【09.04.02 经济学人】中国在线游戏--无形价值
本帖最后由 I'm_zhcn 于 2009-6-6 23:54 编辑【中文标题】中国的在线游戏
【原文标题】Online gaming in China——Intangible value
【登载媒体】经济学人
【来源地址】http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13415293
【译者】xitaowu
【翻译方式】人工
【声明】本翻译供Anti-CNN使用，未经AC或译者许可，不得转载
【译文】
Changyou is making a fortune selling items in a virtual world
畅游公司在虚拟的世界里取得了丰厚的收益
PERHAPS it should not be a surprise. In the midst of a global capital shortage, the first company to list this year on New York’s NASDAQ exchange not only needs no money; its source of profit is receiving cash for items that do not exist.
（虽然匪夷所思）也许这不足为奇。在全球资本短缺的情况下，作为今年纽约NASDAQ 证券交易市场挂牌上市的第一家公司并不需要资金，因为它收入的来源是很不靠谱的（并不是建立在实质存在的生产设施基础之上的）。
Changyou is a three-year-old online-gaming business being spun out of Sohu, China’s second-largest internet portal. The deal was due to be priced on April 2nd, as The Economist went to press, in a nostalgic reminder of what the stockmarket used to look like. At the top of the expected price range Changyou will be valued at about $820m, after a special distribution of $100m to its parent. The opening price may be higher still, given strong demand.
畅游公司是中国第二大门户网站--sohu公司的子公司，拥有三年的经营历史。据《经济学家》报道，此次发行的配售价格将在4月2日确定，期望的公司估值大约在8.2亿美元左右，在配售方案中该公司将向其母公司配售1亿美元股票。当然，从目前旺盛的需求来看，最终的配售价格可能会更高。
The enthusiasm for Changyou is understandable. Unlike much of the internet, where services have to be free in order to be popular, Changyou makes money. In short order, revenues have risen to $202m and profits to $108m. That is because Changyou is one of several Chinese firms to have stumbled upon a remarkable nich， that has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry. Video-gaming developed in America, Europe and Japan largely around console hardware and its associated packaged software. China initially banned games consoles, and by diligently failing to enforce intellectual-property laws, it wrecked the economics of the console business by allowing pirated games to be sold for pennies, thus undermining any incentive to market them.
对畅游公司的认购热潮是可以理解的。并不像其他的网络营运商那样，为了得到大众的欢迎而不得不提供免费服务，畅游公司则赚了不少钱。在一个很短的时间里，畅游公司的营业收入和进利润分别迅速增长到2.02亿美元、1.08亿美元，畅游公司是偶然发现这个行业可以发展成数十亿美元的行业的的几家中国公司之一。可视游戏的源于美国、欧洲和日本，其发展是主要建立在游戏机硬件和软件之上的。中国政府刚开始是禁止游戏机的，但在从来没有想认真执行知识产权保护的法律的情况下，盗版的游戏软件很便宜就可以买到，使得大家都想去购买这些盗版软件，使得游戏行业的市场规则得到破坏。
China took a similarly firm line with other forms of entertainment, allowing only limited local production of films and television programmes, and sharply restricting imports (legal ones, at least). In this desert, the internet has flourished, at first as a place for pirated foreign films and shows, but over time for online multiplayer games, too. Companies created a business model based on allowing access from any computer—customers pay as little as 25 cents an hour at internet cafés—but where the computational heavy-lifting is done on their own servers. These provide the background environment and connect the players—in Changyou’s case, as many as 738,000 at a time.
中国其他形式的在线娱乐服务公司也采取了同样的方式，由于中国只允许市场存在有限的本地制作电影和电视节目，并严格限制进口。在这样如同沙漠一样的环境中，互联网得到蓬勃发展，刚开始是在盗版的外国影片和表演节目在线服务，后来也 发展到了网络游戏。这些公司建立了一种新型的商业模式：允许任何计算机访问，访问客户只需要支付25美分。这种模式中公司拥有一台良好的服务期是非常重要的，比如畅游公司，同时在线的注册会员经常多大73.80万人。
Popular games in China typically feature elves, dwarves or characters that predate the past century of political turmoil. Changyou’s most popular offering, “Tian Long Ba Bu”, began as a book about the travails of a prince, a monk and a beggar, with lots of martial arts. At first Changyou charged subscription fees to play, but abandoned them because multiplayer games are generally more fun with more players. Like most other firms, it now provides free access to its games, collecting revenue from the 10% or so of players who are prepared to pay for in-game extras such as weapons, medicine and shields, says Benjamin Joffe, chief executive of Plus Eight Star, a technology consultancy in Beijing.
在中国目前流行的角色游戏中，一般采用精灵、魔法小人或者在早前历史政治人物。畅游公司子目前最受欢迎的游戏“天龙八部”源于一本小说，主要讲的一个王子、一个僧侣和一个乞丐的故事，里面有很多的武打场面。刚开始玩家需要支付费用才能玩“天龙八部”，但最后畅游公司放弃了这个做法，因为在一般情况下网络游戏只有越多的玩家才会更有意思。就像其他公司一样，玩家可以免费注册“天龙八部”游戏，而这些注册会员中的大约10%的玩家会有钱购买虚拟的武器、药物或盾牌等，畅游公司主要依靠这些来获得收益。畅游公司的技术顾问杰介绍说。
These extras typically cost a few cents, but some are much dearer: Changyou sells a virtual gem, which can be used to enhance a virtual sword, for $180. Demand for these virtual goods depends on their cost, properties and availability, exactly as in the real world, says Mr Joffe. Clever gaming companies constantly monitor demand and tweak supply to maintain their revenues, in a sense fine-tuning their own virtual economies.
购买这些额外虚拟物品的成本通常几美分，但一些非常昂贵：比如畅游公司销售的可以用来提高虚拟剑的虚拟宝石，价格为180美元。这些虚拟商品的需求取决于商品的价格，性能和可用性，完全按照现实世界，杰解释说。聪明的游戏公司不断监测调整的这些虚拟物品的需求和供应，以保持他们的收入，在一定意义上微调自己的虚拟经济。
There are risks to Changyou’s business, most notably from competition. Growth recently slowed abruptly. There are more than half a dozen publicly listed Chinese gaming companies, and over 100 more with viable products, according to BDA, a consultancy based in Beijing. Hundreds, if not thousands, of other companies are eyeing this promising market.
当然畅游公司业务也有一定的风险，最明显的就是同业竞争，源于此该公司的业务最近突然增长放缓。根据顾问公司总部设在北京的澳门汇业银行统计，目前中国有超过6家游戏上市公司，以及100多种的网络游戏，而且还有数以百计甚至数以千计其他同类公司都在瞄准这一潜力巨大的市场。
Still, the battlefield is not as dangerous as it might appear. Before 2006 South Korean and American companies dominated the market, and the world is full of clever programmers, all of whom are theoretically linked by the internet. But as was the case in console-based gaming, the Chinese government has intervened, says Ning Liu, an analyst at BDA. Licensing of new versions of foreign games has been delayed, and local firms have gradually learnt to develop their own products. In the Chinese business environment, even the virtual world has real walls.
然而，实际上他的风险并没有显现的那样严重，在2006年之前，韩国和美国公司占据了中国的游戏市场，以及全世界各国聪明的程序员开发的各种在线游戏。但是，作为游戏机产业，中国政府进行了干预，BDA的分析师刘宁说，外国游戏在国内运营执照被置后，而国内的这些公司则不断得学会发展自己产品。中国的商业环境，即便是虚拟世界也存在真正的围墙。
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