6月21日,一则简短的公告震动了全球游戏界,腾讯在该公告中正式宣布将以86亿美元收购芬兰著名游戏开发商Supercell,史无前例的收购价格、近年来频繁的收购布局,腾讯进一步扩大了在全球游戏市场的领先地位。不过有趣的是,对比网友对于此次收购的议论纷纷、褒贬不一,当事公司Supercell倒显得十分轻松。
在腾讯公告发布后不到半小时,Supercell公司CEO Ilkka Paananen在其官网发布了一份轻松俏皮的致玩家信,解释了收购的经过,以及选择腾讯合作的原因。他在信中很高兴地表示,“Supercell接下来仍将继续独立营运”, 期待“迎接Supercell的新篇章”。
腾讯总裁刘炽平和SupercellCEO Ilkka Paananen
原文标题:
THE NEXT CHAPTER: OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH TENCENT
Hey Everyone,
I wanted to write a quick post to announce the world's worst kept secret :) Yes...Tencent, the world's biggest games company, has taken a lead to purchase SoftBank's investment in Supercell and will be our new strategic partner.
这里,我想对于这个世界上“最不是秘密的秘密”写一个简单的回应。
是的……全球最大的游戏公司腾讯主导收购了软银在Supercell的所有投资并且成为了我们新的战略伙伴。
There have been a lot of rumors in the media about this in the past month, so I wanted to use this opportunity to tell you what happened, why and what makes me so excited about it.
全球媒体在过去一个月已经对此事流言纷纷,所以我今天想借此机会和大家说明一下到底发生了什么,为什么会发生这件事,以及是什么让我对这次的合作充满兴奋。
Some background first. A while back, Masa (the founder of SoftBank, and our Chairman) told me that if we were able to find a new partner, he would like to sell SoftBank's shares in Supercell to finance what he called SoftBank's 2.0 transformation strategy.
先和大家交代一下背景吧。前一阵子,孙正义(软银创始人、我们之前的公司主席)和我说,如果我们能找到新的合作伙伴,他愿意出售软银手上Supecell的股份来推行他称作“软银2.0”转型战略。
This meant we at Supercell needed to think hard and do some soul-searching. What is it really that we want to accomplish with Supercell? What is it that we value in a partner? It may sound funny, but when we finally got our thoughts together, the choice was actually surprisingly easy. Let me explain why.
这意味着我们需要沉下心来认真考虑,并拷问我们自己的内心:我们Supercell到底想要达成怎样的愿景?我们想要什么样的合作伙伴?这听起来可能有点不真实,但是当我们最终收集所有人的意见的时候,我们发现原来要作这个选择,其实是如此的简单。下面我来解释一下其中的原因:
For us, today is all about chasing a future for Supercell that we have always dreamed of. We founded this company to make great games that people all over the world would play for decades. We have been very lucky as over the past six years we've released four top games that are now played by over 100 million people every single day (you may have seen our little celebration here). But more than this, we dream of our current and future games becoming a part of the rich history of games, living onto the very long term. And if you take this very long-term view, you quickly realize that we are still at the beginning of what will hopefully be a very long journey.
As we started to spend more time getting to know potential strategic partners, it became apparent to us that a partnership with Tencent would secure everything that has made Supercell a success, while also enabling us to take a few pretty big leaps on this journey I mentioned above. Here's why:
对我们来说,今天是为了追寻 supercell的未来,那个我们一直梦寐以求的未来。我们创立了这家公司就是为了给全世界的创造可以玩几代人的游戏。我们非常幸运,在过去六年中我们已经制作了四款顶级游戏,每天有超过一亿玩家在玩它们(你能感受到我们这里的小小自豪)。我们梦想,梦想着我们现在和未来所制作的游戏,可以成为游戏浩瀚历史的一部分,并长盛于此。而如果把眼光放得足够长远的话,您可以很快发现我们仅仅是在万里长征第一步。
所以我们一直在寻在潜在的战略合作伙伴,而显而易见与腾讯的合作可以带给Supercell成功所需要的一切,而且可以让我们在这个发展过程中取得重要的跳跃式发展,以下是我们选择腾讯的4个主要原因:
First, we have agreed with Tencent that Supercell will continue to be operationally independent, exactly as it was under SoftBank's ownership. They understand that our unique culture of small and independent teams (or "cells" as we call them) is what makes Supercell. We want Supercell to continue to be the world's best place for creative people to create games. Also, our headquarters will stay in Helsinki and we will pay our taxes in Finland. All of this is very important for us.
首先,我们与腾讯达成共识,Supercell接下来仍将继续独立营运,这和在软银旗下的时候别无二致。腾讯非常理解Supercell之所以为Supercell是因为我们独特的小而美的独立团队(我们内部称之为“细胞”)文化。我们双方都希望Supercell可以继续为世界上最有创意的游戏人提供最好的工作环境。而且,我们的总部仍然继续留在赫尔辛基,并且仍在芬兰纳税,而这些对我们来说都是非常重要的。
Second, China is home to more gamers than any other country. Tencent's platforms reach around a billion users (yes, a billion!). And, they have around 300 million unique users playing games on their platforms. What this means for us is that together with Tencent, we can bring our games to so many more players. Also, their social platforms offer many new possibilities for our games, particularly for social play. All of this is very exciting!
第二,中国的游戏玩家数是全球最多的。腾讯的平台覆盖用户量超过10亿人(是的,是10亿!)。而且在他们的平台上有超过3亿独立用户在玩游戏。而这就意味着,与腾讯携手,我们可以将游戏带给更多的玩家。而且他们的社交平台给我们的游戏提供了更大的机会,特别是社交玩法方面,所有这一切都是非常令人激动的。
Third, Tencent's people seem to love games as much as we do. In fact, in one of my meetings with Martin (their President), he had just dropped out from Clash Royale global top-100 players, and it was almost impossible to get his focus back to the topics we had to discuss… talk about being passionate about games! J On a more serious note, Tencent has built a hugely successful partnership with Riot Games, a team we greatly admire and that has inspired us over the years in so many ways. Now we'll have an excuse to call Riot and talk shop more often!
第三,腾讯人和我们一样热爱游戏。实际上,在我和Martin(腾讯总裁刘炽平)会面期间,他在《皇室战争》当中的排名因此掉出了全球前100名,他期间还因此在开会时走神,忘了我们讨论的话题…但讨论游戏的时候非常有热情。再者,认真的说,腾讯与拳头公司(Riot Games)的合作已经获得巨大的成功,而这家我们一直敬仰的公司已然在各方各面给我们带来很多启发。现在,我们终于有借口经常和拳头公司联系并好好聊聊游戏这个老本行了。
And fourth, this deal enables us to keep Supercell privately held. That is a better match with our small size and unique culture than being a public company where our concern would be the pressure from financial markets to think short term. However, while enabling us to stay private, the partnership with Tencent provides us with some of the benefits of being public: as part of this transaction, our employees will be able to sell their shares in Supercell over time (everyone at Supercell is an owner). The total equity value of $10.2 billion dollars also recognizes the value of the phenomenal company that our people have built.
第四,这次交易可以保证我们Supercell继续维持私营身份,对我们的小团队和独特的文化来说,目前的独立状态比上市更好,我们不用为了短期利益而受到来自财务方面的压力。然而,除了保证我们私营之外,与腾讯的合作还可以给我们带来所有上市公司拥有的优势,作为本次交易的一部分,我们Supercell的员工可以在未来按照意愿卖掉手中的Supercell股份(所有人都有股份)。这次102亿美元的估值,也是对我们Supercell人打造的现象级公司的认可。
Finally, I would like to thank a few people (because I am Finnish I will keep this short :)
First of all, a huge thank you to all the players whose passion for our games both inspires and humbles us. It is because of you we come to work excited every day! We feel so grateful to all of you!
最后,我想感谢一些人(作为芬兰人, 我就长话短说了)
首先,最需要感谢的是所有热爱我们游戏以及认可我们的玩家们,是你们让Supercell有了今天激动人心的时刻,我们对于所有人都满怀感激。
Also, I want to personally thank Masa, the founder of SoftBank, for his support during the time I had the honor of working with him. He truly is an incredible entrepreneur, and I learned enormously from him during our time together. Luckily, as Masa said to me, our business partnership may end due to changing strategies, but our friendship will stay forever.
另外,我从个人角度还希望感谢孙正义,也就是软银创始人,感谢过去有幸与他合作的期间他带来的支持。他真的是一个非常优秀的企业家,我这段时间从他那里也学到了很多。让我们感到幸运的是,如孙正义对我说的那样,“由于策略的转变,我们的业务合作可能会终结,但我们两人之间的友谊永存。
And, of course, thank you to my fellow Supercellians, all 190 of them. It really is incredible to work alongside people who work so hard to provide our players with the best possible experience, every single day. I feel so proud and lucky for the opportunity to be part of this incredible team.
当然,我也要感谢190位超级细胞们!能够和如此努力为玩家提供最佳游戏体验的人一起工作是非常奇妙的经历,真心是每一天都是非常美好的。能够有机会成为这个优秀团队的一员,我觉得自豪和幸运。
Perhaps this post was not so short after all :) Anyway, here's to the next chapter! I have worked in games for 16 years now and I have never been more excited.
Kiitos!
Ilkka
这个说好的简短回应看起来已经不算短了哈哈。不过不管怎样,现在让我们一起迎接Supercell的新篇章吧!!在游戏这一行已经干了16年了,我从来没有像现在这么激动过!
谢谢大家!!
Ilkka
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