GameRefiner分析人士谈手游应该如何利用季节性活动

原作者：Kalle Heikkinen 译者：Willow Wu

（本文作者是手游&市场研究公司GameRefiner的首席游戏分析师。）

关于手游，有很多事情我们是可以笃定的。其中之一就是绝大多数的手游会在一年中推出各种各样的季节性活动。无论是万圣节、圣诞节还是情人节，季节性活动都是一个完美的契机，通过新的方法来提高用户的参与度。

随着圣诞假期的来临，我们观察了一些热门游戏的圣诞活动，为的是分析它们在设计上有哪些共同之处。所以，如果你正准备开始创造一些节假日主题的内容，或者甚至是提前构思明年的活动，我们整理了一些能够适用于全年各种不同季节性活动的游戏特色，你可以利用它们取悦玩家，给你带来更多收入。

寒冷季节的热心建议

1.思考你的目标地区和用户：要记住，人们对不同季节性活动的重视程度是不同的。有些节日对你来说很重要，但是目标地区可能并没有这样的文化背景。美国和中国这两个国家的对比就尤为明显：相比于新年，万圣节和圣诞节对美国人来说是更加重要的。

2.让玩家产生“害怕错过”的感觉：季节性活动是推出专属内容的好时机——这些东西只能通过登录、参与限时活动获得。免费物品可以有效地挽回流失的玩家，让他们在某段时间内保持每天都上线。专属内容可以是角色皮肤，提供特殊版本的角色是吸引玩家重返游戏的有效方法，就比如《精灵宝可梦GO》中圣诞版本的皮卡丘。
3.季节性活动运营：趁着这时候你可以两手抓价格——一是活动专属物品的价格，二是活动折扣和礼包。

4.把季节性活动跟gacha结合：gacha跟不同活动都可以很好地结合，你也可以增加特殊的gacha机制来增添趣味，让gacha变得真正特别起来。

5.增加特别的线上活动货币：这是一种暂时性地增加资源需求缺口的有效方式。活动货币能够跟限时商品、gacha和活动内容很好地结合，这样可以对游戏经济起到刺激作用，而且是一年数次。通过每日登陆等活动，奖励玩家一些特别的货币，这样你就可以确保玩家不断回到游戏中来。

6.创造特别的限时游戏模式：这是另一种能够有效提升玩家参与度的方法。

7.慢慢拉开活动的帷幕：别在第一天就把好戏全都呈现出来。一般来说，比较明智的做法就是把活动一步步展开，就比如在圣诞活动开启第一周开放25%的内容，第二周再开放50%的内容，第三周把剩下25%都呈现出来。这种方式能够帮助确保线上活动的效果持续更长时间。

8.联动/交叉推广活动：无论是哪个行业的市场，我们都可以看到很多合作和交叉推广活动。虽然它们通常都是作为一个独立的活动运营（跟节假日没有关联），但是强强联手也会形成一次很棒的季节性活动。就比如说最近的《剑与远征》（AFK Arena）与动漫Overlord联动，游戏中加入了安兹·乌尔·恭、雅儿贝德，开始了为期一个月的“另一个世界的恐怖与美丽”主题万圣节活动。

Last Day on Earth: Survival(from pockegtgamer.biz)

成功的节日活动

让我们来看看热门手游的开发团队是怎么设计季节性活动的。

1.Last Day on Earth的圣诞活动

Last Day on Earth巧妙地将其圣诞活动与其最新的赛季通行证结合在一起。一个特别的地点“Nick Santy的房屋”被加入到了游戏中，玩家需要找到房子，用不同种类的装饰品装饰圣诞树。你的圣诞树装饰得越漂亮，排名就越高，当然奖励就越好。

很多赛季通行证任务都应用了节假日主题，跟游戏的生存玩法结合到了一起。就比如“烤五只火鸡”这样的任务，再比如出现一个穿着圣诞服装的NPC给你一个捕猎僵尸驯鹿的任务。

赛季通行证的奖励同样也是都非常吸引人的，例如“姜饼人模型”摩托车皮肤。

总结来说，Last Day on Earth的圣诞活动是一个很好的例子，展示了如何将季节性活动与你的游戏主题、类型以及现有的线上活动设计框架相结合（在这个实例中就是赛季通行证）。

游戏的收益也因此获得了增长：

活动开始后的7天，收益增长121%

活动开始后的14天，收益增长87%

活动开始后的30天，收益增长13%

2.坦克世界：闪电战

快乐小伙Chris Dev邀请玩家到他的假日小店里。当玩家进入小店时，系统会赠送给玩家一辆坦克，并承诺Chris会给玩家一些平时付费玩家才能获得的福利。玩家还可以从箱子和Lucky Draw中获得更多礼物，赢得新的顶级坦克和传奇级别的伪装。

3.Hero Wars – Fight the Monsters

Hero Wars在过去几年中应用的是为期14天的“Holiday every Day”活动，并提供了一系列的赛季奖励。这其中包括一个新的英雄、新的冬季皮肤、以及针对boss战的技能。做活动任务，装饰你公会的树，赚取Holiday Coins，去假日商店消费，就是这样的循环。

4.SimCity Buildit

SimCity Buildit的假日更新加入了我们上文所说到的很多特色。包括限时的雪花货币、市长的奖励游戏——玩家可以解锁假日主题建筑以及其它奖品。SimCity Buildit还推出了每周奖励，在为期5周的节日庆祝活动中，市长的奖励游戏每周都会更换新的主题。

总结来说，将季节性主题活动加入到游戏中可以为你带来很多好处，不同类型的游戏都证明了这一点。通过结合特定活动货币、限时特别gachas、新的游戏模式、合作等，你的收益很有可能会获得明显增长，甚至是重新吸引那些寻找新鲜内容和全新挑战的流失用户回到游戏中来。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

(Kalle Heikkinen is the Chief Game Analyst at mobile game and market analysis company GameRefinery.)

In the world of mobile games, we can be sure of many things, one of which is that a large number of titles will launch a series of seasonal promotions throughout the year. Whatever the occasion, be it Halloween, Christmas or Valentine’s Day, seasonal promotions provide a perfect excuse to find new and exciting ways to drive customer engagement.

With Christmas/The Holidays fast approaching, we’ve taken a closer look at some Christmas promotions in popular games to identify the key features they have in common. So, if you’re about to embark on creating some Holiday content or even thinking ahead to next year’s events, here are some seasonal game features that will work throughout the year (and not just at Christmas) to delight your users as well as drive up your revenues.

Hot tips for a cold season

Think about your target countries and audience: It’s important to remember that not all seasonal promotions are created equal. Some events that are important to you may not be culturally relevant to all your target countries. This is especially the case with looking at the US and China where Halloween and Christmas will be much more significant to a US audience compared to New Year for a Chinese audience.

Create a sense of FOMO (Fear of missing out). Seasonal promotions are a great time to create exclusive content that can only be acquired by logging in and playing through events in that period. Free items can be effective at drawing lapsed players back into your game and keeping them there for a focused period with daily visits. This exclusive content can be things such as character vanity items. Adding unique exclusive versions of characters can be a great way to create compelling reasons for players to come back, such as a Christmas Pikachu in Pokemon Go.

Run seasonal events: Events are an excellent opportunity to double-down on price segmentation: think of event-specific pricing as well as event discounts and event bundles.

Combine your gachas with seasonal events: Gachas can be easily combined with different kind of events, and it’s also possible to add special gacha mechanics to spice up your event gacha and make it truly special.

Add a unique live event currency: This can be an effective way to temporarily increase sinks (places where resources are expended/destroyed/spent) in your game’s economy. Live event currencies can be combined easily with limited-time shops, gachas and content to create a seasonal boost to your game’s economy. By rewarding players with some of this unique currency within the promotional period for something such as daily log-ins, you can be sure that players will keep coming back for more.

Create unique limited-time seasonal game modes: Yet another very effective way to enhance engagement between your game and your players

Roll your event out gradually: Don’t open the kimono on day one. It’s often wise to roll out your event slowly, e.g. release 25 per cent of your Christmas event content in week 1, 50 per cent in week 2 and 25 per cent in week 3. This drip-feed will help ensure that the effect of your live event lasts longer.

Run a collaboration/crossover event: We’re seeing a lot more collaboration and crossover events across all markets. While they are often implemented in standalone events, a potentially powerful combination could be a good collaboration and a seasonal event. A recent example of this is AFK Arena introducing Anime Overlord characters Ainz Ooal Gown and Albedo to headline its month-long “Horror and Beauty from Another World.” Halloween event.

Successful festive promotions

Let’s take a look at how some of these promotional features have been implemented in some of the most popular games.

Last Day on Earth Christmas Event

Last Day on Earth cleverly bundled its Christmas event with its newest battle pass season. In the event, a unique location called Nick Santy’s house was added to the game. Players needed to locate the house and decorate a Christmas tree inside with different kinds of ornaments. The more fabulously decorated your Christmas tree was, the higher the ranking, and naturally, the better the rewards.

Many of the battle pass tasks took advantage of the Holiday-theme and integrated it to the survival gameplay of Last Day on Earth. This included activities such as having to cook five roast turkeys. In another task, an NPC in Santa attire gave you a mission to hunt down a zombie deer!

The battle pass rewards for the season were also compelling including a “model gingerbread” skin for your Chopper bike.

All in all, Last Day on Earth’s Christmas event was a fine example of how to combine a seasonal event with your game’s theme, genre and existing event framework (in this case, the battle pass).

The game also saw a positive revenue impact from the seasonal promotion over time as follows:

7 days after the event release: +121 per cent revenues
14 days after the event release: +87 per cent revenues
30 days after the event release: +13 per cent revenues

World of Tanks Blitz

The inventor and jolly fellow Chris Dev invited gamers to his special Holiday Shop. When they entered the shop, the game gifted players with a tank and a promise that Chris would pour them some nice premium account time. Players also could unwrap presents from containers and the Lucky Draw and win the new top tier tank in a Legendary camouflage.

Hero Wars – Fight the Monsters

Hero Wars has introduced its 14 day ‘Holiday every Day’ promotion to the Dominion for the last couple of years with a range of seasonal rewards. This has included a new Hero, new winter skins as well as the ability to fight bosses, go on event quests, decorate your Guild’s tree, earn Holiday Coins and spend them at the Holiday Shop.

SimCity Buildit

The Holidays update for SimCity Buildit introduced many of the features that we’ve highlighted above. This included limited-time Snowflake currency and the Mayor’s Gift Game, where players could unlock holiday-themed buildings and other rewards. SimCity Buildit also introduced weekly rewards with a new reward theme made available in the Mayor’s Gift Game each week of the five-week holiday celebration.

In summary, introducing seasonally themed events to your game can deliver significant benefits as has been seen in a multitude of titles across all the genres. By implementing a combination of features including event-specific currency, seasonal gachas, unique game modes and collaborations, you’ll be significantly increasing your chances of growing revenues and even re-engaging lapsed users looking for fresh content and brand new challenges.

(source: pocket gamer )