以《糖果傳奇》爲例 說說手遊公司爲什麼不應該上市

It looks like Wall Street may have finally had its fill of bad candy—and bad tech stocks.

看起來，華爾街可能終於吃到了“壞糖果”——這次是一些表現糟糕的科技股。

King Digital Entertainment , maker of the (once) popular mobile gaming app “Candy Crush Saga,” saw its shares fall over 20% late Tuesday after the company reported sluggish growth and tepid earnings for the previous quarter. The mobile gaming kingpin’s new titles apparently failed to generate sufficient cash to cover the “unexpectedly” steep drop in revenue from its maturing Candy Crush franchise. With a fickle audience, rapidly changing technology, and almost no barriers to entry, King as well as the rest of the mobile gaming space have proven to be terrible equity investments. It may be time for them to head back to their garages in Silicon Valley and stay there until they are mature enough to come back to Wall Street.

風靡一時的手遊《糖果傳奇》（Candy Crush Saga）開發商King Digital Entertainment週二宣佈最近一個季度增長乏力、業績平平，導致其尾盤股價下跌超過20%。這家手遊界標杆公司的新遊戲顯然未能創造充足的現金，無法彌補進入市場飽和期的《糖果傳奇》遊戲收入的“出乎意料地”大幅下降。由於用戶喜新厭舊、技術迅速迭代以及准入門檻低到近乎不存在，King以及手遊行業的其他公司已被證明是糟糕的股權投資。或許，現在是時候讓它們回到創業之初的硅谷車庫裏去了，直到它們足夠成熟後再重返華爾街。

The recent IPO boom has brought a lot of questionable companies to the public markets in the last couple of years. While none have boasted the absurd bubble-like valuations that characterized the Internet IPO boom of the late 1990s, a few have come pretty close. Of all the companies that went public, King Digital Entertainment, was clearly among the sketchiest. It was riding the wave of other “web 2.0″ properties that had recently gone to the market and garnered strong valuations.

過去幾年的IPO熱潮已將很多有問題的公司引入公開市場。雖然還沒有一家公司的估值達到上世紀90年代末互聯網泡沫時期荒謬的估值，但有一些已經相當接近了。在所有這些公開上市的公司中，King Digital Entertainment顯然是最草草上場的一家。該公司搭上了最近一輪“web 2.0”上市浪潮的便車，獲得了高估值。

King, as a maker of “mobile gaming” products, was pretty much the bottom of the tech barrel. It had explosive growth, with 2013 revenues up 11-fold over the previous year, yielding profits of around $567 million. But around 80% of that revenue came from only one of its various games—Candy Crush. King tried to sell investors on the notion that it could repeat and build on Candy Crush’s success, but few took the bait. Its stock fell 16% on its first day of trading.

作爲手遊產品開發商，King幾乎處於科技產業鏈的底端。該公司曾擁有爆炸式的增長，2013年收入較前一年增長了11倍，創造了近5.67億美元的利潤。但約80%的收入來自這家公司旗下的一個單一類別遊戲——《糖果傳奇》。King試圖說服投資者相信，該公司將重現《糖果傳奇》的成功，但沒什麼人買賬。其股票價格首日上市即下跌16%。

Despite the odds, King posted some encouraging profits in its first quarterly earnings as a public company. It had been able to diversify its revenue so that Candy Crush only accounted for 68% of its revenue, instead of 80%. Maybe the market misjudged King after all? Its stock price rallied. The investment banks set lofty price targets and slapped a “buy” rating on the stock.

儘管困難重重，King作爲上市公司發佈的首個季度業績仍有些鼓舞人心的亮點。該公司在收入多樣化上取得了進展，《糖果傳奇》佔其收入的比例降至68%。或許市場看錯了King？它的股價大幅反彈。投資銀行紛紛設定了高高在上的目標價，並給予“買進”評級。

King Digital posted a profit on Tuesday and issued a sizable $150 million special dividend to its shareholders, but it failed to meet Wall Street’s aggressive price targets. Its other games still aren’t doing well, while revenues from Candy Crush have continued to fall. Deutsche Bank lowered its earnings target from $27 a share to $12 a share (the stock was trading around $14.50 in the after hours markets).

King Digital週二公佈實現盈利，並向股東派發1.50億美元的鉅額特殊股息，但股價未能達到華爾街激進的目標價格。該公司其他的遊戲表現欠佳，來自《糖果傳奇》的收入也持續下降。德意志銀行（Deutsche Bank）將目標價從27美元降至12美元（該股週三盤後交易價格在14.50美元附近。）

So, is this a case of Wall Street simply expecting too much, too soon, or does King Digital simply not have what it takes to compete with the big boys of the tech world? It seems to be a little bit of both.

那麼，這是因爲華爾街期望太高太早？還是King Digital根本沒有與科技巨頭競爭的實力呢？看起來，兩者皆有。

Mobile gaming is in its infancy and there are a lot of questions about its ability to generate consistent profits for its investors. The sector may have great potential to grow, amid the proliferation of smartphones in Asia for example, but companies that have managed to produce hit games in the past may not reap the rewards of such future growth. Rival game maker Zynga , which at one point commanded a market valuation of over $7 billion, has had a hard time repeating the success of its Farmville franchise and has seen its share price tumble month after month as a result—down 30% this year and down over 70% since its IPO in December 2011.

手遊業尚處於嬰兒期，它能否爲投資者創造持續收益仍有很多疑問。這一領域可能有巨大的增長潛力，比如亞洲的智能手機使用數量正在快速增長，但是那些曾經開發出熱門遊戲的公司或許無法從這些未來的增長中獲得回報。市值一度達到70多億美元的競爭對手Zynga也在試圖重現其《開心農場》（Farmville）系列遊戲的成功，結果並不順利，爲此該公司股價已連續多月下跌，今年已跌去30%，較2011年12月的IPO價格下跌超過70%。