过去的国庆长假当中，数百万歪果仁都把大量时间浪费在了一款像素风免费手游当中，24小时内下载破100万，3天下载破300万，而且还由于人数太多一度导致服务器崩溃，这款游戏的完整名字是《PewDiePie’s Tuber Simulator》。

听到这个名字，可能有些人就不觉得意外了，毕竟这位真名Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg的瑞典小伙子已经是全球第一的YouTube播主，粉丝量超过4800万，年税后收入也早已经超过5000万元人民币。

去年9月份，根据他IP改编的付费单机手游《PewDiePie: Legend Of The Brofist》还在发布当天获得苹果全球大图推荐、并夺得美国区收入榜第10。和之前一款游戏不同的是，《Tuber Simulator》是一款免费模拟养成游戏，在很多方面与《金·卡戴珊：好莱坞》有些类似，你需要从无名小卒成长为大明星，而且这款游戏和《Brofist》同出于加拿大工作室Outerminds之手。

PewDiePie的新手游《Tuber Simulator》已经发行了近2周，引起了热潮，目前的下载量在iOS免费app排行榜上扔名列17。

Tuber Simulator的收入也名列前50，这意味着PewDiePie庞大的粉丝群，在与他之前的平台游戏《Legend of Brofist》相比时，更愿意进行手机交易。

而PewDiePie上周在Twitter公布该游戏首周iOS下载量已经大幅超过了《Kim Kardashian: Hollywood》和《Kylie and Kendall》。

福布斯专栏作者Paul Tassi在试玩过后发现了游戏的一些缺点，但为了慎重起见，在游戏正式发布之后每天都在试玩。在这两周里，游戏依然大受欢迎，但Paul 对它的看法并没有多大改变。

《Tuber Simulator》的核心玩法就是用各种材料把自己的房间变得更大，这对Paul来说非常没有吸引力。而且游戏玩得越深入，花费的时间就越长，完成一件事的时间由几分钟变成1个小时。

当然，这在市面上很多游戏中都玩的套路。可以在游戏中花钱购买“Bux”跳过等待的时间。

Paul在两周内玩《Tuber Simulator》时，没有花一分钱，免费赚了一些Bux，用它在游戏中购买了一些道具。这是他认为游戏所具有的一个优势，不会让玩家因不花钱而停滞进度。

而游戏中的特殊设计，让玩家即使花钱跳过了等待时间，也不会马上就能有足够的现金购买其他道具，就只能看看广告获取奖励，或者搬动房间里的东西等。这样的系统给玩家用花钱的方式来登顶游戏制造了一些困难，也让不花钱的玩家能感到自己在不断进步。

《Tuber Simulator》最大的问题也就在此了，玩家能做的也就是拥有一个房间，然后往里面放东西。所以与《Kim Kardashian: Hollywood》相比，尽管后者也有些乏味，但它有很多活动，也有故事线，所以比前者更有趣。甚至跟《Legend of Brofist》比起来，这个游戏也少了很多PewDiePie的个性。它最大的“目的”也许就只是让玩家创造自认为最不可思议的房间，然后在Twitter上@PewDiePie，得到他的认可而已。

而这对于PewDiePie的粉丝来说确实引发了很多人的积极响应。他是这个世界最成功的内容创造者，所以宣传就不费脑子。而且他在YouTube的其他优秀的红人朋友也加入了团队阵营，用他们的粉丝基础作为号召。如此看来，《Tuber Simulator》的爆红也就不足为奇了。

尽管如此，它仍然不能算得上是一款优秀的游戏，甚至都不能算是游戏。但还是要恭喜PewDiePie此款游戏的成功。他非常聪明地利用了个人品牌，在手游市场的大池子里取得了成功。也许游戏在未来会更新更多有趣的玩法，但目前对游戏的态度还是持保留意见。

原文：

It’s been close to two weeks since the release of PewDiePie’s new iOS and Android game, Tuber Simulator, and there’s no disputing the game is a hit. First week installs of the game have been stratospheric, and even today, the game sits at #17 on iOS’s top free apps chart, the highest game on the list, behind only the likes of staples like Instagram, Uber and Apple’s own internal apps, which account for the top six slots. Tuber Simulator is also cracking the top fifty in terms of revenue, implying that PewDiePie’s massive fanbase has no problem forking over cash for the game’s microtransactions, which are much more pronounced than his last game, a platformer called Legend of Brofist. I got into a bit of a personal scuffle with PewDiePie over my initial coverage of Tuber Simulator. I played the game close to launch and compared it unfavorably to Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, which I said was a better looking, better designed game, more in line with the brand of the creator. Later that week, PewDiePie took to Twitter to screenshot my headline and then post a chart that showed that his first week installs had surpassed Kim Kardashian: Hollywood by a large margin, and also Kylie and Kendall’s popular iOS game as well. The headline there was “PewDiePie Keeps Up with the Kardashians.” “You tried….@Forbes,” he said. I admitted I was “owned” by PewDiePie (hey, it was a funny tweet) although what he’s saying definitely misrepresents what I said in that initial piece. It was practically launch day for Tuber Simulator, and I was talking about what I viewed as the content shortcomings of the game from what I’d played so far. I was not commenting on its ability to be financially successful, as there was no way to even measure that at that point. PewDiePie is saying I’m wrong about Tuber Simulator because his install base is so massive, but that’s not the point I was making in the least, nor do I think that just because a game is more popular than another, that automatically means it’s “better.” Also, I am in no way trying to sabotage the game simply by giving my opinion about it, which is what he seems to be implying. Still, I thought it was only fair to push past my initial misgivings about Tuber Simulator and give the game a chance. I have played it almost every day since then, nearly two weeks now, and I wanted to further discuss my findings today. The game is still popular, still doing very well, which shows it has some level of staying power. My personal opinions of the game’s content have honestly not shifted all that much, but this is what I’ve found as I played. The core concept of the game remains rather unexciting to me. You have a room, you make it bigger, and fill it with stuff. That’s essentially the entire goal of Tuber Simulator. You do this by filming videos, and using the “views” you get as currency to order additions for your room, normal things like posters and chairs, to “wacky” things like skulls and vats of acid and miniature Velociraptors. The more you play, the longer everything takes to do. When you first start out, you can film videos and use the views to buy things in a matter of minutes, but with each level you rank up, the larger these timers grow. You can upgrade your filming capabilities to get more views, but suddenly your videos take an hour instead of five minutes. You can order increasingly crazy things, but what used to be a ten minute delivery is now 17 hours. This is, of course, pretty standard for this genre, as we see this tactic in a huge array of mobile games on the market, where you can pay to skip wait timers. Throw in a couple “Bux” (the game’s rare, mostly bought-with-real-money currency) and you can have something delivered instantly. Similarly, Bux are used to buy some pretty core items, like how your character looks, and their desk and computer. Bux are also used to expand your room outward, which is very necessary, because you will quickly amass more crap than you have room for. I have played Tuber Simulator without spending a dime for the past two weeks. I’ve ascended to level 15, and have only spent a precious amount of Bux so far, all of which I’ve earned for free. I’ve had enough to buy one new shirt, expand my room about 2 square feet, and it took me most of the week to save up $200 Bux to buy the one desk I wanted. It’s slow going, but it is possible to earn these cosmetics with enough regular play. This is what I view as one of the strengths of Tuber Simulator, the fact that compared to a lot of games in the genre, its monetization is actually…not that terrible? Playing for free for two weeks, I have not felt like I’ve completely stalled out in terms of making progress, and I have been able to buy even pricey microtransaction items without opening my wallet. The game will not allow you to skip the timer on video filming, so what that means is even though you might be able to accelerate deliveries on items, which help you level up, you still have to earn your video views, and that takes time. So, I can spend $1.5 million views getting two level 15 items delivered, but even if I paid to skip the 17 hour wait timer, I probably wouldn’t have racked up enough cash to immediately turn around and buy something else. This creates a system where at least it’s somewhat difficult to buy your way up to the top, and it lets free players feel like they’re progressing. With that said, things are starting to slow way, way, down now. 17 hours for a delivery is pretty insane, and while you can play “Puggle” to reduce your wait timer, play it too much, and you won’t be able to afford a new item when your last one does come. So what this does is essentially reduce gameplay to checking in once an hour to film three new videos, and then buying new items to help you level once, maybe twice a day. There really isn’t anything else to do besides that, other than watch ads for bonuses, click on a passing eagle for currency and move items around in your room. Tuber Simulator’s biggest problem is that there simply isn’t all that much to it. This is it. You just have a room and are trying to put stuff in it. This is why I make these claims about Kim Kardashian: Hollywood being a fundamentally better game with a lot more activities and an underlying storyline, however vapid. I am not saying this exact idea appeals to PewDiePie fans, but I do think his brand is sort of getting lost here. He only shows up for a line or two when you complete specific quests, and though many items are inside jokes relating to his channel, there simply isn’t that much of his personality here, far less than there was in Legend of Brofist. The “goal” of the game seems to be to just create the weirdest looking room you can, tweet it to PewDiePie, and hope he acknowledges it. I understand that may work for his fans, and obviously the game has resonated with many of them. I am not terribly surprised by its huge success considering the man is the most successful content creator on the planet, so promotion is a no-brainer. And if that wasn’t enough, he’s friends with scores of other top YouTubers, many of which he’s also recruited to be in the game and in turn, help promote it with their own massive fanbases. Tuber Simulator’s ability to rocket up the charts is no real mystery, given all these factors. And yet I still can’t really escape the idea that fundamentally, it isn’t a very good game. It isn’t really even a game at all, it’s just something you log into in order to collect resources a few times a day, and order some new item to help level yourself. Its core concept is like a less active version of Farmville, with crops as videos and barnyard accessories as blow-up dolls and TV sets. I think it handles its microtransactions pretty well, but I still can’t really get excited about the concept of putting a bunch of stuff in a room. So yes, congrats to PewDiePie on a smash hit. He’s exceptionally smart to leverage his brand into success in the massively profitable mobile market, and this time around, he’s designed something that will essentially print money. That’s all well and good, but I still can’t quite bring myself to like it. Maybe future updates will add more things to actually do in Tuber Simulator, but right now Puggle and furniture arranging don’t quite cut it for me.

本文由牛牛社区编译，原文作者Paul Tassi。

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