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每日观察:关注开发团队的不同管理方式(8.23)

发布时间:2013-08-23 11:28:34 Tags:,,

1)据mobile-ent报道,黑莓一直在不遗余力地鼓励开发者面向BlackBerry 10开发应用,但最近有消息指出,该平台应用商店BlackBerry World的12万款应用中,有4.7万款来自单独的一家公司S4BB。

值得注意的是,这家开发商推出的多款应用的质量只能算是勉强过关,这正是黑莓目前需要解决的一大问题,即加强对平台应用质量的把关,不可草率为这种能够在短时间内推出大量劣质应产品的开发商放行。

bb-world(from crackberry.com)

bb-world(from crackberry.com)

2)据日经新闻报道,Kabam日前同东京手机游戏开发商KLab签署合作协议,将面向美国和欧洲市场发行KLab游戏。KLab在日本、中国、菲律宾、新加坡和美国均有工作室,本次合作主要锁定欧洲市场。

报道还指出,KLab正在开发的手机RPG最早将于下个月通过Kabam推向国际市场。

3)据mobile-ent报道,McAfee Labs最近调查结果显示,谷歌Android系统在今年第二季度的恶意软件攻击率同比去年上升了35%。

sick-android(from androidjunkies.com)

sick-android(from androidjunkies.com)

其中的攻击形式包括窃取短信银行信息的软件、诈骗约会和娱乐应用,以及伪装成实用工具的流氓应用。最难被用户发觉的是木马应用,它们会促使真正的应用变成监视软件并搜集手机上的电话记录、联系人、地理位置、文本等资料。

4)eMarketer最近报告预测,今年美国数字广告投入将从去年的368亿美元增长至422.6亿美元,在所有媒体广告投入中占比24.7%。

US digital ad spending(from eMarketer)

US digital ad spending(from eMarketer)

但预计数字广告投入增幅仅为14.9%,这一趋势将持续到2017年,届时数字广告投入收益将达613.5亿美元,但增幅仅为7.1%。

这一发展主要归功于过去几个月的移动投入,预计今年移动领域投入将达85.1亿美元,高于预期情况(76.5亿美元)。

5)据gamasutra报道,11 bit工作室制作人Stan Just(代表作为《异形:地球战区》)在日前的GDC Europe大会上探讨了开发团队的不同管理方式,并指出综合型管理方式效果最佳。

developer team(from edge-online)

developer team(from edge-online)

他称“说服”型管理方式,就是由管理层告诉下属他们应该怎么做,并紧跟执行情况,这可以让产品开发得到最好的控制,也是最为直观的方法,但是这可能会削弱员工的积极性,抑制他们的创造力。

“参与”型管理方式就是由团队成员和领导聚在一起制定决策,领导是开发团队中的一者,这种方法有利于激发成员的创造力,通常也更易于推出质量最佳的产品,但却不利于制定快速的硬决策。

“授权”型管理方式就是领导将任务分配给团队,但很少核对情况,相信团队能够创造出最好的内容,这是一种最令人舒服的方法,能够给予团队更多自由,但却极具风险,对于没有经验的开发者来说也很糟糕。

Just认为只有将这些方法的不同元素结合起来,才能发挥最佳效果。例如,向更有经验的员工“授权”,“说服”缺乏经验的团队成员。(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

1)The lone developer: 47,000 BlackBerry 10 apps come from one company

by Phil Tottman

Raising doubts around the company’s claim to be building a viable app store.

In a bid to encourage developers to make their existing apps usable on the BlackBerry 10 operating system, the company has showered them with resources and money, yet it has been revealed that of the 120,000 apps on the app store, more than 47,000 of them come from one – obviously very busy – developer.

However all is not as it seems, the ‘impressive’ amount of apps from S4BB becomes less so when you really look into what there is available.

Adam Emery, a spokesman from BlackBerry, said: “Developers in all app stores employ a number of different monetisation tactics. BlackBerry World is an open market for developers and we let market forces dictate the success or failure of these tactics.”

Admittedly there are a few legitimate apps from the lone developer, however a number of them – and by ‘a number’ we mean a bloody lot of them – turn out to be city guides, or audio books, phrasebooks and RSS feeds from news sites.

It is understandable that most of these are passable as an app, but the simplicity of them – meaning a developer could vomit out a load in a short space of time – make them pretty pointless.

This is surely an issue that BlackBerry should be addressing. As it is the FBI’s current choice of device, it would make sense that BB should be a bit more strict with its security in all aspects of the business – if a single developer can flood its app store so heavily without being dealt with, who knows what else people could get away with.

That may be why Samsung is being trialled as the new secret agent’s device.

S4BB appears to just be aggressively drowning BlackBerry World in an attempt to get noticed, like a really naughty, attention seeking child – and its spoiling parent is just turning a blind eye rather than tackling what could be an annoyance to those who use the app store.(source:mobile-ent
2)For Marketing Games In The US And Europe: Kabam Partners Up With Tokyo-Based KLab

by Dr. Serkan Toto

Business daily The Nikkei just reported on its website that Kabam has signed a deal with Tokyo-based (and listed) mobile game maker KLab (3656).

Under the deal, Kabam will market and distribute some of KLab’s titles in the US as well as Europe. KLab’s most famous game internationally is card battler “Lord Of The Dragons”.

KLab has offices in Japan, China, the Philippines, Singapore, and the US (it seems the deal is aimed at Europe in particular).

According to the Nikkei report, a yet-to-be announced mobile RPG from KLab will be distributed outside Japan by Kabam as early as next month.

This could be KLab’s new game Rise To The Throne – or possibly an entirely new title.

KLab recently made headlines with their alliance with Microsoft, followed by a funding round worth US$9.3 million.

In April, Kabam said it has set up a US$50 million fund to help Japanese mobile game makers enter Western markets.(source:serkantoto

3)Android malware threats spike 35 per cent year-on-year

by Zen Terrelonge

Riddled with attacks via banking, data, dating and beyond.

Android has always been accused of security problems due to the open source nature of its design, and McAfee Labs says the malware threats on the Google OS in Q2 rose by 35 per cent year-on-year.

The attacks are coming in a plethora of forms, such as: SMS-stealing banking malware, fraudulent dating and entertainment apps, weaponised legitimate apps and malicious apps posing as useful tools.

Banking violations are happening with hackers stealing usernames and passwords, then intercepting verification codes that are being sent from the bank to the consumer via text.

Meanwhile, those unlucky in love have been scammed by people paying for services that don’t exist.

It seems Trojan apps are the worst ones to watch out for however, with real apps being converted to act as spyware and collect data – call logs, contacts, location, texts – from devices.

Vincent Weafer, SVP, McAfee Labs, said: “The mobile cybercrime landscape is becoming more defined as cyber gangs determine which tactics are most effective and profitable.

“As in other mature areas of cybercrime, the profit motive of hacking bank accounts has eclipsed the technical challenges of bypassing digital trust. Tactics such as the dating and entertainment app scams benefit from the lack of attention paid to such schemes; while others simply target the mobile paradigm’s most popular currency: personal user information.”(source:mobile-ent

4)US digital ad spending to hit $42.26 billion this year

by Phil Tottman

US digital ad spending to hit $42.26 billion this year

Mobile spending expected to rise 95 per cent.

Digital ad spending in the US will rise from $36.80 billion last year, to $42.26 accounting for 24.7 per cent of total media ad spending this year, reports eMarketer.

However the latest forecast for digital ad spending expects a 14.9 per cent growth, which is a touch below the 15 per cent last. This is expect to continue to fall through 2017, when spending will rise 7.1 per cent to reach $61.35 billion.

The figures show a slight increase from eMarketers June forecast which predicted that marketers would spend $41.94 billion this year on advertising appears on desktop platforms as well as laptop, mobile and other connected devices.

The growth is largely due to the increase in mobile spending in the last few months, which is now expected to hit 8.51 billion this year, compared to a previous estimation of $7.65 billion.(source:mobile-ent

5)Which management style is right for your game studio?

By Mike Rose

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Working out the best management style for your development team depends on the varying levels of experience of your team, 11 bit Studios producer Stan Just argued at GDC Europe today.

The Anomaly Warzone Earth producer discussed a range of popular studio management styles, and explored which styles are best in different situations, concluding that a combination of styles can work best.

The “Selling” approach for example, in which a manager tells employees what they need to be doing specifically, and then keeps a close eye on the execution, can lead to the best control and most intuitive approach — however, this can prove rather demotivating for employees, and lead to low levels of creativity, as developers cannot then explore and innovative as much.

The “Participating” approach, in which the team comes together with the leader to make decisions, and the leader is actually an integral part of the team, can lead to great creativity in comparison, and often leads to the best quality game. But it can be hard to pull off this structure, especially when a quick, hard decision is required.

Meanwhile the “Delegating” angle — with the leader handing tasks out to the team and rarely checking up on them, essentially trusting them to create the best possible content — can be the most satisfying approach and provide a lot of team freedom, but can also be hugely risky, and is pretty awful for an inexperienced developer.

But Just argues that applying different elements of each approach can have great effect. Delegating to more experienced employees while selling to the lesser experienced team members, for example, can be a good approach.

“Assist when important work may not be appropriately delivered,” he reasoned, “and participate with your best talents to deliver greatest quality.” Allowing the more experienced team members to keep checks on the less experienced can also be a great way to effectively manage the team.(source:gamasutra


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