陈民亮：我的工作就是打游戏

Gamers can dispatch evildoers in a nanosecond on a Razer laptop. But it takes Min-Liang Tan, the company’s founder and chief executive, more than an hour to travel 4km from Hong Kong’s Central district to the bustling Causeway Bay.

游戏玩家在雷蛇(Razer)笔记本电脑上可以瞬间干掉恶人。但雷蛇公司的创始人兼首席执行官陈民亮(Min-Liang Tan)花了一个多小时才完成了从香港中环到热闹的铜锣湾的4公里路程。

He was at the mercy of a rogue Uber driver who took a detour off Hong Kong island and, unperturbed at wasting the lawyer-turned-gaming tycoon’s time, suggested they grab some lunch together (he declined).

他对无赖的优步(Uber)司机无可奈何，后者在香港岛上绕路，泰然自若地浪费着这位曾当过律师的游戏大亨的时间，并建议他们一起随便吃点午饭(他拒绝了)。

Mr Tan, 39, confesses to fretting — he would not be the first businessman to be spirited away from Hong Kong soil — but he has made a few career detours.

39岁的陈民亮承认自己很恼火——他不是第一个在香港土地上被耍的商人——但他的职业生涯也绕过不少路。

He trained and practised as an intellectual property lawyer in Singapore. His parents told him and his three siblings they had two career choices: law or medicine. Two became lawyers, two doctors. “I didn’t tell them [about the career change] until a year-and-a-half later. By the time they figured it out, it was too late,” he concedes. He splits his time between Singapore, where he has citizenship, and San Francisco.

他在新加坡学习并成为了一名知识产权律师。他的父母告诉他们兄弟姐妹四人称，他们有两种职业选择：律师或医生。结果两人成了律师，两人成了医生。“我直到一年半之后才告诉他们(改行的事)。等他们弄明白时，已经太晚了，”他坦言。他一般往返于新加坡(他是新加坡公民)和旧金山。

Now worth $700m, according to Forbes, Mr Tan has secured the backing of leading investors. These include Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing; Lee Hsien Yang, youngest son of Singapore’s first prime minister, as well as those who have grown rich on the back of such Asian staples as clove cigarettes, McDonald’s burgers and banks. Razer is due to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange next month.

如今身家7亿美元(据福布斯(Forbes)的数据)的陈民亮得到了主要投资人的支持。他们包括香港大亨李嘉诚(Li Ka-shing);新加坡第一任总理的次子李显扬(Lee Hsien Yang);以及那些做丁香香烟等亚洲特色大宗商品、麦当劳(McDonald’s)汉堡和银行发家的大亨。雷蛇将于11月在港交所上市。

Min-Liang Tan’s guide to gamer terms

陈民亮游戏词汇指南

Leet — Elite, meaning top gamers

Leet——精英(Elite)，指顶级玩家

GG — Good game

GG——打得不错(Good game)

GLHF — Good luck, have fun

GLHF——好运，玩得尽兴(Good luck, have fun)

FTW — For the win!

FTW——必胜!(For the win!)

Pwned — a modification of “owned” — as in “you’ve been owned” — when an opponent has been defeated Pwned——“所属”(owned，比如“你归我了”)的变体，打败对手时使用

Yet in spite of wooing some of Asia’s wiliest investors, Mr Tan says one of his biggest challenges has been making investors understand his company, which makes money off gamers but does not make games — and the fact that the gaming community is its own mega demographic that comprises about one-third of the world’s population.

不过，尽管雷蛇争取到了亚洲部分最狡黠的投资人，但陈民亮称他面临的最大的挑战之一是让投资人理解他的公司(从游戏玩家身上赚钱，但不制作游戏)，以及明白一个事实——游戏群体就是该公司庞大的目标客户群，约占全世界人口的三分之一。

“We are the arms merchant of gaming,” he says, perched on a cuboid felt stool in Razer’s store. “We are not in the hit-and-miss game of gaming.” By which he means Razer sells the hardware, related software and services but does not publish the games that are the focal point, or breeding ground, for all the associated paraphernalia.

“我们是游戏界的军火商，”他坐在雷蛇店内一个方形沙发凳上说道，“我们不是在游戏行业里胡乱碰运气。”他指的是雷蛇销售硬件、相关软件和服务，但不发行游戏，而游戏是所有这些相关装备所围绕的中心点或者说源头。

The trouble for some is that the bulk of Razer’s revenues — 76 per cent in the latest calendar year — comes from hardware peripherals, such as laptops. A mobile device is due to be launched shortly.

对于一些投资人来说，问题在于雷蛇大部分收入——最近一个日历年是76%——来自硬件周边，比如笔记本电脑。移动设备将于不久后推出。

Software and services have not contributed a penny and are thus relatively untested, prompting some bankers to suggest it should be valued simply as a hardware company like Logitech. Razer’s management demurred.

软件和服务对收入没有丝毫贡献，因此这部分业绩相对未经检验，这使得一些银行人士认为雷蛇在估值时应该单纯被视为罗技(Logitech)之类的硬件公司。雷蛇的管理层对此表示反对。

Mr Tan’s tagline for Razer is “for gamers, by gamers” and he is a proud member of the 2.2bn-strong gaming fraternity. “I’ve always been a gamer. It’s all I do. I do my job and I game,” he says. The “one of us” is a key part of Razer’s pitch.

陈民亮给雷蛇定的理念是“始于玩家，赋予玩家”，他本人是22亿游戏玩家群体中自豪的一员。“我一直都是玩家。这就是我工作的全部。我的工作就是打游戏，”他表示。这种“自己人”的观念是雷蛇宣传的重要部分。

The lack of any industry reports on gaming made his job tougher, he says; there were no statistics showing this was a market with potential when he founded the company in 2005. Today, reports are plentiful and suggest his early hunch was correct: that this is a bigger market in sheer user numbers than even China or Facebook.

他表示，过去缺乏游戏业的行业报告，这使他的工作更加困难;当他2005年创办该公司时，没有任何数据表明这个市场存在潜力。如今，行业报告众多，并且表明他的早期直觉是正确的：这是一个庞大的市场，用户数量甚至超过中国人口和Facebook的用户。

The global industry generated more than $100bn in sales last year, according to data from consultancy Frost & Sullivan, quoted in Razer’s initial public offering prospectus, and is forecast to generate $133bn in 2021.

雷蛇IPO招股书援引咨询公司Frost & Sullivan的数据称，去年全球游戏行业的销售额超过1000亿美元，预计2021年将达到1330亿美元。

“We are just this massive subculture,” says Mr Tan. He points to its global language — GG for good game, whether you speak English, Chinese or Russian. And while gamers are called different names depending on location — nerds in the US, otaku in Japan, zhai nan in China — they exhibit universal characteristics.

“我们就是这个庞大的亚文化群，”陈民亮表示。他指出该群体有自己的全球通用语言，比如GG表示“打得不错”，无论你的母语是英语、汉语还是俄语。尽管不同的地区对游戏玩家的称呼不同——在美国被称为电脑迷(nerd)、在日本被称为御宅(otaku)、在中国被称为宅男——但他们都表现出了共同的特征。

Mr Tan notes that there are only two electronics companies where fans tattoo themselves with the logo: “Apple 20 years ago — and us.”

陈民亮指出，全球只有两家电子产品公司的粉丝会把公司标识纹在身上：“20年前的苹果(Apple)——和我们。”

The Apple analogy is helpful for the ecosystem as well as tattoos. Razer’s software platform, which has 35m users, enables users to open multiple games on their launch pages and store all their preferred settings on the cloud, so they can pick up playing on any device — including the mobile devices due to be launched.

与苹果相似所带来的好处不仅体现在纹身上，也体现在生态系统上。雷蛇的软件平台拥有3500万用户，它让用户可以在启动页面上同时打开多个游戏，并将其设置偏好存在云上，这样他们可以选择在任何设备(包括雷蛇即将推出的移动设备)上打游戏。

Hence too the creation of Razer zGold in March, a virtual credit system that can be used to purchase swords, shoes and magical powers for use in 2,500 games.

3月面世的雷蛇zGold也一样。这是一套虚拟信用系统，可以用于购买2500个游戏中的宝剑、鞋和魔力。

It is clear why all this makes for a good business model. You sell someone a mouse but you may never see them again. You sell them a service and you have data on them, the games they play, their spending habits, and you can sell them more. It is less clear why game publishers would welcome a new player on to their turf, but Mr Tan sees the scenario differently.

这一切打造了良好的商业模式，其中原因是显而易见的。你卖给别人一个鼠标，但你可能再也不会看到他们来买东西了。你卖给别人服务，你就有关于他们、他们玩的游戏、他们的消费习惯的数据，你就可以再卖更多东西给他们。至于游戏开发商为何欢迎新玩家进入他们的地盘，就没那么明显了，不过陈民亮看待这种情况的角度完全不同。

“Game companies may pay us a little more margin but they are happy to do that because the other option is that the player does not play the game.”

“游戏公司可能会给我们更高一点的利润，但他们之所以乐意这样做是因为否则的话玩家不玩这个游戏。”

Like the evangelist he is, he sees gaming dominating the world in years to come: replacing the closed-down shops in malls and providing amusement for those in the driving seat of driverless cars.

就像传道者一样，他认为未来几年游戏将主导这个世界：取代商场里关门的店铺，为坐在无人驾驶汽车主驾位置上的人提供消遣娱乐。

“Gamers have gotten older and gamers have gotten younger . . . and we are absolutely monetising it,” he says.

“游戏玩家越来越高龄，也越来越低龄……我们绝对会从中赚钱，”他表示。

Min-Liang Tan’s tips for successful entrepreneurship

陈民亮的成功创业秘诀

Stick to your vision, no matter what others say

坚持你的愿景，无论别人怎么说

There will always be many options and sexier things to chase, but stay focused on what you want to deliver

人们总会面临很多选择和诱惑，但是要把注意力放在你想达成的事情上

Concentrate on the customer, the team and investors. Even if sometimes it can feel like herding cats

专注于消费者、团队和投资者。即使有时感觉简直像牧猫一样难