Video game industry pins hopes on tide of sequels
Cannot decide whether to save humankind once again from the dreaded Covenant, blast away more monsters in dark and scary corners of Mars or indulge in another bout of carjacking in a fictional Californian city? If so, you would not be alone. A glut of blockbuster sequels is about to hit video game store shelves. None of the storylines is new, but with huge marketing budgets to back them and more advanced technology to brag about, industry executives are counting on the latest batch of follow-on games to become the biggest-selling titles ever. They had better be right. Sales of games are flat so far this year, and high hopes are riding on a handful of blockbusters. Similar expectations two years ago fizzled, producing a disappointing Christmas season that many in the industry would rather forget. So much is riding on the latest crop of sequels that their releases have become more and more like films premieres, complete with trailers running in cinemas and the release of documentaries on their making. No wonder: revenues generated by a blockbuster video game now rival Hollywood releases. The similarities between the movie and video games businesses go beyond their mutual reliance on sequels and ever-growing marketing campaigns. The game publishers are beginning to suffer from that other bane of Hollywood: burgeoning production costs. The average video game title now costs $5m to $10m to produce, says Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Schwab SoundView. Marketing budgets for blockbusters like Halo 2, the further adventures of a genetically enhanced super-soldier, have climbed well past $10m. Of all the sequels due on the market in the coming months, Halo 2 is one of the most eagerly awaited, the follow-up to the biggest-selling game on Microsoft’s Xbox console. Thousands of retailers across the US have already indicated they will stay open past midnight on November 9 to let the first desperate gamers get their hands on the latest instalment of the “first-person shooter” game, says Peter Moore of Xbox. Early “pre-sales”, under which customers put down a deposit to guarantee they get a copy from a retailer, show that the game’s first-day sales will be bigger than anything seen in the movie business, boasts Mr Moore. Hot video games do a bigger share of their business on the first day than other forms of entertainment. But most of the gaming industry is making similar bets. Joining the tide of sequels are Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the latest instalment in the carjacking saga; Gran Turismo 4, part of Sony’s top-selling driving series for the PlayStation; and Half-Life 2, a follow-on PC game from Vivendi Universal. So crowded is the sequel market that Activision decided to release Doom 3 - the latest in the ground-breaking monsters-on-Mars PC game that dates from the early 1990s - last week, in part to avoid the crush. “There’s a lot of product coming out in the second half of the year. We’d rather get out early,” says Bobby Kotick, Activision chief executive. While the run of sequels has had mixed success in Hollywood, it has been the making of the games industry. Follow-ons typically outperform the original games, and with more new games consoles sold every month, established brands can hook the ever-growing pool of new players. “The business is really based on franchises,” says Mr Kotick. For long-time devotees, however, simply introducing old characters into new environments is not enough. Players hooked on an earlier game will usually return only with the promise of better graphics and technological superiority of the latest version. “You’ve got to keep upping the quality. There’s an arms race in this industry,” says Brian Farrell, chief executive of games publisher THQ. Perhaps the most successful of the mega-franchises is Grand Theft Auto, the creation of Rockstar Games, a small development studio from Scotland whi ch has become the envy of the game-developer world. The various titles in the GTA series have together sold more than 30m copies, according to Take Two Interactive, which publishes the game. With each game selling for about $50 - though the price falls the longer a title has been on the shelf - that makes GTA one of the industry’s few $1bn franchises. As the stakes get higher, though, not everyo ne will be a winner. “The top five or six titles should sell really well,” says Mr Sebastian. “The problem will be for the middle-of-the-field titles,” which could struggle for attention. One way or another, there will be blood on the living-room carpet this winter.
电子游戏业靠续作取胜
究竟是再次拯救人类，以免受可怕的星盟(Covenant)杀戮，抑或在火星恐怖的阴暗角落里击溃更多妖魔鬼怪，还是在加利福尼亚一个虚构的城市中沉溺于新一轮劫车较量？你是否难以决定？
果真如此的话，你将不乏有同感者。
电子游戏商店的货架上，即将摆满一系列轰动市场的续作。虽然故事情节还是老一套，但在巨额市场营销预算的支持和高新技术的炫耀下，业界主管们期望这些最新的游戏续篇能够成为空前畅销的产品。
最好他们能如愿以偿。今年迄今为止，游戏销售一直不景气，人们都寄厚望于几个一鸣惊人的新产品。两年前，类似的愿望化为了泡影，圣诞节的销量令人失望。对于许多业内人士来说，这一切不堪回首。
最新一批游戏续作拥有极高的期望值，以至于其发行活动越来越像电影首映，包括了在电影院放映的宣传短片以及描写该游戏制作过程的纪录片等。这一切不足为奇，因为现在一鸣惊人的电子游戏所带来的收入与好莱坞巨片不相上下。
电影和电子游戏业的相似之处，不仅在于它们对续作和日益强化的市场宣传的共同依赖。游戏出版商也开始受到好莱坞其他弊端的困扰：制作成本飞涨。Schwab SoundView公司的分析师科林?塞巴斯蒂安（Colin Sebastian）说，目前每种电子游戏的平均制作成本为500万到1000万美元。诸如描写基因增强的超级战士展开新探险的《光晕2》（Halo 2）一类轰动市场的游戏，其营销预算已远远超过1000万美元。
未来几个月即将上市的所有续作中，作为基于微软Xbox控制手柄（Xbox console）的销量最大的游戏的续篇，《光晕2》最为受人瞩目。
Xbox的彼得?摩尔（Peter Moore）说，美国成千上万的零售商已表示，11月9日，他们将开业至午夜，从而让第一批疯狂的游戏迷拿到这种“第一人称射击游戏”（first-person shooter）的最新版本。
摩尔先生夸耀说，初期的“预售”显示，该游戏首日销售量将超过任何一部电影。“预售”是指消费者支付一定的押金，以确保从零售商那里买到产品。
同其他娱乐形式相比，热门的电子游戏在上市第一天的销售份额都更大。但是，大部分游戏业者的赌注却大同小异。
在这一轮电子游戏续作热潮中，还有劫车冒险游戏系列的最新版本《侠盗车手：圣安地列斯》（Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas）、作为索尼最畅销的游戏站（PlayStation）赛车系列之一的《跑车浪漫之旅4》（Gran Turismo 4）、以及维旺迪集团全球出版公司（Vivendi Universal）的电脑游戏续篇《半条命2》（Half-Life 2）。
由于游戏续作的市场竞争激烈，Activision公司决定上周发行《毁灭战士3》（Doom 3），这部分是为了避免相互间的倾轧。该游戏是90年代初开始发行的极具突破性的火星怪物电脑游戏的最新版本。
Activision的首席执行官博比?科蒂克（Bobby Kotick）说：“许多产品将于今年下半年上市。我们宁愿先行一步。”
好莱坞电影的续集有得有失，而游戏业却从续作中受益匪浅。游戏的续篇通常都能胜过原作，而且随着每月售出更多新游戏的控制手柄，名牌产品都能牢牢抓住不断增加的新玩家。科蒂克先生说：“这一生意确实是以特许经销权的运用为基础。”
但是，对于长期的游戏迷来说，只靠“新瓶”装“旧酒”是不够的。唯有确保最新版本的图像更清晰、技术更先进，醉心于较早游戏版本的玩家才会做回头客。
游戏出版商THQ的首席执行官布莱恩?法雷尔（Brian Farrell）说：“你必须不断提高质量。这个行业正展开一场军备竞赛。”
由Rockstar游戏公司（Rockstar Games）开发的《侠盗车手》可能是众多特许经销中最成功的一个。Rockstar是苏格兰的一家小型开发工作室，现已成为世界游戏开发界羡慕的对象。
据出版《侠盗车手》游戏的Take Two Interactive公司统计，该系列各种产品的销售总量已超过3000万。由于每个游戏的售价在50美元左右，即便价格随着面世时间的增加而降低，该系列仍旧成为业界屈指可数的几个特许经销额达10亿美元的游戏之一。
然而，随着风险日益增大，并非人人都能成为嬴家。
塞巴斯蒂安先生说：“排名前5、6位的游戏应该会非常热销。”“问题是那些处于中游的产品，”它们可能需要花大力气来吸引注意力。
不管怎样，今冬将会出现一场你死我活的竞争。
