許就是最顯而易見應該跟它合作的那一個：丹麥玩具製造商樂高。人們普遍認爲，樂高在征服數字世界時原本應該製作出《我的世界》這樣的遊戲，但樂高自己的開發計劃，即《樂高宇宙》(Lego Universe)，卻沒有取得成功。

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.

現在，這家未上市的玩具製造商正與Mojang合作，製作《我的世界》的第二批場景，預計將在幾個月後問世。Mojang的高管甚至認爲，有意思的是，規模不大、歷史也不長的Mojang反而能讓孩子們重新領會樂高最初的精神。

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首席運營官烏•布伊(Vu Bui)表示，如今，大多數樂高場景會提供“你想建的某種東西的完美圖景，然後你就把它建成了”。《我的世界》的場景則不同，它鼓勵人們將場景拆掉、然後重建。他補充說：“我知道，樂高的部分文化就是，希望人們記住自己有重建的能力。”

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仍然只依賴一款產品，不過《我的世界》的持續成功，讓開發其他遊戲的任務顯得不那麼緊迫了。波爾塞開發了一款介於棋牌遊戲和可蒐集卡片遊戲(collectible cards game)之間的遊戲《Scrolls》，但這款遊戲遠不如《我的世界》成功。

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.

佩爾鬆一直面臨很大壓力，要推出一款新的遊戲。2012年，他曾宣佈要推出一款名爲《0x10c》的遊戲，但很快就擱置了那個計劃。直到今年6月，他才推出了《我的世界》之後的第一款遊戲——頗顯粗糙的《Cliffhorse》。佩爾鬆在Twitter上說，他只花了幾個小時就鼓搗出了這個遊戲。

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.

曼內倒不擔心沒有新產品的問題，他解釋說，《我的世界》還在發展、還在改進。他說：“重複《我的世界》也是我們爲《我的世界》尋找接替者的一種方式。這款遊戲的魅力在於，它在不斷演進。”