原文作者：Matt Suckley 译者：Megan Shieh

在F2P游戏开发的世界里人们常说发布游戏是开始，而不是结束。

这些游戏并不是在商店货架上摆出来的、再也不会被改进的盒装产品，而是需要持续经营和更新的“games-as-a-service ”（游戏服务），通常持续几年的时间。

pocketgamer.com . biz长期以来一直在热门游戏发布不久后对它们进行调研，但在游戏发布很长时间后又会发生什么?

为了找到答案，我们将会与游戏背后的开发者们讨论他们的经历。

在这篇文章中，我们采访了Pixel Toys公司的首席执行官Andy Wafer谈谈《Warhammer 40,000：Freeblade》(战锤40K：自由之刃)的一些问题。

Warhammer 40000: Freeblade（from pocketgamer.biz）

PocketGamer.biz: 距《战锤40K：自由之刃》发布已经接近一年了，从最初发布到现在的成熟游戏，你如何看待它的表现？

我们对这个游戏的表现非常满意，而且它也会继续做得很好。

与业界的一些大公司相比，我们实际上是一个相当小的开发商，因此我们对绩效的要求可能也稍微温和一些。

但我们对这个游戏感到非常自豪。一年过去了，它仍然是App Store上最具技术意义的游戏之一，我们将继续更新和改进它以确保到2017年还是这样。

《战锤40K：自由之刃》目前的在线运营团队有多大？

目前《自由之刃》的在线运营团队有四个全职人员，（但）时不时还有来自其他的团队的专家来参与合作，比如：动画师或环境艺术家，具体要看我们所需更新的内容。

几个月前，当我们开始增加新项目的时候，在线运营团队已经从10人开始压缩，但这并不代表我们在放慢更新速度。

更多是因为我们现在已经有了成熟的工具和框架。这个框架需要更少的资源密集型开发来实现相同定期更新计划。

现在的游戏规模是发布时的两倍多，带有一个允许我们运行特殊活动、促销和比赛的后端系统。

你认为客户支持有多重要? 游戏更新的方式是什么?

客户支持和好的客户服务非常重要。

不适当的客服意味着你可能会失去长期的留存和付费客户，因为这些群体更有可能联系我们。

我们试着对所有通过游戏联系我们的人作出回复，同时也密切地关注游戏论坛和我们社交频道上的反馈，这能帮助我们拟定优先考虑更新的内容。

我们的更新方式一直非常注重内容和特性，与此同时设法改进整体抛光和用户体验。

自发布后，我们几乎每个月都推出一个重大的内容更新；实际上我们计划在几周内进行一次重大更新，我们称之为“周年纪念版”以纪念游戏发布一周年。

作为小型工作室，在维护一个live游戏的同时开发新项目的最大挑战是什么?

不管团队有多少人，资源一直是一个问题。当你有一个live游戏时，你会想要做1000件事来完善游戏。

社区还会有其他的1000个建议。这些建议通常是会让游戏变得更有趣，也能提高留存和整体体验的新想法。

最大的挑战之一是专注于你能真正实现的事情，并在一个现实的时间框架中履行。

如果一个小团队想要每月提供内容和功能更新，那么这些内容和功能就需要在一个月内建立。

你必须留些东西给下一个游戏，有时这意味着你不能将所有的好东西都加入目前的游戏。

你采取了哪些措施来确保《自由之刃》保持一个较大的、活跃的用户基础？他们在多大程度上取得了成功？

我们知道真正投入的玩家大部分是《战锤40K》的粉丝。

这是一个拥有大量内容的惊人领域，所以我们试着从中提取并确保更新中定期提供一些来自粉丝建议的新东西。

我们已经添加了很多新功能，包括活动、多人游戏、新内容章节、boss战斗、以及大量的改进和优化。

通常我们每次发布更新时、都能看到现有玩家参与度的提高和新玩家的涌入。

事后来看，现在的你会不会对游戏的某些地方进行改动？

我认为我们会以多人游戏作为开端，并将游戏设计的重点围绕社交和多人游戏。

这些元素是强有力的参与和留存的关键，我认为如果我们从一开始就把它们放在游戏中会更好。

《自由之刃》发布这一年来的亮点和不足分别是什么？

对我来说最值得关注的部分总是发布后的那段时间，积极的用户评论让我知道我们所建立的东西、所付出的工作都是值得的。

那最美好的感觉，也是我进入这个行业的原因。

我想不出《自由之刃》今年有出现什么不足之处。设法在Leamington Spa找到一个新的办公室估计是我们面临过的最大挑战。

最后，你从《自由之刃》的经验中学到了什么？

从《自由之刃》学到的最重要的事是需要更重视长期功能和内容路线图，并在建立游戏的时候确保发布后的内容增加——快速、便利、有成本效益。

我们现在也更了解多人游戏在手游中的重要性，并会将其列为未来游戏中的重点。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

It’s often said in the world of free-to-play development that launching a game is the beginning, not the end.

These aren’t boxed products released onto shop shelves, never to be worked on again. These are games-as-a-service that require constant operation and updating, often over a period of several years.

PocketGamer.biz has long been investigating theMaking Of notable games soon after their launch, but what happens long after a game is released?

In an attempt to find out, this regular feature will talk to the developers behind maturing live games about their experience so far. You can read all previous entries here.

In this entry, we speak to Pixel Toys CEO Andy Wafer about on-rails shooter Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade.

PocketGamer.biz: With Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade now approaching a year old, how do you reflect on its performance – from launch to the maturing title it is now?

We’ve been very happy with the game’s performance, and it continues to do well for us.

We’re actually a rather small developer compared with some of the big players in the industry, so our requirements for performance are probably a bit more modest too.

But we’re extremely proud of the title, I think that a year on it’s still one of the most technically impressive titles on the App Store, and we’ll continue to update and improve it going forwards to make sure that remains the case into 2017.

How big is the team currently handling live ops on Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade?

The Freeblade live ops team is currently four people full-time, but we have other team specialists who get involved from time to time, like animators or environment artists depending on what we want to do for a specific update.

The live ops team has reduced from about 10 people a few months ago, as we start to ramp up on new projects, but that’s not to say we’re slowing down on our updates.

It’s more the case that we now have mature tools and a framework that requires less resource intensive development for the same regular update schedule.

The game is more than twice as big as it was at launch with backend systems that allow us to run special events, offers and competitions.

How important do you consider customer support to be? What’s been the approach to game updates?

Customer support and good customer service is very important.

Not doing customer service appropriately means you risk losing long-term retained and paying customers, as these groups are proportionally more likely to contact us.

We try to respond to everyone that contacts us via the game, but also pay close attention to game forums and feedback on our social channels, which helps inform and prioritise what goes into our updates.

Our approach to updates has been very content and feature focused, whilst also trying to improve overall polish and user experience.

We’ve released a significant content update almost every month from launch, and we’re actually planning a major update in a few weeks we’re calling the “Anniversary Edition” to mark the game’s launch last year.

What’s been the biggest challenge of maintaining a live game while also working on new projects as a small studio?

Resource is always a problem, no matter how many people in the team. When you have a live game, you want to do the 1,000 things you know you could to make it better.

Your community has another 1,000 suggestions. These are often cool new ideas, things that will make the game more fun and things that could improve retention and the overall experience.

One of the biggest challenges is focusing on the things you can actually achieve and deliver them in a realistic timeframe.

With a small team, if you want to provide content and feature updates every month, that content and those features need to be built in a month.

Sometimes that means you can’t do all the really big things – you have to save those for the next game.

What steps have you taken to ensure thatFreeblade maintains a sizeable and active player base? To what extent have they been successful?

We know that the really engaged players are largely Warhammer 40,000 fans.

It’s an amazing universe with a huge wealth of content, so we try and draw from that and make sure our updates offer something new from it regularly.

We’ve added a lot of new features in the form of events, multiplayer, new content chapters, boss fights as well as a lot of under the hood improvements and optimisations.

Generally, each time we release an update we see higher engagement from existing players as well as an influx of new players.

What lessons have you learned/are you still learning fromFreeblade? Is there anything about the game that, in hindsight, you’d now handle differently?

I think we would be multiplayer first, and design the focus of the game around multiplayer and social.

Those elements are key to strong engagement and retention, and I think we could have done better by having them in the game from the start.

What have been the highlights and lowlights of the year since Freeblade’s launch?

The most rewarding part, and for me the highlight, is always the period just after a launch, when you see the positive user reviews and you know what you’ve built and the work everyone has put into it is appreciated.

It’s the best feeling. That’s the reason to be in the industry.

I can’t think of anything specifically relating toFreeblade that’s been a lowlight this year. Trying to find new office space in Leamington Spa has probably been the biggest challenge for us.
Finally, how has your experience withFreeblade informed where you are/what you’re working on now?

The biggest learnings from Freeblade are the need for placing greater importance on long-term feature and content roadmaps, and building games in a way that allows new content to be added readily and cost-effectively once the game has launched.

We also now better understand the importance of multiplayer in mobile games, and will have greater emphasis on that with future titles. （Source: pocketgamer.biz）