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开发者谈移动领域的联合制作商业模式

作者:Simon Moller

传统发行模式

在传统盒装产品世界,游戏发行商主要扮演4种角色:

1)推广角色,产品在游戏商店及其他零售商店中处于核心位置非常重要。

2)营销角色,由于所有产品都是预先付款,因此进行售价50美元的大众营销非常必要。

3)分期资助游戏,以确保开发工作顺利进行。

4)质量控制和市场知识

“传统”发行商角色因平台、推广作用和营销模式的变更而受到显著削弱。我常奉劝开发者不要通过EA/Chillingo之类的发行商发布内容,而是选择自行发行。我觉得“传统”发行商的作用并不突出。他们会让App Store世界变成盒装产品模式。

游戏开发的新优先考虑事项

随着我们逐步过渡到手机和其他数字推广模式,适合各种平台的新模式就变得必不可少。

* 推广任务主要由平台所有者负责,营销变得越来越不具关联性(主要由平台所有者负责)。

* 团队规模变得越来越小;Unity 3D和Unreal Engine之类的技术变得越来越便于使用。开发周期也显著缩短。

* 免费模式之类的新兴商业模式改变开发优先事项,因为亚层次的游戏要素变得和核心玩法一样重要。

* 社交和创收功能非常重要,还有就是PR和社区管理。

* UI设计举足轻重,因为我们其实是在创建商店体验,UI执行过程所需耗费的时间远超乎我们的想象。

* 在这个平台分裂的领域中进行产品测试也是复杂问题,因为新平台、操作系统及设备层出不穷。

所以虽然游戏现在可以由小规模团队完成,但能够处理所有这些新问题的更大团队是决定成败的关键。我们找到这样一个方式,让小型工作室能够享受到更大团队的优势,同时又无需扩大人员数量:那就是联合制作。

Subway Surfers from gamesbrief.com

Subway Surfers from gamesbrief.com

移动平台的联合制作模式

联合制作的商业模式让小型团队能够利用更大工作室的知识,大型工作室有其分析团队及外部销售渠道,还有就是优化代码和创建可行UI的精湛技术。

我们已接触这一商业模式一段时间,我们准备通过《Subway Surfers》进行试验。我们在SYBO Games(游戏邦注:此前是外包关系)的几个好友同意和我们一起试验这一模式。

我们很快发现,SYBO的优势在于杰出角色设计、动画、音效设计及核心玩法机制。但由于他们是由5位成员及1条狗组成的小型工作室,因此他们并不喜欢编写UI代码,制作线框图,做分析以及处理其他构成免费模式游戏的亚层级元素。

最简单的办法就是平摊工作内容。在开始着手后的10天里,我们创建出一个可行原型。SYBO继续将UI和图像具体化,而我们则着手创建UI框架,设计创收方式及游戏的社交和保留功能。Kiloo接着设计和落实UI内容,就服务器进行设置,制作发行计划,处理社区问题,还有就是购买Free App a Day营销服务。

Kiloo有2位程序员、2位UI美工和1位制作人,我们的商业智能团队负责项目,我和销售团队负责外部渠道。我们(游戏邦注:即Kiloo)在项目中投入约2000-2500小时,SYBO在项目中投入约4000小时。

我们于2011年12月20日开始设计游戏,2012年1月完成可行模型的创建,2012年5月24日将作品发行。

后续情况

就联合制作的商业模式而言,我觉得我们通过《Subway Surfers》证实这一模式的可行性,游戏成为全球排名前10的iPad & iPhone应用。用户每日体验游戏约1000万次,DAU数据也非常可观,且呈增长势头。

4年后,我们将深入把握整个iOS市场,将能够协助自己及合作工作室在此领域获取成功。我觉得现在是时候转投更注重画面效果的免费模式游戏(游戏邦注:它们能够在质量上轻松同付费游戏匹敌)。凭借新iPad,我们将能够呈现更接近掌机水平的体验,这是我们未来想要涉猎的内容。(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

How Kiloo & SYBO built and launched a Hit iOS Game in 6 months

By Simon Moller

Traditional publishing model

In the traditional boxed-product world, corporate games publishers typically have 4 roles:

1) Distribution power, it was important to have a key placement in GAME stores and other retailers

2) Marketing power, since all the products had upfront-payments and 50$ price tags mass marketing was necessary

3) Financing the game with milestone payments to secure development

4) Quality control and market knowledge

The “traditional” publishers’ role has been significantly weakened with platform, distribution power and marketing paradigms changing. I’ve often warned against people releasing through publishers like EA/Chillingo and instead suggested that they publish themselves. I just don’t feel the “traditional” publishers bring enough to the table. They’re trying to force an App Store world into a boxed-product mindset.

New priorities in games development

As we transition into mobile and other digital distribution, there is a need for a new model that suits very different platforms.

* Distribution power is handled by platform holders and marketing is less and less relevant (and largely handled by platform holders).

* Teams are getting smaller; technology such as Unity 3D and (to some extent) Unreal Engine has become easy to use for everyone. Development cycles are shortening.

* Emerging business models such as Free-to-Play change development priorities, as meta-level game components become as important as the core gameplay itself.

* Social and monetising features are important, along with PR and community management.

* UI design is important, since we’re in essence creating a shop experience, and implementation of UI takes longer than people might think.

* Product testing in a fragmented world is also a complex issue, with new platforms, operating systems and devices popping up all the time.

So while a game can now be produced by a smaller team, the benefit of a larger team that can deal with all of these new issues can mean the difference between success and failure. We’ve found a way for small studios to get the benefit of having a larger team without scaling up the workforce: co-production.

Mobile Co-Production model

The Co-Production business model allows small teams to benefit from the knowledge of a slightly larger studio, with analytics teams and sales to external channels, along with the fine craftsmanship of optimizing code and build working UI’s.

We have worked on the model for a while, and with Subway Surfers, we set out to test it. Our amazing friends at SYBO Games (they worked with us as contractors on Bullet Time so we knew them well) agreed to work with us on the idea.

We quickly identified that SYBO’s strength was making cool character designs, animation, sound design and core gameplay mechanics. But given that they’re a relatively small studio of 5 people and 1 (awesome) dog, they didn’t quite feel like coding UI, doing wireframes, analytics and all the other meta-level components that make up a Free-to-Play game in todays market.

The obvious solution was to split the workload down the middle. Within ten days from starting out, we had a working prototype. And while SYBO continued fleshing out the graphics and gameplay, we started wireframing the UI and planning the monetising, social and retention features of the game. Kiloo proceeded to design, implement UI and server setup, made the launch plan, handled community and bought a marketing feature with Free App a Day.

Kiloo had 2 programmers, 2 UI artists, a producer, our Business Intelligence team working on the project, along with myself and our sales team handling external channels. At Kiloo, we spent about 2000-2500 hours on the project. SYBO spent around 4000 hours on the project.

We started designing the game on December 20th, 2011, had a working prototype in January 2012 and released May 24th 2012.

Moving on!

In terms of the Co-Production development model, I feel we have a proof-of-concept with Subway Surfers, being top 10 in basically the whole world across both iPad and iPhone. We’re moving close to 10 million sessions a day, and have significant and rising daily active user numbers.

We feel that after 4 years we’re finally starting to understand the iOS market, and we can help both ourselves and partner studios succeed in this space. I think the time is right to move into more graphics-heavy free-to-play titles that easily rival pay-to-play ones in terms of quality. With the new iPad we’re moving closer to a console level experience, and that’s something we want to work with in the future.(Source:gamesbrief


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