第四十集：动视暴雪

而我们还没怎么提到过，但你可以把动视看作主要是负责发行、推广和为这些游戏提供资金的公司。

And the way that we haven't really talked about it yet, but you can think of Activision as primarily as sort of that distributor, publisher and capital source to fund these games.

各位听众。

Listeners.

现在是个好时机，跟大家介绍我们节目新加入的合作伙伴——WorkOS，我们非常期待这个合作。

Now is a great time to tell you about a new friend of the show we are very excited about, WorkOS.

没错。

Yes.

WorkOS 是一个专为企业打造的平台，被 OpenAI、Cursor、Perplexity、Vercel、Plaid 以及成百上千家顶尖公司广泛使用。

WorkOS is the enterprise ready platform used by OpenAI, Cursor, Perplexity, Vercel, Plaid, and literally hundreds of other winning companies.

那这些公司到底为什么选择 WorkOS 呢？

So what are all these companies using WorkOS for?

想象一下，你是一家快速成长的初创公司。

Imagine you're a fast growing startup.

你已经找到了产品与市场的契合点，越来越多的大企业客户主动找上门来。

You've got product market fit, and you're getting inbound interest from big enterprise customers.

太让人兴奋了。

Very exciting.

但接着他们就会发来一份安全问卷。

But then they send you their security questionnaire.

对。

Yep.

那问卷长达47页，里面的要求简直像一堆缩写词堆在一起。

And it's, like, 47 pages long with requirements that kinda sound like alphabet soup.

你们支持SAML 2.0吗？

Do you support saml2.o?

能跟你们的Okta对接吗？

Can you integrate with our Okta?

你们有SCIM配置功能吗？SCIM？

Do you have SCIM provisioning, SCIM?

那RBAC呢？R-B-A-C？

What about RBAC, r b a c?

你心里肯定在想，这些缩写到底是什么意思，更别提怎么去实现了。

And you're thinking, I have no idea what these acronyms even mean, let alone how to implement them.

关键是这么回事。

So here's the thing.

这些不是可有可无的东西。

These are not nice to haves.

这些是决定合作与否的关键条件。

These are deal blockers.

如果没有单点登录，没有SCIM，没有RBAC，没有审计日志，企业级交易根本谈不拢，别无选择。

Without SSO, without SCIM, without RBAC, without audit logs, you simply cannot close enterprise deals, period.

但这些功能一点都没让你们的核心产品变更好。

But none of these features make your core product better.

它们不会让你们的啤酒更好喝——用我们在《Acquired》里常举的例子来说。

They don't make your beer taste better, to use our favorite analogy here on Acquired.

所以如果你在做一个设计工具，花六个月去开发SAML认证，并不会让你的设计工具变得更强大。

So if you're building like a design tool, spending six months building SAML authentication doesn't make your design tool more powerful.

这时候就轮到 WorkOS 出场了。

So this is where WorkOS comes in.

他们为企业的功能打造了一个像 Stripe 一样的解决方案。

They've built Stripe for enterprise features.

WorkOS 把企业认证的各种要求变成了即插即用的 API，最大限度地简化了不必要的复杂性。

WorkOS turns enterprise authentication requirements into drop in APIs, abstracting away as much unnecessary complexity as possible.

所以你的团队不用再花几个月去研究 SAML 规范，几分钟就能搞定企业级单点登录。

So instead of your team spending months reading SAML specs, you can implement enterprise SSO in minutes.

WorkOS 会帮你处理用户开通、权限管理、审计日志——所有企业 IT 部门要求的那些必备功能。

WorkOS handles user provisioning, permissions, audit logs, all the checkbox items that enterprise IT requires.

不管你刚起步，想拿下第一个大客户，还是已经规模不小、正在全球扩张，WorkOS 都是你最快实现企业级兼容的途径。

So whether you are a seed stage company trying to land your first enterprise customer or already big and expanding globally, WorkOS is the fastest path to becoming enterprise ready.

直接去 workos.com 网站，或者在他们的 Slack 里发个消息就行。

Just visit workos.com or just message their Slack support.

那里真有工程师在线，回复特别快。

They have real engineers in there who answer questions fast.

如果你联系他们，记得提一下是本和大卫介绍的。

And when you get in touch, just tell them Ben and David sent you.

接下来我们快进一下，说到暴雪和动视的合并。

So we'll kinda accelerate here getting to the the merger with Activision.

但在那之前，暴雪经历了几件大事。

But along the way, a couple big things happened for Blizzard.

首先是《魔兽争霸三》在2002年发布。

First, Warcraft three comes out in 2002.

这其实我前面提到过，《魔兽争霸二》自带的地图编辑器让玩家能自己制作游戏版本。

And, this is what I alluded to earlier, sort of the map editors that came with Warcraft two allowing gamers to make their own versions of the game.

而《魔兽争霸三》附带的战役编辑器更强大，几乎能完全掌控游戏体验，而且一上线就直接内置了。

It was the version, the campaign editor that came with Warcraft three was even more robust and you could do, you could really have sort of full control over the experience and it shipped just right with the game.

谁都能用这个功能。

Anybody could do this.

于是大家开始做出更多模组，魔兽三的玩家社区迅速壮大，其中有个小伙子……

And so people started making even more mods, it got really a robust community for Warcraft three and this one guy.

是的

Yeah.

大卫，我先打断一下，要不我来提议个想法：我建一个《魔兽争霸三》的模组，我的基地放在左下角，然后我在右上角也建一个基地。

David, I'm gonna stop you real quick and say, why don't I propose, what if I were to build like a Warcraft three mod that, like, you can have a base sort of in the lower left hand corner, and I'll make a base for me in the the top right hand corner.

而不是我们平时玩的那种传统地图

And rather than, you know, the traditional map that we're gonna play on

盖建筑。

build buildings.

对。

Yeah.

为什么

Like, why

不，为什么不

don't why don't

不行。

no.

不行。

No.

我们不如玩个夺旗模式，直接去攻击并炸掉对方的单位？

How we about just play sort of like a capture the flag style thing where we just try and go after and blow up each other's pieces?

那太棒了。

That'd be super cool.

而且你知道，魔兽争霸三自带战役编辑器，直接就能做出来。

And like, you know, because then you have, you know, the campaign editor that's just bundled in with Warcraft three, you can just do that.

这难道不很酷吗？

Isn't that really cool?

是的。

Yeah.

你觉得我能拉其他人一起来玩，然后给它起个专属名字和品牌吗？是的。

Do you think I could invite other people and sorta get them to play it with me and kinda give it my own name and brand name Yeah.

而且所有

And all

你可以叫它‘远古守护者’，说不定它会火起来，大家直接简称DOTA，就是D-O-T-A。

you could call it Defense of the Ancients and then maybe it would get really popular and people would call it just DOTA, it's acronym, D O T A.

然后说不定它会彻底改变整个行业。

And then maybe it would just like transform the whole industry.

大卫，这感觉就像暴雪，你们本该对这个项目多掌控一点。

And David it kinda feels like you Blizzard, feels like you should have maybe maintained a little bit more control over that.

确实有这种感觉。

Well, it does feel that way.

暴雪那边是真的想让大家自由发挥，所以咱们刚才说的那些，后来全发生了。

So Blizzard, know, they really mean it when they're giving everybody control and so, you know, everything we just described of course did happen.

2003年，模组社区里有个叫Eul的人——我发音可能不对，是E-U-L——他做了一个地图，命名为‘远古守护者’。

And in 2003, a member of the mod community named Eul, I may be pronouncing that wrong, e u l, he creates a mod, a map, that he calls Defense of the Ancients.

这就是现在多人在线战术竞技类游戏的起源，如今它已是游戏行业最大、或者至少是最大的细分领域之一。

And it is the multiplayer online battle arena genre, which is now if not the biggest, one of the biggest portions of the whole gaming industry.

这可是《英雄联盟》《DOTA2》，甚至暴雪自己做的《风暴英雄》的源头。

I mean, this is the roots of League of Legends, of DOTA two, of Heroes of the Storm which Blizzard does itself.

这一切都是从模组社区开始的。

And it all just starts in the mod community.

对。

Yep.

英雄联盟和DOTA 2加起来占了百分之五十以上。

It is over 50% between, League of Legends and DOTA two.

对听众来说，如果你听过别人聊这些游戏，但自己从不打游戏，不妨去搜一下英雄联盟和DOTA 2的截图看看，你一定会惊讶——它们明明是两个完全不同的游戏。

And for listeners out there, if you've heard people throw around these games, but you're not a gamer yourself, if you ever wanna Google a screenshot of League of Legends and a screenshot of DOTA two and look at it, you're gonna be like, your mind's gonna be blown by that these are, number one, separate games.

而且还是两家完全不同的公司做的。

Number two, made by two completely different companies.

你一看图，根本分不清它们有什么区别。

Like, you look at these, and you feel like they're indistinguishable.

但你真玩起来，才会慢慢发现它们的差异。

And then, obviously, you play them, and you start to understand the differences.

最让我震惊的是，这种玩法这么火，结果却没统一成一个游戏，反而分裂了。

But it just mind blowing to me that the format was so popular and yet the way that it all played out, it didn't consolidate on on one single

还有啊，你会震惊于暴雪根本没参与《英雄联盟》或者《DOTA2》的开发。

Well, three, your mind will be blown by Blizzard has no involvement with either League of Liberals Zero one's M.

或者《DOTA2》。

Or DOTA two.

他们真的是认真的。

But they really mean it.

我的意思是，这些游戏所基于的IP，其实是玩家自己创造的，它们都不是最初那个《Defense of the Ancients》模组的原始IP。

I mean, was the IP that these people, you know, created, and neither of them, are the actual IP of Defense of the Ancients, the first initial mod.

关于这段历史，网上有很多特别精彩的Reddit帖子，你可以去看看。

There's a long and very fascinating history that you can look at some really great Reddit threads for about this.

但简单来说，事情是这样的：DOTA变得特别火。

But the short story of what sort of happened here is DOTA got really popular.

它原本是《魔兽争霸3》的一个模组。

It was a Warcraft three mod.

而那个模组用的是暴雪的IP。

It was Blizzard's IP.

有些人想做第二个DOTA，就开始开发后来成为《英雄联盟》的游戏。不过我对时间线有点拿不准，但大概就是那时候，有一群人另起炉灶，决定要做一款类似DOTA的游戏，但去掉他们觉得DOTA那些不好的地方。

People, wanted to build a second DOTA and and started to build what became DOTA Actually, I'm not sure if I'm getting my timeline right, but, somewhere along the lines there, some people sort of spun out and, decided that they wanted to start creating their own Dota like game, but that that sort of didn't have a lot of what they believed to be the flaws of Dota.

于是他们开始开发《英雄联盟》，后来干脆成立了Riot公司。

And so they started creating League of Legends and then ended up founding Right.

成立了Riot公司。

Founding the company Riot.

对。

Yep.

不过这些我们待会儿再细说。

Well, we'll we'll come back to all of that, in a little bit.

真的特别有意思。

But, super interesting.

这一切都始于2003年，而暴雪那时候根本没关注这事。

Mean, is all starting in 2003, and Blizzard is completely not focused on it.

他们全身心投入的是2004年要推出的《魔兽世界》，这又是一个惊人的作品——暴雪居然接连不断推出这么多改变游戏行业的大作。

They're focused on what comes out in 2004, which is World of Warcraft, which is just another and again, it's it's kinda mind blowing, like, so many huge waves in the gaming industry all come out of Blizzard.

在《魔兽世界》之前，其实已经存在所谓的大型多人在线角色扮演游戏，也就是MMORPG。

World of Warcraft, there had been MMOs, quote unquote, massively multiplayer online RPGs, MMO RPGs before World of Warcraft.

但这款游戏却成了一个巨大的现象级作品。

But this becomes just an enormous phenomenon.

它在2004年上线，之后用户数量持续增长，最高时月活跃订阅者超过一千二百万。

And it comes out in 2004 and grows over time to over 12,000,000 monthly subscribers that are playing World of Warcraft.

同时，它也彻底改变了游戏行业的商业模式。

And so to play, it also revolutionizes the business model of the game industry.

玩家需要支付月费才能在线玩这款游戏。

It's actually a subscription fee to play this game online.

每个月的费用在12到15美元之间。

You pay between 12 to $15 a month.

在巅峰时期，拥有超过一千二百万订阅用户的《魔兽世界》，每年为暴雪带来超过十亿美元的稳定收入。

So at its peak, when it had over 12,000,000 subscribers, Blizzard was making over $1,000,000,000 a year, every year, recurring just from this game.

公司此后几乎完全进入了全力支持《魔兽世界》的模式。

And the company basically goes on to full on just all World of Warcraft support mode.

他们一直到2010年才推出其他游戏。

They don't release any other games until 2010.

就靠这一款游戏在运营。

They're just running this one game.

这可以说是游戏行业自诞生以来最成功的商业模式创新了。

I mean, it's it's the best business model innovation to happen in games, you know, since games.

而且那时候基本是他们一家独大。

And they largely had it all to themselves.

没错，他们确实在商业模式上创新了，但你要说价值创造和价值捕获的话——

I mean, this was a time when, yes, they had the business model innovation, but you wanna talk about value creation, value capture.

他们把所有价值都拿走了。

They were capturing all of it.

对。

Yep.

在他们努力维护服务器、持续为游戏推出新内容的同时，这其实已经形成了一整个社区。

And while they were working hard on both supporting the servers to keep this game going and releasing new content that they were making at Blizzard for the game, it really was a community.

人们玩这款游戏、年复一年地回来，根本不是因为暴雪出了什么新内容，而是因为游戏里的其他玩家，还有这个社区。

The reason people played and the reason they kept coming back year after year after year wasn't the content that Blizzard was putting out, it was the other people in the game and this community.

所以真正厉害的是，他们赚的每一分钱，表面上看是投在了维持服务器运行上，但真正的内容和体验，其实都来自玩家自己。

And so really it was brilliant that all this money they were making, of course they were investing to keep the game running essentially, but the content and the experiences were coming from other people who were playing the game.

太惊人了。

Wow.

简直不可思议。

Totally wild.

这一切都是背景，后来在2007年12月，宣布了那场合并——母公司维旺迪，那个法国巨头、搞水务的公司，居然要收购他们，我到现在还是难以置信。

So this is all the backdrop to the merger that happens gets announced in December 2007, which is that Vivendi, the parent company, the French conglomerate, the water company announced I still can't get over this.

当然了。

Of course.

就是那个搞水的公司。

The water company.

是啊。

Yeah.

堂堂一家法国水企，居然干了这事儿。

The French water company, no less.

当然，我不是在贬低法国。

No offense to France, of course.

我很喜欢法国。

I love France.

但他们宣布要和动视合并，把旗下的游戏部门——其中绝大部分是暴雪——注入动视，估值81亿美元，合并后的新公司总估值达到189亿美元。

But they announced that they are doing a deal with Activision, which is a large publicly traded video game publisher, that they're going to contribute, merge their games division, of which the vast majority is Blizzard, into Activision, value it at $8,100,000,000, and then the total new combined company will be valued at $18,900,000,000.

也就是说，动视的估值被定在了近110亿美元，比当时股价高出30%到31%。

So assigning a close to $11,000,000,000 value to Activision, which is a 30% 31% premium to where they've been trading.

同时，维旺迪还要往新公司注入近20亿美元现金，并参与新股发行。

And that combined Vivendi is also going to invest close to $2,000,000,000 in cash into the combined company and then also fund a share offer.

这家公司背后的商业操作太复杂了，连我自己说起来都觉得头大。

There's just so much corporate transaction history around this company like it's it's all it's it's mind numbing even to myself to say it.

最终结果是，维旺迪将持有合并后公司63%的股份，剩下的37%会在公开市场交易。

The net result of which is that Vivendi is gonna own 63% of this combined company, and the other 37% is going to trade in the public markets.

这样一来，结构反而更复杂了，根本没变简单。

So this makes the structure more complicated, not even not simpler.

咱们先停一下，好好想想。

It's worth pausing for a minute.

听众朋友们，我们已经聊了很多关于暴雪的事了。

So listeners, we've covered a ton about Blizzard.

关于动视的历史和背景，我们就不细说了，但还是得简单提一提，这动视到底是个什么样的公司？

We're not gonna do the history and facts of of, Activision, but it's worth, you know, addressing real quick, who are these Activision guys?

他们凭什么值这么多钱？

And, and, you know, you know, why are they worth approximately?

我们到底该怎么看待这个估值？

What do we decide?

110亿美元。

$11,000,000,000.

110亿美元？

$11,000,000,000?

动视是一家历史悠久的电子游戏发行巨头。

Activision is a long time, video game publisher conglomerate.

他们拥有一些游戏工作室。

They own some studios.

《吉他英雄》系列就是他们发行的，就是你们在2000年代中期买过的那些廉价塑料玩具。

The Guitar Hero games, they publish those, all those cheap pieces of plastic you bought in the mid 2 thousands.

《使命召唤》、《古惑狼》。

Call it Duty Duty, Crash

《天际线》——你们的孩子现在可能还在玩，还有《托尼霍克滑板》之类的。

Bandicoot, Skylanders, which, you know, your kids probably play with now, Tony Hawk, all this stuff.

动视由一个叫鲍比·科蒂克的人掌管，我记得他早在上世纪八九十年代游戏业刚起步时就自己买下了这家公司。

And Activision's run by a guy named Bobby Kotick who's been I believe he actually bought the company himself in the super early days of the gaming industry in the eighties or nineties.

他当了多年CEO，是个不折不扣的冷酷商人。

And he'd been CEO forever and is just a total Yep, grisly

没错。

exactly.

他一向以热情、果断、纯粹的资本家形象著称，很多报道都说他是玩家又恨又爱的那个人。

And he's known to be, you know, passionate, ruthless, true capitalist, someone that a lot of these articles described him as the guy that gamers love to

在游戏行业那些理想主义者中间，他是个彻头彻尾的资本家。

He is a a capitalist amongst the idealists of the video game industry.

事实上，Activision 在这个行业里算是元老级公司了。

And and in fact, Activision, they're really they're quite old for this industry.

这家公司成立于1979年。

They're founded in 1979.

它是第一家游戏发行商，也是第一个为非自家平台发行游戏的公司。

They're the first video game publisher, and they're the first people to publish games for, video game platforms that are not the platform themselves.

任天堂当然自己开发了马里奥和超级马里奥。

So, you know, Nintendo obviously made Mario and Super Mario.

Activision 可以说是历史上第一家第三方游戏开发商。

The the Activision, can think of as sort of the first third party game developer to ever exist.

这完全是个商业模式。

Someone's business model.

没错。

That's right.

第三方游戏公司变成了发行商。

Third third party game became publisher.

值得注意的是，我们前面提到的那些游戏系列，每一个都不是由单一团队开发的，而是Activision和多个开发工作室合作完成的，包括后续的所有续作。

And it's worth noting that all those those franchises that we lift listed off earlier have not one, but each one with a variety of of development studios that Activision worked with to create those games and create all the sequels for those So

明白了。

all right.

咱们总结一下吧。

Let's bring this on home.

我都累坏了。

I'm exhausted already.

合并发生时，暴雪预计收入为20.71亿美元，运营利润达5.2亿美元。

So when the merger happens, Blizzard is projecting in $2,007.1100000000 of revenue, $520,000,000 of operating profit.

当时，《魔兽世界》的订阅用户大约有一千万人。

They have about 10,000,000 subscribers on World of Warcraft at that point.

从那以后，发生了一堆事。

Since then, bunch of stuff happens.

他们推出了《星际争霸2》。

They released Starcraft two.

他们推出了《暗黑破坏神3》。

They released Diablo three.

他们推出了《炉石传说》，其实就是《万智牌》的在线版，我当年沉迷其中，浪费了一年时间，真的。

They released Hearthstone, which is basically a, a video game online version of Magic the Gathering, which I probably lost a year of my life being addicted to and and have been Mhmm.

后来我去戒了，现在彻底出来了。

Went through rehab and I'm out of it now.

不是。

No.

不是，大卫。

No, David.

不是。

No.

不是这样的。

It's not.

完全不一样。

It's completely different.

你干嘛这么说？

Why would you say such a thing?

那不是

That's not

是的。

Yeah.

没错。

Right.

在游戏界，大家都尊重知识产权，是吧？

Everybody respects IP in the video game world or not.

没错。

Right.

没错。

Right.

这确实是个有意思的观点。

Well, it's an interesting point.

我的意思是，我们后面会聊到科技相关的主题，但听众们，《炉石传说》本质上大量沿用了《万智牌》的游戏机制，只不过暴雪用他们最擅长的方式，以一种很像迪士尼的手法来处理IP——让玩家用自己熟悉并喜爱的《魔兽世界》角色来玩一款新游戏。

I mean, we'll talk about this in tech themes later, but listeners, Hearthstone is basically using a lot of the very same game mechanics from from Magic the Gathering, but, doing what Blizzard does best in a very Disney like way with their IP, and that's let people play a new game with the existing World of Warcraft characters that they know and love.

当你想到开发《魔兽世界》这样一款游戏所需的惊人复杂度时，我觉得最初开发《炉石传说》和Unity的团队，也就十几二十个人左右。

And when you think about the incredible complexity in building a game like World of Warcraft and the I I think it's only, like, a 15 or 20 person or initially, it was, a 15 or 20 person development team that just built Hearthstone and Unity.

他们实际上在开发《炉石传说》这类游戏时，成本低得几乎可以忽略不计，但利润率却高得惊人。

Like, they have, incredibly high margins on the, what are effectively the de minimis costs of of creating a game like Hearthstone.

这里确实很像迪士尼的模式。

The Disney parallels are are apt here.

我们稍后再回过头来聊这个。

We'll come back to that in a minute.

2013年，动视暴雪最终回购了维旺迪持有的63%股份。

So 2013, Activision Blizzard ends up buying back most of the stake, the 63% stake that Vivendi owned in it.

他们引入了外部资本，包括来自腾讯的投资，腾讯现在拥有拳头游戏，也就是《英雄联盟》的开发商。

They raised external capital, including from Tencent, which owns Riot Games, which makes League of Legends now.

有意思。

Interesting.

等等。

So wait.

腾讯完全控股拳头游戏，而且

Tencent wholly owns Riot Games and

我觉得目前腾讯已经持有拳头游戏的多数股权。

I believe they own make a the majority of Riot Games at this point.

不是百分之百，但占多数。

Not, not 100%.

但同时，腾讯在暴雪动视这边也持有一部分少数股份。

But then also have a minority share here in in Blizzard Activision.

对。

Yes.

是的。

They do.

有意思。

Interesting.

经过几次股票回购后，维旺迪现在只持有不到6%的股份，而动视暴雪其余约94%的股份是公开交易的。

And, net result of a few of those buybacks is Vivendi now owns just under 6%, and 94 ish percent of Activision Blizzard is a publicly traded company.

所以呢，这档节目可不提供投资建议，但如果你想投资一家上市公司，目前基本上就两家。

So, you know, no no investment advice on this show, but if you wanna invest in a publicly traded gaming company, there are basically two.

一家是艺电，另一家是动视暴雪。

There's Electronic Arts, there's Activision Blizzard.

它们算是目前纯粹的电子游戏公司里最主要的两家了。

They are the main, you know, pure play gaming companies out there.

对。

Yeah.

这里倒是可以提一点挺有意思的事。

And this is pretty interesting to make a point on.

所以呢，我不打算扯太远，但简单提一下，现在电子竞技的规模已经非常大了。

So, you know, I don't wanna take us too far forward, but as a quick flash forward, you know, esports is enormous today.

每年有超过三亿人会观看别人打电子竞技比赛。

There's over 300,000,000 people a year that can watch other people play video games competitively.

投资者常常在琢磨怎么在这个领域布局，但EA在电竞领域并不是主要玩家。

Investors are often trying to figure out how to make bets in this space, and EA is not a major player in esports.

Riot Games主要由腾讯私有控股。

Riot Games is privately held mostly by Tencent.

Valve也是私有公司，极其低调，自成一派。

Valve is privately held incredibly tight lipped and sort of their own very special company.

所以对公众投资者来说，真正能接触到电竞领域的途径其实只剩下……

And so really the only way that public company investors can really

那就是通过Activision Blizzard了。

Get exposure to this.

你知道的，

You know,

想参与这波浪潮，唯一的方式就是投资暴雪动视。

bet on this wave is, is through Blizzard Activision.

我觉得这全是因为暴雪成了公司的一部分。

And and I think it, you know, it's all because of Blizzard being part of the company.

要是光靠动视自己，我觉得根本不可能做到这么创新。

Like, Activision itself would never, I think, have innovated on this level of stuff.

后来暴雪终于也入局了MOBA领域，就是那种《英雄联盟》《DOTA》风格的游戏。

But so Blizzard finally gets in the act on MOBAs itself, the League of Legends style, DOTA style games.

他们2015年推出了《风暴英雄》，拿了一点市场份额，但还是远不如《DOTA2》和《英雄联盟》。

They released Heroes of the Storm in 2015 which gets some market share but is still less than DOTA, DOTA two, and League of Legends.

但到了2016年1月，发生了两件事。

But in January, two things happened in 2016.

第一，动视暴雪收购了MLG，这个Ben可能比我更了解，算是他们进一步进军电竞产业，直接切入职业联赛层面。

First, Activision Blizzard acquires Major League Gaming, which Ben probably knows more about than me, but is sort of a play at another level into esports at the actual kinda league and

没错。

Right.

他们其实是在赌，电子竞技未来会越来越像传统体育，不仅掌控游戏本身的IP，还要逐步掌控联赛体系和赛事转播。

It's basically making the bet that, you know, competitive video gaming is gonna start to look more and more like real sports and starting to kinda vertically integrate there and not just owning the IP of the game itself, but start to own some of the kind of league structure and broadcast of the games as And

2016年他们做的第二件事，是推出了一款全新的游戏系列《守望先锋》。

the second thing that they do in 2016 is they release a totally new franchise called Overwatch.

而《守望先锋》也是……

And Overwatch is also

是的，大卫，你玩过吗？我……

Yeah David have you played I'm

吓人。

scared.

这东西简直得在这一集前面贴个警告标签，太上瘾了。

This stuff is like we should put a warning label on this episode like, this stuff is is like Highly addictive.

这玩意儿就跟鸦片一样，你一旦开始玩，就再也停不下来。

Opioids, it is like if you start playing this stuff you will get addicted.

它就是专门设计来让你上瘾的，一玩就陷进去，根本出不来。

It is designed to addict you and you will, you know, spiral into a vortex.

所以啊，使用的时候得小心点。

So, like, you know, use with caution.

而且现在越来越明显了，跟以前只注重游戏体验不同，这些游戏现在也开始注重观赛体验了。

And more and more so now, unlike, unlike the old days where they were wholly optimized for the playing experience, these games are starting to be optimized for the viewing experience as well.

所以现在新出的游戏，不仅玩起来有趣，还特别适合吸引观众，也就是所谓的流量入口。

So games that are starting to come out now are, you know, not only fun to play, but are optimized for, you know, basically the top of the funnel.

比如怎么让观众觉得看这种竞技比赛有意思，从而慢慢...

Like, how can we get people to enjoy watching this as a competitive sport so that they'll eventually

在Twitch、YouTube这些平台上。

On Twitch and YouTube and elsewhere.

对。

Yep.

没错。

Exactly.

所以对我们的听众来说，《守望先锋》其实是刻意设计成MOBA和第一人称射击游戏的结合体。

And so Overwatch, for our our our listeners out there, is very intentionally designed to be like a lovechild of a MOBA, but from a first person shooter perspective.

是的

Yep.

所以所有这些设计都太棒了。

So everything that is so cool.

《英雄联盟》。

League of Legends.

没错。

Exactly.

你身处一个类似夺旗模式的竞技场，但视角是第一人称射击，你就在战场上，融合了这两类游戏的精华。

So you're on that very same arena style battlefield that has a very capture the flag mechanic to it, but you the camera is mounted as a sort of first person shooter, and you are on the ground, and it has the best of both games.

这显然是有意抓住当下电子竞技领域的所有趋势。

So it is a very intentional attempt to capitalize capitalize on on everything everything that's that's going going on on in in the the esports world today.

不只是尝试，而是真的成功了。

And not just an attempt, like a success.

2016年刚推出，第一周就吸引了七百万玩家，到年底突破两千五百万，现在玩家超过三千万，收入更是突破了十亿美元。

Like it comes out in 2016, gets 7,000,000 players in the first week, 25,000,000 players by the 2016 and now it's over 30,000,000 players and already over 1,000,000,000 in revenue.

更有趣的是，暴雪当初做这个决定的时候，我真希望能更了解这个行业和背后的历史。

And what's super interesting about that is Blizzard made wish I knew more about the industry and the history of how this decision got made.

他们为《守望先锋》采用了混合商业模式。

They sort of go with a hybrid business model for Overwatch.

《英雄联盟》和《DOTA2》这些MOBA游戏都是完全免费的。

So League of Legends and DOTA two and the other MOBAs are completely free to play.

你随时可以登录，直接开玩，和所有人公平竞技，一分钱都不用花。

You can log on, you can play them, you can compete, you know, at a level playing field with everyone else without paying a dime.

但如果你想买些专属的外观道具、特殊角色之类的，就得花钱购买这些附加内容。

But if you wanna get special, you know, sort of, aesthetic items for your character or special characters or whatnot, you have to pay money to get those sort of add ons.

这些玩意儿其实不影响你的游戏实力，就是看着帅而已。

They don't really affect, you know, your skill at the game, but they like, you know, look cool.

这种商业模式已经非常成功了。

And that's been a hugely successful business model.

光靠这些外观道具，就赚了数十亿美元。

I mean, billions of dollars of money made from from these things just from sorta, you know, aesthetic add ons.

但《守望先锋》不同，暴雪决定回归老路，直接向玩家收费。

But Overwatch, Blizzard decides to actually go back to their roots and charge money for the game.

如果你想玩《守望先锋》，就得花40或60美元，具体看你选哪个版本。

So if you wanna play Overwatch, you gotta pay either $40 or $60 depending on the version you want to buy the game.

不过他们还加入了类似《暗黑破坏神》的设计。

But then they also have sort of Diablo inspired.

他们设置了战利品箱，你可以花钱购买，里面会随机开出一些道具，就像集换式卡牌游戏里的补充包，用来装扮你的角色。

They have loot boxes that you can buy that, contain items that you can essentially sort of also Magic the Gathering as sort of like, you know, booster packs you can buy for your for your characters.

所以他们靠这个也赚了不少钱。

And so they make money on that too.

确实如此。

And yeah.

没错。

Totally.

看着大家互相借鉴玩法真是有意思，老东西换个样子又成了新潮流，这种循环一直在不断重演。

It's incredible to watch everybody sort of steal from each other's mechanics here and and what's old is new again, and people sort of reinventing that that over and over again.

大卫，你刚才说《守望先锋》取得了巨大成功，我查了一些数据，有几个点挺值得说的。

And, David, as you were saying that Overwatch has been phenomenally successful, I pulled up some stats that are worth mentioning, and there's a couple observations out of them.

第一点是，人们对某些东西的持久热情真的很强。

The first one is that there's incredible staying power in what people care about.

就像棒球之于美国，虽然现在关注度稍微下降了，但它依然是很多人童年记忆里不可或缺的一部分。

So in the very same way that baseball is the American pastime and even though attention is waning on it a little bit, it's still like a huge fiber of what people grew up with.

电子竞技里也有类似的情况。

You have this in esports as well.

尽管《守望先锋》卖得不错，但它在Twitch上每月的观赛时长占比只有1.9%，而这个数字和《星际争霸2》完全一样。

And so even though Overwatch has sold quite well, they're really only 1.9% of the monthly esports hours viewed on Twitch, which incredibly is exactly the same percentage as Starcraft two.

你知道吗，《星际争霸2》都已经是很久以前的游戏了，可它至今依然备受推崇。

Like, that is an old old game that is still highly revered in

到现在都七年了吧？

Seven years old at this point?

是的。

Yeah.

全球各地都有，但韩国还是特别多。

Everywhere, but still a lot in South Korea.

如果你看这两款最火的游戏，我们刚才提到的MOBA类游戏，七年了的《英雄联盟》依然占据23.3%的观看时长，而《DOTA 2》则有32.2%。

And if you look at the two biggest games, we were mentioning these MOBA style games, seven year old League of Legends still commands 23.3% of the viewing hours, and and DOTA two has 32.2%.

现在确实有不少新游戏都在瞄准这股潮流，但真正占主导地位的，还是那些大家玩了多年的经典，至于未来会不会下滑，现在还不清楚。

And it's like the you know, there's these these newer games that are coming out that are really tuned to take advantage of this wave, but what it still has the majority of the attention share, and it's unclear if this will wane in the future or not, is, is these games that people have sort of been playing for a

已经好一阵子了。

while now.

我觉得这个话题我们后面聊科技趋势时再深入，但最早是从《魔兽争霸2》《星际争霸》和《魔兽争霸3》的模组社区开始的，尤其是《魔兽世界》，暴雪彻底改变了游戏行业的玩法——不再只是卖一款软件，用户买完就完事。

Well, I think this is we'll get into this more in tech themes, but starting really with the modding community for Warcraft two and Starcraft and Warcraft three and then especially with World of Warcraft, Blizzard really brought this new approach to the video game market where it's not about just publishing a piece of software, people buying it and then that being the end.

这些游戏会不断成长，内容越来越丰富，收入也持续增长，真正把初创公司那种运营模式带进了游戏行业。

It's that these games grow and get bigger and more in-depth and make more money over time And really brought very, you know, sorta startup company like business models to the game space.

对。

Yep.

再打个比方，跟电影行业比，这些游戏刚上线时的收入跟大片差不多，但它们的持久赚钱能力简直惊人。

And it actually to make another parallel to the movie industry, these games when they come out are making as much money as movies are when they come out, but they have an incredible tale of the of the ability to continue making money.

比如《星球大战》上映，我记得票房好像是一十亿或者二十亿美元，反正是个天文数字。

So like a Star Wars comes out and it'll be I I forget if that was like a billion dollars or $2,000,000,000 or, you know, something huge.

但电影在影院上映的时间就那么短短一阵子。

And then, you know, was only in theaters for so long.

可拿2013年暴雪和动视推出的《使命召唤：幽灵》来说，首日零售销量就冲到了十亿美元。

But for example, like, 2013, Blizzard Activision released Call of Duty Ghosts, and on the first day, sold a billion dollars into retail.

这简直太夸张了。

Like, that's insane.

这可是电子游戏啊，而且之后好长一段时间还在持续赚钱。

It's for a video game, and then they're they continue to make money on it, for for quite a bit of time after

对。

Yeah.

到2016年底，也就是去年年底，暴雪自己一家在动视暴雪内部就创造了24亿美元的收入，这比2015年的16亿又涨了不少。

So, you know, to wrap it up in at year end 2016 at the end of last year, Blizzard, just Blizzard within Activision Blizzard did $2,400,000,000 in revenue, which by the way was up from 1.6 in 2015.

增长速度真是惊人。

So the growth is insane.

这么大的基数还能增长，简直不可思议。

The growth on that huge number is insane.

没错。

Yep.

运营利润超过十亿美元，这真让我震惊。

Did over $1,000,000,000 in operating income and this just blew my mind.

Activision旗下的《使命召唤》这类游戏，加上暴雪的作品，还有《天际》系列，加在一起。

So in combined between Activision properties like Call of Duty and the like and Blizzard, you know, also Skylanders within Activision.

2016年，消费者花在玩和观看动视暴雪内容上的时间大约有430亿小时，这是他们财报里说的，跟Netflix不相上下，比人们花在Snapchat上的时间多出一半以上。

In 2016, consumers spent approximately, this is a quote from their earnings release, forty three billion hours playing and watching Activision Blizzard content, which is on par with Netflix and over one and a half times the amount of time that people spend in Snapchat.

如果你觉得这期节目讲的都是些游戏公司的疯狂数据，觉得这事儿挺小的，那你就想错了。

So, like, acquired listeners, if you think that, you know, this episode is like, man, this is lot of crazy games company stuff, like, is small for IOI, is acquired covering this.

完全不是。

Like, nope.

这家公司去年吸引的总注意力，是Snapchat的1.5倍。

This company is had one and a half times the total attention of Snapchat last year.

而且它的使用方式也完全不一样。

And it's distributed in such a different way.

你想想 Snapchat 总吹嘘自己用户每天用二十到二十五分钟，都是短时间的碎片化使用。

Like, when you think about Snapchat bragging about, what was it, twenty to twenty five minutes a day in Snapchat, it's these short little bursts.

但你要是去问那些真正爱玩这类游戏的人，比如问他们是不是《英雄联盟》的重度玩家，很多人会说：‘不是啊。’

Like, when you talk to people that that really like to play these games, a lot of the time, you'll ask someone if they're a big, like a big League of Legends player, someone will say, no.

我每天就玩两三个小时。

I only play, like, two or three hours a night.

你一听就懵了：什么？

And you're like, what?

可你再细问，人家会说：对，我特别上瘾。

And then you talk to people, they're like, yeah, I'm really into it.

我每天大概玩六到八个小时。

Like, I play probably six, eight hours a day.

是的。

Yeah.

那当然还有一些职业玩家，这可是他们的正经工作。

Well, then you have professionals that, you know, literally it's their job.

对。

Yep.

没错。

Yep.

这简直太疯狂了。

It's, it is crazy.

这么一比，Facebook 看起来就像个你一个月才打开一次的App。

It makes Facebook look like, you know, some app that you, you know, open like, you know, once a month.

是啊。

Yeah.

这

It's

确实。

true.

好了，各位听众。

Alright, listeners.

现在正是感谢我们一家非常喜爱的公司的好时机，这家公司对《Acquired》节目的制作至关重要，那就是Anthropic，以及他们最新的旗舰模型Claude Opus 4.6。

Now is a great time to thank one of our favorite companies and one that has become essential to how we make Acquired, Anthropic, and their newest flagship model, Claude Opus 4.6.

我们在这里Acquired总部一直在大量使用它。

Which we have been making heavy use of here at Acquired HQ.

我刚在西雅图租下了一处新场地，准备做Acquired的新演播室。

I actually just, leased some space for the new Acquired studio here in Seattle.

哇哦。

Whoo.

房东发来了一份非常简单的租赁合同，我一开始觉得，这事儿我自己就能搞定。

And when the landlord sent over a a pretty simple lease, I thought, oh, this is totally something I can review myself.

我看了几眼，但接着又想，嗯……

I looked at it, but then I also thought, okay.

还是找个靠谱的人帮我确认一下比较好。

I could use a sanity check.

所以我把它上传给Claude，问它有没有什么我需要留意的地方，或者有没有不一致或需要提出异议的地方。

So, I uploaded it to Claude and asked if there was anything that I should be mindful of or inconsistencies or or anything I should push back on.

结果Claude真找到了三个我自己完全没注意到的问题。

And Claude actually found three things that I totally missed on my own review.

这太厉害了。

It's amazing.

你之前跟我提过这事。

You told me about that.

我在这儿也经常用它来写节目笔记。

I've actually been using a lot here for writing show notes.

我写脚本的时候，动不动就写个五六十页甚至七十页，细节太多，自己都陷在里面了，根本看不清重点，所以每次写节目笔记时，特别需要有人帮我理清主线。

I end up with so much detail in my, like, fifty, sixty, 70 page script documents that I'm, like, way too close to the material, and I need a fresh set of eyes for what the big points are as I write up the show notes for each episode.

我也是用它做了类似的事情。

And, I used it for something similar too.

我们筹备超级碗创新峰会的时候，我让Claude回溯了我们之前的NFL节目，查了那些数据后来有没有更新，然后陪我一起核对，看看这些变化会不会影响我们原来的结论。

When we were preparing for our Super Bowl Innovation Summit, I had Claude go back through our old NFL episode and search the web for what numbers had actually changed since then, then go through it with me and figure out, if that changed any of our older conclusions.

是的

Yep.

正如Anthropic所说，Claude是为那些不满足于及格线的头脑打造的AI。

As Anthropic puts it, Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough.

它能真正理解你的整个工作流程，和你一起思考。

It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you.

无论你是半夜调试代码，还是规划下一个商业决策，Claude都会延伸你的思维，帮你解决真正重要的问题。

Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter to you.

所以，无论你是推出下一个划时代的产品，还是应对需要深度思考的难题，Claude Opus 4.6都会和你一起拆解复杂性，而不是替你做决定。

So whether you are shipping the next great product or tackling problems that need deep thinking, Claude Opus four point six thinks through complexity with you, not for you.

它是你聪明的思考伙伴。

It's your intelligent thinking partner.

如果你准备好了迎接更大的挑战，现在就去 claude.ai/acquired 开始使用Claude吧。

So if you're ready to tackle bigger problems, get started with Claude today at claude.ai/acquired.

如果你想了解他们的企业级服务，记得告诉他们是Ben和David推荐的。

And if you wanna explore their enterprise offerings, just tell them that Ben and David sent you.

好的。

Alright.

我们接着聊这个板块吧？

Should we, move on to category?

对。

Yeah.

今天我想换个方式来聊这个板块。

So I'd like to do category a little bit different today.

我想先花点时间聊聊，这个并购到底是怎么回事。

I'd to do a little bit of discussion for beforehand of sort of like, you know, why did this merger happen?

他们到底看中了对方什么？

Like, what did they see in each other?

Activision 为什么偏偏要这么做？

And and, you know, why did Activision sort of make this play to make it happen?

因为Vivendi Games，也就是暴雪那边，显然需要Activision的营销和发行能力，而Activision也看到，暴雪一款接一款地推出爆款在线游戏，这些游戏可不是那种玩一遍就完的主机游戏。

Because, you know, Vivendi Games, which Blizzard, probably wanted Activision's kind of marketing and distribution, and Activision obviously, you know, looked over and and Blizzard had hit after hit after hit of online games, games that really were, you know, they were not these sort of console games that you'd play through once and be done.

我的意思是，当时我说的在线游戏，指的就是《魔兽世界》，那简直是个庞然大物，持续运转，源源不断地产生巨额收入。

I mean, it was and when I say online games, I mean World of Warcraft at that time, where it's just an incredible behemoth that kept going, kept generating revenue at an incredible scale.

所以这本质上是用营销和发行能力，换来了做这类大型多人在线游戏的机会。

So it's really trading sort of marketing and distribution in exchange for the ability to do these MMORPGs.

嗯，

Well, I

我觉得不只是《魔兽世界》，虽然那是暴雪当时的核心，但就算从现在回看，你也能看出暴雪所有IP的潜力——当时模组社区里已经出现了《DOTA》这样的苗头，说明这些游戏都有可能像今天这样，长期变现、持续成长，而不是像传统游戏那样，玩完就完。一直以来，游戏行业总被说成是靠爆款驱动的生意。

think not just World of Warcraft, even though that was very much the focus of Blizzard, like, maybe this is retrospective history, but I think with all the Blizzard properties you could see the potential for, because it was already happening in the modding community with Dota, you could see the potential for all of them to be what they've become which is monetized over time and things that grow and don't fade which you know in the the knock on the video game industry has always been, oh it's a hits driven business.

就像好莱坞那样，对吧？

Like Hollywood, right?

某种程度上确实如此，游戏上线前，谁也说不准它到底能火成什么样。

And like to a certain extent it still is in that before a game comes out you don't really know how well that game is gonna do.

但这个行业这些年的新变化在于，只要有了用户基础，站稳了脚跟，它就不会衰落，反而会越长越大。

But with what has happened in this innovation in the industry, once it has an audience and is working, it doesn't fade, it grows.

我想，这就是动视当时在暴雪身上看到的东西。

That's I think what Activision saw, I have to imagine what Activision saw in Blizzard.

是的

Yeah.

对暴雪来说，这其实是一种对冲，对吧？

And for Blizzard, it's kind of a hedge, right?

首先，他们再也不用再付钱给第三方公司来发行和发布游戏了。

It's the ability that, you know, number one, they don't have to pay like a separate entity anymore to actually publish and release their games.

他们自己就能把所有这些事情一并搞定。

They can sort of do all of that as one entity.

而且，万一新作没火，中间出现空窗期，他们还有这个资金充裕、稳当可靠的收入来源，能缓冲一下这种靠爆款驱动的业务风险。

But the other thing is that when there's a drought between titles, like if their next title didn't really hit, they have this, you know, well funded sort of, you know, cushy way to smooth out the the hits driven business.

没错

Yep.

而且，就像我们前面说的，暴雪能在九十年代那些疯狂的 Ownership 变动和起起落落中，始终坚持做出好游戏，这本身就是对他们创意实力的巨大肯定。

Well, and also, you know, like we said earlier in the show, think it's a huge testament to the creative energies at Blizzard that through all this nutso nineties era ownership changes and ups and downs, they kept making great.

他们始终专注于自己的核心，不断推出优秀的产品。

They stayed focused on what they did and made great products.

但我猜，对他们来说，能摆脱那个前法国国家水务公司，转投一家纯粹的游戏公司，肯定特别开心。

But I gotta imagine for them too, they're like, they must have been thrilled to get out from, you know, the former French national water company and be part of just a games company.

对。

Yep.

对。

Yep.

对。

Yep.

好吧。

Alright.

那我来试着给这次收购归个类，我觉得这属于一条业务线。

So I'll take a stab at acquisition core category and call this a business line.

Activision 之前确实自己搞游戏开发，也有些内部工作室，但规模和成功程度都远不如暴雪。

This is one that, you know, Activision was kind of in the business of doing their own game development with some studios in in house, but none nearly as successful as the scale of Blizzard.

而且确实，合并之后有不少协同效应，这个我们待会儿再聊。

And really, yeah, there's some synergies in in combining, and we can get to that later.

但我真觉得他们看中的关键点是：天啊。

But I really think that the big thing they saw here is, holy crap.

这是一条能赚钱的业务线，而暴雪独有的核心优势让它能持续运转下去。

This is a revenue generating business line, and the secret sauce within Blizzard allows it to happen over and

我觉得最有力的证明就是，如果你看动视暴雪作为上市公司在财报里划分的业务板块，他们把暴雪单独列为了一个独立的业务单元。

Well, I think the proof's in the pudding in that if you look at the reporting segments of Activision Blizzard as a public company in their financial results, they report Blizzard as a business line as a separate segment.

没错，确实如此。

So that's true.

不过我也想不起我们当初把迪士尼那一系列收购归到哪个类别了。

I think there is also an element though of I forget what category we assign to all of our Disney series of acquisitions.

但这里确实也有点像迪士尼的风格。

But there's definitely a Disney element here too.

是的。

Yeah.

感觉就像迪士尼收购皮克斯一样。

It feels like Disney buying Pixar.

对吧？

Right?

没错。

Exactly.

这些IP本身就有价值，现在又围绕它们拍电影、做周边商品，就像迪士尼当年围绕米老鼠这些IP慢慢建立起整个生态一样，动视暴雪的这些IP现在也开始走同样的路了。

It's like these are franchises that there is value both to the core games themselves, but now they're doing movies around these and, you know, merch and other you know, just like the Disney flywheel got created around Disney IP, you know, being Mickey and and others over time and all the movies, you know, a similar thing is starting to happen around these franchises at Activision Blizzard.

是的。

Yeah.

完全正确。

Absolutely.

好吧。

All right.

不然会怎么样呢？

What would have happened otherwise?

我觉得我们刚才已经稍微聊过这个了。

I feel like we talked about that, you know, sort of a little bit just now.

我很难想象暴雪当时作为维旺迪的一部分会感到开心。

And I can't imagine that Blizzard was super happy, you know, being part of Vivendi.

没错。

Right.

确实如此。

Right.

而且，他们本来也会继续做自己的游戏和产品。

And and yeah, they would have continued, you know, creating and doing their thing.

但现在回头看，九十年代到两千年初那些游戏和产品创新带来的成果，如今才真正被动视暴雪充分利用起来，发展出这么多新的业务。

But seeing all of the, you know, it almost feels like the fruits of the labor that resulted from all the game and product driven innovations throughout the nineties and kinda two thousands are really being harvested now by Activision Blizzard in terms of businesses that they're building on top of them.

对。

Mhmm.

要是还在维旺迪旗下，恐怕很难做到这些。

And that probably would have been hard within Vivendi.

是的。

Yeah.

这里有个问题。

And here's the question.

我是从两个角度来看的。

I this is coming at it from both sides.

一方面，从暴雪这边说，你觉得如果没有鲍比·科蒂克，他们还会推出《守望先锋》这样的游戏吗？

One, on the Blizzard side, you know, would they have produced something like Overwatch without Bobby Kotick?

我的意思是，我们会不会看到更多这种完全以商业为导向、优先考虑利润的游戏，而不是那种……

Like, would would we see, you know, these very aggressive, you know, business first games rather than sort of, like

是的。

Yeah.

而且我说的是，

Creative And I mean,

别搞错了。

make no mistake.

这确实很激进。

It is aggressive.

他们是两边都赚钱，你知道的。

Like, they are monetizing both ways, you know.

没错。

Yep.

你得先付钱买游戏，之后还得不断花小钱买内购。

You pay for it upfront and you have micro transactions over time.

对。

Yep.

而且他们特别积极地在打造整个生态体系。

And they're aggressive about building the ecosystem around it.

听说想加入《守望先锋联赛》当一支战队，入场费大概要两千万美元。

I mean, the buy in to have an Overwatch team in the Overwatch League, the the rumors are that it's like a $20,000,000 buy in per team.

天哪。

Wow.

他们把这款游戏和电竞战队的加盟机会包装成下一个大趋势，说错过就傻了，正因如此，价格才高得离谱。

They're building up this game and and the ability to buy a franchise in, you know, in the competitive world of esports as being, like, the next big thing, and you'd be a fool to miss out, and it's extremely expensive because of that.

我觉得，要不是有动视这一部分，恐怕不会有现在的《守望先锋》，也不会有动视暴雪如今的这种风格。

And I think that, you know, this is of what would have happened otherwise, I don't think we would see Overwatch and I don't think we would see a lot of the character of Blizzard Activision as it is today without that Activision component.

对。

Yep.

这倒挺有意思的。

It might be interesting.

再说，我对这个行业了解不够深，不好乱猜，但像Valve和Riot，咱们以前聊过，他们在游戏圈里做的事可不少。

And again, I don't think I know enough about the industry to really speculate here, but, you know, Valve and Riot Valve obviously, you know, does many things within gaming as we've talked about in episodes past.

他们靠着《DOTA 2》和《英雄联盟》，已经成长为规模庞大、影响力极强的公司了。

But with DOTA two that they control and then Riot with League of Legends, they've become huge companies and so powerful.

但要是暴雪当初没被并入动视，变成一家独立专注游戏的公司，说不定Valve和Riot会更强势，而暴雪根本不会出现在这个格局里。

But had Blizzard not been, you know, kinda put into its own sorta independent gaming focused company with Activision, maybe Valve and Riot would be even more powerful, you know, and Blizzard wouldn't be even part of the picture.

是啊。

Yeah.

这观点挺有意思。

That's interesting.

这挺有意思的。

That's interesting.

你觉得如果动视没收购或合并暴雪，他们会做什么？

What do you think Activision would have done if they didn't buy or merge with Blizzard?

因为他们真的错过了MOBA这一波浪潮。

Because they they really missed MOBAs.

我是说，他们错失了这么大的机会。

I mean, they missed this enormous wave.

这简直就像微软错过了移动互联网。

It's almost like Microsoft missing mobile.

是的。

Yeah.

确实如此。

Really, they they did.

而且我不是说，这种现象在行业浪潮中特别有意思——旧的游戏模式其实也没消失。

I mean, and it's not to say that I think this is also a dynamic that happens with these waves that I think is super interesting is that the old paradigm of video games didn't go away either.

而这一切都是动视创造出来的。

And Activision's created that.

比如《使命召唤》，就像你说的，能赚几十亿美元。

Like Call of Duty, you know, like you're saying, makes billions of dollars.

但这种方式其实是个低效的商业模式，因为你得投上几亿美金做内容，跟拍电影一样。

But it just makes it in a way that is a inferior business model because it's like you invest hundreds of millions of dollars in creating the content just like movies Mhmm.

然后发布出去，在一段时间内赚钱，之后就慢慢过气了。

And then you release it and then you monetize it for, you know, a window and then it fades.

所以他们其实也照样能混得不错，对吧？

So like they still would have done fine, right?

但他们就会错过暴雪带来的那种增长、创新，还有更优的商业模式。

But all the growth and the innovation and the better business model that Blizzard has, they would have missed out on.

没错。

Yep.

还有另外两点我想提一下，是我自己也还没想清楚的问题。

And then two other things that I wanna point out that I think are questions that I don't have answers for.

各位听众，如果你对游戏行业有所了解，欢迎加入 acquired.fm 的 Slack 群组。

And listeners, if you if you know about the video games industry, join us at acquired.fm in the Slack.

我们非常期待听到你们对这些问题的看法。

We would love to hear your answers to these.

至于暴雪和动视，就像我们在先锋广场实验室做事时说的那样，如果长时间投入一个项目却没把它做成公司，就会出现一种代价高昂的‘死亡项目’，比如他们搞了很久的《泰坦》，本来指望它成为下一个爆款。

But Blizzard Activision, you know, had a as we as we put it at Pioneer Square Labs, when we work on something for a long time and don't create a company out of it, a very expensive kill called Titan, where they worked on this game for a long time, and it was supposed to be the next big thing.

结果呢，这个项目被砍掉了。

And, you know, it was it was killed.

我想问的是，如果当时只有暴雪，他们会坚持下去，哪怕困难重重也要把它做出来吗？

And the question is, in my mind, if it were just Blizzard, like, would they have believed in it and persevered through it and shipped it anyway?

还是说，这个耗资巨大的项目会一直烧钱，最终真的能面世吗？

Or, you know, would the expensive project have have just would they have continued to pour money onto it and would it have seen the light of day?

这个我也不确定。

I don't know.

但我猜测，这更多是动视的风格，而不是暴雪的做派。

But I speculate that that has more to do with Activision than Blizzard.

还有另一件事我想提一下，下一个备受期待的作品本该是《暗黑破坏神3》，结果却彻底失败了。

And then the the other thing I wanna point out is the next big thing was also supposed to be Diablo three, and that was a total flop.

确实如此。

And Yep.

我还想补充一点。

I'd also update

不过我不觉得它算失败。

Well, I don't know if it was a flop.

我的意思是，它应该还是盈利的，只是没达到其他系列那样的高度。

I mean, it was I think it was successful, but just not to the degree of these other franchises.

没错。

Yeah.

现在门槛太高了，如果你不是那种顶级IP，根本没人会在意。

And I mean, the stakes are high are so high now that if you're not like one of these other franchises, you just don't matter.

对。

Yep.

对吧？

Right?

像这种行业，前期投入巨大，但一旦成功，收入也极其可观。

Like, in these businesses that have incredibly high capital requirements and then incredibly, high revenues after that.

是的。

Yep.

是的。

Yep.

我觉得它不太适合电竞和观赛这种模式，而其他那些系列在这方面做得特别成功。

I mean, no doubt it's, well, I think it's less well adapted to the, you know, esports and viewing model, that these other franchises, you know, have been so successful with.

所以它的潜力相对有限。

So it's just it it just has less potential.

不过我觉得暴雪还是把《暗黑破坏神》当成核心IP，挺值得期待他们会怎么发展它。

But but, you know, I think Blizzard views Diablo as a core franchise and, you know, it'll be super interesting to see what directions they take it in.

你看最初的《暗黑破坏神》，其实开创了围绕装备的经济体系，很多人特别喜欢在线交易物品。

You know, I I see huge potential like the original Diablo, you know, sort of created this idea of an economy around items and, like, people love, you know, trading stuff online.

所以我觉得这方面未来潜力巨大。

So I see huge potential for that going forward.

对。

Yep.

说得好。

Great point.

科技主题？

Tech themes?

科技主题。

Tech themes.

天啊。

Oh man.

老样子了。

Per usual.

我觉得我们已经聊得挺多了。

I think we've covered a lot of them.

是的。

Yeah.

你知道吗，我觉得我们这档节目已经聊过很多了，但有一个特别重要的想法，就是打造一个平台，让各种用户都能自由发挥、创造和表达。

You know, I think for me there's we've talked about a lot on this show already but one that I think is super powerful is just this idea of creating, enabling, building and then creating, enabling a platform for users of all types of it to then be creative themselves.

如果你能在某个领域把这个做得很好，围绕你的产品建立起一个市场，而且这个市场是激发全新创意和创业精神的，那就能在任何行业里培育出一个庞大的生态系统。

And if you can execute that well in whatever domain and essentially create a marketplace around what you're doing, but a marketplace where you're enabling new types of creativity and really entrepreneurialism, that's how you can grow just an enormous ecosystem in any type of business.

具体来说，我指的是暴雪发布的模组引擎、战役编辑器和地图编辑器。

And and so specifically, I'm talking about the the the modding engine and the campaign and maps editors that Blizzard released.

这直接催生了一个如今价值数百亿美元的产业，涵盖电子竞技和MOBA游戏。

I mean, it literally created this, you know, industry that is tens of billions of dollars now in in combined in esports and MOBAs.

我还想到其他例子，比如苹果在某种程度上也是这样。

And I think about in other, you know, I think Apple was like this in a way.

就像软件行业的发展，其实很大程度上是得益于苹果提供的支持。

Like, you know, the industry that was created around software, you know, was really Apple enabling.

再比如面向对象编程，它让人们能开发应用并发布到iOS平台；还有像Square或Stripe这样的公司，让普通人也能轻松开店做生意。

And then next, you know, in object oriented programming enabling people to, you know, build things and release it on the platform or iOS or, you know, even sorta like Square in a way, enabling people to go into business and be merchants or Stripe.

对。

Yep.

是的。

Yeah.

我也这么觉得。

Think so.

我们一直提到的另一个重点，是暴雪最近推出的《魔兽》电影所体现的IP飞轮效应。

Another big one that we keep touching on is is really this concept of sort of the IP flywheel that Blizzard released the Warcraft movie recently.

挺值得期待的，看看他们能不能把游戏里的IP成功延伸到线下体验、电影、电视剧和周边玩具这些领域。

And it'll be interesting to see, you know, how well they're able to parlay the IP from these games into, you know, physical locations, into cinema, into TV shows, into toys.

现在当然还远赶不上迪士尼的规模，但我很好奇，暴雪、动视和拳头这些公司，通过游戏塑造的角色和故事，能不能像迪士尼那样，让观众对这些英雄和角色产生如此深厚的认同感，并以此构建完整的商业生态。

You know, it's nowhere near the level that Disney is now, but it's an open question to me if the sort of storyline and character development and affinity for these characters that Blizzard Activision and that Riot and, you know, these games are doing for the, you know, the heroes and characters and champions in these games, if they'll be able to really parlay that the same way that Disney has with, you know, the the characters in their universe.

是的。

Yeah.

你已经能看到一些迹象了，比如MLG被收购，这跟迪士尼收购各种资产、构建自己的飞轮体系很相似。

Well, and you can start to see the pieces falling into place with, the Major League Gaming acquisition and the analogies to Disney and all of the assets Disney owns that are part of its flywheel.

我就在想ESPN这个例子。

You know, and I'm thinking in particular of ESPN.

我觉得暴雪和动视暴雪面临的挑战是，他们并不拥有Twitch，对吧？

You know, the the challenge I think for Blizzard is and Activision Blizzard is is they don't own Twitch, right?

亚马逊拥有Twitch，那Twitch是不是相当于这里的ESPN？

Amazon owns Twitch and is Twitch the ESPN here?

我觉得情况肯定不太一样，毕竟这是两个不同的世界。

And I think that obviously the dynamics will be slightly different as it's a different world.

但就像我们之前提到的，他们在MOBA领域起步太晚了——虽然为这个类型打下了基础，却直到太晚才加入。

But as we've pointed out throughout the show with as they sorta were late to the game with MOBAs, know, sorta laid the groundwork for the MOBA genre to emerge but then didn't participate in until too late.

目前暴雪的这个飞轮体系里，还缺了好几个关键环节。

There's several elements of the flywheel that are kinda missing, are holes in the chain for for Blizzard right now.

所以很值得看看，他们是打算自己慢慢搭建这些环节吗？

So it'll be interesting to see like, do they continue trying to build them in house?

还是说，他们会直接收购？

Do they buy things?

我不觉得他们会再收购其他公司，这完全在情理之中。

I wouldn't be surprised at all to see more acquisitions coming down the pipeline for for Blizzard.

是的。

Yeah.

值得一提的是，听众朋友们，他们还收购了King公司，就是做《糖果传奇》的那家。

It's worth noting listeners, they also bought King Yeah.

没错。

Right.

他们买下《糖果传奇》花了多少钱？

Of Candy Crush for what?

那可是

That's

将近

like close to

59亿美元。

$5,900,000,000.