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人物专访:PlayFirst移动部门总经理谈项目运营情况

发布时间:2011-03-22 15:23:50 Tags:,,,

严格控制产品质量,保证游戏高价出售,通常并非手机游戏获得成功的妙方,但美国休闲游戏发行商PlayFisrt却擅长此道,该公司旗下的付费游戏在苹果App Store榜单上仍然稳居前列。

pocketgamer上一次采访该公司移动部门总经理克里斯·威廉姆斯(Chris Williams)的时候,PlayFirst正在庆祝包括《Dash》系列在内的PC版本游戏成功移植到iOS平台的喜事,游戏邦获悉,pocketgamer时隔四个月后再次与威廉姆斯进行交流,了解到了该公司最新游戏《Egg vs Chicken》等项目的发展战略。

Diner Dash

Diner Dash

上次我们交流的时候,你们在App Store的下载量已经达到800万次,现在仍然保持这种发展势头吗?

没错,下载量实际上还在迅速增长,我们在iOS平台的下载量已经接近1100万次了。这其中多数下载量是《Dash》系列的功劳,这个系列是App Store最为成功的游戏作品之一。

在美国前200名付费iPhone游戏中,仅有30款休闲游戏仍能保持2.99美元以上的高价,其中有五款就是《Dash》系列游戏。

我们每次推出的iOS版本新游戏,都会成为榜单上的常青树。手机游戏玩家喜欢玩《Dash》系列游戏,《美女餐厅》(Diner Dash》和《美女酒店》(Hotel Dash)的平均用户评价是5颗星。

你们是如何让游戏保持新鲜性的呢?

我们将公司团队转型为持续开发模式,让游戏更新永不间断。我们一直通过添加新内容、功能,以及根据用户反馈对游戏进行更新,这有助于我们保持较高的用户留存率——几乎有60%下载了《美女餐厅》的玩家,在30天过后仍在玩这款游戏。

请问你们认为手机用户与PC用户有何不同?

PlayFirst在PC平台培养的大量忠实用户,现在正逐渐转移到智能手机平台,这一比例正在不断上升。

我们并非简单地将游戏移植到手机平台,而是考虑了手机操作系统及硬件的特点,针对触摸屏特点进行了重新调整,同时缩短了游戏时长,增加了更多独特的功能。无论你的品牌知名度有多高,都必须根据各个平台的不同特点优化游戏,一成不变的游戏体验很容易流失用户。

PlayFirst最近在iPhone平台发布了《Egg vs Chicken》,你们对这款新作有何计划?

我们希望通过更易上手的玩法设置,以及幽默而大众化的主题扩大用户规模。我们创新结合的塔防游戏和match-3的玩法设置很容易理解,但是对玩家的掌握技巧提出了更高的要求。

egg vs chicken

egg vs chicken

它的发展情况如何?

目前它在颠峰时期,曾排在美国付费游戏榜单的第12位,现在仍然在前面50名之列。它的舆论反应很不错,目前的平均用户评价是4.5颗星。

你们的游戏现在都仅投放于苹果平台,是否有考虑投放其他手机平台?

我们确实有计划在今年底,等到付费内容的销售,以及其他运营模式更可行的时候,进军Android平台。

为什么要等待时机?

我们知道PlayFirst产品会成为Android的热门游戏,但也清楚目前高质量的游戏很难通过该平台让顺利创收。我们正在世界各地寻找多种销售模式,以便更好地将游戏传递到粉丝的手中。我们希望自己的游戏更易被玩家找到,从而为它们增加更多价值。

手机游戏领域正在走向免费模式,PlayFirst的游戏仍然奉行付费策略,请问你们会改变这种做法吗?

手机游戏的发展可以推动运营模式的多样化发展,PlayFirst仍然拥有大量愿意为游戏付费的活跃用户,我们还在这些付费游戏中添加了一些额外虚拟商品,增加了营收来源。

这种模式非常有效,但在今后的更新和升级中,我们当然会尝试推出免费版本,看看这种模式是否更容易带来大量玩家,并刺激其中一部分用户购买游戏的虚拟商品。

是否有用户对你们的游戏定价感到不满?

从来没有。在超过1.2万条的《美女餐厅》用户评论中,90%的评价是5颗星,这些用户不但很愿意为游戏花2.99美元,而且还有不少人购买了99美分的额外餐厅。

PlayFirst的下一步发展计划是什么?

我们将通过持续更新,让现有的手机游戏更加完善,我们的iOS游戏到今年底会双倍增加。

PlayFirst仍将致力于运营《Dash》系列及其他新游戏,同时采用免费和付费两种运营模式。我们将继续扩大iPad用户规模,今年还会推出Android版本游戏。

总而言之,我们希望能在2011年底获得更多手机游戏市场份额,通过高质量的手机游戏,成为这一行的创新和领军力量。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

With nearly 11 million downloads, PlayFirst’s focus on iOS quality and updates is paying off

A controlled product line up and high pricing rarely translates into success in the mobile space. Yet that’s precisely how US casual publisher PlayFirst is managing to keep its small catalog of premium priced games ranking high in Apple’s App Store.

When we previously talked with Chris Williams, PlayFirst’s general manager of mobile, the company was celebrating the successful transition of its PC franchises onto the iOS platform; including the Dash series.

Four months on, we caught up with Williams again to get an update on PlayFirst’s platform strategy, including its newest title, Egg & Chicken, the company’s first game not based on an existing franchise.

PocketGamer: When we last spoke, your App Store download total was eight million. Has that momentum continued?

Chris Williams: Yes, it’s actually accelerating: we are now approaching 11 million iOS downloads. Most of these downloads are for our Dash franchise of games, which is arguably the most successful gaming franchise on the App Store.

There are only about thirty casual games in the US top 200 paid iPhone games chart on a given day that are premium priced at $2.99 or above, and five of them are Dash games.

Every time we launch a new Dash game on iOS, it becomes a hit that remains in the charts indefinitely. Mobile gamers love Dash – Diner Dash and Hotel Dash both boast five stars average user reviews.

How have you kept the games fresh?

We’ve transitioned the company to a live team development model where the games are never done. We are constantly updating our games with new content, features, and general improvements in response to our consumer feedback. This has helped keep our retention very high – almost 60 percent of the gamers who download Diner Dash are still playing it 30 days later.

What are you learning about the differences between mobile and PC audiences?

The massive and loyal customer base that PlayFirst built up around these franchises on the PC is now migrating a growing percentage of their time to smartphone devices.

Rather than just porting our games, we have rebuilt them to account for the touch interface, the shorter play patterns, and the unique features of the OS and the hardware. No matter how big a brand you have, you must account for these platform differences or you’ll quickly lose your audience to a game with a more native game play experience.

PlayFirst recently released Egg vs Chicken for iPhone. What’s the thinking behind this new IP?

We wanted to capture a broad audience with extremely addicting ‘pick up and play’ gameplay and a theme that was humorous and universal. We were striving for an innovative combination of a match-3 and tower defence gameplay that’s really easy to understand but requires advanced strategy to master.

How’s it doing?

It’s had a really strong launch peaking at #12 in the US paid game charts and is still hanging out in the top 50. It has gotten outstanding press reviews and currently has an average user review of 4.5 stars.

Your games are currently exclusively for Apple platforms. What are your plans for other operating systems?

We are definitely planning to move to Android later this year as the merchandising for premium content improves and other business models prove viable.

Why have you waited to move onto other systems?

We know our games are going to be huge hits on Android but we also know it’s proven difficult thus far for publishers to monetise high quality paid content. We’re looking at the various distribution options worldwide to figure out the best way to get our games to our fans. We want to make sure the games are discoverable and that we can assign an appropriate value to them.

As mobile games trend to the freemium, PlayFirst games remain at premium prices. Do you see this changing?

The key in mobile going forward is diversifying your business model to cater to a wide audience. PlayFirst maintains a large daily active user base that is happy to pay us a premium price point for the initial game download. We then drive substantial additional revenue by selling virtual goods within those paid games.

This model works really well, but with new releases and updates we will definitely be experimenting with freemium versions to see if we can embrace an even larger audience and incentivise some percentage of them to pay for additional features and content.

Is there any unrest from your audience regarding pricing?

Not at all. 90 percent of the over 12,000 user reviews for the current version of Diner Dash are five stars and those users were not only happy to pay $2.99 or more for the original game but they are also buying additional restaurants for 99c within the game at an impressive rate.

Where does PlayFirst go from here?

Our existing mobile games will just keep getting better as we provide frequent updates and we will more than double the size of our iOS portfolio by the end of the year.

There will be a blend of Dash-branded games and more original titles as well as a combination of premium and freemium business models. We will also continue to grow our audience on iPad and you will definitely see some of our games on Android.

Overall we expect to end 2011 with an even larger share of the mobile gaming market and will continue to provide industry leadership and innovation through high quality mobile games.(pocketgamer)


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