作者：Joakim Achrén

阅读了一篇关于玩家退出游戏的文章后，我开始思考玩家为什么那么快就退出社交游戏。我想到了一些我自己开发过的游戏和其他人开发的游戏的玩家退出的理由。所以在此，我把我的发现放在一起，归纳出以下10个主要的原因。

1、消除玩家进程的漏洞

当你的游戏需要定期更新时，总是有可能产生会删除玩家进程的漏洞。只要游戏更新，这种事就有可能发生，但有几种办法可以避免这种危险。

提高游戏的稳定性的主要一步是在开发游戏的过程中，一定要与品质保证过程相结合。当你做更新时，你可以指定一个人负责寻找漏洞。或你和你的团队成员亲自玩一星期的开发版，尽量找出所有可能产生漏洞的地方。

angry dude gamer(from gameanalytics)

2、太复杂

有些开发者就是不采纳保持游戏简单的建议。他们的游戏可能在教程中就丢给玩家太多东西。于是，玩家理解不了教程，忘记游戏的重点所在。即使他们理解了游戏，当他们发现游戏中要记住的东西太多了，要管理的资源太多了，还是会出现问题。

保持游戏简单，随着玩家的进步慢慢引入新特征。比如说你的游戏是每天5个回合，那么游戏引入新东西的节奏就应该是至少每5回合一次。

3、付费墙

如果你的游戏是免费的，但你很早就要求玩家付费购买更多内容，那么你可能会流失大半受众。现在的人习惯于免费玩游戏，如果突然在他们面前砌一堵付费墙，他们就会觉得自己是被强迫付费。

4、朋友不玩了

一款游戏发布很长一段时间后，对于免费游戏，可能是超过一年，那么这款游戏大概就开始流失长期玩家了。这时，那些在游戏中有朋友的玩家会开始发现自己的朋友不再用最新的内容更新他们的农田/餐厅/城市了。

一个好友的虚拟家园仍然挂着圣诞节的装饰品，即使现在已经是6月了。玩家注意到这点后，就会想好友是不是不打算回来玩了。也许玩家会问退出的好友现在在玩什么游戏，于是跟着转移阵地。

为了防止这种现象，你应该给玩家一些跟好友有关的价值，即使他们已经退出游戏。你也许可以让玩家把已经退出的好友“兑换现金”，与那些玩游戏很积极的人交换好友。在活跃玩家之间建立社交纽带，因为现实世界的关系不总是把我们的兴趣反映在我们想玩的游戏中。

5、新游戏或更有趣的游戏发布了

总是会有新游戏的发布把你的玩家带走。如果多家游戏工作室都在同一个平台上推出与你的游戏相同类型的游戏，那么你的损失就大了，因为玩家总是喜新厌旧的。

玩家跑去尝试新游戏是再所难免的，但是当玩家们对你的竞争对手的初始热情消退，你还是有可能把那些退出的玩家拉回来的。比如，给游戏添加新特征，唤起玩家对游戏体验的记忆。如果玩家愿意回归，就给他们更多免费道具或赠品。让玩家们看到你的这款好游戏还有进步的空间。

6、内容消耗完了

你的玩家已经玩到底了，没有新东西可以解锁了，也没有可以升级建筑或者虚拟道具的东西了。他们开始觉得游戏已经玩透了，开始越来越少上线，最后终于不上线了。甚至是在游戏中花了很多钱的玩家觉得没有什么事可做了，也会想，虽然花了不少钱了，但是时候离开去尝试新游戏了。

你不希望他们这么想。那些玩透游戏的玩家、等级封顶的玩家、解锁完一切的玩家，可能仍然有渴望。添加一些让那些终极玩家觉得不一样的东西，因为你的把戏他们已经很了解了，所以你要让他们感到惊讶。给他们更加困难的挑战，让他们有更多做决定的新方式。

看看Zynga是怎么处理末日游戏的？要么让开发者玩透游戏，要么到论坛上发现末日游戏的情况，然后根据发现修改游戏。

7、厌烦复重性任务

如果你要求玩家做他们从开始玩这款游戏起每天一直做的活动，他们最终会对这个活动感到厌烦。以社交模拟游戏有例，执行一个要求在两分钟内完成的任务。

在我以前开发的游戏《Disco Empire》中，玩家能在两分钟内生产某种啤酒。到游戏后期，玩家生产相同的啤酒仍然需要两分钟。玩家们自然会对这种重复性任务感到无聊。

玩家在游戏中会不断进展，你应该不断寻找可以移除的重复性任务。当然，你可以让玩家在第一、二周做相同的任务，同时提供其他可做的事。但一定要适时地换出这些重复性任务，或至少在这些任务中加入一些新元素，使玩家有可能自动地做这些任务。也许可以添加一个玩家机器人助手。

8、平台不好

我主要是用手机和平板玩游戏。我有几个朋友在Facebook上和用游戏机、电脑玩游戏。这些都是非常不同的平台，且最大的不同就是我们玩游戏的方式。

一款可能有趣的游戏，却放在一个完全错误的平台，主要是因为游戏在那个平台上的操作方式。

例如，你用手机玩一款多人记忆卡片游戏。你必须记忆快速翻动卡片，但不是为了匹配消除，你突然意识到那是不可能的，乐趣就这样消失了，于是你退出游戏。

另一个例子是，在异步平台上玩同步游戏。你做了一款团队合作型射击游戏，平台是Facebook，玩家要即时合作完成任务。因为Facebook基本上是一个异步平台，玩家很难找到人玩上一段比较长的时间。

当设计你的游戏时，你要考虑一下这款游戏是怎么玩的，然后根据你的目标玩家的习惯，决定这款游戏在你的目标平台上每回合的理想长度。这会让你省下不少日后的麻烦。

9、给老游戏换上“马甲”

如果你做的第一款游戏非常成功，当你准备做新游戏时，你就很容易掉进这个陷阱里。你会忍不住把老游戏的核心机制、操作方法和赢利策略复制给新游戏。我不怪你，毕竟重新制作轮子是很困难的，更别说还要突破之前的成功。

玩家会总会注意到你采用了“换汤不换药”的把戏，所以欺骗他们是不可能的。你这样做可能会招致核心玩家的厌恶，他们会觉得你已经“黔驴技穷”了，再也变不出什么新花样了。这还可能会对你之前发布的游戏造成不好的影响。

如果你想做一款类似的游戏，那么试着做下面三件事，这样你的新游戏就不会太山寨了：

1)改变游戏，要求玩家学习新东西

2)改变赢利策略，给玩家更多或更少的免费道具

3)从常规的2D游戏变成3D游戏

10、加载太慢

你的游戏可能很好，但如果加载时间太长，部分玩家可能就会受不了。当玩家是在比较差的连接条件下玩手机游戏时，这个问题就特别突出，因为加载可能会拖延很久或永远加载不完。

你可能会认为玩家乐意等待，有些人也许有这份耐心，但在这个时代，他们在游戏中的投入并没有高到能让他们一忍再忍的程度。他们安装游戏，试玩一下，这就是他们的全部投入，并不多。

为了缓和这个问题，你可以把一些游戏内加载的部分推迟，也就是把加载分成几个步骤，把实际的游戏内容放在这些步骤之间。开发者可能在游戏开发结束以前才意识到加载时间的问题，所以在设计时就不会提前考虑分割加载时间。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Ten Reasons Why Players Quit

by Joakim Achrén

After reading an article on Gamasutra about players quitting, I started thinking about the reasons for which people are quitting social games so early. I have identified many common reasons between the games I’ve worked on and those developed by people in my network. So I put my findings together and gathered ten main reasons for which I think players quit games.

1. A bug that wipes critical progress

When you have a game live and you are regularly doing updates to the game, there is always the danger of creating a bug that actually wipes away player progression. This can happen at any time when you make updates, but there are several ways to prevent this from happening.

One major step to improving the stability of your game is creating a proper quality assurance process inside your game development process. You can specify a person to take care of bug hunting when you are doing updates. Or you and your teammates could all play the development version of the game for a week or so, and try to catch all the possible places where bugs can happen.

2. Too much complexity to keep up with

Some developers just don’t want to apply the advice of keeping things simple. Their game might throw too many things at the player right from the tutorial. Then the player can’t comprehend all of the lessons and they forget what the point of the game was. If they do get the idea of the game, problems might arise once they start to see that the game has lots of things to keep up with, like too many resources to manage.

Try to keep things simple, and introduce more features to the players once they have progressed a bit more into the game. If you are seeing about 5 sessions per day in your game, try to pace it that way that it will be at least 5 sessions before you introduce something new to the player.

3. Paywalls

If you provide your game for free, but you force players to pay early on to access more content, you are likely going to loose half of your audience. People are nowadays getting used to being able to play a game for free forever, and if a sudden paywall comes in front of them, they will feel like they would want to quit right there.

You can do subtle paywalls, but you need keep the players in your game for enough time so that they have invested into their beloved game so much time that they will convert to paying players, even if it seems that they are forced to do so.

4. Friends have stopped playing

If the game has been out for a long time, which in the free to play market would be over a year, perhaps the game starts to lose some of its long time players. At that point, the players who have had friends in the game will start noticing that their friends aren’t updating their farm/restaurant/city anymore with the newest and coolest content that has recently come out.

One friend still has the Christmas decorations in their virtual home although it’s already June. People notice this and they start to contemplate if they are still willing to return to the game. Perhaps they ask the friends who have quit playing what they are playing nowadays and follow them there.

You can prevent this by giving value to the player on their friends, even if they have quitted the game. You might even want players to “cash out” on players who have quitted, exchange the friend with someone who is active and playing the game. Create social ties between players who are interested in the game, as the real world ties don’t always reflect our interest in the games we want to play.
5. New and more interesting game has come out

There will always be new games coming out and driving your audience away. If a massive game studio puts out a new game on your platform that is in the same genre, you will likely suffer from this as players go ahead and switch their playing time to the new game.

It’s difficult to avoid the players moving to try out the new game, but you can work hard and succeed in re-engagning those quitters once the initial hype of the competitor’s game has gone away. Add cool new features to the game, features that enhance the end-game experience. Giving players too many goodies and freebies if they want to come back can seem like you are desperate. Show them that you have a great game that is evolving to the better.

6. Content has been consumed

Your players have reached the end game and there’s nothing new to unlock or new upgrades for player buildings or other virtual goods. They start feeling that the game has now been played and they start coming back less and less, until they quit. Even people who have been spending money in your game will see that there is nothing else to do there, so they will think to themselves that even though they paid a lot to play, it is time to move on and start playing something new.

We don’t want that to happen. The players who have reached the end game, the top level, and have unlocked everything, can still be hungry for more. Try out different kinds of additions to the end game, because the content you are putting out should be different for the end game players. They’ve already seen your tricks, so surprise them. Provide them with more harder challenges and give them new ways to make interesting decisions.

Look at how big studios like Zynga are dealing with their end game, by either playing their games to the end or by reading their player forums to figure out what happens in the end game. Then apply the findings to your game.

7. Burnout of repetitive tasks

If you require a player to do the same activity that they started playing the game with over and over again for each play session, they will eventually get bored of it. As an example from social simulation games, you execute a task which has an appointment to be completed in two minutes.

In my previous games, for example Disco Empire, the game had you produce beer which was completed in 2 minutes. Later in the game, you’d still need to do the same beer producing which took 2 minutes. People just get bored of the same reparative task which isn’t getting any funnier or interesting.

The player is progressing in the game and having fun. You should look into possibilities of removing repetitive tasks. Sure, you can have the player do the same tasks for the first week or two and also provide more things to do. But try to fade out the chores at some point, at least introduce some new elements to the tasks or give a possibility for the player to automate the task. A robot that helps the player out perhaps.

8. Right game, wrong platform

I play games primarily on the mobile phone and a tablet. Several of my friends play games on Facebook and on consoles and computers. All these are really different kinds of platforms, with the biggest difference being the way we pick up and play games there.

Let’s take a few examples on what can be an interesting game, but totally on the wrong platform, mainly because of the way that games are played on that platform.

You are playing a multiplayer memory card game on your mobile phone. You have ten games going on at the same time and you need to memorize each card that gets flipped but wasn’t a match. You suddenly realize that this is impossible and the enjoyiment has gone, and you quit.

Another example is doing a synchronous gameplay on a primarily asynchronous platform. You do a team based shooter game for Facebook where you do missions with other players in realtime. As Facebook is primaly an asynchronous platform, you have a hard time getting people to stay and play for long periods of time.

When designing your game, think about how the game is played and decide on an optimal length for your game sessions on your target platform and for your target player. This will save you from lots of trouble later on.

9. Same game with different skin

This is an easy trap to fall into if you had great success with your first game and you are planning on making a new game. It is tempting to just copy the core gameplay, controls ans monetization mechanics to the new game. I don’t blame you, it’s hard to re-invent the wheel and make even more than your previous hit.

The player will always notice the ‘same game, different skin’ strategy, so it’s impossible to trick them. You risk getting hated by your core audience, who sees that you actually aren’t actually a source of great new content. This will also hurt your earlier games which won’t selli as well as they used to do.

I you want to do a similar game, try to follow these tips so you won’t look like s copycat:

Change the game so that it requires the player to learn something new

Change the monetization mechanics, by giving the player more or less free stuff

Switch from the regular 2D game to an amazing 3D game

10. Loading is too slow

You can have a great game and all, but if your loading times are high, you’ll lose part of your audience. This is a major problem in moblie games when the player is playing over a bad connection, as the loading might stall or just take forever to complete.

You might think that players are willing to wait, and some probably will, but at this stage, their investment into the game isn’t that high for them to stay. They’ve installed the game and are willing to give it a try, but that’s all they’ve invested and it isn’t a lot.

To improve this, you could move some of the in-game loading to a later stage, by splitting the loading into several steps, and putting some actual game content in between the steps. Your developers might not realize the loading issues before the end of development, so it’s important to design the game in advance with split-loading in mind.(source:gameanalytics)