Roblox上初の大手ゲーム企業を目指すGamefam

今回は「Roblox上初の大手ゲーム企業を目指すGamefam」についてご紹介します。

関連ワード （Gamefam、Roblox等） についても参考にしながら、ぜひ本記事について議論していってくださいね。

本記事は、TechCrunch様で掲載されている内容を参考にしておりますので、より詳しく内容を知りたい方は、ページ下の元記事リンクより参照ください。

Robloxは2020年にものすごい成長を遂げてから米国時間3月10日に上場したが、同社の社員と投資家にとって良いニュースばかりではない。Gamefamのような他のスタートアップが、このプラットフォームの成功に乗じようとしている。

Robloxにはそのゲームプラットフォーム上に多数のデベロッパーとクリエイターのエコシステムがあり、その一部は共同で独自のチームやスタジオを作っている。2021年初めに同社のクリエイターのためのアクセラレーターを紹介する記事で、そんなチームを取り上げたことがある。しかしGamefamの創業者でCEOのJoe Ferencz（ジョー・フェレンツ）氏は、彼のスタートアップが「Roblox上で初めてかつ唯一のプロフェッショナルによるゲーム専門企業だ」と語っている。

関連記事：Robloxは開発者向けアクセラレーター講座で同社プラットフォームの新たな可能性を引き出す

2019年に創業したGamefanには現在、社員が37名いて、「Ultimate Driving」や「Hot Wheels Open World」といったライブゲームが8本ある。フェレンツ氏によると、さらに10本を開発中だという。これらのゲームは4800万の月間ビジターがいて、6桁の売り上げを上げている。

フェレンツ氏は同社のチームが「優秀な新進のRobloxクリエイターたちと共同で仕事をしているゲーム業界のプロフェッショナルたちである」と述べている。たとえば「Ultimate Driving」を開発したTwentyTwoPilotsは、Gamefamのクリエイティブディレクターだ。

フェレンツ氏自身は、UbisoftやMattelでマネージャーを務め、Hot Wheelsといったプロダクトのデジタルサイドを担当した。そしてその間に彼は、無料でプレイできるモバイルゲームの台頭を目にしたという。「次にこんな大きなプラットフォームシフトが起きるときには、自分もその中にいたい」と考えたとのこと。Robloxとそのユーザー作成ゲームで、彼はその願いを叶えた。

画像クレジット：Gamefam

同時にフェレンツ氏は、Robloxではクリエイターたちが無料プレイゲームの「慣行」から外れても良いことを賞揚している。つまり経済性を優先しないゲームデザインが認められる、ということだ。

「Robloxの実態は若い世代のためのメタバースだ。彼らはそこで、人間同士の共同体験というゲームを超えたものを見つけている。つまりそれぞれのゲームに、そのゲームにしかない独自の魅力的な没入体験が必要だからだ。モバイルの無料プレイゲームにはそれがない」とフェレンツ氏はいう。

もちろん、Robloxの魅力の一部は、個人のクリエイターが大きなチームやゲーム会社で仕事をするよう、強要されないことにある。ただし「スーパースター級のデベロッパーやクリエイターたちはますます大きいゲームを作りたがるし、その凝り方は急速なペースで進化している」とフェレンツ氏はいう。そうなるとチームも大きくなり「工数も増えて、パフォーマンスの高いチームをどうやって作るか、ポジティブなチームワークを育てるための人間関係をどうやって維持するかといった問題が生まれる」。

フェレンツ氏は「そうやってビジネスとして大きくなると、企業としての商機とか、マーケティング、オペレーションの専門チームなどが必要になり、その部分をうち（Gamefam）が提供する」という。

フェレンツ氏とGamefamの経営スタッフは数年前からRobloxと関わっているが、「付き合いは長いが、未だにそこでゲームをしている10歳や、自分でゲームを作り始める15歳が何を考えているのか、十分に理解しているとはいえない。とにかく彼らを尊敬し、頼りきるしかない」と同氏はいう。

フェレンツ氏よるとGamefamのやり方の基本は、クリエイターたちがゲームの開発過程を主導している状態を確実に維持することだとのこと。

「どのプロジェクトにも1人または複数のひらめきに富んだ先の読める人物が必要で、彼らが方向を決めていくべきだ。そして彼らを中心としてチームが構成され、コンセンサスを作り、彼らのビジョンの方向へ進んでいくべきだ」とフェレンツ氏は表現する。

フェレンツ氏によると、Gamefamは今後、他のプラットフォームにもゲームを提供していきたいと語る。ただしそれは、かなり先の話だ。

「私たちのフォーカスはUGC（ユーザー作成コンテンツ）のゲームであり、今日のUGCゲームで重要な場所といえばRobloxしかない。Robloxのチームと一緒になって大きなブランドとメディア事業を育てたい。今後、他にも有力なプラットフォームが出てくれば、そういうプラットフォームも検討するだろう。しかし当分は、Robloxが唯一の存在だ」とフェレンツ氏は語る。

画像クレジット：Gamefam

【原文】

Roblox went public yesterday after seeing tremendous growth in 2020, which isn’t just good news for the company’s employees and investors — there are also startups like Gamefam hoping to take advantage of the platform’s success.

Roblox has a whole ecosystem of millions of developers and creators building on its game platform, and some are banding together to create their own teams and studios. (We profiled several of those teams earlier this year in an article about the company’s creator accelerator.) But Gamefam founder and CEO Joe Ferencz said his startup is “the first and only fully-dedicated, professional game publishing company on Roblox.”

Founded in 2019, Gamefan currently has 37 full-time employees and eight live games, including Ultimate Driving and Hot Wheels Open World, and Ferencz said there are another 10 in development. Collectively, those games are seeing 48 million monthly visitors and generating six figures in monthly revenue.

Ferencz described the team as “gaming industry professionals working hand-in-hand with the top up-and-coming Roblox creators.” For example, Ultimate Driving creator TwentyTwoPilots also serves as Gamefam’s creative director.

Ferencz himself has worked as a manager Ubisoft and Mattel, where he led the digital side of franchises like Hot Wheels, and where he recalled seeing the emergence of free-to-play mobile gaming: “I said to myself, ‘The next time there’s this big platform shift, I want to be a part of this.’” The rise of Roblox and user-created games provided him with that opportunity.

Image Credits: Gamefam

At the same time, Ferencz said he’s excited Roblox allows creators to escape from the “orthodoxies” of free-to-play gaming, where the economics often drive game design decisions.

“Roblox truly is the metaverse for this younger generation,” he argued. “What they are finding here is something that transcends gaming, it’s human co-experience. What that means is that each game needs to have a very distinctive and attractive immersion to it, in a way that mobile free-to-play doesn’t.”

Of course, part of Roblox’s appeal is the fact that individual creators don’t need to work with large teams or publishers, but Ferencz said, “Superstar developers and creators are thinking about bigger and bigger games, the sophistication is really evolving at a rapid pace.” That, in turn, means bigger teams, and “when you have bigger teams, you have more process, you need to know how to structure high-performing teams and drive positive teamwork between people.”

“As the business gets bigger, you need people focused on the business opportunities, dedicated marketing functions, a dedicated live operations team,” he continued. “That’s what we offer.”

Ferencz and Gamefan’s business team have been involved in the Roblox platform for several years now, but he admitted, “Although we get it, we don’t get it exactly the way people who have been playing on it since they were 10 and developing for it since 15 get it … We respect that and lean into that.”

So one of the key elements to the Gamefam approach, he said, is to make sure the creators are driving the game development process.

“We believe that there needs to be a visionary or a team of visionaries on each project, and that they need to decide what is right,” Ferencz said. “There will then be a team around them that is part of a consensus process, that the visionaries are responsible for bringing along for a ride.”

And as he thinks about Gamefam’s future, Ferencz said the company could eventually publish games on other platforms. Don’t expect it to happen anytime soon, though.

“Our focus is UGC gaming, and Roblox is the only place that matters in UGC gaming today,” he said. “We plan to build a huge brand and media business hand-in-hand with the Roblox platform. In the long term, if other platforms become relevant, then course we will be looking to evaluate and expand on those platforms —but the truth is, right now we couldn’t be more all about Roblox.”

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（文：Anthony Ha、翻訳：Hiroshi Iwatani）

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