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社交游戏可提供日常奖励提高用户留存率

发布时间:2012-01-13 14:19:57 Tags:,,,

作者:Brice Morrison

“很多升到23级的玩家选择退出了。”

“这怎么回事?”

“还不确定。也许是商店道具过于昂贵?也许是XP水平太高?我们得尽快弄清楚。”

 

City Of Wonder DAU from thegameprodigy.com

City Of Wonder DAU from thegameprodigy.com

社交游戏虽然成绩斐然,但其依然是个困难重重的领域。投身社交游戏领域,就会面临“玩家消亡”的风险,这是指玩家会突然放弃体验游戏。这非常危险,而且很致命。这是从1到100级所有玩家可能带来的威胁。减少玩家障碍,让玩家持续享受其中非常重要。

这是微交易模式游戏的一大关注点。零售游戏通常是一次性出售内容(50-60美元),玩家购买后体验多久无关紧要。从经济角度看,只要他们掏钱,游戏就算成功。

但很多微交易模式的游戏,例如Facebook社交游戏,则要依靠玩家持续体验,方能进行更多的游戏虚拟交易。因此,这类在线游戏所面临的风险不是玩家放弃购买游戏,而是玩家停止体验游戏。这种情况随时都会发生。

社交游戏开发者通常都会寻找方式促使玩家持续回访。一个常见方式是基于玩家的登陆情况提供游戏奖励,这也是我们即将讨论的内容。

游戏设计:Daily Bonus(日常奖励)

应用平台:Facebook、MySpace及其他在线平台

适用体验:每天返回游戏

日常奖励是促使玩家持续回访的有效方式,这被应用于众多杰出Facebook游戏。在吸引玩家眼球,促使他们隔天继续回访游戏后,多数游戏都会提供Daily Bonus,促使玩家今后继续返回游戏。

Playdom《City of Wonder》的Daily Bonus

在Playdom的《City of Wonder》中,屏幕旁边会出现各种图标,诱使玩家进行点击。若玩家没有在过去24小时里登陆游戏,他们就会看到一个小型的闪烁包裹:

City Of Wonder bags(from thegameprodigy)

City Of Wonder bags(from thegameprodigy)

点击后,游戏会弹出页面,呈现玩家会在“Around the Game” 操作中得到的各种回馈。虽然多数游戏奖励都基于玩家在游戏中所进行的操作,但这里游戏要奖励的是玩家在游戏之外所进行的操作。

虽然其他内容也颇值得关注,但这里我们主要谈论两点内容: Daily Bonus和Come Back Bonus(回访奖励),二者存在显著差别。

City Of Wonder DAU 02 from thegameprodigy.com

City Of Wonder DAU 02 from thegameprodigy.com

Daily Bonus。上图呈现的是Daily Bonus。在《City of Wonder》中(游戏邦注:其他热门社交游戏也是如此),玩家因操作各种任务而获得游戏奖励,然后他们会在游戏中花费这些货币,希望从中获得更多奖励。例如,花钱币购买新建筑,扩大城市规模。

在运用游戏货币方面,Daily Bonus采取不同方式。Daily Bonus旨在鼓励玩家每天登陆游戏;游戏通过给予玩家间隔24小时就会重置的游戏内容,使其得以从中获得货币,换句话说,若玩家没有每天回访,他们就会丧失获得货币的机会。

Come Back Bonus。除Daily Bonus外,此留存设置也给予供玩家进行期待的游戏内容。第一天,玩家会因登陆游戏而得到100个Coin Bonus。游戏窗口显示,若玩家连续5天都登陆游戏,他们会得到更多钱币。

头天奖励会令玩家庆幸自己当天有登陆游戏,第2天和第3天的奖励则促使玩家今后定期登陆游戏,从而获得更多回馈。这连同本已颇丰厚的Daily Bonus令回访游戏变成非常诱人。

这里需注意的是,Daily Bonus提供的回馈要吸引玩家眼球,方能发挥其作用。例如,高等级玩家拥有的货币数量很多,这使得他们根本无暇顾及奖励给予的小恩小惠。或者玩家尚未融入游戏中,不足以感受到货币的优点,这也是为什么游戏鲜少在玩家首次加载游戏时给予其Daily Bonus回馈。

Zynga《咖啡世界》的Daily Bonus

Daily Bonus设计还有其他选择方案。《咖啡世界》基于Come Back Bonus模式,明确告知玩家他们每天将从回访中得到什么回馈(而《City of Wonder》则未透露此内容)。这旨在令奖励变得更突出,因为玩家会期待自己即将获得的东西。

win-coins(from thegameprodigy)

win-coins(from thegameprodigy)

给予日常奖励是社交游戏开发者促使玩家回访游戏的简单方式。而那些促使玩家期待因登陆而获得回馈的复杂机制,则能够使游戏设计变得更富吸引力,让玩家经常登陆游戏。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Increasing Player Retention with Daily Bonus

by Brice Morrison

“A lot of our level 23 players are dropping.”

“I know!  What’s going on?”

“Not sure yet.  Maybe the items in the store are too expensive?  Maybe the XP level is too high?  But we need to figure it out…soon.”

Social games are, despite the massive successes that have taken place, a tough industry.  When I was working in social games then there was always the threat of “player death”, that is that players would, for whatever reason, stop playing all of the sudden.  It was dangerous, and it was deadly.  And it was a threat for all players, from levels 1-100.  Reducing player attrition and keeping players having fun enjoying the game was always a top priority.

This is one of the biggest concerns for microtransaction-supported games.  Retail titles are one purchase ($50-60 USD) and done, it doesn’t matter how far players play the game after purchasing it. From a financial standpoint, as long as they plunked down the cash, the game was a success (unless they gave it bad reviews which influenced future purchasers).

But many microtransaction-supported titles, like Facebook social games, rely on their players continuing to play in order to continue to make more in-game purchases over time.  Thus, the risk for online titles like this is not that players won’t buy the game, it’s that they’ll stop playing.  And this can happen at any moment.

Social game developers are always looking for ways to keep players coming back.  One common way to do so is by offering in-game incentives based on players logging in, which we’ll look at here.

Game Design: Daily Bonuses

Applicable Platforms: Facebook, MySpace, other online platforms

Applicable Experiences: Returning to game each day

A Daily Bonus is a great way to keep players coming back, a technique that’s used in many of Facebook’s more successful titles.  After enticing them with the game and getting them to come back on a second day, most games can pop up a Daily Bonus to make players excited to come back to the game each day after that.

Daily Bonus in Playdom’s City of Wonder

In City of Wonder, by Playdom, players see different icons on the side of the screen enticing them to click.  If the player hasn’t logged in in the last 24 hours, then they see a small twinkling bag:

After clicking, the player is prompted with a screen that runs them through a whole number of benefits that they receive for “Around the Game” activities.  While most rewards in the game (and in other games) are for activities done inside the title, this section is dedicated to rewarding the player for actions they perform that are outside of the game.

While the other aspects (Like Bonus, Email Bonus) are noteworthy, we’ll talk about them in a different post.  We’ll discuss two sections: the Daily Bonus and the Come Back Bonus, which are distinct.

Daily Bonus. At the top is the Daily Bonus.  In City of Wonder, as in most other popular Facebook social games, players receive in-game currency from performing various tasks and then spend the currency for rewards.  For example, spending coins to purchase new buildings and grow their city.

While using the same in-game currency, this Daily Bonus is different.  It is designed to encourage players to log in every day; by giving players something that resets every 24 hours, players have a chance to gain currency, or more importantly, they miss out on a chance to gain currency if they don’t log back in each day.

Come Back Bonus. In addition to the Daily Bonus, this retention feature also gives players something to look forward to.  On Day I players receive a small 100 Coin Bonus for logging in.  The window shows that more will be given if they log in consecutively for up to 5 days.

This first Day 1 reward immediately makes players happy that they’ve logged in that day, and the Day 2 and Day 3 on serve to make players mark their calendars to come back in the future for even bigger rewards.  This, compounded with the already substantial Daily Bonus, makes the incentive to come back very compelling.

One important note here is that rewards for Daily Bonuses must be enticing to the player for them to be effective.  High level players, for example, may have far too many coins to care about the small amounts given by the bonuses (which are effective for lower level players).  Or, if players haven’t gotten into the game enough to enjoy the benefit of coins, which is why Daily Bonus benefits aren’t often used the first time players load a game.

Daily Bonus in Zynga’s Cafe World

There are other variations to the Daily Bonus design.  Cafe World builds on the theme of a Come Back Bonus by explicity showing what the player will receive each day for returning (while City of Wonder keeps it hidden).  This serves to make the incentive even stronger, because players will be looking forward to what they receive.

Giving a daily bonus is a simple way for social game developers to keep players coming back.  Sophisticated systems that help players look forward to the rewards that they will get in the future for logging in for several days in a row, as well as rewarding them for logging in at all helps the design to gain traction and pull players back into enjoying the game on a regular basis.(Source:thegameprodigy


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