游戏王科蒂克 Bobby Kotick king of the gamers

Two years ago, 150m iPhones sold and $10bn in annual App Store spending could not persuade Bobby Kotick to take an interest in mobile gaming. The chief executive of Activision Blizzard, the world’s largest video games company, still worried that mobile games were all one-hit wonders, like Angry Birds and Flappy Bird, at a time when its latest Call of Duty title was minting $1bn on its first day on sale.

两年前，1.5亿部iPhone的销量以及App Store 100亿美元的年消费额都没能使得鲍比科蒂克(Bobby Kotick)对手游产生些许兴趣。全球最大视频游戏公司——动视暴雪(Activision Blizzard)的首席执行官当时仍然担心手游只是昙花一现，就像《愤怒的小鸟》(Angry Birds)和Flappy Bird一样，而当时动视最新版《使命召唤》(Call of Duty)首日发行就将10亿美元收入囊中。

“Right now we just don’t see anything that would suggest that changing the way we approach investing against mobile would be a good idea,” Mr Kotick told analysts on an earnings call in 2013.

“眼下我们只是不认为有任何迹象表明，我们改变不投资手游的姿态会是个好主意，”科蒂克在2013年一次财报电话会议中向分析师们表示。

At the beginning of the decade, when many in the industry were chasing after Zynga’s FarmVille and other “social” games for Facebook, Mr Kotick had made a similarly counterintuitive move by launching Skylanders, a range of interactive toys. Sparking copycats from Disney to Nintendo, Skylanders became a $3bn franchise selling 250m action figures, while Zynga’s business has shrunk into irrelevance.

本十年初，在游戏行业很多公司都在追逐Zynga的《乡村度假》(FarmVille)以及Facebook上其他“社交”游戏之际，科蒂克作出了同样貌似违反直觉的举动——推出互动玩具系列《小龙斯派罗》(Skylanders)。已引起迪士尼(Disney)和任天堂(Nintendo)效仿的《小龙斯派罗》，成为了一个售出2.5亿人形玩偶、总值30亿美元的特许销售系列，与此同时Zynga的业务则缩水至无足轻重的规模。

Even if social gaming turned out to be a fad, however, the decision to overlook mobile would soon catch up with Mr Kotick. By the end of 2013, an addictive puzzle app called Candy Crush Saga was being played by 93m people every day. Last year, it drove revenues of $2.2bn for its developers, King Digital.

然而，尽管社交游戏到头来被证明是一时的风尚，但对手游不屑一顾的决定很快就让科蒂克蒙受损失。2013年底，令人欲罢不能的益智App《糖果粉碎传奇》(Candy Crush Saga)的日均游戏玩家达到9300万。去年，该款游戏为其开发公司King Digital带来了22亿美元的收入。

This week, the 52-year-old Mr Kotick finally responded in bold style. Activision agreed to buy King for $5.9bn, creating a company with a combined audience of 500m monthly players.

最近，52岁的科蒂克终于决定大胆出手。动视同意斥资59亿美元收购King Digital，缔造一家拥有月均5亿玩家受众的公司。

What Mr Kotick calls his “disciplined, deliberate and methodical” dealmaking has made Activision Blizzard the most valuable company in videogaming, its market capitalisation hitting a new all-time high this week of $27bn.

被科蒂克称为“中规中矩、深思熟虑、有条有理”的交易撮合，使动视暴雪成为视频游戏界估值最高的公司，最近其总市值创下了270亿美元的历史新高。

Growing up in Long Island, New York, Mr Kotick was hustling from an early age, selling sandwiches and wallets at school. He started his first company, selling software for the Apple II personal computer, while studying art and literature at the University of Michigan. Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder, persuaded him to drop out to pursue it full-time.

科蒂克在纽约州长岛长大，从小就忙于赚钱，在学校里卖三明治和钱包。在密歇根大学(University of Michigan)学习艺术和文学期间，他创办了自己第一家公司，出售苹果二代(Apple II)个人电脑所用的软件。苹果(Apple)联合创始人史蒂夫吠布斯(Steve Jobs)说服科蒂克辍学，全职经营公司。

Among the big names in Mr Kotick’s vast network, it was Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas hotels billionaire, who gave Mr Kotick his start, writing a $300,000 cheque for the 20-year-old after they met at the Cattle Barons’ Ball in Dallas.

科蒂克的庞大人脉网中包含许多大名鼎鼎的人物，拉斯维加斯酒店业亿万富翁史蒂夫韦恩(Steve Wynn)便是其中之一。韦恩给科蒂克提供了一个起点，两人在达拉斯的募款活动Cattle Barons’ Ball上见面后，韦恩给这位20岁的小伙子签了一张30万美元的支票。

The Apple software business was shortlived but, a few years later, Mr Wynn supported another venture by Mr Kotick: his attempt to revive a struggling games company called Mediagenic. Spun out of Atari, a maker of home computers, in 1979, the company had made popular games with titles such as Kaboom! and Pitfall. But by 1990, it had lost all its founders and the video games market had stalled.

这家苹果软件公司经营的时间不长，但是，几年后韦恩又出资支持了科蒂克另一项冒险：试图重振举步维艰的游戏公司Mediagenic。1979年从家用电脑制造商雅达利(Atari)分离出来后，Mediagenic曾打造了Kaboom!和《逃离险境》(Pitfall)等热门游戏。但是到了1990年，该公司失去了所有的创始人，同时视频游戏市场陷入停滞。

Mr Kotick bought a stake of the company for $400,000, moved it to Los Angeles and gave it back its original name: Activision. Gamers started gravitating towards the couch, playing games on televisions hooked up to powerful set-top consoles instead of sitting at computer screens, and the company followed them, doing ever-larger deals. LA studio Neversoft produced its first hit of the PlayStation era, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, in 1999. He picked up Guitar Hero — in which players put themselves in the shoes of Freddie Mercury, sporting plastic guitars that plug in to all major brands of console — for $100m in 2007. It became the first such game to reach $1bn in sales. That year also saw the first big hit of the Call of Duty franchise: Modern Warfare, which centres around special forces missions.

科蒂克以40万美元购买了该公司的股份，将公司迁往洛杉矶，并重新启用了原有名称——动视(Activision)。游戏玩家开始沉迷于坐在沙发上，将电视连上强大的机顶游戏机后玩游戏、而不是坐在电脑屏幕前，而动视追随着游戏玩家，交易越做越大。1999年，位于洛杉矶的游戏工作室Neversoft凭借《职业滑板高手》(Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater)在PlayStation时代一鸣惊人。2007年，科蒂克斥资1亿美元收购了《吉他英雄》(Guitar Hero)——在该游戏中，玩家扮成弗雷迪墨丘利(Freddie Mercury)，弹起可以连接所有主要品牌游戏机的塑料吉他。该游戏成为了同类游戏中首款销售额突破10亿美元的游戏。那一年也见证了《使命召唤》系列的首款成功游戏《现代战争》(Modern Warfare)一炮打响。该游戏以特种部队的任务为题材。

Mr Kotick has a knack for minting blockbuster franchises that makes his friends in Hollywood jealous. But to critics — who have compared him with everyone from Star Wars baddie Emperor Palpatine to the cartoon villain Scrooge McDuck — the annual Call of Duty update puts profit ahead of creativity.

科蒂克缔造畅销系列的本事让他在好莱坞的朋友们眼红。但是对批评者而言——他们把科蒂克比作各色人物，从《星球大战》(Star Wars)中的大反派皇帝帕尔普廷(Emperor Palpatine)，到卡通反派角色史高治麦克老鸭(Scrooge McDuck)——每年一个新版的《使命召唤》将利润置于创造力之上。

Friends call that unfair. “He is an entrepreneur and a very bottom-line businessman,” says Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation. “But beyond that he is a very smart and intuitively great creative talent.”

朋友们认为这样说不公平。“他是企业家，是非常注重盈亏的商人，”梦工厂动画电影公司(DreamWorks Animation)的首席执行官杰弗里愠森伯格(Jeffrey Katzenberg)称，“但是除此之外，他还是一个非常聪明、在直觉上极具创造力的天才。”

Mr Kotick certainly has a sizeable pay packet: he earned $6.9m last year, and made $64.9m in 2012, including a four-year stock scheme. Among the other beneficiaries of that wealth is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where Mr Kotick is a trustee.

当然，科蒂克有着非常可观的薪水：去年他赚了690万美元，2012年赚了6490万美元，其中包括一项为期4年的股票计划。他的财富的受益人包括洛杉矶艺术博物馆(Los Angeles County Museum of Art)，他是该博物馆的一个受托人。

“He’s very generous and has been key to assembling the next generation of philanthropists,” says Lacma director Michael Govan, whom Mr Kotick convinced to move to LA from New York to take the post in 2006. “I can tell you first hand, he is a very persuasive person.”

“他非常慷慨，对组织下一代慈善家起着关键性的作用，”洛杉矶艺术博物馆的总监迈克尔戈万(Michael Govan)称，“我能以自己的亲身经历告诉你，他是一个非常有说服力的人。”2006年，戈万被科蒂克说服从纽约搬到洛杉矶接受这个职位。

But at Activision, Mr Kotick can be less generous with company funds. “Bobby is really tight and makes sure they don’t overpay for anything,” says Michael Pachter, games analyst at Wedbush Securities. “He throws nickels around like they are manhole covers.”

但是在动视，科蒂克对公司的资金就没那么大度了。“鲍比管钱真的很紧，确保不花任何冤枉钱，”韦德布希证券公司(Wedbush Securities)的游戏分析师迈克尔帕赫特(Michael Pachter)称，“他花5分钱的硬币就像它们像窨井盖那么沉重似的。”

Mr Kotick’s own nickels are on the line. Together with Activision’s co-chairman Brian Kelly, he invested $100m two years ago as part of the $8.2bn deal to buy out Vivendi, the French media group that held a majority stake in the game maker. Even after that huge transaction and now the King deal, he is not standing still. Last month he hired the former chief executive of sports network ESPN to broadcast video games being played competitively. Movie offshoots are in the works, too.

经营好坏关系到科蒂克自己的硬币。两年前，在那笔总值82亿美元、回购维旺迪（Vivendi，持有动视大部分股份的法国媒体集团）所持股份的交易中，科蒂克与动视联名主席布赖恩凯利(Brian Kelly)联手投入了1亿美元。即使是在完成了那笔巨额交易、以及如今又收购King Digital后，他仍然没有停下脚步。10月份，他聘请了体育电视网ESPN的前首席执行官来播放竞争性的视频游戏。电影项目也在筹备中。

“He’s a great storyteller,” says Mr Katzenberg. “I don’t think I could touch him at his game.”

“他是一个出色的讲述者，”梦工厂动画电影公司的卡森伯格称，“我觉得我没法在他的领域望其项背。”