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独立开发者回顾《Hard Lines》发布一周经历

发布时间:2011-07-03 08:31:49 Tags:,,,

作者:Andrew Smith

来自Spilt Milk Studios的Andrew J Smith分享自己作为独立iOS开发者的经验。游戏发布一周后,是否取得应有的成果呢?以下是游戏邦编译的相关内容:

这一周来的感觉像是在乘坐过山车。

毫无疑问,你知道《Hard Lines》已经发布了。游戏发布的喜悦感令人陶醉,可以说我们为自己的努力成果感到高兴。游戏媒体对这款游戏大加赞赏,发布仅7天后就取得意想不到的成果。虽然才刚刚发布1周时间,但我可以自信地说,在Metacritic(游戏邦注:电影、电视节目、音乐专辑、游戏的专业评论网站)式的排名中《Hard Lines》是位列前150名的iPhone游戏(游戏邦注:苹果App Store曾推荐过这款游戏)。事实上,在编撰文章之时,我们仍是唯一获得Metacritic官方评论的iPhone游戏。

featured(from gamesbrief)

featured(from gamesbrief)

媒体评论对独立游戏的重要性

目前共有11家媒体对我们的游戏发表评论,我们的平均得分是9分(游戏邦注:总分10分)。在Pixelated Sausage、Fusion-Gamer、Daily Joypad和Pocketful of Megabytes上,我们获得了满分。即便Pocketgamer、Midlife Gamer和148Apps等对这款游戏热情度较低的媒体也认同游戏某些强大之处,如个性化、幽默、模式多种多样和游戏设计的简易性。

有人表示“《Hard Lines》是我玩过的最好的iPhone游戏。”

还有人说“幽默、简易性、丰富内容、原创性和优秀的音效融合而成,铸就了这个完美的应用。”

有评论称“很少能在此类游戏中见到如此多的个性化元素。游戏简直棒极了。”

纵然这些反馈令我们感到骄傲,而且可能会促使某些读者购买游戏,但也应该注意到这些评论让我们明白自己坚持和专注的游戏内容确实取得了成效。消极评论中当然也有众多值得我们借鉴之处,但几乎每个非积极评论(游戏邦注:包括媒体、论坛和应用商店中的评论)都提到以下三件事情:添加对Game Center的支持;缺少多人游戏模式;各模式难度的平衡问题。

好消息是,修正或添加这些功能对我们来说都非常简单,所以我们知道数次更新后就会诞生出完美的游戏,也做好以新奇和有趣的方法来扩展游戏。我们本就为长期更新做好准备,而这些反馈正可帮助我们决定下一步要添加或修正哪些内容以及如何安排更新的顺序。毕竟现在游戏已经发布了,它已不再是我们的,而是用户的。

制作独立开发者网站

newsite(from gamesbrief)

newsite(from gamesbrief)

在讨论盈利之前,我想先说说网站。网站长期以来都停滞不前,因为运营一个公司确实需要耗费大批精力。

我们一直在讨论重新设计网站(游戏邦注:Andrew Smith在刚成立公司的某天晚上做出网站,自此之后网站从未更新过),我和网页设计师已经拟定了全新的外观、品牌和布局。坦诚地说,网站还无法为游戏的发布服务,但我在此次更新中添加占位符,主要用来在游戏发布时向外界展示预告片、所引用的评论以及AppStore链接。

我还未着手处理度量,这是我下个阶段的工作,但现在网站对游戏销售的促进作用已经比原先要好。而且,我做网站未耗费任何资金,利用Dreamweaver试用版来更新网站。我只花了1个半小时就将想法变成现实,对此我感到非常高兴。

利用通讯来推动销售

我对网站的第二个更新便是添加通讯功能。允许粉丝在网站注册,这样我就有明确的目标来通知游戏更新,这些人更有可能下载你的下款游戏。当我了解到《The Heist》开发者向50万个读者寄出信件后,在首周便售出50万套,我觉得应该把这件事情提上日程。我想知道他们如何快速地让自己游戏的排名进驻前十。很显然单靠信件是不够的,但我相信这是让游戏迅速传播的重要因素之一。

积极评价不等同于可观销量

接下来是大家最感兴趣的东西——销量。整体销售量并不尽人意。我觉得游戏很棒,游戏媒体也是这么想的。高端的评价一定能带来可观的销量吗?以App Annie和App Figures上的数据来看,事实并非如此。

stats(from gamebrief)

stats(from gamebrief)

我之前也并非期待这部作品能轰动市场。注册网站的人并没有50万之多,这也仅仅是我投放到iPhone市场上的第二款游戏而已,也是我首次尝试处理公共关系。我的工作室并没有为玩家所熟知,因而也没有大批粉丝队伍。我知道好友讨论并互相推荐游戏在iPhone市场中是个强大的工具,占据榜单首位(游戏邦注:或让苹果推荐游戏)可以带来持久稳定的销售量,但显然这是个类似滚雪球的效应,至少需要在刚开始便有好的公共关系和很高的评论分数,这样才能吸引最早的用户并使他们广泛传播游戏。重点在于,这些过程都需要耗费一定的时间,肯定不止一周。

除此之外,发布时还存在某些本可以避免的明显问题。文件大小超过20MB,这意味这人们无法通过3G网络获得游戏。而且,我们更新的版本需要苹果最新的OS系统,因而会有大量用户可能无法升级。我们已经吸取了这些教训,这些问题会在将来的更新中予以纠正。我之前已经做出过暗示,我们已为《Hard Lines》将来的更新制订了一项大型计划,不只是修正漏洞这么简单。

user_reviews(from gamesbrief)

user_reviews(from gamesbrief)

公共关系措施未必立杆见影

显然,除了技术问题外,整个公共关系需要不止1周的时间才能发挥实际效能。这是本文末尾所做决定的部分原因。同时,我决定保持开展公共关系措施。我寻找并在列表中添加了逾50个评论站点,也联系了熟知的报纸和杂志。我将此视为一场巨大的胜利,希望能够取得进展。我们应该利用获得的那些积极评论,所以我将公关范围从专业站点拓宽到普通领域,期待游戏排名和评论员的评述能够让销售稳定增长。

就像我上文所说的那样,个人感觉纷繁复杂。一方面,我期待能够利用那些积极评论。另一方面,我之前发布的游戏在发布阶段卖得更好,因而使我有一丝疑惑,这种公关行为是否有价值。答案是肯定的,只是需要一定的时间。

下个阶段,我将开展为期两星期的更新开发。我觉得1周的时间不足以辨别游戏现在的状态以及从销售改变中学习更多东西。我希望游戏能够成长,不希望游戏再有这种过山车般的感觉。更新版本不仅向玩家提供有用和有趣的内容,而且希望能够带动游戏的销售量。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

SPILT MILK STUDIOS: LAUNCHING AN IPHONE GAME

Andrew Smith

Andrew J Smith of Spilt Milk Studios has been sharing his experiences as an indie iOS developer. After one week of game sales, has it been worth it?

Well well, what a rollercoaster this has been.

As you’re no doubt aware, Hard Lines is out. The mix of emotions is a heady one, and suffice to say we’re very pleased with ourselves. The game is getting rapturous applause from the games press and we’re riding high on a tide of critical acclaim just 7 days after the game debuted. Obviously it’s only been a week since we launched but I can confidently say I expect Hard Lines to sit in the top 150 iPhone games in terms of a Metacritic-style average. In fact, at the time of writing, we’re only 1 review away from having an official Metacritic average!

Do reviews matter to an indie iPhone game?

So, those reviews! We’ve had 11 reviews so far, and we’re averaging 9 out of 10 across 14 reviews – it’s incredible. We’ve had some amazing full-marks coverage from the likes of Pixelated Sausage, Fusion-Gamer, Daily Joypad and Pocketful of Megabytes. Even those who like it slightly less (Pocketgamer, Midlife Gamer, 148Apps et al) still agreed on the strengths of the game –personality, humour, variety of modes and the success of the game’s design to be perfect for pick-up-and-play, mobile gaming.

Quotes like “Hard Lines is one of the best iPhone games I’ve played in quite some time.”

Or perhaps “Humor, simplicity, difficulty, originality & a damn good soundtrack all blend together to create the perfect app package.”

And then there’s “It’s rare to see such personality in this kind of title, and it’s wonderful.”

This wonderful feedback all serves to inflate our egos (and maybe influence some of you wonderful readers to go and buy it!), but on a serious note these reviews let us know that the parts we were confident about – the parts we concentrated on – really paid off. There’s of course plenty to learn from the negatives too, and almost every single less-than-positive comment (reviews, forums and in the appstore) mentioned three simple things: Addition of Game Centre support (our next game will launch with it); lack of multiplayer; some balancing issues across the modes’ difficulties.

The great news is that these are all really simple for us to hone in on and fix or add, so we know that within a few title updates we’ll have the ‘perfect’ version of our game, and will be ready to expand upon it in new and interesting ways. We’re in this for the long haul, and the level and volume of feedback we’ve had is exactly what we need when considering what to add or fix next, and in which order to prioritise those changes. After all, now the game is out it is no longer ours, but our audience’s.

Making an indie developer website

So before we move onto sales figures, I’ll talk a touch about my website. It had been a flash-based monstrosity for too long, and with all the hard work of running a company it got left behind.

Not only had a redesign been in discussion for a long time (I knocked it together one evening when I just started my company, and it hadn’t changed since), the web designer and I had settled on a new look, branding and layout. Suffice to say it wasn’t really ready for the launch of the game, but rather than leave the crappy old thing gasping along, I decided to put up a placeholder – based on the upcoming rebranding, with prominence given to my two game releases with embedded trailers, review quotes, and of course AppStore links.

I’ve not been keeping an eye on metrics – that’s the next step – but for now it does a better job of selling my games than the old thing did. Also, I did it all for free, using a trial of Dreamweaver that helps me update it very easily indeed. It took me about an hour and a half to get it from idea to live, and I’m pretty happy with that.

Using a newsletter to drive sales

A second part of my new-found focus on the website is adding a newsletter feature. Allowing fans to sign up, and thereby having a captive audience to send updates – people who you’d hope are more likely than the average Joe to download your next game. This was brought home when I read about the developers behind The Heist on iPhone having a mailing list of 500,000 readers, and selling 500,000 copies in the first week. I wonder how they managed to get their game into the top ten so quickly? I don’t actually, I’m being sarcastic. Obviously it wasn’t just the mailing list, but I am confident it will have been the single biggest factor in getting word to spread.

So do keep an eye out for the full website re-launch soon, and be sure to sign up to my newsletter when it appears! Nudge nudge, wink wink.

How many sales can an indie iPhone game make?

So then, the juicy bit. Sales. Overall? Pretty disappointing. In fact it wouldn’t be exaggerating to say I’ve never felt so torn about a game I’ve worked on. I think it’s ace, and apparently so do the press. We’re riding a critical wave, and surely this would translate into some half decent sales? Well according to App Annie and App Figures, not so much.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting a blockbuster straight out of the gates. I don’t have half a million people signed up to my newsletter, it’s only my second game for the iPhone market, and my first attempt at PR. I’m an unknown studio without a real pedigree or fan-base. I know that people talking and recommending to friends is a powerful tool in the iPhone market – of course top chart position is the key (or getting Apple to feature you) for sustained sales, but surely there is a snowball effect that at least begins with good specialist PR and high review scores, which feeds opinion-forming early adopters, who then tell their friends, who then… you know the drill. The thing is that all takes time. More than a week, for sure.

Aside from that, there are obviously issues with the launch that could have been avoided. The file size is over 20mb, meaning people cannot get it over 3G, while the version we uploaded requires the latest OS from Apple, and a surprisingly large amount of people are reluctant to upgrade. All lessons learned, and they’ll all be fixed in future updates. I’ve hinted at it before but we have BIG plans for the future of Hard Lines. We’re not just releasing it to fix bugs and move on.

How long does PR for an indie game take to work?

So aside from the technical hiccups, the whole PR process obviously takes more than seven days to see its effect. That’s part of the reason behind the decision made at the end of this diary entry. But in the meantime, I decided to keep the PR up. I found and added 50 more review sites to my list, and also managed to wrangle getting hold of an acquaintance’s list of national paper and magazine contacts. I count this as a huge win and hope to see some progress – the amazing reviews we’ve been having should count towards something, so as I extend our PR efforts further away from specialist sites and into more general areas I expect sales to steadily increase, using the high rating and critic’s responses as leverage – “Want to cover the next big iPhone game? Sure you do!”.

So as I said, mixed feelings. On the one hand, amazing reviews, beyond anything I could have hoped for. On the other, my previous game (a free puzzler with zero PR at time of launch) ‘sold’ better over its launch period, so there’s a small part of me that wonders if all this PR effort really has been worth it. Of course it has, it just takes time. All this really suggests to me is that the idea of ‘doing all your PR at launch’ may not be a cure-all, as some people seem to suggest. I’m sure a well-timed ton of coverage at launch would help, but it can’t be the only way to success. Angry Birds is testament to that.

Next time will be the start of the fortnightly update. As I said one week is not long enough to really judge stats, or learn much from sales changes. I’m obviously hoping things get better, and I’m very keen to avoid knee jerk reacting to anything from day to day. Not only will it provide more useful and interesting info for you guys to pore over, hopefully it will help me not to obsess day to day over the sales!(Source: Games Brief)


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