原文作者：Om Tandon 译者：Megan Shieh

在2012年的时候，如果开发者想要开发一款手游，只有休闲、中核或硬核三种选择，然而随着游戏产业逐渐走向成熟，开发者们的选项也越来越多了。不断演变的市场环境、消费者习惯和市场力量可能会导致现有市场秩序的混乱。

盘点手游产业三大巨头

手游产业不乏顶尖开发商，但要说巨头的话就只有三家：Machine Zone、Supercell和King。下面让我们来分析一下它们的表现。

Machine Zone：在硬核手游领域占据主导地位。《雷霆天下》基本上就是现代版的《战争游戏：火力时代》，换汤不换药，为了保证该作的成功，MZ在用户获取和超级碗广告方面持续投入了大量资金。

Game of War（from pocketgamer.biz）

Supercell：稳坐“中核手游之王”的宝座，旗下不仅有三款超级热门手游《部落战争》、《海岛奇兵》和《卡通农场》，2016年发布的《皇室战争》更是前途无量。

King：推出了一系列令人印象深刻的三消益智手游，工作室实现上市，而后被动视暴雪以59亿美元的价格收购。但是该公司近几年收益下滑，玩家基数也呈现出了下降的趋势。过去两年来，King一直试图创造出《糖果粉碎传奇》系列的接班人，以维持其增长速度。新推出的几款游戏在某种程度上取得了成功，然而与《糖果粉碎传奇》的成就比起来可谓小巫见大巫。

尽管就目前而言，收入和玩家基数的小幅下降并不会对King造成太大影响。但是像King这样的一线开发商明白，“积极主动”是维持市场地位的最佳方式。Zynga的没落就是所有开发商的警钟。

作为应对方案，该公司决定进军利润颇丰的中核游戏市场，从而丰富旗下产品类型。

但为什么是中核而不是硬核呢？

King多年来一直都在制作休闲游戏，比起硬核游戏，中核游戏更符合该公司的经验和能力。另一个原因是，MZ在硬核游戏领域占绝对主导地位，就连开发了《亚瑟王国》和《霍比特人》等早期硬核游戏的Kabam都无法与之抗衡。

在过去的两年里，King一再声明：

“MAU和DAU逐年下降的主要原因是《糖果粉碎传奇》以及旗下其他成熟产品的玩家活跃度降低了。”

老生常谈了，King知道问题出在哪里，Zynga也曾面临过同样的情况。

但这真的是问题所在吗？如果我们换个角度看呢？

“由于《糖果粉碎传奇》的休闲玩家群体日渐成熟，导致玩家活跃度下降，最终导致了MAU和DAU的逐年下滑。”

前者表示‘日渐老化（成熟）的游戏’是问题所在，而后者则表示‘日渐老化（成熟）的受众’才是问题所在。

我的意思是，业绩下滑并不完全由游戏‘老化’导致，也有可能是因为休闲玩家逐渐成熟，对游戏的要求也越来越高了。

休闲化的中核手游

从最早的三消手游到现在，多数休闲玩家历经了多年的演变。智能手机用户从萌新开始，反复地学习和游玩千篇一律的传统机制。接着，多数玩家从最基本的手游转向了更吸引人的、沉浸式的体验。因为人类善于学习并克服障碍，在克服了一个障碍之后，我们就会渴望更有难度的挑战和更新鲜的体验。通常情况下，我们不会一直玩同一款游戏，就像我们不会天天看同一部电影一样。

哪些因素导致了休闲玩家走向成熟？

游戏内容日渐多样化，App Store里的游戏类型也越来越多，克隆游戏就更不用说了——玩家玩腻一款游戏以后，可以轻易地找到替代品。

这么多年过去了，玩家还有什么没消过？糖果、果冻、蛋糕、小动物什么的，能消的东西都消过了，休闲玩家对普遍的三消游戏机制已经掌握得非常全面。

King和其他三消手游开发者多年来一直试图用Boss关卡、各种奇葩任务等‘微创新’元素留住成熟玩家。

从另一方面看，既然现有玩家已经变成熟了，为什么不考虑去吸引新用户？

因为玩家走向成熟的过程会随着时间的推移而变短。如果说早期的休闲玩家经过了四年才演变成熟，那么新的用户群体就会更快地完成这个任务。与四年前不同，随着智能手机的演变和普及，现在的用户在年纪很小的时候就会开始接触不同的设备和手游，因此他们的起点也会比四年前高出许多。

重点是…如果手上已经有大把休闲玩家，谁还会想从头再来？

在休闲游戏和中核游戏之间，存在着大量成熟的、经验丰富的休闲玩家！

这些人想要从休闲游戏过渡到更有难度的玩法，但是他们又觉得中核游戏太难、太麻烦、太费脑、太有负担。对于这些人来说，等待计时器、基地建设、部队训练、经济管理、组建部落、策略操作等传统中核游戏的玩法，想想都头大。他们觉得休闲游戏太浅薄，但又觉得中核游戏太复杂，这样一来，这个群体就成为了一块有待填补的市场空白。

于是Supercell带着《皇室战争》出现了，与Supercell的其它三款热门游戏相比，本作的入门难度低了很多，玩法也不同，这是因为：

和King一样，Supercell的玩家基数已经达到了临界值，现有玩家也越来越成熟了。如果现在开发一款中核游戏的话，基本上是在和自己旗下的其他同类作品抢生意，这么做毫无意义。

2) 中核手游市场的竞争日益激烈，许多一线开发商都锁定了这块肥肉。尤其现在King还和暴雪联手了，Supercell必须做出行动。

像《皇室冲突》这样的游戏通过将中核手游休闲化，为那些成熟的休闲玩家降低了门槛。

因此，虽然King和其他竞争者都盯上了利润颇丰的中核市场，但Supercell抢先一步用《皇室战争》开创了先河，甚至可以说Supercell开创了一个可以将成熟休闲玩家引向中核体验的游戏类型。

我认为，游戏进化的下一个阶段不再仅仅是迎合玩家的胃口，还得通过降低入门障碍和逐步引入先进机制来将现有玩家基础培养得更成熟。

结语

手游玩家和游戏产业已经不再处于初级阶段，而下一代手游玩家（4-8岁的儿童已经开始在玩无限跑酷和益智三消了）的进化速度肯定比早期、甚至当代的手游玩家更短。

在不久的将来，用户获取（UA）成本仍将困扰着开发者。但是我认为，用户成熟度（User Maturity，简称UM）是一个同样重要的问题，率先破解这个问题的开发商将有可能铸造下一个手游传奇。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

In 2012 if you were planning to develop a mobile game, life was simple just choose from 3 genres Casual, Mid-Core or Hard-Core, come 2016 it seems this is no longer the case.

You may wonder, really? What’s the need of newer genres? What’s wrong with the existing textbook trinity?

Before we go any further down the road with the statement above let’s try to see what evolving circumstances, consumer patterns and market forces might be leading to disruption of the existing order.

Sizing up mobile gaming Titans

There are many top Devs. in mobile gaming, but when it comes to titans there are only 3, Machine Zone, Supercell, King.com, Let’s see how are they faring

Machine Zone : continues to dominate and grow with release of it’s second title ‘Mobile Strike’ clone of GoW in a modern setting, pulling on all it’s strings from aggressive user acquisition to super bowl advertising campaign,

MachineZone’s ultra aggressive UA strategy, monetisation tech. and deep player analytics seems to be constantly eluding other developers who fail to breed a stallion that can compete with MZ in the Hard Core gaming space

There were many cloned attempts by other devs. to parallel GoW, in 2015, but MZ is still holding the fort…at least for now.

Supercell: With it’s hat trick of 3 top grossing established hits ( CoC, BB, Hayday) and constant soft launch testing is sitting tightly on the mid-core throne, and with Clash Royale it seems future is going to be even brighter.

King.Com Has delivered an array of graphically impressive match 3 puzzle games,tried to repeat the success of Candy crush saga with Candy crush soda saga, gone public and undergone acquisition at whopping 5+ BillionUSD evaluation…

…But the fact remains it has shown marks of slowing down marginal fall in revenue, and shrinking player base, King has been under scrutiny by the pundits, for past 2 years as being unable to find a new successor to CCS and sustain it’s growth rate, it’s new games have met some success, but nothing matching the original franchise,

King is hard at work finding a worthy successor to it’s flagship Candy Crush Saga genre & arrest year on year shrinking casual player base.

Even though the marginal fall in revenue and player base is not a major bump for King at the moment, but a top dev. like King knows being proactive is the best way to stay at the top. Zynga’s debacle has taught Devs. to be wary.

Obvious Solution? KING is looking at diversifying and enter the lucrative Mid-core market.

But why mid-core and not hard-core? King’s experience historically has been with casual games, so is it better to naturally progress towards mid-core, rather than hard-core, right?

The other strong compelling reason is many Devs. are now wary of competing in Hard-Core space with MachineZone even Kabam whose hard-core games originally brought the gameplay on mobile which GoW & Mobile Strike are built on, recently let go off the reigns of it’s Hard-Core franchise ( kingdom of Camelot, Hobbit etc.) and is solely focussing on games like Marvel Contest of champions or what can be called Casualized Mid-core.

Over past two years King has repeatedly stated:

“The sequential and year over year decreases in MAUs and DAUs were due to decreased activity, primarily in Candy Crush Saga as well as in our other mature games.”

(Reads an excerpt of the company’s earnings report.)

Nothing new there, King knows the problem, Zynga faced this too.

But are we sure that is the CRUX of what is happening? what if we rephrase the statement.

“The sequential and year over year decreases in MAUs and DAUs are due to decreased activity primarily in Candy Crush Saga due to maturing CASUAL PLAYER BASE?”

The former blames the aging (maturing) games, the latter aging (maturing) audience.

What we are then proposing is, that decline is not solely a function of King games to engage casual players, but to engage maturing & progressively demanding engagement curve of casual players.
Shifting the blame (in part) from maturing games to maturing target audience should not come as a surprise, King partly understands the shift (having reached the critical mass), just probably not very vocal about stating it

Casualised Mid-core- What is it?

Masses of Casual game players have come a long way, since the early days of mobile matching candies. For over 4 years now smart phone users who have been new to games have come to terms with learning and playing the same old mechanics.

Needless to say a majority of Player who started with the infamous ‘Fart Button’ app (early days of Mobile games) moved on to discovering more engaging and immersive adventures. Something similar is happening to current crop of  casual players in the market, As human beings we are quick to learn and get over obstacles, craving progressively increasing challenges and newer experiences.

Surely you are still not playing the same games? (bar exceptions) watching the same movies? you were watching 4 years back (no matter how much you enjoyed them). You have evolved and matured as an player.

What lead to such maturity in casual gaming space?

Greater increasing choice in terms of gaming content released and genre on Appstore today, not to mention easy substitutes via insane cloning.

Evolving player maturity curve and mastery of banal mechanics. 4+ years of matching candies, jelly, cakes and what not!

King milking the same match 3 cow with small twists.

King & other match 3 developers have been trying to keep their maturing players engaged by adding  more intricate features, boss battles, finishing order queues etc.

A counter argument might be, even if existing player base has matured, what about finding new users (Which is also on decline btw.)

New user acquisition is a strong KPI, There is still one problem…the player maturity curve itself will become shorter with passing time, if it took older base of players 4 years to get over the curve the newer base will do it much faster as they have been exposed to smart phones much before the current generation, thanks to extensive smart phone penetration & increasing usage over the past 4 years, casual player starting today do not start with ‘fart App’ they have more choice and challenge to devour plus the fact they have been longer exposed to mobile ecosystem.
The important bit is…We are sitting on a huge mass of casual players, ripe for the picking … Who want to cross over!

In between traditional genres now exists a massive pool of matured veteran casual player base!

This mass wants to make a transition to more intricate gameplay but arewary of high entry barriers, grinding, wait timers, base building, troop training , managing economies, social pressure of clans, cognitive load of making strategy that conventional mid-core games need. All of which casual players hate.  there is a gap to be filled.

These players find the climb of casual games too SHALLOW, but mid-core too STEEP!

Question is not only, how to fill such a gap? but how do you  Intentionally mature players from casual to mid-core?

Enter: Supercell with Clash Royale

Why is Supercell tinkering with making a game which is so much easier to pick up, high on rich engagement and is not kit-bashing it’s existing game mechanics?

Several reasons:

1) Like King Supercell is also reaching it’s critical mass of players, existing user base is maturing. Why create more conventional Mid-Core games and cannibalize your own existing games.
2) There is increased threat from competitors, top devs. eyeing the lucrative mid-core market, with King & Activison alliance being the latest.

Games like Clash Royale are lowering the barrier of entry for masses of maturing casual players by casualising mid-core genre itself.

So while King &  other competitors might be eyeing the lucrative mid-core pie , supercell might just have turned the tables by appealing to maturing casual players and creating a genre that can cross over and MATURE players from casual to mid-core experience.

While it’s early to say , the proof lies in the pudding, I have written earlier too as to how , some developers are tearing down the conventional mid-core game design in an article where I (ironically) compared CoC against Rival kingdoms, surfacing how Rival Kingdoms eased and erased base building, troop training, on boarding , grinding all in favour of battle first approach over base building, lowering the banal barriers to entry.

Clash Royale seems to have ticked all those boxes and more.

Who knows, next stage of game evolution will not just be about catering to player preferences alone ,but MATURING existing player base (via lowering barriers & slow introduction of advanced mechanics)

Conclusion
Mobile gamers and gaming is no longer in it’s nascent stage, and the next gen. of mobile gamers (4 to 8 years old, are already guzzling down infinite runners and match making puzzlers day by day) They will have a a shorter maturity curve, then their predecessors

In coming future while the problem of expensive User Acquisition(UA) will keep staring developers in the face. I think solving the problem of User Maturity (UM) will be an equally worthy challenge and the developers who crack it, will be able to capture a significant portion of lucrative mobile gaming pie.  （Source：linkedin.com ）