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有效进行游戏软发行的三个步骤

发布时间:2015-09-11 14:45:19 Tags:,,,,

作者:Keith Andrew

在整个英国最大的一家超市里,你会在一个很显著的地方看到一个厨房,而在这么一个贩售着你在一家超市中可能看到的所有商品的地方设置一个小小的餐具室好像有点格格不入吧。

就像温室一样—-有着看得到外面商店的窗户,如此里面的人便可以看到所有人的购物情况,而上面所提到的厨房便是这间连锁超市的内部运行的重要一环。也许消费者不知道,但是在这个厨房中,那些还未端上桌的菜肴们(全新的即食餐,长面包,蛋糕,汤,饮料或任何你能够想到的食物)都有着自己的节奏。

一些精心组合而成的焦点小组被带到商店中,并坐在厨房里,他们将在一个受控环境中尝试那些全新的菜单。这些人的反馈将有可能成就或淘汰这些产品—-大多数产品可能将不会出现在市场上,而只会被丢在厨房的垃圾桶里,因为这些来自产品目标市场的代表们都不能接受这样的产品。

然而消费者测试概念却并非局限于超市或食品产业,它也会出现在任何全新的方法中。对于手机开发者来说,能够从一个精心挑选的市场中获得大量玩家并提供给自己有关游戏发行前在世界各地的表现的数据的理念是从2008年App Store崛起时开始变得实际。苹果和谷歌经常提供一些非官方的“软发行”程序,但是根据商店的区域属性,没有什么能够阻止你在全球发行前先选择一些特定区域发行游戏,以判断哪些内容是可行的而哪些内容则是不行的。

让我们想想过去3至4年的一些免费开发者或发行商,那时候几乎所有人都精通软发行。例如你是否想知道Supercell最新项目是什么?然后你便想飞往加拿大或澳大利亚并下载《Samsh Land》。(但是你可能得快点,因为这是一个残酷的软发行世界,所以游戏可能已经停止运行了)。

Smash Land(from yesky)

Smash Land(from yesky)

基于各种过程,你的游戏可能不能进入澳洲,加拿大,爱尔兰或新西兰等国家—-也许你一开始便认为进入这些市场是理所应当的事。成功的软发行需要你进行精心的规划,你所得到的结果其实就像你在游戏发行前为其设定的参数一样。这些参数包括:

1.了解你想要回答的问题

是否存在一个你想要找到答案的特殊问题?是否存在一个你不确定是否可行的游戏模式,关卡或小小的游戏元素?与任何基本问题一样的是,在软发行过程中你也需要考量这些基本领域:

用户互动—-玩家是如何在你的游戏中前进?他们的游戏频率怎样,他们是如何经历游戏玩法以及他们是在哪里离开游戏的?

盈利—-人们是否会在游戏中花钱?他们是否会花钱去打开更多游戏内容,或者游戏太过简单而不需要玩家花任何钱?所有出售的内容对于玩家来说是否具有价值,或者你是否在推动着错误的游戏内容?

病毒性—-玩家是否会和别人谈论你们的游戏?在Twitter或Facebook上是否有人会关注你们的游戏?人们会说些什么?你是否拥有能够让病毒性更容易传播的工具?

用户留存—-在1天,7天甚至是30天后有多少人回到你的游戏?是否有哪些帖子认为你的游戏比其它游戏出色?

2.做好改变的准备

的确,在这个游戏作为一种服务的时代里,你的游戏永远都不会终止。

这听起来可能很明显,但尽管游戏世界中所有来自软发行的数据都告诉开发者们他们的游戏具有问题,许多开发者们还是非常固执,他们会删除一些负面内容并坚持认为软发行是他们今后发展的基础。

如果来自你的软发行的数据告诉你某些内容不能有效运行,那么即使你将游戏带到其它区域它也不会发生改变。你必须在软发行的时候接受游戏并未完成这一事实。的确,在游戏作为一种服务时代的现在,你的游戏永远都不会终止。不管怎样,软发行只是一种使用方法,一旦上述问题得到了解答,你便需要采取步骤去确保任何突出的问题都能得到纠正。也许软发行也会突出这样一些根本问题,即游戏可能永远都不会有见天日。

而这决不是一种罕见的情况。德国巨头Wooga便是通过关闭一些数据认为未能达到标准的项目而获得现在的名声。还有面向全世界发行的Supercell的《Smash Land》尽管经过了优化但还是在最近停止了运行。但是为什么呢?一款糟糕游戏对于你的品牌的威胁是无穷尽的,即使你拥有随时待命的《愤怒的小鸟》这样的游戏,你也不能保证能够获得像Rovio那样的成功。

成功的游戏开发意味着你可以从一些失误中获得学习,而软发行便是一种预警系统,它将在你的游戏面向全世界玩家之前便告诉你你的游戏出现了什么问题。

3.确保游戏准备好了

这可能听起来有点矛盾,但是尽管你需要准备好改变你的游戏,但同时你也不能带着有问题的游戏进行软发行。

如果你在一个地区发行一款带有漏洞,未完成元素或不完整游戏玩法的游戏,并且所有数据都表明你是对的,那么这将导致你会忽视那些你可能未能意识到的问题。你将以你可能并不喜欢的游戏状态面向全球市场去发行游戏,同时你也需要能够更加灵活地做出各种改变。

这并不是一种基本测试—-这只是面向消费者的发行准备,但这也否定了面向大众用户展现你的游戏问题的风险。这是关于如果你现在发行游戏时它的表现会如何的展示窗口,但为了确保游戏能够有效运行,它就必须是基于你所认为的准备就绪状态,即使你之后所收集的数据会呈现出另一种结果。

总之,不要基于任何已知的问题对游戏进行软发行。因为每一个缺陷都有可能让你陷入困境中。

你还应该选择适当的合作伙伴,即你需要仔细研究你所选择的软发行区域,并挑选能够处理所有这些程序的合作伙伴。如果你想要有效发挥软发行的作用,你便需要真正去重视它。而手机的数字本性也意味着我们有能力能够事先获得一些关于游戏利弊的必要玩家数据。我们应该好好利用这样的优势。

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

3 Steps to Mastering Your Game’s Soft Launch

By Keith Andrew

In one of the largest supermarket outlets in the whole of the UK, just down the road from where your humble blogger lives, sits a kitchen. Built in plain sight, this bizarre little pantry feels a somewhat curious companion to the seemingly endless run of aisles selling all the goods you’d expect a supermarket to sell.

Resembling something of a greenhouse – with windows looking out to the rest of the store so those inside can view all and sundry in the midst of their weekly shopping – said kitchen is actually an especially important facet of this supermarket chain’s national operations. The customers may not know it, but in this kitchen, unreleased dishes – radical new ready meals, loaves of bread, cakes, soups, drinks, or indeed any foodstuff you can think of – are put through their paces.

Carefully comprised focus groups are brought into the store, sat down in the kitchen, and tasked with trying out these fresh recipes in a controlled environment. The feedback these groups give can make or break these products – most will never make it to market, relegated to the kitchen bin of history, simply because the group of people designed to be representative of the meal’s target market weren’t bowled over by it.

The concept of consumer testing is by no means one limited to the supermarkets or even food industry, nor is it in any way a new approach. For mobile developers, however, the idea that you could get a mass of players from a select market to give you valuable data in regard to the likely performance of your game worldwide ahead of release is something that’s only come around in a practical fashion since the rise of the App Store in 2008. Apple and Google offer no official ‘soft launch’ programs, but the region by region nature of their stores means there’s nothing to stop you launching in select territories ahead of a global debut in order to find out what works and what doesn’t.

It’s also something all the cool kids are doing. Think of any major free-to-play developer or publisher from the last 3-4 years, and almost every one of them will have mastered the soft launch along the way. Want to know what Supercell’s most recent project is, for instance? Then you might want to hop over to Canada or down to Australia and download Smash Land. (But do it quick, because the game has already been canned, such is the harsh world of the soft launch).

As with any process, however, there’s no point in rolling out your game in Australia, Canada, Ireland or New Zealand if you simply do it as a matter of course. The art of a successful soft launch requires careful planning, and the results you generate from it are only as good as the parameters you set for your game before you set out. Parameters such as:

1. Know what questions you want answered

Is there a particular question you want to find out the answer to? Is there a distinct game mode, level, or even small facet of the game that you’re not sure if it works or not? As well as any base question – which you need to set out pre-soft launch – there are other basic areas you need to measure during the soft launch to get the most out of it:

User interaction – How are players moving through your game? How often are they playing, how are they moving through the gameplay, and where are they leaving the game?

Monetisation – Are people spending money in play? Does spending cash unlock too much of the game, or is it too easy to play on without spending anything at all? Are the objects for sale of any value to the player, or are you pushing the wrong component of play?

Virality – Are players talking about your game of their own volition? Is it gaining a following on Twitter or Facebook? What are people saying? Have you got all the tools in place to make virality easy?

Retention – How many people come back to your game over a period of 1,7 or even 30 days? Are there any posts or notifications that perform better than others?

2. Be prepared to change

Indeed, in the current Games as a Service era, your game is never finished.

It sounds obvious but, even with all the data in the world from the soft launch telling them something is wrong with their game, many developers are stubborn so and sos, dismissing anything negative that comes up and simply viewing the soft launch as the first bastion of a staggered roll out instead of a test designed to help them iron out the dips and troughs.

If the data from your soft launch tells you something isn’t working, that isn’t going to magically change once you roll the game out in other territories. Part of this comes from accepting that your game isn’t finished when you soft launch. Indeed, in the current Games as a Service era, your game is never finished. Either way, a soft launch is only any use if, once the questions above have been answered, you take steps to ensure that any highlighted problems are rectified. It may even be that the soft launch highlights such fundamental issues that the game never actually sees the light of day worldwide.

This is by no means rare. German giant Wooga has built a name for itself by canning projects that data shows just aren’t up to scratch using the aptly termed, “Hit Filter”. The worldwide release of Supercell’s Smash Land, polished though it was, has actually been pulled during the writing of this article. But why? The damage a bad game does for your brand can be immeasurable, and you can’t guarantee that you’ll have a Rovio-like revival even if you have your Angry Birds waiting in the wings.

Successful games development means learning from your mistakes and the soft launch is an early warning system – it can tell you just what’s wrong with your game before you suffer the indignity of finding out in front of the glare of the world’s gamers.

This is not a beta test – this is consumer ready launch

3. Make sure the game is ready

This might sound like a contradiction, but while you should be prepared to make changes to your game, likewise don’t send it off to soft launch with known issues.

If you launch it in a region with bugs, unfinished elements or half-baked gameplay, all your data will do is prove you correct, causing you to overlook other issues you might not be aware of. You have to launch the game in a state that you would be comfortable launching it in globally, while at the same time prepared to be flexible and make changes should it highlight problems.

This is not a beta test – this is a consumer ready launch, but one that negates the risk of showcasing your game’s problems to a massive audience. It’s a little window into how the game would play out if you launched now, but for that to work, the game has to be in a retail ready state to the best of your knowledge, even if the data you amass afterwards proves otherwise.

In short, don’t soft launch with any known faults. Every pitfall should be a surprise.

Aside from aligning yourself with the right partners – study your chosen soft launch region carefully, and if you need to, pick a partner who has a handle on the procedure – that, in broad strokes, is all you need to know. The long and short of it is, if you want a soft launch to be of any use at all, you need to treat it with respect and take it seriously. The digital nature of mobile means we have the ability to gather essential player data that can make or break a game ahead of time. Don’t waste that.(source:gamedev

 


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