作者：Sana Choudary

错误1：注重产品质量，忽视社交游戏玩法的样式

尽管过去数年内社交游戏产品质量稳步提升，多数游戏的质量还是不及休闲游戏。许多开发商认为产品价值更好的游戏能够帮助他们在现有社交游戏市场竞争中取胜。通常，这种想法意味着游戏制作需要在艺术感和音效上投入更多的成本，带动玩家与他们的朋友联系。

错误2：过度依赖交叉推广，将其作为主要游戏销售方式

尽管交叉推广合作伙伴带来的盈利和曝光度弥足珍贵，但他们无法完全替代传统销售机制，即Facebook上的广告营销和应用广告网络以及游戏的病毒性机制。因为上述错误，开发商会不经意间减少原有用户传播游戏的可能性，也会丧失那些交叉推广合作伙伴所无法接触的可盈利用户。而且在某些案例中，此类行为还导致每位用户的顾客购置成本比需要值高出许多。

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错误3：过度依赖病毒传播机制

小型开发商通常会犯这个错误，依赖病毒性机制从而完全忽略了广告营销、交叉推广或社交媒介等其他销售方式。其结果与过度依赖交叉推广相同，减少可能病毒性散播游戏的用户数量，放缓了游戏获得可观盈利的速度。

错误4：随意增添虚拟道具

许多人认为让虚拟道具发挥效用的最佳方式，是增加许多用户花钱购买虚拟道具的可能性，然而这可能导致游戏平衡性和用户留存率问题。比如，可以在用户于游戏中投入大量资金前限制他们的最高付款额。如果出现用户不付费便无法让游戏继续进展下去的境况，那么用户会选择离开而不是花钱来玩游戏。

因产品规划问题，随意添加虚拟道具还会导致盈利机会流失。虚拟道具并非完全相同，某些带来的盈利较多，因为它们满足用户的诉求并对游戏流程有所帮助。无视虚拟道具测试而不计后果地制造和发布虚拟道具，这会让开发商失去盈利最大化的机会。

错误5：忽视根据用户数据调整游戏机制

社交游戏通过同款游戏中的用户不断产生直接的盈利，因而重要之处在于游戏更新要以真正的实时用户增加和消费为基础。单凭主观臆断会让开发商无视游戏的关注点和优先改良之处。而且，某些开发商并不根据游戏的真实表现来调整用户增长和消费策略。因而，他们无法根据用户回应和实时数据来做出决定。缺乏对实时数据的关注通常是拥有庞大用户基础的开发商无法有效盈利的症结所在。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The Top 5 Mistakes You Should Avoid in Social Game Development

Sana Choudary

Mistake 1: Focusing on higher production quality rather than on social game-play patterns

While the production quality of social games has steadily risen over the last few years, most are still not as high quality as casual games. Many assume that higher production value games will help them compete with existing social games. Often, this means higher focus on art and sound at the cost of creating a game that utilizes players’ motivation to connect with their friends.

Mistake 2: Overreliance on cross promotion as the main game distribution mechanism

Although the revenue and exposure from cross promotion partnerships are important, they do not replace the need for traditional distribution mechanisms: 1) ad buys on Facebook and Facebook application ad networks and 2) viral mechanics within the game. In doing so, developers inadvertently reduce the pool size of initial users that can spread their game, as well as fail to assess if a customer profile different from that available from their cross-promotion partners has better-monetizing users. Additionally, in some cases such actions lead to drastically higher per-user customer acquisition costs than necessary.

Mistake 3: Overreliance on viral measures

Another common mistake, particularly among smaller developers, is the reliance on viral mechanics exclusively in the absence of ad buys, cross promotion or other forms of marketing such as social media. Like overreliance on cross promotion, sole reliance on viral methods reduces the pool of users that can spread the game virally and increases the time needed for the game to grow to a size needed to allow substantial monetization.

Mistake 4: Indiscriminate addition of virtual items

Many assume the best way to implement virtual items is to add lots of opportunities for the user to spend on virtual items, yet this can lead to game balance and retention problems. For example, if the user hits their max pay limit before they have developed a strong investment in the game. If there is no choice to proceed in ways not involving paying, the user may exit rather than pay to continue playing.

Indiscriminate addition of virtual items also leads to lost monetization opportunities due to the production scheduling. Not all virtual items are created equal. Some monetize better than others due to user appeal and the point in game flow at which they enter. By using constrained developer resources to create and launch virtual items indiscriminately instead of basing decisions on virtual items testing, developers lose the opportunity to maximize monetization.

Mistake 5: Failing to model and tweak user in-flow and spending

Social games rely on repeat direct revenue from a customer for the same game, so it is vital to base game updates on actual real-time user growth and spending instead of big picture assumptions. This mistake prevents developers from taking part in a critical organization of areas of focus and priority needed at different points in the lifecycle of a game. In addition, some developers do not tweak the growth and spending flows based on real information of how their games are acting. They, therefore, are unable to organize user reactions in a way that allows decision making on the real-time data. Lack of focus on real-time data is often the reason why developers with large bases of users are unable to monetize effectively. (Source: Casual Connect)