作者：Thomas Bedenk

介绍

本文将回首我们在7个带有5种不同收益模式的平台上发行一款本地多人游戏《旋转战争》的试验，分析我们为什么要这么做以及从中学到了些什么。

最初的原型

2010年，我们最初将《旋转战争》作为一个3天原型并将其提交给“Gamma IV一键式挑战”。从那时以来游戏开发便是由Brightside Games所负责。因为我们从《旋转战争》的比赛中感受到了许多乐趣，所以我们决定是时候将这款游戏呈现在公众面前。我们知道推广一款纯粹的本地多人游戏 并不轻松，但我们只是希望所有人都能像我们这样享受到它所带来的乐趣！

在《旋转战争》中，你可以控制移动，射击并通过按压，敲打并释放同一个按键而发动一次特殊的攻击。你可以在spinwars.brightside-games.com观看预告片或着眼于下图“如何游戏”的图示进行更好的理解。自从第一个原型诞生以来，我们便反复地游戏，并在各种活动中呈现它。

试验

在我们创造了最初的原型（游戏邦注：其游戏玩法非常接近于最终游戏）后3年，我们最终于2013年开始着手面向各种平台和分销渠道发行《旋转战争》：

在苹果的App Store中面向iOS手机和平板电脑

在Google Play中面向Android手机和平板电脑

OUYA

在Desura网站面向PC和Mac

在三星的App Store中面向Android手机和平板电脑

2014年我们在以下平台发行游戏：

在Windows Store中面向PC和平板电脑

Windows Phone

除了将游戏带向玩家，我们的主要目标便是尝试不同的平台和收益模式，虽然这对于一款本地多人游戏来说不一定具有意义。

iOS上的付费完整版

OUYA上带有赠品的免费版本

Desura上的游戏包/Indie Royale Bundle

在Android上带有游戏内部货币的免费版本

在Windows上2名玩家的免费模式以及付费升级到4名玩家的模式

我们同样也在尝试以下平台和插件，主要是为了提高我们的评价：

Tapjoy（在发行前被删掉了）

Flurry

在Everyplay将视频分享到iOS

Applifier Game Ads

三星/艺电的100%独立计划

Kiip在Android上提供的奖励

我们决定完全专注于纯粹的本地多人游戏而尝试这些。因此我们舍弃了任何基于单人玩家模式的内容，毫无疑问，这将能够大大提高游戏的曝光度和适销性。

结果

将游戏移植到多种平台上可能与创造游戏本身一样费力。如果你想要为《旋转战争》制定一个制作预算，它可能会非常低。

一件非常奇怪的事是，我们必须对图片进行后期处理从而让它能够更好地凸显于三星的应用商店中。然而这将导致我们在Facebook上的大多数分享文章都是关于《旋转战争》。

我们花了一周的时间创造了一个非常酷的预告片。你可以在《旋转战争》的网站上看到它。

虽然我们花了一些时间致力于PR，但我们却没有市场营销预算。我们常听到的内容是“为你的评论支付费用”，但却没有任何更大的国际应用网站选择我们。不过我们至少获得了来自一些德国网站的积极评论。

在德国的App Store中获得“新品推荐”

得到了多个德国应用评论网站的正面评论

成为100%独立计划的一份子并在它们的网站上获得推荐

在2013年的E3上成为100%独立展示的一部分

在OUYA的主机控制面板上获得推荐

在三星的应用商店中获得推荐

Indie Royale Debut 2 Bundle

获得微软在Windows Store中的推荐（“最佳界面选择”）

获得微软在Windows Newsletter的推荐并因此获得25万的订阅者

通过在墙上的游戏机中呈现一幅巨大的画面而出现于2013年的AMaze Berlin Festival上

在AMaze的比赛中我们分发了《旋转战争》的一些hacky sacks

最出色的玩家在iOS上共玩了539回合的游戏

玩家在iOS和Android平台上共玩了超过13万回合的游戏

在iOS的App Store中平均拥有4.5颗星的评级并伴随着29条评论

所有的这些成绩听起来都很酷，但这对于游戏的下载量并未产生巨大的影响。我们真的在等待着Windows Store将如何处理我们现在所获得的推荐。

你可以在下图中看到下载统计。左边是关于下载右边是关于付费。Android平台上大约22000的下载并不是通过官方商店，主要是来自于中国市场。你必须记住上面所提到的不同收益模式。这意味着OUYA上的玩家通常是免费获得游戏，在Android平台上你可以在打开完整版本前玩好几个回合。

我们认为利用《旋转战争》进行试验是有价值的，并且我们也相信许多玩家将从中获得很棒的体验！Everyplay非常容易执行，并且是一个很酷且能够添加到游戏中的工具。我们总是很难去推广一款本地多人游戏，特别是在iOS和Android平台上，因为很多玩家已经习惯于自己下载并尝试一款游戏。但是我仍然觉得将在线多人游戏元素或单人玩家模式添加到《旋转战争》中并不是一个有效的选择，这并不能更好地推动这款游戏的发展。我们在一些展会上很开心地玩着游戏，并且到目前为止我们所收到的大多数评论和反馈都是正面的。但是不管怎么说这都是一件立基产品，所以我们希望能够获得更多的PR帮助从而在国际市场上取得更大的渗透率。

（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）

Local Multiplayer on 7 Platforms with 5 Revenue Models with SPiN WARS

by Thomas Bedenk

Introduction

This article will look back on our experiment of releasing our local multiplayer only game SPiN WARS on 7 platforms with 5 different revenue models, why we did it and what we learned from it.

The Origin

We developed SPiN WARS originally as a 3 day prototype to submit it to the “Gamma IV one-button challenge” back in 2010. Since then the game was brought out at all Brightside Games parties or game nights. We had so much fun with our SPiN WARS tournaments that we decided it’s about time to release this little gem to the public! We knew it wouldn’t be easy to market a local multiplayer only game, but we just want everyone to be able to enjoy it as much as we do!

In SPiN WARS you control the movement, shooting and release of a special attack with holding, tapping and releasing the same button. Watch a trailer on spinwars.brightside-games.com or look at the “how to play” picture in this article to understand the game better. Since the first prototype, we played it over and over at parties and showed it at events. If you would like to know more about our game design approach you should read my older blogpost about social aspects of local multiplayer.

The Experiment

Three years after we made the original prototype which gameplay wise is very close to the final game we set out in 2013 to release SPiN WARS for all kinds of platforms and distribution channels which are:

Apple App-Store on iOS Phone and Tablet

Google Play on Android for Phone and Tablet

OUYA

Desura for PC and Mac

Samsung App Store for Android Phone and Tablet

Another year later in 2014 we are releasing the game on

Windows Store for PC and Tablets

Windows Phone

Besides bringing the game to the players our main goal was to experiment with different platforms and revenue models, which don’t necessarily make sense for a local multiplayer only game.

Paid full version on iOS

Free with donations on OUYA

Game bundle on Desura / Indie Royale Bundle

Free-to-play with in-game currency on Android

Free 2 player mode and paid upgrade to 4 players on Windows Store

We also tried out the following platforms and plugins, mostly for our own evaluation:

Tapjoy (was removed before release)

Flurry

Everyplay for Video sharing on iOS

Applifier Game Ads

100% Indie by Samsung / EA

Kiip, real rewards on Android

We decided that we wanted to try this with an absolute focus on the pure local multiplayer only. Therefore we dismissed anything like single player modes a campaign or progress, which for sure would increase the visibility and marketabiliy of the game a lot.

The Results

Porting the game to multiple platforms was probably as much work as creating the game itself. If you wanted to come up with a production budget for SPiN WARS it would be very low.

One of the strangest things happening was that we had to photoshop above picture for being too revealing on the Samsung Store. However that resulted in our most shared Facebook post about SPiN WARS

We produced a really cool trailer that took us about a week to create. You can watch the trailer on the SPiN WARS website.

We spent some time on PR but had no marketing budget. We got the usual “pay for your review” answers but weren’t picked up by any bigger international app site. However we got some very positive reviews from German sites.

Featured on the German App Store in “New & Noteworthy”

Very positive reviews by multiple German App Review site with up to 85%

Part of the 100% indie program and featured on their website

Part of the 100% indie showcase at E3 2013

Featured by OUYA on their console dashboard

Featured in the Samsung App Store

Indie Royale Debut 2 Bundle

Featured by Microsoft in the Windows Store as “Surface Pick”

Featured in the Windows Newsletter by Microsoft going to 250k subscribers

Exhibited at the AMaze Berlin Festival 2013 in a huge painted on the wall gameboy

Tournament at AMaze where we gave away cool SPiN WARS hacky sacks

Top player played 539 sessions of the game on iOS

Over 130.000 total sessions played on iOS and Android

Average of 4.5 stars on the iOS App Store with 29 reviews

All this sounds pretty good, but it didn’t have a huge impact on the download numbers. We are actually still waiting to see how the Windows Store will do where we are currently featured.

You can see download statistics on the following slide. Left column are downloads and right column are paid. The roughtly 22.000 downloads on (Android) are copies not through official stores mostly from China. Remember the different revenue models listed above. That meant that players on OUYA generally got the game for free and you could play quite a lot of sessions on Android before you have to unlock the full version (probably way too many to make anyone pay).

We feel like it was worth experimenting with SPiN WARS and think a lot of players had a really good time with it! Everyplay was super easy to implement and can be a very cool feature to add to your game. It is very hard to market a local multiplayer only game especially on iOS and Android since a lot of players are used to downloading and trying a game by themselves. However I still don’t think it would have been a good option to add online multiplayer or a single player mode to SPiN WARS, it just doesn’t work with what makes this game great. We had a blast playing the game at exhibitions and every review we got so far and user feedback has been great. In the end it’s a very niche product and we wish we would have had a bigger reach on the PR concerning international pages.

We are looking forward to your feedback and comments!(source:gamasutra)