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管理多平台游戏发行的6个技巧

发布时间:2015-01-20 17:00:10 Tags:,,,,

作者:Debbie Bestwick

你需要始终确保自己准备好将游戏带向跨平台的道路并最大化你的收入潜能。以下是每个独立开发者都需要掌握的一些技巧。

multi-platform game(from develop-online)

multi-platform game(from develop-online)

1.做好家庭作业

阅读许多文件并搜索各种论坛。在与平台所有者交流的过程中,你可能面对的是一个销售经理。他们能够帮助你了解面向他们平台开发你的游戏的过程,所以请认真听他们说话。他们将告诉你任何需要跨越的障碍,如让游戏得到审核,提交游戏以获得评价,为在线商店和社交媒体创造图像和文本。

2.了解你的交货时间

作为发行商,我们发现很多人总是低估将游戏带到主机上的时间。每一款游戏都是不同的,但不要轻易断定这是一个快速的过程—-这可能需要花费你好几个月的时间。我们向所有合作者提供了“需求”文件以帮助他们能够制定准确的时间表。

将你的游戏带向主机通常包括改变或添加代码。如果你的游戏拥有在线多人游戏元素,你将需要投入更多努力。

3.多投入一些努力

本土化听起来并不是一个友好的词,但在将游戏带向其它国家的时候它却能够起到巨大的作用。你应该做些研究并寻找世界上其它与你的游戏相似并且表现得很好的游戏,然后判断支持当地语言需要花费多少成本。

不要硬编码你的所有游戏内部文本。翻译会更加简单,能够为你销售游戏打开一条全新的道路。

4.可用性

开发者的视野总是很容易局限在一个范围内,并会放任游戏中的缺陷。而深入的可用性测试便是标记玩家首次游戏体验所遇到的任何潜在问题的一种有效方法。如果主机并非你的首要平台,这一过程便能够帮助你明确控制转变的有效性。

5.年龄评级

研究你的目标用户。你需要确保自己是在正确的区域基于正确的等级发行游戏。年龄评级是一个花钱的过程,但如果未能明确这些等级,你便很难进入最终认证过程。大多数评级通常需要花费1至2周的时间(游戏邦注:有些甚至需要花费1个月)。

6.递交时间

平台所有者拥有较高的维护标准。不管是功能测试还是承诺,你的游戏都需要经过严格的审查以确保它适合在该平台发行。所以如果你能够在一开始进行研究,你便能在开发过程中始终牢记这些标准。

递交本身就需要花费几天时间,并且最终你有可能通过测试也有可能遭遇失败。如果你开始未能通过审核,你将需要修改任何问题并再次提交。

这将在你的预期发行时间上再加几个月的时间。所以独立开发者应该将其考虑在内去计算所需时间和预算;你可能在最终发行游戏前需要留出更长的时间。

本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转功,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Six tips for managing multi-platform game releases

By Debbie Bestwick

It’s always best to ensure you’re prepared for your game to go cross-platform and maximise your earning potential. Here’s a few tips that every indie developer needs to know.

1. Do your homework

Prepare for much document reading and forum searching. During the process of speaking with platform holders, you may be given an account manager. They will be invaluable in guiding you through the process of developing your game for their platform, so listen to them. They’ll tell you any additional hurdles to cross, like getting your game approved, submitting the game for review and getting pictures and text for online stores and social media.

2. Know your lead times

As a publisher, we quite often see people underestimate the time needed to get their game on console. Every game is different, but don’t be lured into thinking this is a quick process – it can take months. We provide a customised ‘requirements’ document to all our partners which helps them make accurate assessments on timeframes.

Getting your game onto consoles usually involves changes or additions to your code. If your game has online multiplayer, you’ll almost certainly have a lot of work to do.

3. Go the extra mile

Localisation doesn’t sound like the friendliest of terms, but it can make a difference when reaching out to other countries. Do some research and find out where games similar to yours are doing well in the world, then see how much it would cost to support that country’s language.

And don’t hard-code all of your in-game text. Translation is much easier this way, opening up new avenues to sell your game.

4. Usability

As a developer, it’s very easy to get tunnel vision and adapt to flaws in your game. An in-depth usability test is a great way to flag any potential issues for players experiencing the game for the first time. If consoles are not the lead platform, this is a great time to see how well the controls translate.

5. Age ratings

Do some research into your target audience. You’ll need to make sure you’re releasing at the right ratings in the right regions. Age ratings can be a costly process and you won’t be able to enter final certification without these ratings in place. Most ratings usually take one or two weeks to return; however, some can take up to a month.

6. Submission time

Platform holders have high standards to maintain. From functional tests to compliance, your game will be put through rigorous checks to ensure it’s suitable for release. You will have been developing your game with all these checks in mind if you did your research at the beginning.

Submission itself can take several days, but you get a pass or fail report at the end. If you didn’t pass first time around, you’ll need to fix up whatever came back and submit again. Generally, Team17 schedules two fails before passing, including time to fix up any issue.

This could add months to your expected release date. It’s crucial for indies to factor this into their time and budget; you might need to support yourself for a long time before your game finally gets released.(source:develop-online)

 


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