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Rosen谈及《Humble Indie Bundle》游戏包的开发和运营

发布时间:2011-03-02 10:43:29 Tags:,,

虽然《Humble Indie Bundle》游戏包为独立游戏引进全新的数字化销售模式,但游戏包制作者声称事实上正是数字化下载领域某些最忠实的玩家给他们带来了灵感。

《Humble Indie Bundle》合作开发者、Wolfire Games公司创始人Jeffrey Rosen在2011年GDC上陈述道:“我们很快就注意到Steam随时可能将某些游戏捆绑打折销售,或许这会成为一出Reddit神话。我觉得自己可以让这个想法变成现实,这并不难。”因此Rosen和同事John Graham召集了一些独立游戏开发社区中的好友并制作了游戏包。推出两代产品后,《Humble Indie Bundle》已吸引数十万玩家下载,总收入逾3百万美元,远远超过开发者预期的六位数收入。

但Rosen认为,该游戏包的成功不仅仅是由于玩家的大量关注和对这种按需付款模式的内在诉求。据游戏邦了解,开发者认为设计简单且美观的网站,尽量简化游戏包的购买过程也是重要因素。Rosen说道:“虽然在网站上提供Paypal付款方式就足以销售游戏包,但是还需要采取更多的措施来改善网站。像注册账户和购物车之类的创意反而很难使客户主动掏腰包。我们坚信,客户只需点击购买,收到邮件后就可以下载游戏,而无需下载客户端或其他东西,这种做法虽然很简单,但确实有效。”

Humble Indie Bundle

即使仅为这数十万购买者中的小部分玩家提供支持和服务就是个大问题,但是Rosen和Graham只通过某些熬夜回复邮件的员工和支持交谈的客户端便轻易地处理了成千上万个客户要求。Rosen说道:“为何许多公司不设立优秀的客户支持团队,对这种现象我确实感到很奇怪。我们在发展网站的同时也能够有效管理数十万客户,这并不是什么难事,只需要安心坐下来回复邮件就够了。”

纵然《Humble Indie Bundle》价格低廉,但开发者估计至少有1/4的游戏已在网站或BitTorrent(比特流)上出现盗版。游戏邦了解到,对自己选择使用盗版游戏包玩家的匿名网络调查显示,大部分原因在于某些玩家无法使用信用卡和在线付款方式。还有某些玩家仅仅是因为习惯于BitTorrent带来的便利性,因而开发者在网站上新增相关种子供玩家下载。

据Graham所述,虽然盗版横行,但付款的玩家还是占多数,其中有16个玩家每人已在两个游戏包上花费1千多美元。Linux系统用户贡献最大,因此Graham建议独立游戏开发者关注这些还未充分挖掘的市场。他说道:“如果独立游戏开发者的作品支持Mac和Linux系统,那么收入有可能增长至原来的两倍。”

Rosen希望将来的游戏包中能够有更多知名度较低的游戏,而并非全是那些已为玩家所熟知的游戏,如《World of Goo》和《Braid》。他说道:“如果某款游戏确实很不错,只是没什么人听说过,那么使用《Humble Indie Bundle》来进行推广是不错的方法。”

当然,什么质量的游戏才足以进行推广,这才是争论的焦点。Rosen说道:“许多玩家发信要求我们添加某些他们觉得很棒的游戏,但我们对此类意见不敢苟同。如果我们在游戏包中加入大量质量不佳的游戏,会使整个品牌毁于一旦。”(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

GDC 2011: Humble Indie Bundle Creators Talk Inspiration, Execution

Though the Humble Indie Bundle eventually introduced an entirely new model for digital distribution of indie games, the bundle’s creators said they were actually inspired by one of the most established players in the digital download space.

“One thing that we instantly noticed is that anytime Steam would take a bunch of games and put them together and discount the price, it would become the number one story on Reddit,” noted Humble Indie Bundle co-creator and Wolfire Games founder Jeffrey Rosen in a presentation at the 2011 Game Developers Conference. “I felt like I could do that, [that's] not too hard.” So Rosen and fellow Wolfire employee John Graham rounded up some friends from the indie development community and offered up a bundle of their own. Now, after two iterations, the Humble Indie Bundle has attracted hundreds of thousands of downloads and brought in over $3 million in revenue, well beyond the low six-figure revenues the creators initially expected.

But Rosen said it wasn’t just the viral press attention, nor the inherent appeal of the pay-what-you-want model, that led to the bundles’ success. Designing a simple, elegant web site that made purchasing the bundle as simple as possible was also a factor. “A web site with a Paypal button… that works, but there’s a lot of things you can do on the site to make that better,” Rosen said. He pointed out that fancy ‘features’ such as required registered accounts and shopping carts just make it harder for customers to give you money.

“We were pretty adamant that instead of having to download a client or anything, you would click the buy button, get an e-mail, and download your games, which seems kind of silly, but it really worked,” Rosen continued.

Providing support for even a small fraction of hundreds of thousands of purchasers created a more unexpected problem, but Rosen and Graham managed to handle thousand of customer issues simply by pulling a few all-nighters in front of e-mail and a chat support client. “It’s really surprising how a lot of companies don’t have a good customer support team, but we managed to do it across hundreds of thousands of customers while also developing the site,” Rosen said. “It’s not really that hard, you just have to sit down and answer e-mails.”

Even though the Humble Indie Bundle was offered to purchasers for as little as a penny, the organizers estimate at least a quarter of the bundles were pirated either through the site or over bittorrent. An anonymous internet survey among self-selected bundle piraters found that most of them stole because they were unable to use credit cards or online payment options in their country. Others simply preferred the convenience of BitTorrent, leading the organizers to add a relatively new web-seeding BitTorrent download option to the site.

Depsite the piracy, “the amount of generous people overpowered the cheapskates,” Graham said, including 16 people who spent over $1,000 each across the two bundles. Linux users tended to be the most generous of these, leading Graham to suggest indie developers go after underserved markets. “If you support Mac and Linux as an independent developer you have a good chance of doubling your revenue,” Graham said.

Going forward, Rosen says he’d love to have more lesser-known games – rather than established indie hits like World of Goo and Braid as in previous bundles. “If a game is legitimately good and no one has heard of it… using the Humble Indie Bundle to promote that game would be a dream for us,” Rosen said.

Of course, it’s that “legitimately good” part that is often a point of contention. “Lots of people send us requests [for bundle inclusion] for games they believe are great, but… we don’t see it the same way,” Rosen said. “It might damage the brand if we put a lot of those kinds of games in there.” (Source: Gamasutra)


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