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分析社交游戏以失败告终的5大原因

作者:Regina Leuwer

在众多投放至Facebook平台的游戏作品中,只有少数大放光彩,其余最终都变得默默无闻。但为什么会出现这种情况?在这一领域,我们很难做出预测,但下面是我们从失败社交游戏作品中总结出的5大问题。

1.缺乏一目了然

Facebook用户的注意广度有限。同样,他们多数都不是玩家,所以他们不会像硬核玩家那样通过阅读博客和评论了解一款新游戏——社交游戏玩家通常是临时兴起。任何难以理解或无法通过单个句子进行解释的概念通常都缺乏可行性(游戏邦注:无论它多么巧妙,多么具有创造性)。若玩家需要通过阅读众多文本方能把握其中内容,那么他们多半会在指南结束前丧失兴趣。

2. 不了解平台特点

Diamond Dash from socialgamesobserver.com

Diamond Dash from socialgamesobserver.com

Facebook是全球最大的游戏平台,但首先这是个供用户同好友进行互动的平台。就如Trip Hawkins所述:Facebook是非常随意的一个平台,其用户没有时间过多时间关注游戏。他们通常边利用1天中的短短3-5分钟时间查看好友状态更新或上传图片,边查看自己的游戏。很多成功的社交游戏都是让玩家能够在不到5分钟的时间里获得满足感。Wooga的热作《Diamond Dash》及其他Facebook休闲游戏都是采用一回合60秒钟的模式。虽然在某些情况下具有可行性,但通常对时间和投入要求过高的社交游戏最终都很难在此平台立足。

3. 没有将用户粘性作为优先考虑事项

将用户吸引至Facebook游戏中,以避免出现注意广度短暂、竞争性等导致用户分心的问题。

CivWorld from socialgamesobserver.com

CivWorld from socialgamesobserver.com

所有行业主流公司都着迷于在发行前后进行测试,若用户粘性没有达到预期目标或太多玩家在特定节点退出游戏,那么开发者就会做出重大调整,或者甚至放弃一款已快完工的作品。同样,很多公司推出的游戏作品因融入过多功能或存在令人迷惑的混乱UI而最终流失用户。一个例子就是《CivWorld》,Sid Meier《文明》系列的社交更新版本。尽管游戏存在适合Facebook的杰出构思,但《CivWorld》最终在用户粘性和留存率方面表现惨淡。

4. 过于贪婪

社交游戏通常采用免费模式;过早植入付费道具会损害游戏的发展势头。很多用户并不喜欢虚拟商品。我们通常倾向早早促使玩家掏钱买东西,这样他们就不会过度满足于免费体验现状,但玩家还有其他许多免费游戏可供选择,所以这种举措通常适得其反。吸引非付费玩家也同样重要,因为他们有助于让游戏获得推广,创造病毒式传播效果。促使玩家觉得自己遭到冷落是错误之举。

5. 缺乏社交性

就连Zynga高管都觉得目前社交游戏缺乏真正的社交性。很多社交游戏都是基于单人模式或平行体验形式,在此社交活动会受到异步玩法的限制,主要局限于Facebook好友范围内。这一理念在过去具有可行性,能够促进病毒式传播,过去《FarmVille》狂热爱好者会鼓励伙伴加入游戏,但现在很多玩家觉得这有些令人望而却步。在那些无法基于既有用户创建内容,进行交叉推广的新玩家看来,游戏可能会是个危险之旅。

有若干即将由小型开发商推出的社交游戏作品将同步和异步玩法结合起来(游戏邦注:如《FARKLE》或《Pool Live Tour》),允许玩家同全球各用户进行即时多人体验,而玩家无需同这些人成为朋友——虽然这也通常会带来新友谊。(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

Reasons Why Social Games Fail

By Regina Leuwer

Out of the hundreds of games released on Facebook only a few make it big, the rest just dies unnoticed. But why is that so? In this industry predictions are especially hard to make but here are 5 issues we’ve observed about social games that don’t succeed.

#1 Not being self-explanatory

Facebook users are especially attention span-challenged. Also, the majority of them aren’t gamers so they won’t ever read blogs and reviews the way core gamers would to learn everything about a new title – social games usually find their players unprepared. Any concept that isn’t accessible or can’t be explained in one sentence is probably not going to work, no matter how clever and innovative it might be. If players are required to read a significant amount of text to understand what it’s all about, chances are they will lose interest before the tutorial is over.

#2 Not understanding the platform

Facebook is the world’s largest games platform but first and foremost it’s a social network where people go to interact with their friends. As Trip Hawkins told us: Facebook has always been very casual and it’s a club where users don’t have the time to give either intention or attention to a game. They check on their game while looking at their friends’ status updates or uploading a photo in small 3-5 minute sessions spread out over a day. Many of the most successful social games offer gratification in a short time period of less than 5 minutes. Wooga’s top hit Diamond Dash and other casual games on Facebook are played in 60 second rounds. Though it might work in some cases, usually social games that are too demanding in terms of time and effort have a hard stand.

#3 Not making user engagement first priority

Engaging users with a Facebook game is a Hercules task fighting short attention spans, competition and internet users’ general indifference caused by over-stimulation.

All of the industry leading companies are obsessed with testing (pre and post launch) and would make significant changes or even kill an almost finished product if user engagement isn’t high enough or too many players drop out at certain points. Still, a lot of companies throw games on the platform that drive users away with too many features or confusing and cluttered UIs. One example would be CivWorld, the social iteration of Sid Meier’s Civilization series. Despite having a great and proven concept that can work on Facebook, CivWorld failed miserably in engaging and retaining its users.

#4 Being too greedy

Social games are meant to be free-to-play; enforcing paid items early hurts their momentum. The vast majority of users don’t like to pay for virtual goods. It’s certainly tempting to condition players to use premium currency early so they don’t become too comfortable with playing for free, but it’s counterproductive given the plenty of free games users could easily move on too.  Engaged non-payers can be equally important as paying users to reach critical mass and create viral effects. Making them feel unwelcome doesn’t make sense.

#5 Not being social

Even Zynga’s CCO thinks that social games aren’t truly social yet. Many social games could be considered single player or parallel play where social interaction is limited by asynchronous gameplay and mostly restricted to Facebook friends. This concept worked in the past and boosted viral growth when FarmVille enthusiasts would encourage their peers to join, but a lot of users find intimidating. For newcomers that can’t build and cross-promote on an existing audience it can be dangerous.

Some of the upcoming social games by smaller developers (e.g. FARKLE or Pool Live Tour among others) combine synchronous and asynchronous gameplay and enable real-time multiplayer gaming against users from all over the world without having to befriend them – even though new friendships are often the result.(Source:socialgamesobserver


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