作者：MATT TUBERGEN

Matt Tubergen是Recharge Studios的主管，该工作室是W3i的全资子公司，致力于开发和销售免费增值手机游戏。W3i是手机市场上通过销售应用来盈利的领军力量，曾为其客户销售和推广5亿多个应用程序。Recharge Studios正积极寻找新的投资机会。以下是游戏邦编译的Recharge Studios相关分享内容：

在这篇文章中，我们将讨论与免费增值游戏社交功能相关的提醒内容。

Trade Nations(from mobileorchard.com)

社交提醒的类型

随着免费增值游戏逐渐演变，你在游戏中应用的社交提醒的类型也会有所发展。免费增值游戏开发商通常以各种新方式吸引玩家参与到他们的游戏中。现在，我们将提醒分为三个类别：礼品；访问；竞争。

礼品提醒会在如下三种情况中对玩家产生推动作用：有人赠予他们礼品；有人向他们索求礼品（游戏邦注：像《Trade Nations》中的做法）；有人满足他人的礼品请求。这些提醒都会产生推动作用，但是无论采用哪种社交提醒，确保你的做法不会让玩家对各种通知感到疲倦。

访问提醒的意思如同字面所述，某人访问你的城市、村庄、农场、餐馆和公园，你就会意识到。而且，如果你的朋友在你的城市、村庄和农场等地完成某种行为，提醒也会有效。此类提醒的使用有助于推动玩家产生社交互动。

竞争提醒指的是游戏中的竞争性机制，如排行榜或其他竞争性元素。比如你可以用社交提醒让玩家明白他们的经验值与社交圈中其他人的差距。相比全球甚至当地排行榜而言，这会提供更具个性化和参与性的游戏体验。

何时使用社交提醒

你通常会将社交提醒当作通知功能，除非你进行极富时效性的动作或某些元素与社交功能性有联系（游戏邦注：例如将其用于要求玩家在某个时间赠送礼物，或者用好友赠送礼物的信息召回离开游戏的玩家）

提醒是必需品

无论你决定使用何种提醒，提醒都是个必需品。提醒在免费增值游戏的成功中扮演重要角色。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Mastering freemium game mechanics series: social alerts

MATT TUBERGEN

Matt Tubergen heads Recharge Studios, a wholly owned subsidiary of W3i that invests in the development and marketing/distribution of freemium mobile games. W3i is a market leader in distributing and monetizing apps with over 500 million apps distributed for W3i clients. Recharge Studios is actively seeking new investment opportunities, if you have a great idea for a game contact us.

Last week we examined the use of threshold alerts. We outlined the various thresholds that can trigger both push and local notifications in your freemium game including: time, decay and maximum thresholds. This week we’re looking at alerting in relation to the social features of your freemium game.

Kinds of Social Alerts

As freemium gaming evolves so too will the kinds of social alerts you can employ in your game. Freemium game developers are always crafting new ways to engage gamers with their networks in games.

Recharge Studios have a few up our sleeve we’ll give sneak peeks to in coming posts. For now we’ll categorize them into these three categories: Gifting; Visiting/Working; Competing.

Gifting alerts can prompt gamers when someone in their network has either 1.) sent them a gift 2.) Requested an “order” (think Trade Nations) or 3.) completed an “order.” These alerts can be both push and local, however with any of the social alerts, make sure that if you use push, it’s a priority so you don’t exhaust your gamers with notifications, keeping in mind the rule of 3

pushes a day across all alert types.

Visiting/working alerts are just what they sound like. Someone has visited your city, village, farm, restaurant, park… you get the point. Additionally, an alert can be used if your friend completed an action in your city, village, farm etc. The use of an alert helps prompt a gamer to carry out a social act in reciprocation.

Competing alerts refer to competitive levels within a game. For example leaderboards or any element of competition. For example you can use social alerts to show a gamer how their experience stacks up in relationship to those within their network. This provides a more personal, engaged gaming experience rather than just a global or even local leaderboard.

When to Use Social Alerts

You’ll most often want to use social alerts as local notifications unless you have a time sensitive action or element tied to the social functionality (i.e. have to use or claim a gift in X time or to prompt a user back into a game “Bob6148 just sent you a gift. What is it?!.”)

Alerts are a must.

Whatever you decide that works best in your schedule, make sure you have one. Alerts are an absolute must in driving the success of your freemium games. Do you have a question about freemium gaming or a topic you’d like us to explore? Let us know in the comments or catch us on twitter @rechargestudios or @w3i. (Source: Mobile Orchard)