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如何破解儿童游戏的应用商店营销难题?

发布时间:2015-04-13 14:51:59 Tags:,,,

作者:Chris Allers

如果你曾为儿童游戏而制定应用商店营销策略,那你就知道这个过程有多艰难了。

我们做了大量市场调查,思考如何更好地将《Puzzle Explorer》呈现给能够从中获得乐趣的用户。

我们很快发现推广一款儿童游戏需要协调多个重要且通常难以妥协的不同立场,之后才能决定如何采取行动。

以下是我们为National Geographics的《Puzzle Explorer》制定应用商店营销策略时所需协调的6个不同立场和相应决策。

1.不同用户的不同兴趣点——教育和娱乐

与其他儿童游戏一样,我们意识到自己必须锁定两个独特的用户群:会为孩子下载游戏的家长以及玩游戏的孩子。但是,这两个用户群的兴趣点往往并不一致。例如,家长感兴趣的是游戏的教育价值,而孩子们关注的则是游戏的娱乐层面。这两者并不一定能够相互匹配。

那么你该如何向兴趣点不同的用户推广游戏?

家长是应用商店的主要营销对象。你得向家长推广游戏,因为他们才是可能下载游戏的对象,那么我们就只要关注家长吗?

家长都很聪明。他们会寻找那些迎合自身需求(教育)的游戏,而孩子们感兴趣的却是娱乐。所以要两头兼顾就更为困难了。现在我们得向家长,同时还要向那些站在孩子的角度看问题的家长推广游戏,并想象一下他们的孩子是否会喜欢这款游戏。

但还有一种可能就是,孩子也许会自己在应用商店找到游戏,并要求家长为自己下载游戏,所以游戏也必须能够抓住孩子的眼球。

所以应用商店营销必须瞄准这三种用户群。必须抓住家长的眼球,我们根据家长想象出来的孩子的眼球,以及孩子本身的眼球。所以,我们该如何协调这三者的不同需求?

我们没有标准答案,如果你有,请一定要分享!

以下是我们目前推广《Puzzle Explorer》时协调这些不同需求的应用商店营销材料的一些尝试。

我们必须协调教育(家长兴趣点)和娱乐(孩子兴趣点)之间的不同。我们在游戏中已经有此举动。这很有趣,你也可以借鉴!现在我们得想个好方法在营销推广中体现这一点。

为此,我们决定先列出游戏的核心元素,寄希望于这些核心元素能够为我们提供一些营销素材。

我们将游戏划分为5个核心元素:

core elements(from gamasutra)

core elements(from gamasutra)

在《Puzzle Explorer》这款游戏中,玩家可以……

1)创造自己的谜题

2)体验自己创造的谜题

3)与好友分享这些谜题

4)学习游戏设计。这些游戏具有乐高积木式的分步指南,可以教他们学习游戏设计基本原理。

5)探索世界。这些谜题具有不同的世界主题,包含了来自《国家地理》的图片,所以孩子们可以由此了解不同文化和世界不同区域。

将游戏的这些核心环节列出来后,我们发现自己有一些很棒的文本内容可以突出《Puzzle Explorer》的教育价值——比如“创造”,“学习”,“探索”,“跟着《国家地理》去旅行”,同时这些文本内容也仍然能够满足孩子们的娱乐诉求,比如“体验”和“分享”。

2.教育价值的不同理念

但我们在此还是得说一些题外话,因为这正是棘手的地方。我们不但要协调教育和娱乐的不同之处,还得协调教育价值中的不同理论。

store image test(from gamasutra)

store image test(from gamasutra)

我们假设为孩子寻找游戏的多数家长会看中游戏的教育价值,他们当中大多数人听说过《国家地理》,也了解《国家地理》的教育价值,尤其是地理方面的知识。因此,我们决定将这款游戏的应用商店营销内容的首张图片设置为探索世界的主题,突出《国家地理》和地理这两个特点。

我们还设置了一张关于学习的图片,突出了这款游戏将如何助你成为一名游戏设计师。但是,我们假定较少家长会认识到游戏设计的教育价值。另外,我们也没有能力仅在单个营销图片上解释游戏设计的教育价值(尽管我们在应用描述中有此打算)——创造性解决问题的能力,快速创建原型,基础逻辑技能,逻辑思维,以及计算机科学的必要思维类型等等。所以,这张图片并不像突出《国家地理》的那张图一样显著,我们希望那些了解游戏设计的教育价值的家长能够得出这样一个结论,即《Puzzle Explorer》也包含这一教育价值。至于那些不了解游戏设计教育价值的家长?我们希望游戏本身就能够解决这个问题!

3.娱乐价值的不同理念

但我们还不止要协调家长对于教育价值的不同观念,还得协调关于娱乐价值的不同理念。这包括不同玩家类型的不同理念,以及不同动机类型的不同理念。

4.不同玩家类型

并非所有玩家都一样。你的孩子,父母或朋友对好玩的概念可能并不一致。我们发现自己必须协调不同玩家类型体验游戏的差异。

我们思考了不同玩家类型及其体验游戏时的兴趣所在(游戏邦注:这方面可参考Bartle的玩家类型)《Puzzle Explorer》可以兼容任何类型的玩家,我们也想在自己的营销图片中体现这一点。例如,有些玩家是为社交而玩游戏,所以我们就要突出这款游戏的社交层面——比如点出“分享”、“交易”和“朋友”这些字眼。有些玩家喜欢完成目标,所以我们就要突出玩家该如何“解琐”新区域和游戏障碍。还有些人喜欢竞争和征服,所以我们就要提到玩家可以“挑战”好友。有些玩家为探索内容而玩游戏,所以我们也要纳入玩家“探索”,“环游世界”并解琐“新区域”和“新障碍”等字眼。

screenshot1(from gamasutra)

screenshot1(from gamasutra)

5.不同玩家动机

人类会因许多东西而受到激励,包括目的,精通,成就,社交影响力和人脉,所有权等等。我们尽量确保自己的应用商店图片点出《Puzzle Explorer》与潜在玩家动机之间的联系。例如,《Puzzle Explorer》教玩家基本的游戏设计原则。这与目的,精通和成就等动机有关。这款游戏还包含了与好友分享的技能,这就与社交影响力和人脉有关。并且这些是你创造的谜题,这就突出了精通,授权,目的和成就。

6.呈现游戏的不同方式

除了协调兴趣点、价值观、玩家类型和动机方面的差异之外,我们还得协调游戏呈现及互动方式上的差别。也就是说,我们得兼顾游戏如何呈现,以及玩家如何与之互动这两个方面。对于《Puzzle Explorer》这款游戏来说,仅仅依靠呈现游戏截图来展示游戏是行不通的,最好是展示孩子们如何与游戏互动的画面,而不是他们所要体验的游戏内容。所以,我们决定创造呈现孩子与游戏互动的图片——创建,体验,分享,学习和探索。我们意识到这样做可能会让人们难以知晓游戏的面貌,并且在未来也会产生一些复杂情况——例如,市面上出现新设备时我们又要创造新的截图,但如果能更好地呈现游戏,我们也愿意付出这个代价。

screenshot2(from gamasutra)

screenshot2(from gamasutra)

于是我们就绘制了应用商店图片的示意图(详见上图)并将其发送给在Carnevale Interactive的好友,他们当中有人是我们这款游戏的合作开发伙伴,由他们来优化图片设计。(本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao)

App Store Marketing for a Kids Game: An Exercise in Negotiating Differences

by Chris Allers

If you’ve ever created app store marketing for a kid’s game, then you know how difficult it can be.

We did a lot of research and thinking on how to best represent Puzzle Explorer to the audiences that would most enjoy and benefit from the game.

We quickly realized that marketing a kids game is an exercise in negotiating the difference between multiple, important, and often irreconcilable positions and then deciding on a course of action.

Here are six of the differences that we attempted to negotiate and the decisions that we came to for the app store marketing for National Geographics’ Puzzle Explorer.

1. Different Audiences with Different Interests – Education and Entertainment

As with any kids game, we realized that we must focus on two distinct audiences: parents who will download the game for their kids and kids who will actually play the game. These two audiences, however, don’t always have the same interests. Parents, for example, are interested in the educational value (which itself is diverse concept as we’ll see below) of the game while kids are interested in the entertainment value (which is also a diverse concept as we’ll see below). These two interests don’t always match up.

So how do you market to different audiences with different interests?

Parents are the primary audience of app store marketing. You have to market to the parent because the parent is the one who will download the game and therefore the primary audience of app store marketing. So should we just focus on parents?

Not so fast! Parents are smart. They are looking for games that will satisfy their interest in education and their child’s interest in entertainment. So this makes it even more difficult. Now we have to market to parents but also parents who are putting themselves in their kids shoes and imagining whether or not their child would enjoy the game.

But there is also a chance that a child could find the game in the app store and ask her parent to download the game for her, so it has to catch the eye of the child as well.

So app store marketing has to be directed to these three audiences. It has to catch the eye of the parent, the eye of the child as imagined by the parent, and the eye of the child herself. So how can you negotiate all these differences between these audiences?

We don’t have the answer. If you do, please share!

Here’s how we attempted to negotiate these differences in the app store marketing material we are currently working on for Puzzle Explorer.

So we must negotiate the difference between education (the parent’s interest) and entertainment (the child’s interest). This is something we already do in the game. It’s fun, and you can learn something too! Now we have to figure out a good way to say that in our marketing.

Therefore, we decided to lay out the core elements of the game in hopes that these core elements would provide us with some fodder for marketing.

We were able to break the game down to 5 core elements:

In Puzzle Explorer, players can…

Create their own puzzles

Play the puzzles they have created

Share these puzzles with their friends

Learn about game design. The game has step-by-step LEGO-like instructions that teach them game design fundamentals.

Explore the world. The puzzles are themed with different parts of the globe and include photographs from National Geographic’s archive of photographs, so they kids learn about different cultures and parts of the world.

With these core parts of the game laid out, we found that we had some pretty good text that highlighted Puzzle Explorer’s educational value – such as, “create,” “learn,” “discover,” “travel the globe with National Geographic” – while still including text that will speak to the kids’ interests in entertainment – such as “play” and “share.”

2. Different Ideas of Educational Value

But we had to take a little bit of a detour here and this is where things get tricky. Not only did we have to negotiate the difference between education and entertainment, we also had to negotiate the difference between different ideas of educational value.

An original image testMost parents who look for games for their kids, we assume, look at the educational value of the game. Most of these parents, we assume, have heard of National Geographic and understand the educational value of National Geographic, in particular, and geography, in general. Therefore, we decided that the first image in our app store marketing would be an image about exploring the world highlighting National Geographic and geography.

We also included an image about learning that will highlight how Puzzle Explorer can help you learn to be a game designer. However, we assume that fewer parents recognize the educational value of game design. Additionally, we don’t have the ability to explain the educational value of game design – creative problem solving skills, rapid prototyping, foundational logic skills, design thinking, a good introduction to the types of thinking necessary for computer science, etc. – on a single marketing image (though we plan to in the app description). Therefore, this image does not appear as prominently as the image that highlights National Geographic and we hope that parents who recognize the educational value of game design will be able to draw the conclusion that Puzzle Explorer includes such educational value. And those who do not recognize the educational value of game design? We hope that the game itself will help with that!

3. Different Ideas of Entertainment Value

But we aren’t just negotiating the difference between parents’ different understanding of educational value. We are also negotiating the difference between different ideas of entertainment value. Such negotiation includes the difference between different types of players, on the one hand, and different types of motivations, on the other.

4. Different Types of Players

Not all players are the same. You may have a different idea of fun that your kids or your parents or your friends. We realized that we need to negotiate this difference between different types of players who would enjoy and benefit from the game.

We thought about different types of players and what they are interested in when it comes to playing games (see, for example, Bartle’s Player Types, a helpful heuristic device similar to Jungian archetypes). Puzzle Explorer has something in it for just about any type of player and we wanted to make sure that this comes across in our marketing images. For example, some players play games for the social aspect, so we made sure to highlight the social aspects of Puzzle Explorer – namely, “share,” “trade,” and “friends.” Some players like achieving goals, so we highlighted how players can “unlock” new locations and game blocks. Others like to compete and conquer, so we mentioned how players can “challenge” their friends. Some players play games to explore, so we included how the players will “explore,” “travel the world,” and unlock “new locations” and “new blocks.”

5. Different Player Motivations

Humans are motivated by many things, including purpose, mastery, accomplishment, social influence and connectedness, ownership, and so on. We tried to make sure that, in our app store images, we highlighted how Puzzle Explorer related to possible player motivations. For example, Puzzle Explorer teaches fundamentals of game design. This relates to motivations like purpose, mastery, and accomplishment. Puzzle Explorer also includes the ability to share your puzzles with friends, which relates to social influence and connectedness. And these are puzzles you have built, which highlights mastery, empowerment, purpose, and accomplishment.

6. Different ways to represent the game

On top of negotiating all these differences between interests, values, player types, and motivations, we we had to negotiate the difference between showing what the game looks like and how it will be interacted with. That is, we needed to show, on the one hand, what the game looks like and, on the other, how a player interacts with it. Relying on screenshots of the game that simply show what the game looks like wouldn’t do justice to Puzzle Explorer. Puzzle Explorer is better represented by showing how kids interact with the game and not by the various screens that they will be interacting with. So, we decided to create images that showed children interacting with the game – creating, playing, sharing, learning, and exploring. This, we realize, can make what the game looks like a little difficult to see and will create complications in the future – for example, we will need to update screenshots as new devices are introduced – but that is a price we are willing to pay to better represent the game.

So where are we now? We have drawn up a few wireframes for our proposed app store images (see above) and have sent them along to our friends at Carnevale Interactive, one of the partners working on Puzzle Explorer with us, for some graphic design polish.(source:gamasutra


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