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Facebook分享提升社交游戏用户留存率的方法

发布时间:2012-11-08 15:31:41 Tags:,,,

作者:Christian Nutt

在Facebook总部最近的一次会议中,Facebook用户增长总监Alex Schultz清楚地揭示出提升社交游戏用户留存量的方法:制作出具有社交性的社交游戏。

没错,这个答案的意思十分明显,不少游戏设计师与业内人士均对那些不具备完全社交性的社交游戏表达了厌恶之情。但即使是现在,仍有许多Facebook游戏遭受这类问题的困扰。

Alex Schultz(from flickr.com)

Alex Schultz(from flickr.com)

Schultz表示,Facebook希望可以制作出“本质上最好与好友合作,如果没有好友的参与,游戏则无法进行”的社交游戏。

他补充道:“我们很高兴看到这一平台出现许多最好与朋友全程玩到底的游戏。”

他以Mojang的《Minecraft》和暴雪的《星际争霸》这些非Facebook网络游戏为例,解释它们的社交性是吸引玩家的原因。“《星际争霸》中包含社交情境……我们知道社交情境可以推动更多用户参与游戏,而后转化成为Facebook玩家。”

人气推动

提升用户留存量还需解决另一个问题,大部分游戏(游戏邦注:包括Facebook游戏)都属于人气推动型。最初,它们拥有庞大的用户群,然后在长期运行中,用户量会逐渐减少。但有些游戏会保持稳定的少量忠实用户,因此其用户量曲线并不会一直呈下降趋势。

Schultz指出,但现在出现了一种全新趋势。有些游戏会突增一些新用户。

他指道:“这些变化来源于移动平台上。当你注册一款社交游戏,但却只有2-3个好友时,你会觉得十分无趣。随着越来越多的好友加入其中,游戏便更趋向社交化。”移动平台可以推动迟来的用户增长,增加用户粘性。比如,如果一款最先针对iOS平台的游戏移植到Android平台,玩家的好友可以通过Facebook发现,自己喜欢的游戏已扩展到移动平台,这样有助于吸引所有人加入其中。

Schultz指出:“如今Facebook上最令人兴奋的莫过于Open Graph。”因为它是由“用户主动分享的意愿”而驱动的元素。

Schultz指出,Playdom的《Marvel Adventure》是有效利用Open Graph的例子,它根据用户的特定喜好制作游戏内容。例如“可以根据玩家动态自定义操作与创作”的游戏所获得的点击量,远远高于包含“自动生成的垃圾邮件”的游戏。

他表示:“以后,当用户访问好友的个人资料,他们可能会发现一些总结信息,比如‘这周Alex打败了5个敌人’,或者其它类似内容。”用户可以通过这类数据了解好友的喜好,以及游戏成就,吸引他们尝试一款新游戏。

全新渠道

Facebook游戏合作团队主管Sean Ryan对此表示赞同。如他所言,留存用户的“秘密武器”是有效利用Facebook提供的社交渠道。在过去的两年内,Facebook的社交(或病毒性)渠道发生了巨大变化,其中一些并不太容易让游戏开发商接受。现在,提升用户量的方法是多关注具有相似爱好(比如游戏)的用户,减少用户的垃圾体验。

facebook-games-growth(from techcrunch)

facebook-games-growth(from techcrunch)

这一点无论对平台还是游戏都会产生全面的实际效果。Ryan分享了有关玩家量增加的数据:2011年9月30日,Facebook拥有2.26亿游戏玩家;到了2012年9月30日,玩家数量已攀升至2.51亿。

同时,他还分享了一张幻灯片,里面展示了Facebook平台去年与今年游戏类型多样化的对比,还介绍了Kixeye工作室(代表作《Battle Pirates》)在引入核心玩家方面取得的成功,以及King.com(代表作《Bubble Witch Saga》)在重塑街机游戏方面的心得。

Ryan还列出了2012年第四季度在Facebook Canvas和移动平台上表现最佳的游戏:

Facebook.com最佳游戏:

Stormfall: Age of War (Plarium)

Wizard of Oz (Spooky Cool Labs)

Fresh Deck Poker (Idle Games)

Full Bloom (Playdom/Disney)

CityVille 2 (Zynga)

最佳社交移动游戏:

Hay Day (Supercell)

Live Hold ‘em Pro (Dragonplay)

NFL Pro 2013 (Gameloft)

CSR Racing (NaturalMotion)

Ticket to Ride (Days of Wonder) (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

Facebook: Social game devs must make their games actually social

by Christian Nutt

At a recent session at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters, Facebook director of user growth Alex Schultz apparently solved the riddle to improving user retention in social games:

Make social games social.

Ok, that sounds obvious, but more than a few game designers and pundits have expressed their disdain with social games that aren’t really all that social. And a lot of Facebook games even today suffer from that same un-social problem.

Schultz said Facebook is looking forward to games that are “fundamentally better with friends, and fundamentally impossible to play without your friends.”

He added, “We’re really excited by games we see that are better with friends the whole way through.”

He turned to non-Facebook online games like Mojang’s Minecraft and Blizzard’s StarCraft as examples of games that engage users socially. StarCraft “has social context against it… We know that [social context] drives more people to engage and convert wherever Facebook does it.”

Hit-driven

Another issue with retention is that most games, including Facebook games, are hit-driven. They start off with a huge audience that tapers off in the long run. Some others manage to remain steady with a small but loyal audience, so the curve doesn’t trend downward.

But a new trend is emerging, said Schultz. Some games get new bumps upward.

“Mobile is bringing this, too,” Schultz said. “When you sign up to a social game and only two or three of your friends are playing it, it is not fun. As more and more of your friends join the game, more opportunities come for it to be social,” he said. Mobile platforms can drive a delayed bump in users — and increased engagement — if, for example, a previously iOS-specific game is ported to Android. Players’ friends can see via Facebook that a game that they were interested in is now on their mobile platform of choice, and help boost engagement for everyone by joining in.

“The most exciting thing that’s happening on the Facebook platform today is Open Graph,” Schultz said. That’s because it’s driven by “shares that are intentional by the user.”

Schultz singled out Playdom’s Marvel Adventures as a game that is doing a great job of utilizing the Open Graph, which tailors content to users’ specific interest. Games like this “have these custom actions and custom creations in the news feed [and] are getting clickthroughs that are an order of magnitude better” than auto-generated spam of the “lost duck” variety.

“Long term, if people are visiting their friends’ profiles — which they do — you have these aggregation units that say ‘Alex defeated five enemies this week’, or whatever,” he said. That kind of data — seeing what their friends like to play, and the progress they’re making — gets users excited to try a game.

New channels drive growth

Sean Ryan, director of Facebook’s games partnerships team, agrees. The “secret sauce” to user retention, according to Facebook game partnership director Sean Ryan, is to effectively use the social channels that Facebook provides. Over the last couple of years, Facebook saw major changes to its social (okay, viral) channels, which took some getting used to for game developers. Now, the options for virility are more targeted towards people with similar interests (such as games), which make for a generally less spammy user experience.

This can have a practical, overall effect on the platform as one for games. Ryan shared some statistics about player growth: on September 30, 2011 the company had 226 million players; on September 30, 2012 that has climbed to an audience of 251 million.

He also shared a slide showing the increased diversity of genres on the platform as compared to a year ago, while talking up the success of Kixeye (Battle Pirates) in bringing core gamers and King.com (Bubble Witch Saga) in enlivening the arcade game genre. These numbers are by daily active users.

He also talked up Facebook’s best picks for the games of fourth quarter 2012 — on both Facebook Canvas and mobile:

Games on Facebook.com

Stormfall: Age of War (Plarium)

Wizard of Oz (Spooky Cool Labs)

Fresh Deck Poker (Idle Games)

Full Bloom (Playdom/Disney)

CityVille 2 (Zynga)

Social Mobile games

Hay Day (Supercell)

Live Hold ‘em Pro (Dragonplay)

NFL Pro 2013 (Gameloft)

CSR Racing (NaturalMotion)

Ticket to Ride (Days of Wonder) (source:gamasutra)


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