作者：Kevin Corti

对电脑游戏有所兴趣的人应该都很清楚，手机游戏市场发展极为迅速，智能手机在主流市场仍然仅占比40%，因此未来数年这一领域仍有许多发展空间。

而对于制作手机游戏的开发者来说，情况也很明显，制作人人都想玩的游戏极为困难，而制作人人都愿意付费的游戏更是难上加难。现在每天都有超过13万款的游戏向苹果App Store提交审核，《CSR Racing》这类游戏首个月就可以创收1200万美元，但更多手机游戏并没有这么幸运，据称平均来看，每款手机游戏收益不足4000美元。虽然理论上看，仅用数千美元开发一款手机游戏仍是可行做法（游戏邦注：但即使没有实际的财政支出，开发者在无报酬的情况下开发游戏仍然需要付出一定的机会成本），但多数来自专业工作室的游戏仍需要准备5万至100万美元的开发预算。

csr-racing(from pocketgamer.biz)

不仅是游戏制作成本，营销预算也在大幅上涨。寄希望于用某些免费以及自然传播形式来实现计划的开发者很可能遭遇失败。对于iOS游戏来说，这一点尤为正确，因为只有跻身榜单前列才有可能获得曝光度，而跻身榜单前列也意味着开发者需耗费大量营销成本。简而言之，让应用获得曝光度很费钱。

开发者需频频向一些用户获得服务撒下大笔资金，例如Tapjoy（提供奖励让玩家下载游戏）或者FreeAppADay（为玩家免费提供原先需付费下载的游戏）。这两种以及其他方法都需要开发者在第一天就支出至少1万美元的费用。一款游戏若要成功盈利，就必须先实现以下目标：

1）ARPU（每用户平均收益）超过ACPU（每用户获取成本）；

2）收获大量用户以确保“净”利润足以抵消最初开发成本。

我们还要考虑到这里的“净”收益是扣除包括苹果30％抽成、营业税、授权成本、发行商抽成、合作伙伴收益分红，以及持续的运维成本（例如服务器）之后的总销售额。

甚少出现开发者制作了一款游戏，将其发布后就置之不理的情况。我们已经步入“游戏即服务”时代，并且游戏通常需要绑定一些用户行为数据收集和分析工具，这意味着开发者可以经常查看哪些元素可行哪些不可行。这意味着开发者不但需要修复技术漏洞，优化用户界面，重制新手教程，而且还要重访游戏变量以实现平衡，编辑故事情节，创造新内容和新功能。表现出色的游戏常会移植到其他平台（游戏邦注：例如Android、Windows手机平台、亚马逊Kindle等），或者针对其他市场推出本土化版本，这就更需要大笔成本和开支。

所以，制作游戏，推广游戏和维护游戏需要耗费大笔资金。这是个竞争激烈的市场，这一领域的用户忠诚度也很低，每天都会涌现许多不同的新游戏。因此，如果你想针对手机和平板电脑制作游戏，希望实现收支平衡甚至是创造巨大利润，那就最好先明确自己想做哪种游戏。那么你该如何选择呢？我将此归结为4种游戏类型：

1.休闲游戏（运用于移动设备）——“在出行途中独自玩游戏”

这本来也可以包括那些两人参与的游戏（两人在同一个屏幕上各出一个手指进行操作），但这主要是单人模式的游戏。这些游戏需针对特定硬件设备的性能（或者说是“局限性”）而量身定制，但有许多游戏却是直接将网页、PC或主机游戏复制移植到移动设备，这种做法可行但未必明智。《割绳子》、《植物大战僵尸》和《水果忍者》属于这类游戏中的优秀典型，但这一领域还有更多克隆版井字游戏和劣质的平台游戏。如果你制作的是这类游戏，那你就必须时刻牢记自己的游戏唯一超越主机、PC和网页游戏的优势就在于，用户可以随时随地体验游戏。

2.休闲社交游戏——“拥有社交层，允许好友相互挑战成就的游戏”

换句话说，这类游戏因为好友的加入而进入了另一个层次。

这些游戏本质上是单人游戏体验，但在此基础上添加了“挑战好友”或者积分排行榜功能。这已迅速成为手机游戏的默认设计样式。我认为这是一个懒惰并且可能存在商业局限性的方法。它通常采用OpenFeint或GameCenter这类第三方所提供的基本功能添加在游戏之上，而不是从加强玩家体验的角度出发来制作游戏。这种做法通常也会通过与游戏美术及UI格格不入的注册、登录和弹出成就屏幕等形式频频干扰玩家的游戏体验。如果合理采用这种做法，例如通过赋予玩家超越他人的机会来增强游戏体验，那么它确实能提供了一定的终端用户价值。但即便如此也掩盖不了这种产品骨子里仍然是单人游戏的事实。并且这些第三方服务的终极目标是创建属于自己的用户基础（游戏邦注：例如通过广告或交叉推广插页广告来吸引用户），而这一商业目标往往又会与游戏开发商吸引和保留自己用户的目标相冲突。

这种类型的游戏中又有第二种与Facebook/网页“社交游戏”极相似的游戏。有不少社交游戏都移植到了移动设备（例如《FarmVille》、《CityVille》和《Ravenwood Fair》），但其游戏玩法本质上依旧是单人游戏，只是增加了赠送礼物、分享和访问等会提供免费虚拟商品、虚拟货币或其他价值的社交机制而已。尽管这种游戏看似让用户频频与好友互动，但这种互动的意图是让开发商免费获取新用户，而不是传递内在的趣味。在这种情况下，你只是不得不与好友互动，而不是因为这样玩更有趣。

3.同步多人游戏—–“在移动设备上与他人结盟或对抗所玩的游戏（多为硬核游戏）”

这类游戏较稀少，原因有两个：首先，它们对游戏的技术框架和服务有一定的要求，而设置并维护这些组件的成本极高；其次，并非所有玩家都能找到在同一时间中喜欢玩同一款游戏的好友。此外，如果他们想一起玩游戏，可能还需要持有同种设备/平台，因为有些游戏可能仅支持运行于苹果iPhone手机而非三星Android设备。

同步合作或竞争型游戏玩法比较适合PC和主机游戏体验，其游戏回合更长，体验时间更有规律，并且主要发生于适合玩家头戴耳机并随心所欲地吼几嗓子的环境。同步游戏玩法更适合传统或硬核游戏，而这些游戏并不瞄准大众市场。手机游戏玩法具有短暂而随心所欲的特点，用户可以随时随地掏出手机体验游戏。我认为同步（即时）多人游戏是一个能够提供创新空间但商机有限的小众市场。

4.异步多人游戏—–“玩家与好友共同体验，但并不会立即进行数据交换的游戏”

我认为这种手机游戏最符合“社交手机游戏”的定义。虽然第3种类型（同步多人游戏）确实是用户之间的真正互动，但它仅适用于一小部分手机游戏玩家，我认为它具有“反社交”的特点。异步手机游戏在这一点上如果处理得当，就能够传递加强玩家参与度的游戏体验，同时又能够同移动设备使用习惯（即随时随地玩游戏的特点）相兼容。这类游戏确实能够传递内在趣味，因为它们搭载的是支持身处异地的用户随时沟通和互动的设备，这些设备并不需要随时插带电源或网线等累赘的配件。异步游戏的劣势就在于其数据交换并不及时。

我认为这类游戏的典型就是《Draw Something》（OMGPOP/Zynga）。其成功周期确实很短暂（大约6个月）但实现了8000万次下载量，并创收了可观的收益（据称是5000万-7500万美元）。

draw-something(from ign.com)

本文的主旨是探讨手机游戏如何以较少的成本创造可观收益，并成功获取用户，那么以上四种游戏类型又该如何实现这一目标呢？

休闲手机游戏——并没有直接的用户获取优势。这些游戏缺乏让用户向他人传播游戏的工具，也缺乏让用户采取这一行为的内在动力。你只是在自己的移动设备上玩单人游戏，你的游戏进程和愉悦感与你的好友是否也在玩游戏毫无瓜葛。

社交休闲手机游戏——如果开发商掌握了用户数据，那么这些游戏就有一定优势。但如果开发商使用的是类似于OpenFeint这种第三方API那就未必了。Zynga拥有多款属于这种类型的With Friends系列游戏，它们都创建了一个意在获取用户数据然后向其交叉推广游戏的生态圈（这样开发商就无需通过其他渠道支付每名用户2美元的成本）。多数开发商都无力效仿这一做法，创建出类似的生态圈。另外，由于这些游戏更适合单人体验，所以接入社交网站帐号并与好友“分享”的设置就不是很有必要了。将游戏链接到Facebook是一个积极做法，但如果你并不在同一部移动设备上玩游戏，那么这种设置就不存在什么优势了。

同步多人手机游戏——虽然这种游戏理论上需要玩家找到能够在同一时间参与的好友，但游戏在此的潜在用户覆盖率的重要性相对较小，并且玩家可以通过系统随机匹配的陌生人共同体验游戏，并不一定需要将自己已经认识的熟人引进游戏。

异步多人手机游戏——这就是需要玩家拥有好友一起玩游戏（否则就无法体验游戏），具有病毒传播特点的游戏定义。这类游戏，例如《Draw Something》总会在早期弹出一些屏幕要求玩家登录Facebook或Twitter帐号，或者向好友发送邀请邮件。这里还存在用户信任门槛，拥有一款出色的游戏当然很重要，但如果你做法得当，游戏的整个用户基础就会自动扩展。制作一款十分有趣，并且可长期传递趣味的出色游戏，那么你就相当于胜券在握，只需要一些最初的付费获取用户基础即可。

所以，异步多人游戏就是手机游戏开发者的首先，但如何才能制作出优秀的异步游戏？

手机游戏玩法不但要适合其运行的设备，还需要依据设备用户特点而设计。在此开发者通常会忽视一些情况。需注意的是，不要因为iPhone 4/iPad 2可传递堪比主机游戏的高质量图像，就误以为你真的可以照搬其他平台的做法。试想有多少玩家会在iPhone上投入20多个小时持续玩每个关卡至少需要20分钟才能玩的游戏？

虽然人们通常会在等绿灯，或者在星巴克排队时掏出手机打发时间，但也不能忽视有50％玩家是在床上或沙发上玩手机游戏这个事实，他们在此时每回体验游戏时长不再是数秒，而是数十分钟。因此开发者不但要牢记间歇而短暂的用户游戏习惯，还要注意这并非游戏设计的唯一考虑因素。

开发者向移动平台投放手机游戏需考虑的问题如下：

(1)在随时随地体验游戏的情况下，游戏是否依然有趣？

(2)玩家能否轻而易举地开启游戏，停止游戏和重启游戏？

(3)游戏是否因为围绕社交性设计游戏而呈现出趣味性？

如果以上问题皆为肯定回答，那么你就放心制作游戏吧！（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）

The opportunities in mobile gaming are in asynchronous social multiplayer games

by Kevin Corti

It should be clear to anyone that is interested in computer games that the mobile gaming market is growing very fast and, with smartphone penetration still accounting for only 40% in even major markets, that there is room for a lot more growth and for several years still.

It is also clear, to anyone who is actually making mobile games, that creating a game that people want to play en masse, let alone pay for (or in) en masse, is extremely hard. There are already over 130,000 games already submitted to the Apple App Store. Games like CSR Racing may be pulling in US$12million in their first month, but there is a very long tail in action here and the average revenue for a mobile game is reportedly less than US$4,000. Whilst it is still theoretically feasible to develop a mobile game for a few thousand dollars (working unpaid still has an opportunity cost even if there is not an actual monetary expenditure) most games from professional studios will have development budgets ranging from US50,000 to as much as US$1million.

The costs do not stop at simply making a game; far from it, next comes the marketing cost. Developers that base their plans/hopes/dreams around some form of free, natural virality are most likely going to fail. This is especially true of iOS games where (a) getting discovered requires being at the top of the charts, and (b) getting to and staying at the top of the charts costs lots of money. Putting that even more succinctly; getting visibility for your app WILL cost money….and no small amount of it.

Developers frequently drop a pot of money into user acquisition services such as Tapjoy (players are incentivised to download your game) or FreeAppADay (where players go to find normally paid-for apps being offered for free temporarily). These, and other methods, invariably cost from $10,000 and upwards on ‘day 1’. For a game to be profitable it needs to:

(1)    generate revenue per user (ARPU) at a rate that exceeds the average cost per user (ACPU)

(2)    reach a critical mass of users to ensure that the ‘net’ profit covers the initial development cost.

We must also consider that ‘net’ revenue is the gross sales revenue minus a whole host of direct costs starting with Apple (30%) but possibly also including any sales taxes, licensing costs, publisher’s cut, partner revenue share and on-going infrastructure (e.g. server) costs.

It is also very rare for a game to be created then launched then left unattended. We are in a ‘games as a service’ era and games are usually hooked up to some form of user behaviour data collection and analytics tool nowadays, meaning that developers can see what is working and what is not. That means not just technical bug fixes but user interface improvements, tutorial re-working, revisiting game variable to achieve better balancing, editing narrative, creating new content and new features. A game that does at all well will invariably be ported to other platforms (Android, Windows mobile/8, Amazon Kindle) and/or be localised for different territories. That’s more cost folks.

So, making games, marketing them and maintaining them costs a lot of money. It is a crowded market and one where customer loyalty is low and where new/different games are foisted at players from all angles. If, therefore you want to make games for the mobile phone and tablet market, you had better be clear about what kind of games you are going to make if you want to have a chance of achieving breakeven let alone amassing huge profits. What are the options? I boil these down into four (broad but distinctly different) game types. These are:

[1] Casual games (that work on mobile devices) – ‘play by yourself on the move’

Conceivably this can includes games that involve more than one player –  e.g. two players, one finger each on same screen – but is invariably about single player games. If done right then the games are designed for the specific hardware capabilities (some might say ‘limitations’) of mobile devices but many are copies of web, PC or console games which are simply ported to mobile because it is feasible to do so not because it is sensible to do so. Cut The Rope, Plants vz Zombies and Fruit Ninja are exemplars of this category of game but for each of these there are a hundred (make that ten thousand) Tic Tac Toe clones and shoddy platformers. If you make this class of game then you need to be highly aware that the only benefit you have over console, PC and browser games is that your game can be played on the move. Design for that modality of use not for what is technically achievable.

[2] Casual social games – games that have a (vaguely) social layer where you ‘play by yourself….then see if your friends can beat your score’. Put another way; ‘games that are given another dimension because your friends are involved to some degree’.

These games are usually characterised by being a fundamentally single player experience on top of which is bolted a ‘challenge friends’ and/or leader-board functionality. This is rapidly becoming the de facto design pattern for mobile games. I regard this as a somewhat lazy and possibly an commercially finite approach. It is often achieved with basic functionality provided by third party services such as OpenFeint or GameCentre that very much looks and feels ‘bolted on’ rather than having been crafted to enhance the player experience. This also leads to several frequent interruptions to the playing experience in the form of registration, login and pop-up leader-board or achievement screens that look completely different to the game art and UI. If this is done well, e.g. where the playing experience is genuinely enhanced by the ability to try to perform better than people you know, then there is quantifiable end user value. This doesn’t disguise the fact, however, that the product is essentially still a single player game. These services also all exit to ultimately build a user-base for the service itself (e.g. to engage the user with advertising or cross-promotion interstitial ads) and that commercial goal conflicts with the game developer’s goal of engaging and retaining their player as long as is possible.

There is a secondary type of game in this class that closely resembles the Facebook/browser-based ‘social game’ type. Numerous social games have made their way to mobile devices (e.g. Farmville,

CityVille and Ravenwood Fair) however the game-play remains fundamentally of a single player nature which is augmented with the social mechanics of, for example, gifting, sharing and visiting and where such behaviour is rewarded with free virtual goods, in-game currency or other utility value. Despite seemingly interacting with friend’s in-game on a frequent basis, the nature of those interactions exist solely to bring about free user acquisition for the developer rather than to deliver intrinsic fun from playing. You interact with your friends because you have to not because it makes the game more fun in of itself.

[3] Synchronous multiplayer games – ‘play with or against other (probably quite hard-core) players in real time….on a mobile device’.

These kinds of games are rare and for two good reasons: firstly, they require a level of technical infrastructure and service provision that is typically very expensive to put in place and to maintain, and, secondly, because it is statistically unlikely that any one player has many friends that likes (an downs) the same game they do and whom are able to play that game at exactly the same time on a regular basis as they do. There is also the factor that in order to do so they may also require the same device/platform as you. ‘Android on a Samsung? Sorry you need an iPhone 4 or higher to play this game”.

Synchronous collaborative or competitive play is major aspect of the PC and console gaming experience where play sessions are much longer, happen at more regular (often coordinated) times and in environments conducive to that activity e.g. where you can strap on a headset and swear a lot. The very nature of synchronous gameplay tends to lend itself to more traditional, or ‘hard-core’, games genres which is not mass market (when expressed as a subset of the mobile phone gaming market overall). Mobile game play typically happens at unplanned opportunistic times, for very much shorter sessions spread throughout the day at a wide variety of locations many of which do not offer a reliable cellular or wifi network connectivity. I see synchronous (‘real time’) multiplayer gaming as a small niche that offers creatively interesting but commercial limited opportunities.

[4] Asynchronous multiplayer games – games where ‘the entirety of the fun is derived because you are playing with (or against) friends but which do not require an immediate data exchange’.

This is the class of mobile game that I think truly fit the ‘social mobile game’ definition. Whilst a real time (type 3) game is clearly about a genuine interaction with other (real) people and fundamental to gameplay, the very fact that this will be practical to only a very minor subset of mobile gamers make it, IMHO, by definition ‘antisocial’. Asynchronous mobile games, when done well, deliver playing experiences that are very much enhanced by the involvement of others but which do not fail to cater for the very real modality of mobile device usage (‘anytime, anywhere’).

Indeed, these games deliver an experience that is intrinsically fun because they are using a device that exists to enable communication and interaction between people who are not physically together in the same location and which does not require cumbersome peripherals or – at least not all of the time – power supply or data connectivity. Asynchronous games can be somewhat ‘lossy’ in that the exchange of data isn’t overly time-sensitive.

My archetypal example of this kind of game is Draw Something (OMGPOP/Zynga). It’s success may have been over a fairly short time frame (approx. 6 months) but it reached 90million downloads and delivered outstanding revenues (reportedly $50-75million).

The title of this ’blog is about where I believe the (greatest) opportunities lie for mobile gaming. Given that commercial success is highly dependent upon successfully acquiring users and at a cost that is less than the revenue that they generate, how then do the different types of game (as defined above) contribute, or not, towards this goal?

Casual mobile games – no direct user acquisition benefit. These games lack both the instruments for users to spread the word to other users and the intrinsic motivation for them to do so. You are playing a single player game on your mobile device. Your progress in game and enjoyment of it are totally unrelated to whether or not your friends may be playing it. Score 0/10

Social casual mobile games – some benefit if the developer owns the user data, however that is rarely the case when using third party APIs such as OpenFeint. Zynga have a whole raft of ‘X with friends’ games in this category and have built an eco-system aimed at capturing that user data and then cross-promoting their games (thus avoiding the $2/user cost of acquiring users through other channels). Most developers are unlikely to be able to afford to replicate that ecosystem too any degree. Equally, as these games can be played as a single player experience, the user’s motivation to connect social network accounts and to enable ‘sharing’ etc is not necessarily high. Visibility of the game name and link on Facebook is a positive factor but one that is limited by the fact that the game isn’t immediately playable on that platform if you are not using Facebook on the same mobile device. Score 5/10

Synchronous multiplayer mobile games – whilst there is the logical argument that players must have other players with whom to interact with in this case, (a) the potential user reach is fairly insignificant, and (b) the likelihood is that you will be paired with/against strangers by the system (in order to ensure there are enough people to take part) rather than being required/motivated to bring new players that you actually know into the game. Score 2/10.

Asynchronous multiplayer mobile games – these are the very definition of what makes the foundation for a genuine virally-promoted game as you have to have friends to play with or against or you can’t play yourself. There is not alternative state. These games – such as OMGPOPs Draw Something – invariable involve a very early screen asking you to connect Facebook or Twitter accounts or to send out email invitations. There is certainly a trust barrier here and having a genuinely stellar game offering is unquestionably of fundamental importance, but get that right and your entire user-base is acting to expand itself. Make a great game that is unquestionably fun and which delivers that fun over a sustained time period (e.g. has longevity to the play experience) and you have a hit on your hands that should only need seeding with an initial paid-for user-base. Score 10/10.

So, asynchronous multiplayer games it is then…..but what makes for a good asynchronous game?

Mobile gameplay needs to be designed not simply just to work on mobile devices but also to be designed for the mobile device user. These are quite different things that are often overlooked. Just because the iPhone 4/iPad2 could deliver highly impressive raw computational and graphical power capable of delivering ‘near console’ game experiences doesn’t make it appropriate to do so. Who has 20+ hours to play a game on their iPhone where each level takes 20minutes or more?

An inelegant but essentially accurate term to describe the prevalent modality of use is ‘dip in and dip out’ gameplay. Contextual scenarios involving stops at traffic lights or being in the queue in Starbucks typically get used to illustrate this and these resonate with casual geeks and professional analysts alike. They also ignore the fact that something like 50% of mobile game play time actually happens in bed or on the sofa where the user sessions are not measured in seconds but dozens of minutes. ‘Dip in and dip out’ gaming is certainly very important but it is not the only factor.

We are only just beginning to understand the specialist craft of effective mobile game design but a crude rule of thumb of revaluating any game concept’s appropriateness for mobile deployment (versus PC, Facebook etc) could simply be:

[1] Is this game fundamentally fun because I can play it anytime and anywhere?

[2] Can I start playing, stop playing and re-start playing with minimal ease?

To those questions we can then assess the level of genuine organic user acquisition by asking:

[3] Is this game made fun because people being able to play with or against their friends is central to it’s design?

If you can answer ‘yes, yes and yes’ then go build that game!（source：gamasutra）