问题：

发布日期是个过时的概念吗？

*这十年来最成功的独立游戏《Minecraft》最初是以alpha版本示人。

*F2P游戏有分软发布、硬发布、主要更新等阶段。

*Beta的概念已经中途退场了。

*AAA游戏在其生命周期中会发布补丁、更新、DLC以及付费DLC。

*但《侠盗猎车手》表明你可以在游戏“公布”之后再进行媒体报道和零售。

所以我的问题是：在这个总是连网的时代，游戏发布日期还有意义吗？它究竟是个有价值的概念还是一个破坏性的干扰因素？

gta-5-release-date(from gameranx.com)

回答：

Melissa Clark-Reynolds（MiniMonos创始人）

我认为这是在线游戏的利好消息。我认为在线游戏的beta测试将成为一个永久的功能。当我们四年前把《MiniMonos》投入Alpha测试时，这种做法还不甚普遍。人们通常是在内部进行Alphas测试，公开测试的是Beta版本。我们看到了公开进行Alphas测试，以及长期进行Beta测试的全球趋势。

Ben Cousins（DeNA欧洲游戏工作室主管）

在移动平台上，全球发布是一个重要的日期（这是你可能被平台所有者推荐的要点），对许多开发者来说，这也是游戏获得最多玩家和最多收益的要点。

没错，你经常进行软发布，但这实际上无异于内部beta测试。

从PC平台的F2P游戏到移动平台的F2P游戏都可以证实，“发布日期”是一个极为重要的事情。这很像是发布主机，如果幸运的话用户就会因某个功能而考虑购买。

Oscar Clark（Applifier倡导者）

对我来说，转型就是转移到一项服务，所以Ben和Melissa的话都很有道理。正如Melisa所言，转移到持续的“Beta”，公开测试早期发布的内容都是极有价值的方法。这并不一定会同Ben所说的“全球发布”及其对游戏收益的影响相矛盾。我只是认为他们属于不同的现象。

根据我自己的经验，我发现可预测的常规发布日期极有价值，因为他们可以为玩家传递一种预期，并让你加紧时间投入开发精力。越是常规和可预测的发布，其影响结果就越明显。这并不是因为人们是健忘的，还因为这会创造一种预期节奏。当然，如果没有足够的时间让玩家建立心理预期，或者你的项目中没有玩家所在乎的内容，那么过于频繁的发布可能会产生信息泛滥的风险。

这避免这种情况，我认为最好分别进行内容（游戏邦注：例如游戏中可供玩家购买/使用的道具）发布与功能发布。内容发布的节奏应该是每周一次，而主要功能发布则较不频繁，可以是每季度一次（但也可以是每月或每2周一次）。

但是，但如果你对玩家所做的关于游戏和工作室的承诺并不符合实情，那就等于前功尽弃了。

所以我并不认为发布日期是个过时的概念。它们会成为剧集式的内容——玩家返回和期望更多精彩的原因。

Andrew Smith（Spilt Milk Studios创始人）

我认为电视与此相关。电视剧每季都有定期规划好的内容。其中最大原因之一就是培养心理预期，甚至是培养用户的收看习惯。

当你让某人可以在每周五晚餐时间之前自然而然地去查看游戏网站或新闻，那你就赢了。

单一的发布日期现在已经不再像发布日期的时间表那么重要了。

Tim Wicksteed（Twice Circled总监）

我最近看了两篇来自独立工作室的Kickstarter成功筹资项目的事后分析，他们都要依靠项目启动的及时性。现在Kickstarter与一般发布发式截然不同，因为它极注重时间，你只有30天的筹资时间，所以在短时间内将你的推销进行压缩就十分重要。但这两家工作室似乎都利用了炒作/热点效应，例如，额外的媒体发布导致报道出现在多个网站上。

所以这方面已经有了一个现实案例。我认为人性决定了我们通常会为不做某事而找借口。为什么你今天能做的事情要拖到明天？这正是Steam销售方式如此可行的原因，因为它奉行的原则是“好，你可以等到明天再做决定，但那时你要多支付10倍的价钱。”发布日期作为一种社会和心理暗示，可以告诉人们“这是你应该购买的日期，将它记在日程表上”，这总比“哦，顺便提一下，这款游戏已经发布了一周”更有效。

我同意Oscar所说的，发布日期本身并不过时，但其本质已经有所变化。发布日期已经不再专门应用于发布1.0版本，但却适用于一系列事情——Alpha版本、现成游戏的新内容，或者以上所述的Kickstarter项目等。

Mark Sorrell（免费游戏设计顾问）

总体上，我还是同意大家所表达的意思，例如发布日期仍然具有重要性，只是“发布日期”的定义很可能发生变化。

发布日期允许市场营销关注单个推力，因此获得榜单排名，从而产生安装量，而安装量又提升了榜单排名，如此反复。这适用于新游戏发布，以及成熟游戏的内容更新。

另外，看看亚洲市场就知道“发布计划”的频率应以每月，至每周甚至是每日为单位。我不确定这是否会让“发布日期”更重要。我认为这有可能是更重要，但还是支持“重新定义发布日期”这一概念。让游戏玩家带到你的游戏中，准备体验，准备付费，准备新内容和游戏世界场景当然有利于提升留存率和盈利性。

我认为多数游戏，只要它们并非一次性预付费的商业模式，终会逐渐形成更新节奏，并且在西方市场会出现早已出现在亚洲的游戏“更新”竞赛。（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）

[Gamesbriefers] Are release dates still relevant?

By Gamesbriefers

Question:

Are release dates an outmoded concept?

- The most successful indie game this decade, Minecraft, was available in alpha.

- Free-to-play games have soft launch, hard launch, major updates and so on.

- The concept of a Beta is falling by the wayside

- AAA games get patches and updates and DLC and paid DLC thoughout their lives.

- YET GTA V showed that you can get the public, press and retail behind the “launch” of a title.

So my question: what do release dates even mean in the age of always-on connectivity, and are they are valuable concept or a damaging distraction?
Answers:
Melissa Clark-ReynoldsMelissa Clark-Reynolds Founder of MiniMonos

I think that is the bonus of online….  for online games I believe beta is going to be a permanent feature.  When we took MiniMonos out on Alpha four years ago it wasn’t common for that to be in public.  People pretty much did closed Alphas, public betas.  We are seeing much more of a global move to public Alphas, and long term betas.

Ben Cousins1Ben Cousins Head of European Game Studios at DeNA

On mobile the worldwide release (the point at which you could be featured by the platform holder) is a vital date, and for many the point at which you get the most players and the most money.

Yes, you often soft launch, but this is equivalent to a closed beta to all intents and purposes.

Moving from PC F2P to mobile F2P it was evident that ‘release dates’ are much much more significant events. It feels quite a lot like a console launch, especially if you are luck enough to be considers for a feature.

Oscar ClarkOscar Clark Evangelist for Applifier

For me the transition is about moving to a service and hence Ben and Melissa’s comments both make a lot of sense. The movement to an ongoing ‘Beta’, the ever earlier release of material for testing openly are all valuable approaches as Melisa says. This isn’t necessarily a contradiction of the effect Ben is talking about related to the use of a ‘World-wide release’ and its impact on revenues. I just think they are different phenomena.

What I have found in many of my roles is that predictable regular release dates are extremely valuable as they can deliver a level of anticipation and expectation and buy you time to stagger your development efforts. The more regular and predictable the release the more impact they have. Not least because people have short memories but because this creates a rhythm of expectations. Of course there is a risk that too frequent releases can become overwhelming if there is no time for the anticipation to build or if there is not enough of substance for your players to care.

To avoid this problem found it useful to separate Content releases (i.e. items in the game I can use/buy) from feature releases (introducing new experiences). The pace of content releases should be every week where as a Major feature release can be as infrequent as every quarter (although its probably worth having smaller Monthly or 2 weekly releases as well).

However, all this effort is wasted if its not part of the story you are telling your players about your game and studio; that narrative that forms part of the metagame. I don’t mean it has to actually be part of the narrative of the gameplay itself; for me the Metagame is all those things which emerge from the entire experience of engaging with your game, its community and the brand.

So I don’t think release dates are outmoded. Instead they become like episodic content – another reason for players to return and expect further delights.

Andrew SmithAndrew Smith Founder of Spilt Milk Studios

I look to TV (for once) in relation to this. Regularly scheduled content arose on TV for several reasons. One of the biggest surely was to ingrain expectation and even better build *habit* into your audience.

When you get someone automatically checking your games’website for news without thinking every friday lunchtime before logging on for some playtime, that’s when you’re winning.

A single release date is less important now than a schedule of release dates.

tim wicksteedTim Wicksteed Director of Twice Circled

I recently read a couple of successful Kickstarter postmortems from indie studios (Scraps and Statis) and they both seemed to rely on the timely nature of their campaign launches. Now Kickstarter is quite different from standard release because it’s incredibly time critical, you only have 30 days to raise your money, so it’s important to squeeze all your sales into small window. However both studios seemed to exploit the hype/buzz effect e.g. additional press resulting from journalists seeing the story on multiple sites and jumping onboard.

So there’s a real-life example but now for some wishy washy psychology. I think human nature dictates that we often look for excuses not to do things. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow? or simply “Mañana, Mañana”. That’s why Steam sales work so well, they say “Well yes, you could wait until tomorrow but you’ll pay 10 times as much.” Release dates act as social and psychological cues that say “This is the day you’re supposed to buy it, put it in your diary” which is probably more effective than “Oh by the way, the game’s already been out for a week”.
I agree with Oscar that release dates aren’t outmoded in themselves but their nature has perhaps changed a bit. A release date is no longer exclusively applied to the launch of V1.0 but can be applied to a range of things – the launch of an Alpha, new content for an established game or a Kickstarter campaign as described above.

Mark SorrellMark Sorrell Freemium game design consultant

In general I agree with the sentiments expressed so far, ie, release dates will continue to be important. I think, again as is suggested here, that the definition of ‘release date’ is likely to change, however.

Where this business is one of efficiency and margins then launch dates allow marketing to concentrate on a single push, and as a consequence gain chart position, and the installs that brings and the chart position those installs bring and so on. That applies equally to the launch of a game as it does to an update for a mature title.
Also, a look to Asia sees ‘release schedules’ that bring content updates in from monthly, past even weekly and into daily. I’m not sure if that makes ‘release dates’ more or less important. I tend towards more important, but back that with the ‘redefinition of release dates’ piece. Bring gamers back to your game, ready to play, ready to spend, primed for new content and offers and game-world scenarios is surely good for retention and monetisation.

I’d expect to see most games, presuming their business model isn’t exclusively a single up-front payment, gradually build the pace of their updates as time goes by and an arms-race of ‘freshness’ kicks-off in the West in the same way it arguable already has in the Asia.（source：gamesbrief）