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与时俱进:开发者关于手游测试和发行的五大建议

发布时间:2018-04-27 09:30:52 Tags:,

原文作者:Emily Putze 译者:Megan Shieh

手游发行的开销和风险与日俱增,而近几年的手游市场也发生了不少重大变化;但在这样的背景下,仍有许多开发商坚持使用三、四年前的测试和发行流程。

在Google Play,我有幸参与了上百款游戏的推出,为了降低风险,许多开发商改进了他们的研发和发行策略。根据这些经验,我整理出了一些内容,希望这些分析和建议能够帮助你找到适合自己的发行策略。

什么是传统的发行流程?

在项目研发的早期阶段进行大量内部测试,然后在正式发行前进行不同阶段的外部测试,比如技术测试、留存和盈利模式测试。开发者进行外部测试时,通常会在研发过程中的多个阶段在某些特定区域进行测试发行(与公测不同)。

这类开发商大多选择在菲律宾进行技术测试、在北欧进行留存测试、在澳大利亚或加拿大进行盈利模式测试。一款新游戏的测试国家一般不会超过5-7个,考虑到稳定性和评分方面的因素,测试用户一般持有较为高端的移动智能设备。一般而言,留存和盈利模式测试会持续2-3个月的时间。在这段时间里,开发团队会不断调整游戏以达到公司期望的KPI。

当然,这种发行策略也不一定是坏事,因为这个流程对于许多人而言还是很有效。但游戏领域发展迅速,我们认为开发商需要不断评估这个流程,并在必要时将它进行改进,以更好地适应市场趋势。

手游开发者目前面临的三大难题

手游行业几年前刚刚起步,当时这个市场的利润空间非常大。然而在2010至2014年间,由于较低的门槛和海量潜在用户,成千上万的开发人员纷纷进入了这一领域。当时,手游开发周期短、成本低、营销预算合理、发行流程也没那么复杂。开发者可以先推出游戏,看看它是否赚钱,然后再决定要不要进一步投资。

快进到今天,整个市场看起来大不相同,因此将多年前的发行策略带入到今天的手游市场中,自然会有些格格不入。

Ultima in its original packaging(from pcgamer)

Ultima in its original packaging(from pcgamer)

下面,让我们快速回顾一下手游市场近几年的特点。

(一)竞争更激烈

要想在如今这个更为拥挤和成熟的市场中发行一款手游是非常具有挑战性的。

光是在Googly Play上就有100多万款游戏,消费者们面临的选项比以往任何时候都多。与此同时,要想让玩家更换游戏也更难了 ,由于参与度的提高,玩家们很难放下自己日积夜累的游戏进度、角色、卡组、联盟成员等各类资源。因此新游戏越来越难取得成功,而营收榜上的流动率也变得越来越低(游戏邦注:至少在包括美国在内的大多数西方市场是这么个情况)。

(二)开发成本更高

在今天的游戏市场中,测试和推出一款新游戏所需的资源比以往多了很多。

消费者对移动产品的期望和需求比以往任何时候都高,如果你的游戏不能满足他们的需求,他们会毫不犹豫地离开,这也意味着开发者们不能先推出游戏,然后再决定要不要继续投资。再加上较长的开发周期所需的成本,以及日益复杂的技术需求——保持文件大小不能过大、能够快速匹配,同时还得跟得上PVP和实时聊天翻译等趋势,这些因素都在不知不觉间提高了开发成本。

(三)营销成本更高

如今,手游的营销预算都快赶上主机游戏了。在这个高度饱和的市场中,有机用户不仅更难生成,而且用户获取成本仍旧很高。

这些转变所带来的结果是,开发商发行新游戏时所面临的风险与日俱增,而最近几年,手游市场上的新游戏数量也因此出现了下跌。

五大建议

在一个快速变化的市场中,过度依赖规范化流程会带来一定的风险,因为你会产生一种虚假的安全感,甚至可能没有意识到自己已经落后了。

有些开发团队会将传统发行流程看作是一种达到目标的手段,他们更在乎的是“我们想要实现哪些目标”;而另外一些开发团队则更关心“我们该如何实现这些目标”,这些团队通常更灵活、懂得变通,也更容易成功。

尽管有许多开发商仍在采用传统发行流程,但也有越来越多的人正在慢慢转换观念,还有一些人意图在测试和推出新游戏的方式上实现创新。不久前,我主持了一场关于“降低新游戏发行风险”的小组讨论,在那里,我们与来自EA、Wooga、Miniclip、Playrix、King、和 Big Fish Games的开发人员一起深入讨论了这个问题,并分享了这方面的经验:

建议一:不断评估新游戏,必要时需忍痛割爱

为了降低发行新游戏的风险,许多开发商和发行商在投资游戏时变得更为谨慎、遵循“更少、更好”的原则。为了实现这一点,他们调整了新游戏的内部审查流程,并在游戏开发中的不同阶段采用了更为严苛的评估手段。

几年前,新游戏大多是先通过内部审核再开始研发,通过这一次审核就意味着它们获得了发行的批准。而现在,多数开发商采用的是“先开发后评估”的手段,新游戏必须在开发流程中的多个阶段接受评估,开发商也会进行更多的失败和反馈测试。例如,某些新游戏必须通过5次内部审核才能有机会上市;有些新游戏可能已经开发了一年多,或者已经到了最后的留存和盈利模式测试阶段,但是由于它们的测试表现没有达到预期标准,于是开发者最终选择砍掉这些项目。

然而,要想真正实现这种做法是非常困难的。首先你必须在工作室中创造出一种内部文化和氛围,上至高管,下至开发人员都必须要做好随时接受失败的准备,因为在开发周期中的任何阶段你们都有可能砍掉一款“不符合标准”的游戏。尽管在实践中很难做到这一点,但考虑到当前的市场背景,许多开发商始终认为“长痛不如短痛”——宁愿咬牙砍掉项目,也不愿在接下来的几年里承担发行和维护一款平庸游戏的成本。

建议二:采用公开测试的方式在项目初期获得外部反馈

由于发行成本不断上升,开发者不得不尽早测试外界对新游戏的反应。因此许多顶级开发商都在改进它们的传统测试方案,争取尽早将新产品推向市场,以获得外部反馈(有时甚至连原型都还没开发完整就这么做了)。他们认为这么做不仅能够尽早知道创意好坏(收集反馈、测量KPI并决定是否要继续做这款游戏),而且还有助于构建寿命较长的游戏。为了实现这一点,许多开发商正在改进它们的测试流程——在测试发行之前,先推出公测版本(重点做技术和留存测试)。

开发者可以利用公测(Beta)版本对安装包的大小设置一个上限、收集初期反馈,同时还可以对游戏进行访问设限,例如设备类型或用户地理位置设限。公测和测试发行的不同之处在于,公测版的评分和评论都不是公开的,这是一个很大的优势,因为你可以在早期测试阶段找出问题并解决它们,甚至可以进行大胆的A/B测试,看看哪些方案能真正推动KPI。

Big Fish Games(大鱼工作室)之前就对《Cooking Craze》做了公测,在体验到公测的好处之后,现在大鱼要求所有新游戏都必须在正式发行前先在安卓平台上进行公测。这样一来,他们不仅可以从玩家那里收集到第一手反馈,而且还能更早、更大胆地测试它们的新游戏。“大胆”的意思是,尝试风险更大的美术风格、游戏机制、营销方案等,并在更多地区和设备类型上测试这款新游戏。

由此带来的好处包括:知道该游戏在哪些市场能有强劲表现、找出更多未知的技术问题、准确地评估已知问题可能带来的影响。这样一来,正式发行时获得差评的可能性也会小很多。

无论你的预算高低、团队规模大小,公测绝对是测试新游戏的好主意。此外,Google Play的全新测试功能允许开发者同时在多个地区推出公测版本和测试发行的apk。

建议三:酌情延长测试周期,利用长期测试所得数据来预测游戏表现

最近几年,我们眼看着游戏研发的重点从下载量和盈利模式转向了留存和参与度这种能够延长游戏寿命的KPI。正因如此,许多开发商也都延长了它们的测试周期。

虽说在测试周期方面并不存在“通用”模型,不过一款游戏的测试周期至少得在30天以上。虽然为期30天的测试是预测长期留存率的关键指标,但若想真正了解用户,你需要更长的测试周期。这就意味着即使这款游戏是完美的,你至少还是得进行2-3个月的测试。平均而言,我和大多数开发商合作的测试周期是6个月,比较大型的游戏通常是10-12个月。拿大型IP来举个例子,开发商必须了解30天后,用户会作出什么反应,因为对于IP类游戏而言,短期数据的准确度很低。人们一开始会玩这款游戏可能是因为它们喜欢IP中的人物/角色,但这并不等同于好的留存,也不代表他们会长期玩下去。

建议四:转换观念,将游戏看作是长期投资

五年前,很少有开发者会认为一款手游能够持续热门五年,将游戏推出以后,他们通常会直接寻找下一个项目。而现在,像《糖果粉碎传奇》和《霹雳八球》这样的游戏证明了一款手游的寿命可以长达5-10年,因此许多开发者开始将游戏看作是一种长期投资。以前,这些开发者总是在寻找新的游戏来投资,而现在,他们更原意在一款现有的热门手游中加倍投资。

这不仅意味着日复一日地维护这些游戏,开发者们还得投入大量时间和资源来推出新内容,确保在线运营的顺畅,跟上最新趋势等。对于现在的许多开发商而言,“重大更新”其实就等同于是推出了一款“新游戏”。

手游市场竞争激烈,用户获取成本又非常高,所以也难怪许多开发商会选择继续维护和改善现有游戏,而不是重新推出一款新游戏。出于类似原因,我们看到许多大型开发商不再每年发布一款系列游戏,而是在长期热门的游戏中推出重大的季节性更新。

所以,如果你已经有一款带有大量用户的游戏,其实可以考虑通过在线运营和频繁的内容更新来使其获得成功,而不是只想着怎么把下一款游戏做成热门。

建议五:正式发行前要优化留存

正式发行不再意味着研发工作的结束,从这天开始,开发者就需要真正想尽办法留住玩家,因此许多开发人员都会在正式发行前将留存率调整到最大化。

在确保高留存的过程中,许多开发商都选择了以下几个部分作为正式发行前的优化重点:

游戏质量和性能——性能是决定留存和评分的关键,因此许多开发者会在正式发行前,在尽可能多的设备上测试这款游戏。

确保有足够的内容可供玩家消耗,以防止过早的用户流失——Ps. 你可以通过游戏内活动来重复利用现有内容。

在游戏上线前就加入社交功能——对于任何游戏而言,社交功能永远是吸引和留住用户的关键。用户参与度越高,就越不会离开游戏。

在正式发行前做一次模拟演练——在正式发行《June’s Journey》的一个月前,Wooga对这款游戏做了一次完整的“上线演练”,从中找出了开发团队在在线运营方面的不足之处并对其进行改善,进而为正式发行做足了准备。

本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Launching a successful new mobile game is increasingly risky and expensive. Yet, despite significant industry changes in recent years, most developers continue to test and launch new games in largely the same way as they did three to four years ago.

At Google Play I’ve had the chance to work with mobile developers on hundreds of game launches. I’ve seen first-hand how developers are evolving their development and go-to-market strategies in an effort to “de-risk” new launches (and where they’re not, but probably should be). I hope that by sharing some of these insights you’ll find ways to adapt and evolve your go-to-market playbook to make your next launch more successful.

Traditional launch playbook

First, what do I mean when I say that most developers continue testing and launching new games as they did in years past? Many developers today follow what I call the “traditional launch playbook”.

A more traditional launch playbook usually involves extensive internal testing in early development phases, followed by various stages of external testing prior to full launch (e.g. technical, retention and monetization testing). Most often, external testing consists of releasing a production version of a new game (vs a beta version) in specific geographies at various stages.

For instance, many developers with a more traditional playbook do technical testing in the Philippines, retention testing in the Nordics, and monetization testing in Australia or Canada. While the countries may differ here or there, these new games are usually tested in no more than five to seven countries in total, with deployment limited to higher-end device types due to stability and rating concerns. In general, retention and monetization testing lasts about two to three months, with game teams focused on tweaking the game to reach certain KPIs they believe offer insights into how their game might perform on a global scale at launch.

Does this sound familiar? If so, it’s not necessarily a bad thing, as this process still works great for many. However, at Google Play, we believe that it’s important to continuously evaluate processes as a means to an end and iterate where necessary, especially in a rapidly changing environment.

A new era

A few years ago, the mobile games industry was in its nascency and really taking off in terms of profitability. Between 2010-2014, low barriers to entry and the size of the potential install base drove thousands of developers to enter the mobile gaming space. During these “gold rush” years, games could be made and launched quickly with relatively fast development cycles, low development costs, and reasonable marketing budgets. You could launch a new game, see if it made any money in the market and then decide if it was worth investing in further.

Fast forward to the present day and the market looks very different, as does launching a top new game. Let’s quickly review some of what’s changed in recent years:

1. More competition. Launching a hit in today’s more mature and crowded ecosystem can be very challenging. With more than 1M games offered on Google Play alone, consumers have more choices than ever. At the same time switching costs for players are high. As players become more deeply engaged and invested in the games they play–building up progression, characters, decks, alliances, resources, etc.–they are less likely to switch games and abandon their hard work (not to mention time and money invested). As a result it is getting harder and harder for new games to break through, and we’re seeing lower turnover in the top grossing charts for games (at least in most Western markets, including the US).

2. Higher development costs. The resources required to properly test and launch a new game in today’s market are significant. Not only are development cycles longer, but consumer expectations and demands of mobile products are also higher than ever, and they churn extremely fast if not satisfied (i.e. no more minimally viable product launches). Add this to the cost of longer title cycles and the need for increasingly sophisticated tech–to keep file sizes small, matchmaking quick, and keep up with trends like synchronous PvP and real-time chat translation–and the resulting costs to create a new game can be considerable.

3. Higher marketing costs. Today the marketing budgets for top new mobile game launches look more and more like those of console game launch budgets. Not only is organic discovery more difficult in a highly saturated market, but user acquisition continues to be extremely expensive, and the cost of the high quality tools, tech, and analytics needed earlier in a game’s development cycle add up quickly for developers.

As a result of many of these shifts, we are seeing fewer new mobile game launches than in years past and more risk aversion from developers across the board (opting for safer bets versus moonshot bets).

Process as a “means to an end”

With so many changes occurring in the mobile games market, it’s interesting that many developers continue to test and launch new games as they have in years past, but it’s not surprising.
Process is an area where it’s easy to stay static when other parts of the business change. That said, in a rapidly changing market, over reliance on process can be dangerous, as it can create a false sense of security (e.g., you might not even realize you’re behind or that you have developed blind spots). In general, I’ve seen that teams who focus on process as a means to an end–where they are more focused onwhat they are trying to achieve versus how they exactly achieve it–are generally more adaptive, and ultimately, successful.

Evolving your playbook

While many developers continue to rely on the more “traditional playbook,” more and more are evolving their mindsets toward releasing new games and innovating on the way they test and launch. I recently led a panel on “de-risking new game launches” at one of our Google events, where, together with developers from Electronic Arts, Wooga, Miniclip, Playrix, King, and Big Fish Games, we dove into this topic of process evolution and shared some best practices.

Here are five ways top developers are evolving their testing and launch processes in order to de-risk new game launches in today’s market.

1. Continuously evaluating new games (and not being reluctant to pull the plug)

To mitigate many of the inherent risks around launching a new title, many game developers and publishers have shifted their focus toward investing in “fewer, better” games. To achieve this, they’ve evolved their internal processes around greenlighting new games and implemented more rigorous evaluation at multiple stages of development.

“Many developers are taking a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ approach to greenlighting new games”

A few years ago, it was common for there to be one early, internal greenlight for a new game before a game team had permission to take it to market (launching after that point was a given). Today, many developers are taking a “guilty until proven innocent” approach to greenlighting new games, requiring that they undergo critical evaluations at multiple stages and creating more opportunities for failure and feedback (launching is no longer a given at any point). For color, I’ve worked with game teams that have had to secure as many as five internal greenlights before bringing a new game to market. I’ve also worked with developers who have killed games that have been in development for a year–or in the late stages of retention and monetization testing–because their titles were performing below expected metrics.

While this process evolution seems relatively straightforward, implementing it successfully is difficult. It means creating an internal culture and climate, from the top executives down to the game teams, where it is OK to fail (faster the better) and where pulling the plug on a game that is not “up to snuff” is the norm, at any stage of the development cycle. Although this is hard to do in practice, against the backdrop of the current market, many developers believe it is better than absorbing the cost of launching (and maintaining) a mediocre game for years to come.

2. Getting external feedback earlier in development using open (or closed) beta

Due to the rising costs associated with launching new games, identifying bad ideas as early as possible has become critical for developers (again, if you’re going to fail, fail fast). As such, many top developers are evolving their typical testing playbooks to get new titles to market for external feedback much earlier in the development cycle than in years past, sometimes even before full prototyping. Not only do they believe this is critical to identifying bad ideas early (allowing them to collect feedback, measure KPIs and make a call on whether to invest further or pull the plug), but many developers also believe that this early market feedback is critical to building titles with longer end games.

To test new games externally earlier, many developers are evolving their technical approach to testing– moving away from only testing production versions of their games to testing beta versions first, especially for tech and retention testing. One of the main reasons for this shift is that beta testing (open or closed) allows for more distribution control than a geo-locked production soft launch.

For instance, with open beta you can actually put a cap on a beta’s size, allowing developers to collect early market feedback on a new game while also limiting public access to it at such an early stage. Plus, unlike with a production soft launch, testing via open beta means no public ratings or reviews–user feedback is private–which is a big advantage while you are ironing out issues in early stages of your game or doing bold A/B tests to see what really moves the needle for your KPIs.

While I’ve seen a huge uptick in the number of developers utilizing open beta for external testing, I’ve also seen developers dealing with big IP or well-established consumer brands relying more on closed beta for early external testing (due to license issues, etc). Today, these developers often set up external sites where interested users can apply for access to their closed beta test, before moving on to more traditional geo-locked soft-launch testing closer to launch.

After seeing the advantages open beta testing offered their game Cooking Craze,Big Fish Games now requires all new titles to run Android open betas before launch. Not only does this allow them to gather direct feedback from players, but it also allows them to test their new games earlier, bolder, and broader than they would have in a production soft launch. This means taking bigger risks with art style, gameplay mechanics, promotions, etc., and testing new games in more geographies and on more device types. The resulting benefits range from discovering strong performance in various markets, to exposing more unknown technical issues (and more accurately estimating impact of known issues), to fewer 1-star reviews at launch. For Big Fish Games, testing via open beta means minimizing the risk and mystery of how new titles will perform at launch, allowing them to better prioritize QA resources, optimize global UA channels and budgets ahead of launch, and release more confidently all around (with fewer surprises!)

No matter your budget or size, testing new games via open beta is definitely a process evolution to consider. Plus, Google Play’s new country targeting for beta releases feature allows developers to distribute their beta and production APKs to different markets at the same time, so you can test a beta version of your game in most geographies and move to a production soft launch in select markets before launch to confirm KPIs and build up a solid ratings pad.

3. Focusing on long-term metrics as predictors of success (and testing longer)

In recent years we’ve seen a shift in game development from a focus on driving downloads and monetization, to a world where engagement is the true KPI of sustainable business success (especially long-term retention and LTV). As a result, many developers are evolving their playbook to build in time and budget for much longer testing periods than in years past.

While there certainly isn’t a “one size fits all” model when it comes to testing duration–depends on what you’re testing, how much you need to optimize, etc–at a minimum, developers should be testing beyond day 30 metrics. Although D30 metrics are key indicators of longer term retention, to understand true user value you need to understand long term engagement and retention patterns (LTV is the long game). This means that even if your game is perfect, you should be testing for at least two to three months. On average most developers I work with test new games for six months, but often as long as 10 or 12 months for bigger titles (if not more). For games with big IP, it’s especially important for developers to understand what happens to their users after D30 as IP can often mask bad metrics in the short term. People may stick around in the early game because they like the characters, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have good retention.

4. Shifting mindsets towards games as long-term investments

Five years ago, few developers thought a mobile game could be successful for five years. Instead they’d launch a game and start thinking about the next big thing. Today, games like Candy Crush and 8 Ball Pool have proven mobile games can have end games of five or 10 years. As a result, many developers are increasingly looking at games as a long-term investment and are shifting their focus from only investing in new titles to doubling down on existing hits. This means not only maintaining these titles day-to-day, but also significantly reinvesting in these titles to ensure that they are delivering new content, investing in Live Operations, staying fresh from a UI perspective, and keeping up with new trends. This not only helps engage and retain their existing players, but helps attract new ones as well. For many developers today, big updates are “the new launch.”

Considering how competitive today’s market is–and how expensive it is to acquire users–it’s no surprise that many developers are focusing on supporting existing titles with established users bases over taking on the risks of launching a new game altogether. For similar reasons, we’ve seen large developers and publishers move away from annualized releases for franchise titles, in exchange for rolling out evergreen titles with big seasonal updates. Electronic Arts, for instance, has done this with their sports titles such as Madden, NBA Live, and FIFA. This is a big shift considering that FIFA had multiple annualized mobile releases before they launched FIFA Mobile last year. Now, for EA and many other developers, the decision to launch a new game in an existing franchise is fundamentally driven by the need to improve the underlying game tech/engine (versus a desire to launch something new).

If you have an existing game with a strong user base, it is worth thinking about how you can invest in making that title more successful through live operations and frequent content updates instead of only thinking about your next big hit.

5. Optimizing for retention before launchDiscover more jobs in games

Launching isn’t just about the launch any more, it’s about retaining users from day one. As a result, many developers are evolving their development playbooks to focus on maximizing retention in their game prior to launch. Many believe that to be truly competitive as a top new game today–against other hit games in the market–means ensuring long-tail content pipelines, social features and event plans are lined up and resourced from the start (versus “MVP” launches that only have 25% of the features you’d hoped to have at launch). That said, upfront investment into these features prior to launch can have significant implications on budgets, headcount, and resources.

Here are the top areas where I see many developers evolving their processes when it comes to optimizing their games for optimal retention:

Focusing on quality and performance prior to launch. Strong app health and performance metrics (e.g., crash rates) are key to preventing early player churn and minimizing bad reviews at launch (50% of 1-star reviews mention stability and bugs). As a result, many developers are testing new game performance on a much wider range of devices prior to launch. This is particularly important for developers on Google Play as the Play Store algorithm is being tuned to promote quality and engagement, with key indicators of this being a game’s Android Vitals performance, retention, and ratings.

Making sure they have enough content at launch to sustain engagement and prevent churn. Rather than making levels harder to slow players down and risk churn, many developers actively test how quickly their players consume content and move through levels during their beta, and make enough content to sustain them. Remember, you can also recycle content with events!

Building social features into their games prior to launch. Social features are critical to engaging and retaining users in any game, including in a new game at launch. The more engaged users are, the less likely they are to churn. Alliances and alliance wars should be built in for day one, as should live services and events. This means investing in a team dedicated to LiveOps before launch.

Not being afraid to “waste” good events during beta. Developers need to know what KPIs their LiveOps move, how they impact their player behavior, and how their teams can stand up to a demanding LiveOps cadence. Often this means testing their LiveOps (and their team’s ability to deliver) before launch as if it’s the real deal. For instance, June’s Journey by Wooga is a game that was extremely demanding from a content production perspective. A month before launch–after a seven-month soft launch where they ironed out stability and KPIs–Wooga orchestrated a full “dress rehearsal” of their launch where they treated their game as if it was live (weekly releases, marketing reviews, social media, etc.). By not holding anything back in their “rehearsal,” they created critical opportunities for their teams to practice and understand the demands of their full LiveOps plan, and ultimately better prepared themselves for the real launch of their new game.

If you haven’t re-evaluated your go-to-market playbook in the past few years, it’s a great time to dust it off and look at the new trends and tools available. I encourage you to try some of the examples I have shared and see if you can identify areas to improve your process or avoid blind spots. (Source: gamesindustry.biz )


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