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行业人士以具体产品为例谈为什么要搭建和管理游戏社区

发布时间:2019-12-11 08:59:45 Tags:,

行业人士以具体产品为例谈为什么要搭建和管理游戏社区

原作者:Meg Betteridge 译者:Vivian Xue

社区管理经常被当成事后考虑的项目——就像结账时被随手丢入购物袋的赠品。

尽管游戏生态发展日新月异,许多开发者仍然觉得为玩家提供一个分享和社交的平台不是必要的。或许对超休闲手游来说的确如此,因为这些手游只希望留住玩家几天时间,幸运的话可能几周。然而,大多数游戏的情况与之不同。

相反的,作为开发者,我们希望尽一切努力提高玩家的留存率。

幸运的是,游戏行业一直在朝着这个方向发展。那些购买一张实体游戏卡带或CD,把它打通关后搁在一旁的日子早已成为过去。在电子游戏时代,游戏的内容大大丰富,玩家的留存时间也大大延长。

同样地,中核及硬核手游花50美分获取用户的日子也早已结束。在当前“游戏即服务”(games-as-a-service)生态中,你可以通过内购项目和DLC实现持续盈利——只要你能留住玩家(和付费玩家),让他们不断投资你的游戏。

这正是社区发挥作用的地方。

社区=收入

显然最具有话语权的社区成员是你的游戏最忠诚的粉丝,但他们的价值可能不那么显而易见。事实上,他们的价值相当高。

在2018年世界开发者大会上。Nico Nottin谈到《僵尸炮艇:生存》(Zombie Gunship Survival)60%-80%的月收入来自活跃的社区成员。Flaregame团队抓住这一点,根据玩家反馈更新内容,成功提高了游戏收入。

Zombie Gunship(from gamepro)

Zombie Gunship(from gamepro)

游道易(Yodo1)发现许多市场都存在这样的情况。

我们中国运营《变形金刚:地球战争》时,发行团队发现游戏75%的付费玩家都是活跃的社区成员。基于此,游道易建立了一个专门负责鲸鱼玩家的工作小组。

我们关注这些VIP玩家的想法,据此设计满足他们需求的付费项目。这使我们去年的收入翻了一倍,并且提升了盈利模型的深度。事实上,这些鲸鱼玩家的用户终身价值由原来的5位数,增长到了6位数(美元)。

1. 如何与玩家保持联系

社区管理的本质在于与玩家搞好关系。

我们所投入的大量时间和资金都是为了搭建这种人情关系。想想看,无论是下班后买饮料,和朋友出去玩,在饭馆聚餐还是任何你会做的事。我们通常愿意在能够与人分享的事物上花更多的钱,因为这些体验更有意义和价值。

正因如此,在网络世界中,玩家想要与他们的朋友或他们最喜爱的游戏开发者建立联系。他们想要与他人分享自己的游戏体验,与游戏及其开发者培养亲密感,向他们展示自己的忠诚度。因此不足为奇的是,玩家们更想玩那些能给自己归属感的游戏——那些为他们而制作或修改的游戏。

与玩家维持联系有许多有效的方式。下面是一些例子:

-搭建内嵌社区(即游戏内部的社区功能模块)

-收集玩家对新内容和设计的意见

-定期举办竞赛

-赠送游戏周边产品作为奖励

-举办活动

-激励玩家行为和玩家自创内容

2. 为什么要搭建内嵌社区/游戏内部社区模块?

社区管理者在建立社区时可选择的传统资源有很多。

诸如Twitch、Discord和Reddit这样的平台都是非常棒的工具。Kolibri(原Fluffy Fairy工作室)游戏通过Facebook平台开展了大量社区管理工作,主动与粉丝玩家互动。

在一篇关于优化社区管理的文章中,Christine Ford讨论了“反馈至上”(feedback-first)思维的重要性。

作为一名社区管理者,她在《星甲战争》(Warframe)的在线论坛上非常活跃。在对社区毒性现象加以控制后,《星甲战争》社区的老玩家甚至愿意抽空欢迎新玩家。

当然,不是所有在线游戏论坛都能取得这种效果。大多数游戏的玩家中,只有很小一部分会真正在游戏社区论坛或Facebook上互动。

设法让玩家登录并关注这些外部论坛是如此困难,因此像《疯狂动物园》(Rodeo Stampede)和《元气骑士》(Soul Knight)这些优质手游均开始探索搭建游戏内社区。

数字说明了一切。《疯狂动物园》在游戏内社区举办的活动吸引了超过35%的玩家参与。

举办了比赛活动后,社区管理者通过游戏内的社交中心收集玩家对新角色和内容的意见,并展示由玩家原创的游戏内容,社区玩家的互动程度达到了一个令人满意的水平。

3. 通过活动/竞赛实现口碑营销

举办常规竞赛能够维持玩家与游戏的联系,并拉近玩家之间的距离。最终,这些联系将转化成更长的留存时间——以及更高的消费。

除此以外,为竞赛赢家提供实物奖励也是一种口碑营销的有效方式。

《杂草王国》(Hempire)经常举办比赛,例如两周一次的粉丝创作比赛,并提供T恤、连帽衫作为奖品。

除了举办竞赛外,社区管理者还可以组织活动,鼓励玩家行为和用户自制内容。

《疯狂动物园》在游戏内社区KTplay上举办的视频分享活动就是个很好的例子。

活动期间,游戏鼓励玩家在抖音上创作视频。这些视频被疯狂传播,获得了2100万播放量。参与活动的玩家获得了游戏金币奖励。而《疯狂动物园》呢?活动期间游戏的自然下载量增长了97%。

4. 让社区为你做宣传!

简而言之,你的游戏内社区是一个实现口碑营销的卓越平台,一个可以推销任何事物的永久有效的平台。

尽管比起基于绩效的营销,口碑营销的确不太容易拿捏,但是它是游戏获得玩家支持的关键——并且这一切均始于社区管理和建设。

总结:

-在游戏内社区中组织活动,刺激玩家行为。

-鼓励玩家提出意见反馈,将它们与游戏更新内容融合起来,从而提高社区成员参与热情和游戏收入。

-为活跃的社区成员提供VIP待遇,如果为他们提供适当的渠道,他们将为游戏带来更多新用户。

本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Too often, Community Management is an afterthought—a freebie tossed in the shopping bag at check out.

Though the gaming ecosystem is rapidly changing, many developers still think of giving players a platform to share and socialize on as an extra. Hyper casuals on Mobile might be an exception to this because they expect to churn players in a matter of days, or weeks if lucky. However, most games are nothing like that.

To the contrary, as developers, we want to do everything we can to keep our players around for as long as possible.

Luckily, the gaming world has adapted to suit just that. Long gone are the days where you would buy a physical game cartridge or CD, play to the highest level, and that would be it. In the digital era, games have much more to offer and for that players stay around far longer.

Also long gone: the days of 50-cent mobile user acquisitions for mid- and hard-core games. Instead, in the current games-as-a-service ecosystem, you can continually remonetize in-game purchases and DLC—as long as you can keep players (and payers) around long enough to reinvest in you.

And that’s exactly where community comes in.

Community Equals Revenue
It’s quite obvious that your most vocal community members are your biggest fans, but how much they are worth might not be as plain to see. Turns out, they’re pretty valuable.

At GDC 2018, Nico Nottin talked about how Flaregames was able to attribute 60-80% of their monthly revenue in Zombie Gunship Survival to active community members. To capitalize on this, they pushed updates with community feedback in mind and successfully increased monetization.

With Yodo1, we’ve found that this is true across cultures as well.

While working on Transformers Earth Wars in China, the publishing team realized that 75% of the game’s spenders were active community members. In response, Yodo1 spun up a special community task force to handle top spenders.

With attentiveness to these VIPs, bundles were designed to meet players’ wants and needs. This resulted in a 100% increase in revenue over the past year and a solid boost in monetization depth. In fact, lifetime revenue from top spenders rose from just under five figures, US dollars, to six figures.

How to Keep Your Players Connected
It’s all about connection.

So much of what we invest time and money into is aimed at human connection. Think about grabbing drinks after work, going out with friends, eating at a restaurant, or just about any special thing you’d do. We’re typically willing to spend more money on things we share with others because these experiences are more meaningful and more valuable.

Just so, in an online world, players want to be connected to their friends and to the developers of their favorite games. They want to share their gaming experience with others and develop a feeling of closeness with and loyalty to a game and its makers. Not surprisingly, the games they want to play are ones they feel connected to—games that have been made for or modified with them in mind.

There are a number of great ways to keep players connected. Here are a few examples:

-Build an embedded community
-Gather feedback for new content and designs
-Run regular contests
-Give merchandise as prizes
-Create events
-Encourage player behavior and user-generated content

Why Build Embedded Communities?
Community Managers have a plethora of traditional sources to choose from when it comes to building communities.

Platforms like Twitch, Discord, and Reddit are great tools of choice for many community managers. Kolibri games (formerly Fluffy Fairy) does a lot of community management on Facebook, where they proactively engage their fans and players.

In an article about redefining community management, Christine Ford discusses the value of embracing and marketing the feedback-first mentality to gaming.

As a community manager, she makes herself very visible in Warframe’s vibrant online forums . After working through their “fair share of toxicity” and “pitchfork moments”, she has even been able to foster a community where veteran players take time to welcome newcomers.

Of course, not every online forum can pull this off. Most games will find that a very small percentage of players actually interact with their community forums or Facebook pages.

Realizing how difficult it is to get players to actually log into and follow forums outside of the game, standout mobile games like Rodeo Stampede and Soul Knight have taken it a step further and built embedded communities.

In their case, the numbers say everything. Some of the events in Rodeo Stampede’s embedded community were able to engage over 35% of their player base to participate in their activities.

With these events and activities, community managers are using in-game social hubs to gather feedback for new character designs and content, and showing us that content built by the community, for the community engages players on a much more satisfying level.

Word-of-Mouth Marketing through Events & Contests
Regular contests keep players feeling connected with the game, as well as other community members. Ultimately, these connections encourage players to stay longer—and spend more.

Additionally, sending winners of regular contests physical merchandise is a great way to encourage word-of-mouth marketing.

Hempire gives physical merchandise like t-shirts and hoodies to its players as prizes for regular contests such as their bi-weekly fan art competition where they send out free swag (T-shirts) to their winners.

In addition to contests, community managers can create events to encourage player behavior and user-generated content.

Rodeo Stampede’s video-sharing event in KTplay is a great example of this.

During this event, players were encouraged to create videos on Douyin—the Chinese version of Tiktok. The videos went viral and garnered 21 million videos. For players, payout came in the form of in-game rewards. And Rodeo Stampede? They walked away with a 97% increase in organic downloads over the duration of the event.

Let Your Community Spread the Word!
In short, your in-game community is an excellent platform for word-of-mouth marketing—a timeless and effective way to sell just about anything.

While word-of-mouth advertising may be a lot harder to measure than performance-based campaigns, it is the key to driving support for your game—and it all starts with community.

In Summary
Invest in your in-game community by organizing events and encouraging player behavior.

Welcome player feedback and incorporate it into your content updates to engage community members and increase monetization.

Treat active community members like the VIPs they are; they will bring other valuable players to the game if given the right avenues to do so.(source:Gamasutra)

 


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