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Ricardo Zacconi分享King.com游戏的成功秘诀

发布时间:2012-11-09 11:40:03 Tags:,,,,

作者:Steve Peterson

自从2011年4月在Facebook上发行了第一款游戏以来,King.com已经在该平台上取得了巨大的发展。根据AppData,如今King.com共拥有4900万的MAU(月活跃用户),成为继Zynga(拥有3亿200万MAU)后Facebook上第二大社交游戏公司。艺电紧随其后,具有3700万的MAU,而排名第四的Wooga也具有3680万的MAU。如果是基于DAU(日活跃用户)进行测量,Zynga拥有4800万的DAU而King.com拥有1170万,依然位列第二。

如今,该公司希望将自己在Facebook上取得的成功延续到手机平台上,并于上周公开了即将发行的新手机游戏《Candy Crush Saga》(面向iOS)。GamesIndustry International就该公司在社交游戏和手机游戏发展中的成功策略,以及为何其它公司只能在这些领域苦苦挣扎等问题,与其首席执行官兼联合创始人Ricardo Zacconi展开了交谈。

Candy Crush Saga(from facemoi-new.blogspot)

Candy Crush Saga(from facemoi-new.blogspot)

创建于2003年的King.com一开始是面向网页提供休闲游戏,他们投入了好几年的时间创造了能够吸引大量玩家的休闲游戏组合。King.com于2011年4月发行了第一款Facebook游戏,但是那时候该公司遭到了种种质疑。Zacconi说道:“有人跟我们说‘看,社交游戏时代已经结束了。胜负早已成定局。为什么你们选择在2011年4月才进入该领域?真的太晚了。’但是我们并不认为那时候太晚了。如今的发展便证明我们的想法是对的,因为直到现在仍然有大量的用户热衷于这些容易操作的游戏。”

Zacconi坚信拥有强大的游戏组合对公司的发展非常有帮助,所以到现在King.com在其网站上共拥有150款不同的游戏,并不断将更成功的游戏带向Facebook和手机平台。Zacconi表示:“在我们发行了《Bubble Witch Saga》后,很快便有8000多万名玩家在玩其它同样类型的射击游戏。而我们也一直在努力引进不同类别的游戏;很快我们便会为玩家带来更多游戏类型了。”

如今,Zynga遭遇了版权问题,而艺电也承认他们的社交游戏用户在去年出现了大幅度的下滑。尽管如此,Zacconi也不认为社交游戏的发展开始走下坡路。通过研究目标用户群体,他向我们证实了这一观点。Zacconi解释道:“基于目标用户群体,游戏市场被划分成不同群组。其中的主流群组便是25岁至45岁的女性玩家,她们主要接触的都是休闲游戏。如果我们能从更广的层面去定义休闲游戏,那资源管理游戏也将包含在内。单单休闲游戏就具有多种类别:转换游戏,点击游戏,纸牌游戏,寻物解密游戏等等。这便是我们的网页中所覆盖的全部内容,也就是我们所拥有的150款游戏几乎涵盖了这些类别。”

Zacconi继续说道:“除此之外还存在着子类型,也就是还有其他非主流玩家在玩其它游戏。他们便属于利基目标用户群体,但却能够为游戏带来较大的利益。例如,硬核游戏便深受男性玩家的欢迎。这便是这类型游戏的目标用户群体。另一方面,Facebook上也存在着各种不同的游戏类型,因为Kixeye和Kabam的硬核游戏也进驻了该平台。虽然Kixeye是最大的盈利者之一,但是他们却只拥有100万的DAU。从中我们可以看出,公司是否强大不只是取决于用户规模,还应该参考其最终盈利。”

紧接着Zacconi将注意力转向了市场中最大的一部分用户。“市场中存在着主流目标用户群体,也就是那些选择Ville游戏以及资源管理游戏的玩家们。根据调查,这是一个非常庞大的数量。而这一领域也一直在发生着变化。为什么?因为游戏是娱乐世界的子集。在娱乐世界中,你只有提供更多新刺激以及多元化的内容才能有效地吸引用户的注意。谁能忍受每次都是观看同一部电影?当你呈现出第六个版本的资源管理游戏时(尽管它带有不同的内容),玩家便不再会对其产生任何兴趣了。”

Zacconi所采取的策略是让那些对King.com的一款游戏感到厌烦的玩家能够转向该公司的其它游戏。他说道:“我们非常重视目标用户群体。我们并不会完全专注于开发硬核游戏。”Zacconi认为成功的关键在于把握游戏业务的本质。“游戏是一种受热门度驱动的业务。如果有人说出了其它看法,我只能说那都是谎言。如何才能把握这一受热门度驱动的业务?如果你选择复制的话就太迟了。昨天的新闻已经是过去的新闻,六个月前上映的电影也不如今天的电影来得有趣。所以创造热门游戏业务的主要秘诀便是发行更多游戏。有些游戏能够带来成效,有些却不能。这便是我们所采取的方法。我们在网页上发行了各种各样的游戏,在此明确了硬核游戏玩法和最佳游戏玩法,并将更多的时间和资源投入于创造热门游戏中,希望将这些游戏带向Facebook和手机平台。”

Zacconi相信King.com的网站是推动King.com的Facebook游戏和手机游戏取得成功的关键因素。Zacconi强调:“我们在网页上共拥有1100万名独特的玩家。如果将我们拥有的目标用户群体比作金字塔,那么金字塔的最高峰便是较为严肃的休闲玩家。他们选择玩King.com的游戏便是因为这些游戏具有紧张感和竞争性,他们愿意为其投入大量的时间。我们发现非常重要的一点——因为这些严肃的玩家来自世界各地,所以他们清楚世界上的各种休闲游戏,并认识各种游戏网站;而如果女性玩家能够喜欢这类型游戏,那么这些游戏便能拥有更多机会去吸引更加广泛的玩家(非严肃型玩家)。”

Zacconi还发现了人们在智能手机和平板电脑上玩游戏的区别。“我们知道,玩家在iPad上的游戏时间总是远远长于他们在iPhone上的游戏时间(从数据上分析)。因为当人们在iPhone上玩游戏时一般都处于行走过程中,也就是休息时间非常有限。而如果玩家是在iPad上玩游戏,他们通常都是待在家里,拥有更宽裕的时间也更加休闲。”

而比起游戏时间的不同,平台间的不同盈利结果显得更加重要。Zacconi说道:“Facebook的盈利成果非常棒,iPhone亦是如此,我们都非常满意在这两个平台上所取得的成果。而在iPad上的盈利甚至是iPhone的2倍,我想应该是受到游戏时间长短的影响吧。”

Zacconi认为Facebook平台的本质在过去几年间已经发生了改变。他说道:“如果你认为Facebook是一个能够帮助你找到自己喜欢的游戏的平台,你便会发现该平台今天的服务远远优于一两年前。不仅产品的质量大大提升了,连图像的质量和游戏深度也变得越来越完善,甚至还出现了更加多元化的游戏。如今这里不仅有面向女性玩家的资源管理类游戏,还有大量面向各种类型玩家的游戏。因为拓宽了用户层面,现在的Facebook已经获得了超过10亿的用户。”

Zacconi清楚,Facebook游戏质量的完善也意味着King.com必须投入更多时间去开发自己的游戏,才能满足该平台对于游戏质量的要求。Zacconi承认:“这的确需要花费大量的时间。我们并不在乎游戏何时发行,我们真正关心的是它是否能够达到King.com的质量标准。我们希望能够创造出一个突显高质量游戏的品牌。而创建这一品牌的唯一方法便是随着时间的发展推出更多符合质量标准的游戏。King的下一款游戏将继续秉承这一原则,如果玩家喜欢我们之前的游戏,他们必然也会喜欢这款新游戏。”

最后,Zacconi认为King.com始终专注于高质量休闲游戏便是促成他们成功的核心元素。他说道:“如果你总是希望能在每一场战斗中获胜,最终你只会一败涂地。”

King.com最受欢迎的Facebook游戏《Candy Crush Saga》(获得了将近500万的日活跃用户)将于本月正式登录iOS设备,而Android版本也将在圣诞节前问世。这些手机版本仍将与Facebook版本保持同步,即玩家排行榜,分数,游戏进程以及虚拟商品将同时贯穿于这两个平台上。

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

King.com CEO: “Hit-proofing” a hit-driven business

By Steve Peterson

King.com has had an amazing growth story on Facebook; the company released its first Facebook game in April of 2011. Now, King.com has 49 million MAU (monthly average users) according to AppData, making it the second largest social game company on Facebook after Zynga (which has 302 million MAU). Electronic Arts is third with 37 million, followed closely by Wooga with 36.8 million. Measured by DAU (daily active users), Zynga has 48 million and King.com is second with 11.7 million.

The company is now aiming to repeat its Facebook success on mobile platforms, and last week announced the upcoming release of its newest latest mobile game, Candy Crush Saga, on iOS. GamesIndustry International caught up with CEO and co-founder Ricardo Zacconi in San Francisco as King.com celebrated the launch of the game. We spoke to him about King.com’s strategy for success on social and mobile, and why some other companies are struggling.

King.com was founded in 2003 as a place for casual game play on the web, and spent years building a portfolio of casual games that attracted a devoted audience. King.com released its first Facebook game in April of 2011, and at the time the firm encountered skepticism. “We were told, ‘Look, social games are gone. There is a winner and that’s it. Why are you starting in April of 2011? It’s late.’ We said, We don’t think it’s late,” said Zacconi. “Now we are actually proven right, because there is now a large user base which loves to play games which are easy to play.”

Zacconi believes in having a large portfolio of games; King.com has 150 different games on its web site, and is gradually bringing the most successful games to Facebook and then to mobile platforms. “We launched with Bubble Witch Saga, now suddenly there are 80 million people playing other shooters after we introduced this style of play,” said Zacconi. “We’re introducing different categories; there will be more genres coming up very soon.”

Zynga’s had well-publicized problems, and EA just admitted that its social gaming audience has fallen sharply over the last year. Despite this, Zacconi doesn’t feel there is a falloff in social game playing. He makes his case by looking at the demographics of the audience. “The market for games is divided into different demographic groups,” Zacconi explained. “There is a mainstream group, which is mainly female, 25-45, which plays casual games. If you define casual games in the broadest way, resource management games are one category of casual games. There are many categories of casual; there are switchers, there are clickers, there are card games, hidden object games, and so on. That’s what we have outside on the web, we have 150 games which cover these categories.”

Zacconi continued, “Then there are sub-genres, there are other demographics which play other games, which are not mainstream demographics. They are more niche demographics, but highly monetizing. For example, hardcore games are played mainly by the male demographic. These are the demographics. So what is happening? On one side, there is more variety in genres on Facebook, because now there are hardcore games with Kixeye and Kabam. Kixeye, one of the top monetizers, has actually only about one million DAUs, as an example. Not big in terms of reach, but in terms of monetization, yes.”

Zacconi then zeroed in on the largest part of the market. “Then there is the mainstream demographic, the players who play the Ville games, the resource management games. That’s where you see the big numbers in terms of reach. There, there is a little change happening. Why? Because games are a subset of the world of entertainment. The world of entertainment is a world where you need to provide new stimulus, new diversity. What happens if you watch the same movie every time? It becomes boring, right? After you have presented the sixth version of a resource management game, with different variations, it becomes boring.”

Zacconi’s strategy is to have players who get bored with a King.com game to shift to another King.com game. “We’re very focused on our demographic,” said Zacconi. “We’re not focused on developing hardcore games.” Zacconi sees the key to success is in the nature of the game business. “Games are a hit-driven business. If someone else tells you something different, it’s a lie. How can you hit-proof a hit-driven business? You either copy, in which case you are always late. The newspaper from yesterday is old; the movie which is six months old is less interesting than the movie which comes out today. The only other way of producing hits, or hit-proofing this business, is to launch a lot of games. Some games work, and some others don’t. That’s what we do. We launch a lot of games. We launch these games on the web, and that’s where we identify the core game play, the best game play, and the hit games then we invest a lot more time and resources to bring these games to Facebook and mobile.”

Zacconi believes the King.com web site is crucial to the success of King.com’s Facebook and mobile games. “On the web we have 11 million unique players,” noted Zacconi. “If you think of the demographics we have as a pyramid, the top of the pyramid are the heavy casual gamers. They play on King.com, because the games there are very intense, very competitive; the players play many hours. What we found out, and this was the really important thing – if these heavy players who really know well the world of casual games, because they play everywhere, all kinds of sites – if these ladies like the games the chance that these games will be appealing to the large audience of players, who are not heavy players, is very very high.”

Zacconi also sees a significant difference between how people are playing games on smartphones and on tablets. “What we see, and I’m talking now here about data, stats show so far that players who play on an iPad versus players who play on the iPhone are playing much more, longer, than players who play on an iPhone. The reason is, when you are on an iPhone, most likely you are somewhere on the way, it’s for a limited space of time. When you have the iPad, you’ re probably at home, it’s more relaxed, and you have more time.”

Even more significant than the play time difference is the difference in monetization between the platforms. “The monetization on Facebook is good, the monetization on iPhones is very good, so we are very pleased with the results,” Zacconi said. “The monetization on the iPad is actually twice as high as the monetization on the iPhone. The reason I think is that they are playing longer.”

Zacconi feels the nature of the Facebook platfrom has changed over the past year. “If you think of Facebook as a place where you can find games you like, now the offering is so much better than it was a year ago or two years ago,” Zacconi stated. “The quality of production has increased, the level of the graphics, the depth of the games has become much, much higher, but also the variety has increased. Now there are games not only for resource management for females, but there are all kinds of games for everyone. Facebook has also increased its reach, now that it’s passed a billion users.”

Zacconi is aware that the improving quality of Facebook games means that King.com must take more time developing its games to meet that level of quality. “Yes, it takes a lot of time,” Zacconi admitted. “We don’t care when the game launches, we just care that it has the King.com quality standard. We want to build a brand which stands for high-quality games. The only way to build a brand is to have consistency over time. We know the next game from King is going to be a high-quality game, and if you liked the previous game there’s a high chance you’re going to like the next one.”

In the end, Zacconi feels that King.com’s focus on quality casual games is central to its success. “If you want to fight all battles, in the end you fight no battle,” said Zacconi.

Candy Crush Saga, King.com’s most popular Facebook game with nearly 5 million daily active players, will be released on all iOS devices this November, with an Android version coming out before Christmas. The game will offer complete synchronization with Facebook, keeping player’s leaderboards, scores, progress and virtual goods seamless across both platforms.(source:gamesindustry)


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