作者：Jon Jordan

芬兰初创公司Supercell最初是以开发Facebook游戏起步。

但他们进入这一平台时并没赶上好时机，当时Facebook市场竞争已经很激烈，病毒传播渠道也在减少，营销成本则不断攀升。

不过向“平板优先”转型的策略却让Supercell获得了成功，《Hay Day》及《Clash of Clans》这两款首波发行的游戏就是明证。

社交粘性

Clash of Clans(from rtsguru.com)

值得注意的是，《Clash of Clans》玩家在iPhone和iPad平台上的分布相当平衡。

这款PvP游戏产品主管Lasse Louhento表示：“我们看到玩家会迅速返回手机平台检查他们的城市状态，然后在iPad体验更长时间的游戏。”

当然，Supercell的“平板优先”策略并不仅局限于用户体验游戏的设备，更多的是强调向用户提供高品质的体验。

Supercell首席执行官Ilkka Paananen表示，“我们公司很小，只有50名员工，所以我们的最佳营销手段就是游戏的品质。我们在用户界面上花了不少心思，就是为了保证用户可能轻易上手。”

“我们也很重视社交游戏玩法。如果用户可以一起玩游戏，那样更有趣，而且游戏可以得到更快速的推广。”

这两款游戏殊途同归地体现了这一点。

《Hay Day》采用了传统的合作型馈赠和交易方式。《Clash of Clans》也有相似的机制，你可以在自己派系内赠送部队。但它的主要推动力却是强大的PvP竞争元素，并植入了破坏基地和掠夺资源的机制，另外还设置了积分排行榜。

留住玩家

当提到公司如何维持游戏运行时，Paananen指出，他们主要追踪第1、第7和第30天的用户留存率这些关键指标。

他补充道：“beta测试之后不断提升的留存率让我们很满意。”

Louhento透露，在开发《Clash of Clans》时，公司将用户分为了新人、中级和精英三个群组。

每个群体玩游戏的方式都不尽相同，留存率也有所差别。当然，初学者会得到更多关注，因为这一阶段是将玩家培养成社区中富有价值、较高忠诚度用户的关键时期。

Louhento提到：“早期阶段的游戏关卡比较独立，所以我们努力完善游戏指南。改善指南可以提升我们的留存率。”

合理循环

Supercell在《Clash of Clans》中调整的一个重要游戏玩法元素是它的防御性。

无论何时只要你的基地遭到破坏，就会自动启动防御机制，那样你就不会遭到攻击，直到防御时间结束为止。这样玩家才有机会重建和重组自己的部队（游戏邦注：如果需要，玩家也可以通过IAP购买防御时间）。

然而，防御时间设置过长，玩家就没有多少能够攻击的基地。当然，设置时间过短也会导致玩家在未知情况下（如果没有经常登录）遭到多次进攻。

因此，防御时间通常设置在24-12小时之间。目前为16小时。

Louhento指出：“我们也需要考虑不同时区的玩家。”

虽然调整和更新这两款热门游戏会让工作室更加繁忙，但是Sepercell并不打算停滞不前。

该公司第三款“平板优先”的游戏——另一款动作类PVP游戏《Battle Buddies》，目前已在加拿大和芬兰进行beta测试。（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）

1, 7 and 30-day retention rates are key, says ‘tablet first’ Supercell

by Jon Jordan

Finnish start up Supercell started out life developing Facebook games.

Late to a platform that was struggling in terms of too much competition, too little virality and rising cost of marketing, it wasn’t great timing.

Switching to a ‘tablet first’ strategy has proved much more successful, however, as demonstrated by its first two releases Hay Day and Clash of Clans.

Social glue

Still, perhaps it’s a little ironic that the player base of Clash of Clans is split equally between iPad and iPhone.

“We see people popping back to check their city status on the phone and then having longer sessions on the iPad,” explains product lead Lasse Louhento, of the base-building PVP title.

Of course, Supercell’s ‘tablet first’ strategy is more about providing the highest quality user experience rather than prescribing the device people play on.

“We’re fairly small, only 50 people, so our best marketing is the quality of our games. We spend a lot of time on the user interface to ensure they are easy to get into,” explains CEO Ilkka Paananen.

“We’re also committed to social gameplay. It’s more fun when you play together, and you get more viral promotion.”

The two releases demonstrate this focus in different ways.

Hay Day takes the traditional co-operative gifting and trading approach. Clash of Clans has a similar mechanic where you can gift troops within your clan. But its main drive is a strong player versus player competitive element with base destruction and resource looting backed up with leaderboards.

Keep them playing

As for how the company’s looking to sustain its games, Paananen says the key indicators it tracks are 1, 7 and 30-day retention rates.

“It’s satisfying as they’ve been improving since our beta tests,” he adds.

Louhento reveals that for Clash of Clans, the company breaks down the audience into newbies, mid-range and elite groups.

Each play the game in different ways and hence have different retention rates. Of course, the newbies get a lot of attention, because that’s the stage players have to successfully complete to become valuable and engaged members of the community.

“We have less dependencies in the early stages of the game, so we’ve worked very hard on our tutorial,” Louhento says.

“Improving this has boosted our retention.”

The right cycle

One significant gameplay element that Supercell has tweaked in Clash of Clans is the shield.

This is automatically triggered whenever your base destroyed, and means you can’t be attacked until the shield times out. This gives the opportunity to rebuild and reorganise. (Players can also buy shield time as an IAP if they want.)

However, setting the shield time too long resulted in a lack of bases to attack. Of course, setting it for too short meant players could be attacked multiple times without knowing it if they didn’t log in daily.

For that reason, the shield time has varied from between 24 to 12 hours. Now it’s set at 16 hours.

“We also need to be aware of people playing in different time zones,” Louhento points out.

And while tweaking and updating its two live games will keep the studio busy, the opportunity is such that Supercell isn’t resting on its laurels.

Its third ‘tablet first’ title – another action PVP game called Battle Buddies – is currently in beta in Canada and Finland.（source:pocketgamer）