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，为庆祝电脑游戏《我的世界》(Minecraft)销量达到1000万份，瑞典初创企业Mojang决定，为所有员工奉上一份惊喜之旅。

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.

早饭后，员工们就从斯德哥尔摩总部出发，先乘坐豪华轿车、然后换乘私人飞机、最后登上一长溜法拉利(Ferrari)和兰博基尼(Lamborghini)超跑，来到了蒙特卡洛。接下来是连续两天的狂欢：游赌场，乘直升机去餐馆赴宴，在游艇上参加舞会，舞会的唱片骑师(DJ)是挪威组合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，公司旅游缩水为一次波罗的海渡轮酒会之旅。这并不是因为Mojang去年效益不佳。事实上，它那款让玩家能用方块构建虚拟世界的数字版乐高(Lego)游戏《我的世界》，在2013年实现了21亿瑞典克朗的收入（比上一年增长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：“今年我们曾想做些完全不同的东西，而现在这个东西是大多数瑞典人——至少是斯德哥尔摩人——年轻不懂事的时候玩的。”

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年前问世至今，《我的世界》已成为科技界的一个奇迹，也成为了史上卖得最好的一款游戏。截至今年6月，这款游戏已累计售出约5400万份，并且这个数字还在继续增加。仅不久前那个周一的一天时间里，就有18537名用户购买了这款单价合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、画风粗糙的游戏，也没有多少人物和情节，它的成功就更加令人惊叹。在这款游戏中，玩家可按照自己的想象构建任何种类的虚拟世界，包括整座城市、影片场景、太空船，甚至是丹麦的复制版。

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。它不接受外部投资，回绝了无数风险投资家和其他潜在投资者，其中包括Napster创始人肖恩•帕克(Sean Parker)。尽管《我的世界》没有像《糖果粉碎传奇》(Candy Crush Saga)和《部落战争》(Clash of Clans)等游戏那样采取主流的“免费+增值服务”(freemium)模式，但它在智能手机和平板电脑上依然大获成功。

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的首席执行官也不是它的两位联合创始人马库斯•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。佩尔松和波尔塞希望集中精力制作游戏，因此就把曼内从那家初创企业挖来，负责管理和开拓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.

“许多独立游戏开发者试图自己打理一切，他们既要开发游戏，又要负责营销，还兼任首席执行官，顶着各种‘头衔’，根本没时间做自己真正擅长的事情，”穿着开领衬衫、袖口卷起的曼内坐在一间屋子里的皮椅上说。这间屋子里不仅有台球桌、弹珠台和自动点唱机，它的墙上还挂满了镶着金框的老式画像，画的是Mojang最初的20来位员工，每个人都装扮成不同的身份。曼内在他那张画像上，是高尔夫球手的装扮。

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完全归这三人所有，佩尔松还保留着董事长的头衔，但尽量不干预首席执行官的工作。曼内说：“在经营方面，他很善于放权，让对这些事情更感兴趣也更有经验的人去处理。”

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.)

这并不是说佩尔松不会给他的首席执行官添乱。佩尔松经常写博客、在Twitter上发帖子。2011年，他宣布已将Mojang卖给帕克，引起轩然大波，后来才告诉大家那是个愚人节的玩笑。今年早些时候，佩尔松在Twitter上说，华纳兄弟(Warner Bros)要拍一部关于《我的世界》的电影，结果毫不知情的曼内电话都快被打爆了。华纳兄弟拍过《乐高大电影》(Lego Movie)。（Mojang的37名员工几乎全都上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.

佩尔松和曼内两人的关系可追溯到2009年，当时曼内是照片分享网站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开发了《我的世界》，几个月后这款游戏创造的收入就快赶上有逾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辞职，跟同为游戏开发者的波尔塞一起创办了一家独立的游戏制作公司。他们原来的计划是再开发一些别的游戏，可《我的世界》火得超乎任何人的想象。曼内不好意思地承认：“搭积木很有趣，但我当时真的没能认识到它的潜力。”然而，情况很快就明朗了：单是《我的世界》，赚的钱就超过了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，如今他扮演的角色是一个“大过滤器”，他还说，“我说的最多的一个词就是‘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.

一些游戏公司大获成功后都考虑尽可能地将名气变现，比如开发《愤怒的小鸟》(Angry Birds)的芬兰公司Rovio就将游戏形象授权给了从软饮料到鱼竿等各种品牌。Mojang则采取了较为低调的方式。它最知名的合作伙伴或许就是最显而易见应该跟它合作的那一个：丹麦玩具制造商乐高。人们普遍认为，乐高在征服数字世界时原本应该制作出《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.

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的高管甚至认为，有意思的是，规模不大、历史也不长的Mojang反而能让孩子们重新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)表示，如今，大多数乐高场景会提供“你想建的某种东西的完美图景，然后你就把它建成了”。《我的世界》的场景则不同，它鼓励人们将场景拆掉、然后重建。他补充说：“我知道，乐高的部分文化就是，希望人们记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仍然只依赖一款产品，不过《我的世界》的持续成功，让开发其他游戏的任务显得不那么紧迫了。波尔塞开发了一款介于棋牌游戏和可搜集卡片游戏(collectible cards game)之间的游戏《Scrolls》，但这款游戏远不如《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.

佩尔松一直面临很大压力，要推出一款新的游戏。2012年，他曾宣布要推出一款名为《0x10c》的游戏，但很快就搁置了那个计划。直到今年6月，他才推出了《我的世界》之后的第一款游戏——颇显粗糙的《Cliffhorse》。佩尔松在Twitter上说，他只花了几个小时就鼓捣出了这个游戏。

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.

曼内倒不担心没有新产品的问题，他解释说，《我的世界》还在发展、还在改进。他说：“重复《我的世界》也是我们为《我的世界》寻找接替者的一种方式。这款游戏的魅力在于，它在不断演进。”