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安装插件提高用户体验 社交游戏向掌机游戏看齐?

发布时间:2011-05-07 09:38:26 Tags:,,,

Zynga旗下的《FrontierVille》最近开始请求用户将游戏资产直接保存到硬盘驱动器,这项正处于测试阶段的功能,显然很有可能向更大范围的用户推广。这是社交游戏开发商力图提高游戏体验,使其超越浏览器范畴的又一个最新迹象。

FrontierVille-screen-shot

FrontierVille-screen-shot

尽管目前尚不知其他开发商是否也采取了与Zynga一样的行动,但我们也不难由此看出社交游戏正呈现植入微软银光等插件,或是使用Unity 3D引擎开发游戏的趋势(游戏邦注:Unity 3D引擎开发的游戏要求用户在Facebook上玩游戏前先安装一个插件)。自从Unity在2009年时与Paradise Paintball(现在已改称为UberStrike)共同出现在Facebook平台后,其他3D游戏也纷纷跟进。例如采用Unity引擎的3D第一人称射击游戏《N.O.V.A. Elite》就有一个最低系统配置要求——1.8 GHz双核处理器,2GB的RAM,256的图像显卡,1GB的自由硬盘驱动空间,这在典型的Facebook游戏中实为罕见。

FrontierVille-screen-shot

FrontierVille-screen-shot

提高社交游戏的技术标准对开发商来说大有好处,因为这样有助于他们提供更出色的游戏体验。用户如果按要求保存了《FrontierVille》中的相关数据,就可以缩短游戏加载时间,将等待时间从原来的20秒钟降至7秒。如此一来,用户在游戏中的家园就可以快速显示,而无需让用户忍受漫长的图像加载过程。除了提高用户体验之外,开发商采用Unity技术还可以依此扩大其招聘范围。这一点可极大方便开发商从掌机视频游戏领域中挖到杰出人才,因为这个开发群体通常习惯使用Unity开发引擎而非Flash技术,毕竟Unity采用的是视频游戏最普遍的编程语言C++。

但这种策略也存在一个风险,那就是很可能给Facebook游戏玩家带来不便,进而影响游戏黏性。有些游戏玩家如果在学校、办公室等公共上网场所的电脑上玩游戏,他们就没有管理员权限,因此无法安装游戏所指定的插件,所以无法将游戏数据存储到硬盘驱动器。除此之外,安装插件这个过程也会耗费玩家的时间,试想有些用户如果只能在每天仅一个小时左右的午饭时间中玩Facebook游戏,而玩游戏之前还需要费些时间安装插件,那么他们实际上的游戏时间就会大打折扣。

当然,《N.O.V.A. Elite》玩家所使用的电脑可能早已具备该游戏的最低系统配置要求,因为他们之前已经在电脑上安装不少第一人称射击游戏。而Facebook用户已经连续多年在无需安装插件的环境中玩游戏,现在要让他们适应这种颇为繁琐的游戏体验,恐怕就有点困难了。假如社交游戏也开始向复杂的掌机游戏靠拢,虽然它有可能吸引到一些“硬核”新玩家,但却很可能得不偿失——它会丧失原来的Facebook用户群体。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

Zynga, Other Social Game Developers, Using More Advanced Game-Play Tech

Zynga’s FrontierVille has started asking users permission to cache in-game assets directly to hard drives, apparently a feature in testing that may be rolled out to a wider audience at some later date. It’s just the latest example of a social game developer trying to provide a better game-play experience by going beyond the basics of what browsers offer.

While we haven’t seen other developers cache data like Zynga at this point, we are seeing an uptick in social games that require plugins for services like Microsoft Silverlight or are built with the Unity 3D game engine, which prompts users to install a plugin in order to play the game on Facebook. Unity appeared on Facebook with Paradise Paintball (now called UberStrike) in 2009, and other 3D games have followed suit. Earlier this week, we reviewed Unity-run 3D first person shooter N.O.V.A. Elite, which has minimum system requirements of a 1.8 GHz dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 256MB graphics card and 1GB of free hard drive space; an uncommon concept for a Facebook game.

Raising the tech bar for social games has some clear benefits for developers looking to improve user experience. In the case of FrontierVille’s data storage, the install resulted in shorter load times for the game, down from about 20 seconds to 7 seconds. All the items on our homestead appeared immediately instead of “drawing in” as the game continued to load the art assets. Beyond user experience, developers can also widen their hiring pools by building games in Unity. This is of particular interest for developers looking to hire engineers out of the console video game industry as most of these engineers would probably have an easier time adjusting to Unity than Flash because Unity is written in C++, the language in which most console video games are coded.

A challenge with these tactics, however, is possibly cutting out the Facebook gamer audience that most accesses their games on computers that don’t belong to them, or with computers that can’t meet the minimum system requirements specific games. Assuming a typical FrontierVille gamer accesses their homestead from a work or school computer on which they lack administrator access, that player may not be able to allow the game to install data on the hard drive. Moreover, installing a plugin takes time, and a user with a limited amount of play time per day (say, on an hour long lunch break), might navigate away from a game that prompts them to install a plugin before playing toward a game that’s less demanding of their time.

Of course, a N.O.V.A. player using a computer that meets the minimum system requirements to play the game probably already has FPS games available to them on that machine. A Facebook user that’s been playing social games for years without ever being prompted to install a plugin probably doesn’t see the need for it when they’ve been enjoying plenty of games without it. If social games are getting more complex only for the sake of attempting to mimic the types of game available on consoles, they might fail to connect to the existing Facebook audience even if they are able to attract some new audience of “hardcore” gamers.(source:insidesocialgames


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