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在2017年发行商将更加需要独立开发者

发布时间:2016-12-27 10:59:42 Tags:,,,,

作者:Oleg Pridiuk

在最近参加各种游戏大会时,我经常听到这样的说法,即比起独立开发者需要发行商,现在的发行商更加需要独立开发者。Gamasutra也认为这是今年的一大趋势。这也是我想要花时间写下本文的原因。自从去年GDC以来我们便在这一趋势中倾注了许多精力。

我们花了40周的时间去世界各地接触一些具有才能的独立开发者,希望能够找到与我们拥有相同看法并愿意使用我们技术的优秀团队。我们同时还需要确保他们的游戏具有潜能且我们能够帮助其成为更优秀的游戏。

我效力于知名游戏开发公司King,我们公司在去年GDC上发布了Defold引擎(免费出售)而震惊了世界。我们同时也声称将提供给独立开发者流量并帮助他们进行软发行与硬发行。我们公司的首席技术官Thomas Hartwig也声称King的游戏作品能够帮助独立开发者进行有效的交叉推广。

我们都期待着我们的免费市场营销策略能够有效吸引优秀团队的注意。但事实证明要找到一只既拥有优秀游戏同时也愿意听取反馈的独立团队真的非常困难。

不过这应该是你们已经清楚的情况,而你们不清楚的是我们到底想要为一个全新游戏引擎构建怎样的社区,什么方法是可行的而什么方法又是不可行的。

defold world tour(from gamasutra)

defold world tour(from gamasutra)

游戏开发活动

不可行

我们会去参加一些游戏开发大会和游戏jam,但最终都未能获得好结果。虽然像网络,赞助,广播等方式都具有长期影响,但却不能带来即时效益。

可行的

直接联系并亲自支持精心挑选的团队。带有足够的耐心,不要设定严苛的截止期限并去帮助他们的薄弱之处。虽然这有时候会让人觉得和保姆一样,但出于很多原因独立开发者经常不能专注于某一内容,如他们即将问世的游戏。

游戏jam和编程马拉松

不可行

最初我们便是利用离线游戏jam去审核游戏开发者,但事实证明这是一种错误的方法。Defolde准入障碍太高了,所以在两天内提交内容是不大可能的事。在这里优秀的文件并不是阻碍。

可行的

在线游戏jam和竞争便非常有效。人们将拥有足够的时间去精通引擎并递交自己所满足的内容。我们会建议团队专注于最佳生产力,如此整个社区便能够获得有机的发展。

市场营销

不可行

市场营销引擎功能和其它技术能够推动Reddit或Hacker News的网站流量以及讨论,但却不能帮助团队创造出更优秀的游戏。

可行的

我们将市场营销预算投资于独立游戏的广告中,并因此吸引了社区成员的注意。开发者在看到那些使用我们引擎的游戏后便会想要尝试看看。

技术峰会

不可行

像技术峰会,游戏引擎圆桌会议以及其它相似的技术活动虽然很有趣,但却不能有效吸引游戏团队的注意。虽然我们会去讨论一些未来趋势,但似乎开发者们更关心现状与即时选择。

可行的

假设有关HTML5的圆桌会议专注于强大的技术,它便会比普通引擎峰会更有效。它能吸引人们对HTML5产生兴趣并最终成就双赢,而HTML5便是Defold引擎的一大优势。

培训

不可行

我们将不断完善高级用户的培训,但这却不是一件简单的事。有经验的人总是希望能够快速精通不同内容并趋于异步。进入培训时所有人都是基于不同阶段并基于不同节奏向前移动,他们也会对不同方式感到不满。那些少数对此满意的人才会继续使用Defold,但却仍需要团队的引导。

可行的

我们尝试着将一些比较没有经验的人引向我们的论坛或频道,如此他们便能够获得支持与帮助并能为下一次的Ludum Dare或游戏Jam做好准备。

1月份的时候我们尝试了这一新方法,即面向公众开放网络Defold培训活动:https://defoldlondon.confetti.events。这个在King London办公室进行的活动将只面向专业开发者。也许我们会因此吸引较少人的关注,但这些开发者却能在此获得满足。

比赛

我们尝试在当地去使用一些竞赛方法,虽然发现了一些不可行的内容,但幸亏其它内容都能快速发挥作用。

我们利用了当地的社区并邀请他们参加在线活动,并会提供他们想要的奖品。

而现在我们开始扩大规模并将目标朝向世界范围的比赛:http://www.defold.com/competition/。我们正准备将6支团队带向在旧金山举办的GDC大会。我们已经订好了酒店和展台。我们也邀请了像King的制作人,Toucharcade的联合创始人以及Android Marketplace的经理等人加入陪审团的行列。

从某种意义上来看独立开发者正在引领着全新游戏体验,机制和理念的发展。而将最优秀的独立游戏开发者带到GDC大会上是帮助他们发行更出色游戏的一种有效方法。这也是Defold的目标。

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

In year 2017 publishers will need indies more than indies need publishers

by Oleg Pridiuk

Visiting game conventions I hear more and more often that nowadays publishers need indies more than indies need publishers. And here we go, Gamasutra puts it as a trend of the year. What triggers me to allocate time for this article. See, we have been investing in this trend heavily since last GDC!

We’ve spent the last 40 weeks working with talented indies globally. The goal was to find good teams who shared our vision and were willing to use our technology. We needed to make sure their games had potential and we could potentially help them make better games.

I may address the “why?!” clause in the comments, if you’re curious, but I want to have a strong focus on the teams in the current blogpost.

I work for King, famous game development company that surprised the world last GDC by releasing Defold, an internal game engine, publicly for free. We also announced we’d be providing indies with traffic and help for soft launch and hard launch. Cross-promo from within King games portfolio incentive have been announced by Thomas Hartwig, King CTO, to help talented indies make the market push.

We might have been somewhat naive expecting our free marketing incentives be efficient to lure in good teams. In fact, it has proven to be tremendously hard to find good indie teams with good games who can also listen to the feedback.

But this is what you know already, what you may not know, is what exactly we tried to assemble a community for a young game engine, what worked and what did not work.

Gamedev events

Did not work

We tried going to game development conferences and game jams – both returned no fruitful results. Like exactly zero. Networking, sponsorships, broadcasting from the scene – this might have a long-term effect, but we felt no immediate benefits of any kind.

Did work well

Direct relations and hands-on support for cherry picked teams. With infinite patience, no hard deadlines and help on their weak spots. I felt like a baby-sitter sometimes, but for multiple reasons indies often cannot focus on one thing, such as their upcoming game.

Game jams and hackathons

Did not work

Offline Game jams were an obvious initial focus for us to detect good devs, and it was a wrong one. Entry barrier to Defold is too high to jump it over and deliver something within two days timeframe. And good docs are not a bottleneck here.

Did work well

Online game jams and competitions worked so nice. People have time to master the engine and deliver something they’re happy with. We suggest teams to join a slack channel for best productivity, so the community grows organically and keeps itself helpful.

Marketing

Did not work

Marketing engine features and other kinds of technology bullet points did help with website traffic and discussions on Reddit or Hacker News, but did not help with teams doing good games.

Did work well
We invested our marketing budgets into advertising indie games #madewithdefold which resulted in increased community interest and actual deliveries. Developers saw games delivered with the engine and wanted to ship something with Defold as well.

Technology summits

Did not work

Technology summits, game engine roundtables and similar deep-tech activities we did, were of so much fun for participants and of very little interest to game teams. We discussed future and trends on the scene, while developers seemed to care about the current state and immediate choices.

Did work well

I assembled an HTML5 roundtable with a strong tech focus, and it worked much-much better than a generic engine summit. It attracted people interested in HTML5 and ended up in decent networking and mutual interest, as HTML5 is one of key strengths of Defold.

Trainings

Did not work
We’re getting better at doing trainings for advanced users, but such are very hard to do right. Experienced crowd is willing to master totally different things and gets desynchronized very quickly. Soon into the training everyone is on different stages, can move on at different pace and is unhappy in different ways. And those few who are happy may continue playing with Defold, but still need a team to ship.

Did work well
No deep dive kind of training with a set of example projects good to tackle with at home make people of all kinds of skills stick together and play with stuff, often deliver something fun. We try to route less advanced people to a dedicated slack channel and our forums, so they can get support, help and maybe even a new team member for the next Ludum Dare or Game Jam.

And in January we’re trying our a new approach with opening up an internal Defold training event to public – https://defoldlondon.confetti.events This event at King London office is for professional developers only. We might get less people, but those should be happy.

Contests

We went very local to try out the competition approach, learn from doing and have something for the “did not work” paragraph ;) But everything did work well immediately.

We used local communities and trusted them do an online event, prizes logistics and all kinds of local magic they wanted. These are the games delivered from a contest in Russia, for example.

Now we’re scaling up and going ambitious with the global contest – http://www.defold.com/competition/. We’re bringing 6 teams to GDC in San Francisco. We have hotels and booth space booked already. 10’x30’ area at GDC Play will be dedicated to the winning teams along with business meetings and other opportunities pack. We’ve attracted a decent jury panel with King producer, Toucharcade cofounder and Android Marketplace manager looking at the submissions.

Indie developers in a lot of senses are pioneering new kinds of game experiences, mechanics, ideas. Bringing the best independent game developers to GDC in SF is a decent way to help them ship better games. Exactly what Defold is all about.(source:gamasutra

 


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