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解析Twitter游戏市场存在缺陷和发展出路

发布时间:2011-05-21 20:31:04 Tags:,,

游戏邦注:本文作者为DuBose Cole,文章着重谈论Twitter游戏市场的发展潜力及其局限性。

Facebook社交游戏影响力毋庸置疑。据称社交游戏市场规模到2015年将增长至40亿美元(游戏邦注:该市场当前价值为15亿美元),诸如Zynga《Cityville》之类游戏的DAU(日活跃用户)将增加至2070万,而MAU(月活跃用户)将增加至9670万,休闲/社交游戏的发展更是不在话下。日渐统一的付费渠道等Facebook新功能,HTML 5带动的移动设备兼容性的提高,游戏体验的强化,高价值游戏内容的涌入(如《文明》和《俄勒冈小道》)表明Facebook将会继续推动社交游戏发展。

虽然无可否认Facebook是休闲/社交游戏活动的核心,但我忍不住思考为何诸如Twitter之类的社交网络无法在其中分一杯羹。乍看之下,这似乎是因为Twitter缺乏像Facebook那样的丰富内网平台(图像局限于文本或外部游戏),游戏内容同主流沟通渠道的分离(参照Facebook有关游戏内容的新闻动态限制至最小范围)以及平台用户并不热衷体验其游戏。虽然这些因素表明Twitter并不适合充当游戏平台,深入挖掘或许其仍旧拥有些许机会。下面我们就逐一讨论上述各个方面。

Twitter

Twitter

Twitter缺少Facebook那种丰富的游戏内平台

是的,确实如此。回到15年前,游戏并不需要“I格式Flash”或精美的HTML5开发内容。基于文本的RPG游戏(游戏邦注:如《大魔域》系列)、MUD游戏和BBS游戏是如今社交游戏活动的雏形。虽然当时《俄勒冈小道》之类的游戏、备受推崇的Lucas Arts以及90年代的Sierra RPG游戏(当时《Tentacle》、《Indiana Jones》和《King’s Quest》之类的游戏大行其道)开始分利用逐步发展的图形模式,但游戏依旧主要依靠基于文本的用户互动推动(随后就是依靠随机点击)。琐事游戏、问答游戏和知识游戏甚至无需借助画面,这为开发文本网络游戏创造了多种可能。

Twitter给予游戏开发商的技术支持显然不如Facebook平台,但这主要归结于该平台的用户互动方式。Twitter在功能开发方面显然更具组织性,如消息转发功能以正式按钮/功能性呈现前,它首先出现于用户约定。有组织开发能够促进社区和交流发展,但它不利于规范游戏功能的开发

然而就Twitter平台而言,两大游戏类型具有可行性(游戏邦注:这类游戏均已出现于Facebook平台中)。通过帐号连接至社交网络外用户数据的外部游戏(通过Twitter或Facebook connect登陆)是个一致性体验。由于使用该功能的游戏置身Twitter平台之外,所以它们依旧可以采用一般开发商所使用的现有图像技术。网站功能限制了体验所需的额外注册量和游戏数据储存量,更重要的是平台将成就/通知消息连接回用户社交网络,扩大游戏覆盖面。

Twitter网内游戏主要从Facebook平台分离出来。任何借助微博的游戏都能够选择让玩家通过第三方网站互动或者微博平台互动。这些基于文本的信息输入随后就被服务器程序/脚本所收入,通过电脑生成回复(游戏邦注:在游戏微博页面以@形式回复,或通过游戏网站)或通过其他玩家(若服务器具有匹配入口)。

智力游戏、文本挑战和知识竞赛游戏仅支持文本界面,而通过Twitter登陆外部游戏主要是为了扩大游戏覆盖面,而非作为游戏机制。虽然Facebook在这个领域独占鳌头,但文本游戏仍旧可为Twitter提供一线生机。

Twitter游戏内容未同主流交流渠道分离

Facebook社交游戏存在的一个风险就是游戏垃圾信件。社交内容组合是社交游戏进程中的一个亮点。将社交平台的更多内容引进玩家所建立的农场、城市、咖啡厅、医院、赌场、动物小岛、王国、运动小组、金银岛、暴民、黑手党、街群帮派或会计组织能够推动角色发展以及促进游戏更自然地发展。这种疯狂吸收模式的弊端是多数人群不希望加入某个组织/游戏当中,这个问题随着Facebook的发展呈扩大趋势。Facebook应对这个问题的方式是将游戏更新信息限制于游戏用户范畴,以免非游戏用户被这些信息所扰,但用户依旧能够邀请其他玩家,通过个人公告墙分享消息(游戏邦注:这个游戏资讯仅面向游戏玩家)。

这对Facebook而言是个很好的解决方案,而Twitter则面临一个更大挑战。网内Twitter游戏随后将会在其他玩家的消息动态中占据很大篇幅,因为每条消息不过是系列体验活动的一部分。虽然游戏辨识度因此能够得到提高,尤其是当众多玩家同时发布消息,但缺乏回避激增信息的途径令用户无所适从。恼人的信息,以及用户有权阻止其他用户垃圾信息表明体验游戏的最大障碍并非忽视游戏,而是忽视玩家,否定社交发展,提高玩家体验其他游戏的门槛。种种条件限制玩家接触文本RPG Twitter游戏的机会,以及其他高互动的游戏。2009年《Spymaste》游戏的用户体验表明被视为垃圾信息的游戏反冲力量不容忽视。

Twitter用户不看好该平台游戏

姑且不论Twitter游戏技术元素和用户干扰问题,Twitter游戏是否真的同社交玩家所追求的体验截然不同,这会是一大障碍吗?

据去年Popcap游戏调查显示,58%的英国社交游戏玩家和55%美国社交游戏玩家为女性,普遍用户为43岁妇女(游戏邦注:英国玩家的平均年龄为38岁,美国的为48岁)。年长玩家市场规模也不尽相同,46%的美国玩家50岁以上,而英国50岁以上玩家只有23%。

从体验行为来看,男性用户更倾向在线同陌生人体验游戏(41%-33%),而女性体验频率更高(38%-29%用户每天体验数次),同亲属体验的用户比例为46%-29%,而同现实好友的体验比例为68%-56%。

多数研究表明,Twitter用户比社交游戏玩家年轻,但不排除个别极端情况。其之间更大的差异在于Twitter作为网络平台所具有的行为含义。Twitter更具匿名性质,休闲的泛泛之交模式同女性族群所偏好的好友共同体验游戏模式截然不同。尽管如此,数据分析公司Sysomos(2011年)调查报告显示,2009年-2010年期间,大量用户开始在个人资料页面添加更多信息(游戏邦注:如姓名、住址、简历和网址),这表明Twitter用户之间的联系有望变得越来越密切。然而,相比而言,Twitter似乎缺乏Facebook用户之间的亲密性;该平台有助于交流和发表看法,但同时也遏制游戏的发展机会。

总结

如今Twitter游戏的发展似乎指日可待,平台拥有一定用户基础,且具备某些功能开发选项。然而,无法把游戏内容同大众交流渠道分离出来是其游戏开发面临的最大挑战。游戏想要在Twitter崭露头角,Twitter需要满足如下条件。

Twitter需为用户提供通过平台或关键字过滤消息的功能

在各种大型盛会或者活动期间(例如奥斯卡典礼、超级杯等)就有用户就纷纷提出过滤此类信息的要求,这个过滤功能对游戏发展来说很重要。来自游戏平台的消息很容易被非游戏用户所忽略(游戏邦注:就Facebook平台一样),但有兴趣的用户将会阅读或者甚至转发。这个功能可避免游戏阻碍玩家体验,阻碍游戏发展。

开发商需认为Twitter API是个开发游戏的强大、稳定平台

Twitter将继续侧重朝用户交流平台方向发展。然而最近白名单用户的发展(游戏邦注:每个帐号每小时能够在Twitter发布的消息从350条提高至2万条)着实让开发商们大吃一惊,致使发展中的项目变得不切实际,阻碍未来创造性的发展。有关数据和高容量回复的游戏内容以及普通Twitter应用的发展不得不采用昂贵的第三方方案,以获得高容量访问,而这种方案只适合财力雄厚的大中型企业。此外,API限制用户回复(每个帐号每天只能发布1000条消息)是朝限制垃圾信息和垃圾程序迈出的一大步,但这同时也限制了游戏页面回应用户的可扩展性。

Twitte应用(包括游戏)需要提供更丰富知识库供玩家搜索

在Facebook平台,游戏和应用是网络搜索功能的核心内容。用户因此能够轻松发现,快速登陆、体验游戏,而无需离开网络。目前Twitter在此方面有待提高,目前该平台还没有官方应用目录,玩家不得不寻求谷歌或者第三方目录发现应用和游戏。如果你在谷歌搜索Twitter游戏,你会发现一系列带有游戏内容的博客以及Twitdom之类的第三方目录(游戏邦注:Twitdom传递众多有用信息,但无法有效拓展Twitter网络的覆盖范围)。

我之前曾尝试于Twitter开发游戏,推出了《Rock Paper Scissors》 ,我发现最大的挑战就是制作页面,另外由于该平台缺乏官方目录,我的页面很难获取足够的用户。

总的来说,我认为平衡投资/回报率鼓励游戏开发将会带来积极回报。虽然就游戏规模而言,Twitter无法匹敌Facebook,鼓励用户群回访平台,开展交流以外的活动颇为有益,不论用户是否体验平台游戏。游戏开发是平台推出创造性方案的体现,Twitter游戏市场的发展策略调整也间接促进了第三方应用的发展,这是Twitter持续发展的关键。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Is there a market for Twitter Gaming?

By DuBose.Cole

There isn’t much doubt about the impact of Facebook on social gaming. With the social gaming market estimated to grow to $4 billion annually by 2015, up from $1.5 billion currently, and games such as Zynga’s ‘Cityville’ garnering 20.7 million daily active users (96.7 million monthly active users), growth for casual & social gaming isn’t in question. New Facebook features such as an increasingly unified payment option, the push to HTML 5 for greater mobile compatibility, enhanced gaming experiences and cherished gaming properties entering (Civilization, Oregon Trail) moving onto the platform mean that Facebook does and will continue to drive social gaming.

While no one denies that Facebook is squarely at the center of the casual/social gaming movement, I wonder if there is any reason why another social network (such as Twitter), couldn’t do the same in a relatively proportioned scale. At first glance, the answer seems to be unlikely as Twitter lacks the rich ‘in network’ platform for gaming that Facebook possesses (limiting graphics to text or external gaming), segregation of gaming content from main avenues of communication (seen on Facebook with the minimization of game updates away from the main news feed) and arguably an audience more amenable to gaming through the platform. While these factors initially seem to indicate that Twitter isn’t suitable as a game platform, by digging a bit deeper there may be opportunities for minor development relative to Facebook. Looking at each of the previous factors separately:

-Twitter lacks the rich ‘in network’ platform for gaming Facebook possesses

The short answer to this statement is yes, it does. However we only need to look back 15 years (shorter than the average Twitter user has been an adult) to see that gaming didn’t always require ‘I-framed Flash’ or very nice HTML5 development. Text based RPGs like the Zork series, MUDs (multi-user dungeons) and BBS (bulletin board system) games were the pre-cursors to the social gaming movement of today. Games such as Oregon Trail & the revered Lucas Arts/Sierra RPGs of the 90′s (Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones, King’s Quest, etc.) utilized increasingly developed graphics, but were still driven by text based user interaction (and the occasional clicking later on).  Trivia, question & answer and knowledge games don’t usually even require graphics, opening up possibilities to make text only in network gaming possible.

The technical supplies provided by Twitter are admittedly sparser than those of Facebook for the games developer, but this boils down to the way user’s interact. Twitter has always been more organic in its feature development with functions such as re-tweets first coming from user convention before receiving formalized buttons/functionality.Where organic development is a boon for community and conversation, it does hamper formalizing development capabilities in gaming.

However, looking at the Twitter network, two main versions of gaming (both found through Facebook) are possible. External gaming (using Sign in with Twitter or Facebook connect) to tie accounts to user data away from the social network, is relatively a uniform experience. As games utilizing this feature are external to the Twitter network, they can still leverage any existing graphical technology available to the normal developer. Network functionality is used to limit the amount of additional registration needed to play, store game data and perhaps most importantly syndicate achievements/notifications items back to the user’s social network, spreading the game’s reach.

Twitter ‘in network’ gaming, diverges hugely from Facebook. Any game utilizing tweets has the option of allowing players to interact on either the website, a 3rd party client or on a website which features ‘twitter anywhere’. These text based inputs are then taken by a server program/script and generate either a response from the computer (on either a game’s twitter page as an ‘@’ reply or on a game website) or another player (if the server is matchmaking entries).

Quiz games, text based challenges and knowledge based competitions exclusively favour the text interface, while external games using ‘sign in with Twitter’ are possibly doing so just to increase reach, not as a game mechanic. While Facebook overwhelmingly holds the strength in this area, text based gaming may represent the only exclusive opportunity for Twitter.

-Twitter lacks segregation of gaming content from main avenues of communication

One interesting risk from the growth of social gaming on Facebook was gaming spam. Social syndication of content (as it could nicely be called) is the bread and butter of social gaming. The ability to drag more of your social network into whatever farm,city,cafe,hospital, gambling den, creature island, kingdom, sports team, treasure island, mob, mafia, street gang or accountancy group you’ve set up progresses your character and helps the game grow organically. The downside to this cult recruitment model is that most others won’t want to join every organization/game provided to them, a problem multiplied exponentially when you look at Facebook’s scale. Facebook dealt with this risk by shunting game updates into their own area, limiting exposure of non-playing users to game content in general areas, while still allowing users to invite others and share via personal walls (which almost puts the onus of annoyance back on the gaming user).

As useful as a solution as this was for Facebook, gaming on Twitter faces even a larger challenge. ‘In network’ Twitter gaming naturally generates a large footprint in another user’s newsfeed quickly, considering each message/tweet may only be one in a series of actions to play. While the awareness of the game may spread, especially if multiple users in a network adopt at near the same time, the lack of a way to ignore a rapidly growing block of messages doesn’t leave much recourse. This annoyance, coupled with the ease at which a user can ‘unfollow’, ‘block’ or ‘block and report spam’ another user means the main barrier to game adoption isn’t ignoring the game, but ignoring all of its players, negating social growth and raising the barriers to engage with another game. Such conditions limit the chance of seeing any manner of text based ‘RPG’ living inside Twitter, as well as most high rate of interaction games. User experiences from the launch of the game ‘Spymaster’ back in 2009 show that the backlash to gaes perceived as spamming can be fast and harsh.

-Twitter’s user base is less amiable to games on the network than on Facebook

Disregarding the technical aspects of gaming on Twitter and the large problem of user annoyance, is the Twitter experience so fundamentally different from what social gamers seek it is a possible barrier?

According to a much bandied about Popcap games study from last year, 58% (UK) and 55% (US) of social gamers are women and the average user is a 43 year old woman (the average age is 38 in the UK and 48 in the US). Markets also differ on the amount of older gamers, as 46% of gamers in the US were 50+, versus only 23% in the UK.

Behaviorally, men were more likely to play games online with strangers (41% to 33%), while women were likely to play more often (38% vs 29% play several times a day) and with relatives (46% to 29%) or real world friends (68% to 56%).

Most studies show the average Twitter user being younger than the social gamer average, but not in an extreme fashion. The larger differences may lie in the behavioral implications of Twitter as a network. Twitter’s more anonymous nature and casual acquaintanceship structure is counter-intuitive to a shared friend experience model of gaming indicated to be popular with the larger female base. Despite this, a study by Sysomos (2011) has shown that between 2009 and 2010, a significant number of users have begun to add more personal detail to profiles (names, locations, bios, websites), indicating the opportunity for an increasing level of perceived closeness between network users.  However, it seems that Twitter still lacks (and will so for the foreseeable future) the comparable level of intimacy between users found on Facebook; something that makes it great for communication and ideas, but may stall game opportunities.

Conclusion

Currently, growth in Twitter gaming seems possible, with a user base amenable to it and some functional options for development. However, the inability to segregate gaming content from general communication stands as the largest challenge to widespread game adoption. For gaming to truly make an impact on twitter, several things need to happen:

-Twitter needs to give users the ability to filter tweets by platform or keyword

Users have already clamored for this during popular conferences or events (i.e. the ability to avoid tweets about the Oscars or Superbowl), but a filter makes consistent sense for gaming. Tweets from a gaming platform,  can easily be ignored by those users not involved (as is done on Facebook), while being read or even re-tweeted by interested users.  This functionality moves user action to avoid the game from blocking the user, to blocking the game.

-Developers need to feel that the Twitter API is a robust and stable place to create content

Twitter’s orientation will always slant towards communication over other users for the network and API. However, recent developments against whitelisting users (raising the amount of requests an account can make to Twitter per hour from 350 to 20,000) caught developers by surprise, rendering programs in development unworkable and stunting future creative growth. Gaming avenues involving data or high volumes of response, as well as general Twitter application development, are forced to look at costly third party options for high volume network access, a solution which is only acceptable to medium to large companies. In addition, API limits on responses to users (i.e. an account can only publish 1,000 tweets a day) are a great step towards stopping spam and spambots, but limit the scalability of any game page to respond to users.

-Twitter applications (including games) need a more prominent repository for users to search

Within Facebook, the games and applications are a core part of the network’s search functionality. This allows users to easily discover, enter and play games quickly and without leaving the network. Twitter currently lacks this, as no ‘official’ application directory exists, leaving users to Google or go through 3rd party directories to find applications and games. If you Google ‘Twitter Games’, you find a mix of blog posts listing games and 3rd party directories such as Twitdom, which convey useful information but don’t effectively extend the reach of Twitter’s network.

Having tried the developer experience on Twitter previously, and releasing a ‘Rock Paper Scissors’ game for the network, I found the biggest challenge was making the page & accompanying website accessible to users, due to the lack of an ‘official’ directory.

Overall, I think the ‘risk/reward’ balance for the network to encourage gaming & development is overwhelmingly towards a positive benefit. While Twitter won’t ever catch Facebook in terms of gaming scale, incentivizing user groups to return to the network for more than just general communication is a benefit, regardless of adoption within the user base. As game development is a nice indicator of the creative solutions being made for a network, changes towards growing a Twitter gaming market also indirectly grow all 3rd party app development, a key to continued success for Twitter.(Source:typingonthewall


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