作者：James Nouch

本周，PocketGamer.biz迎来了英国游戏产业中一些相关人士对于开发者交流的激烈争论。

根据Game Dev Midlands的组织人Ash Morgan，问题非常明显，也就是“没人愿意开口交谈。”

Morgan说道，甚至在一些聚集着大量开发人才的地区（这些人都希望能够组建有效的社区见面活动），以及各种在伦敦举办的活动都很难带给数百公里以外的开发者更多好处。

TIGA的首席执行官CEO Dr Richard Wilson也补充道：“我同意开发者需要更频繁地进行交流。”紧接着Wilson列出了一些能够帮助世界各地开发者更好应对这类事件的步骤。

让开发者能够更轻松地进行交流并分享知识是件好事，但同时产业动态内容与其普及性也一样重要。

考虑到这点，我认为这里存在一个问题。

产业中人人仰慕成功，但却常常忽视从失败中吸取教训。我们可以从多个角度去剖析一款成功的游戏，但是游戏质量也会毫无缘由地突然崩塌。

《空房间》

举个例子来说，在最近的TIGA Mobile & Tablet Games活动中，来自Fireproof Games的三个代表上台解释了《空房间》成为App Store上一款热门游戏的原因。

由充满兴趣的英国开发者以及开发人才组成的听众认真听取了相关建议，实践指南以及所有有用的信息。

the-room（from pocketgamer）

该工作室有趣的商务总监Barry Meade解释道，Fireproof Games并不会投资任何钱于《空房间》的市场营销或PR，而“获得苹果的推荐则是我们唯一的策略。”

Meade继续说道：“我们并不想做所有人都在做的事，也就是广告，应用内部购买，免费模式和付费模式等等。人们一直在使用各种难以触及的复杂方法。但是我认为，如果你能够创造出很棒的用户体验，你的游戏便能获得来自玩家的口口相传。”

认真的观察者在听取这一发言后会知道，市场营销和PR是不必要的，定价并不是成功的障碍，只有质量上得到保障才能真正吸引玩家的注意。

但是我认为这些观点并非永远都是正确的，虽然听取这些从困难中吸取经验的开发者的讲话能够带来更多好处，但同时这也是一场没有多少乐趣的谈话。

成功的经验和失败的教训

让成功开发者分享自己的故事所存在的问题便是，这将创造出带有偏差的例子。

参加者虽然能够了解各家成功工作室所使用的策略，但是这些技巧和成功却不存在必然的联系。

毕竟相关性并不等同于因果联系。

换句话说，我们很难找出任何巨大成功背后的原因，即使成功的公司愿意毫不隐瞒地分享他们的“秘诀”。

更重要的是，这些超级成功的游戏只占任何特定平台的一部分，所以它们只能作为一些非典型例子。

如果想要获取更完整且更准确的建议，我们不仅需要听取那些取得巨大成功之人的故事，同时也不能忽视那些失败之人的惨痛教训。

这也是Tag Games的总经理Paul Farley所考虑的问题——产业中人人都在摸索成功，但却很少有人愿意去分析失败。除此之外，Farley还认为成功的经验总是比失败的教训“短命”。

“在手机游戏技术中，平台和用户趋势总是以极快的速度发展着。如果你不小心发现了成功的法则，我敢保证在几周后这一法则将不再起作用。”

案例研究

即使这些游戏成功获得用户也不代表它们能够获取更多收益。

让我们以《雷霆铁拳》为例。RocketCat和Madgarden的这款游戏得到了许多积极的评价，并且也获得了巨大的下载量，但是糟糕的盈利机制却最终导致游戏收益惨淡。

为了解决这一问题，RocketCat和Medgarden提升了游戏的难度。《雷霆铁拳》可以成为免费游戏开发者学习的有效例子。

punch-quest（from pocketgamer）

所以产业活动中需要更多愿意分享自己失败的开发者的参与。那些较小的交流会的参与者（游戏邦注：即只有一个人的开发商或小型独立工作室）将通过各种警世故事和成功故事而受益。

成功的故事的确值得我们学习，单在期待成功的同时我们也必须直视失败的惨痛教训。

所以我们最好将自我谴责转化成一些有帮助的内容，并如此推动着整个游戏产业向前发展。

（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）

Opinion: Successful devs may have wisdom to offer, but let’s learn from failure too

by James Nouch

This week, PocketGamer.biz has played host to some spirited debate among members of the British games industry over developer meet-ups.

According to  Game Dev Midlands organiser Ash Morgan, the problem is simple. “No-one talks.”

Even areas that are densely populated with development talent struggle to form effective community meet-ups, says Morgan, and the abundance of London-based events are of little benefit to developers based hundreds of miles away.

TIGA CEO Dr Richard Wilson gave his take on the issue too, adding “I totally agree that developers need to network more.” Wilson went on to outline some of the steps his trade association are taking to order to give developers around the country easier access to such events.

Making it easier for developers to gain access to the networking and knowledge-sharing opportunities that these events provide is undoubtedly a good thing, but the content of industry events is just as important as their prevalence.

And in that regard, I’d suggest there’s a problem.

The industry venerates success, and all too often brushes aside opportunities to learn from failure. Successful games are dissected from every angle, whereas quality flops all-too-often sink without a trace.

A room with a view

At the latest TIGA Mobile & Tablet Games event, for example, three representatives from Fireproof Games took to the stage and explained how The Room came to be an App Store hit.

An audience comprised of interested UK developers and indie talent listened closely for takeaway advice, practical guidance and nuggets of useful information.

The studio’s always-entertaining commercial director Barry Meade explained that Fireproof Games didn’t spend a penny on marketing or PR for The Room, and that “getting featured [by Apple] was our only strategy.”

“We have no interest in doing what everyone else is doing – no interest in advertising, in-app purchasing, freemium, premium,” Meade continued. “People try way too hard to do far too much. We think, if you have a great user experience, you’re going to get great word of mouth.”

A reasonable observer could come away from that talk with the impression that marketing and PR is fundamentally unnecessary, that premium-pricing is no barrier to success and that quality will always find an audience.

I’d argue that none of those things are consistently true, and that hearing from a developer who’d learned these lessons the hard way might make for a more informative – albeit, perhaps, a less high-spirited and enjoyable – talk.

The plural of anecdote isn’t data

The problem with calling on successful developers to share their stories is that this creates a biased sample.

Attendees gain an insight into the strategies employed by the most successful studios, but these techniques and that success are not necessarily linked.

After all, correlation does not imply causation.

In other words, it can be difficult to figure out exactly what causes a mega-success, even if a company is willing to share its ‘secret sauce’ completely candidly.

What’s more, that very fact that these super-hits make up such a small proportion of games available for any given platform makes them inherently atypical examples to learn from.

As such, we might get a fuller and more accurate insight by listening to the stories of developers at both ends of the spectrum – those who’ve made big bucks and those who’ve made buck all.

It’s an issue that Tag Games MD Paul Farley has pondered on these very pages – that the industry is keen to examine successes, but resistant to analysing failure. What’s more, Farley argued, the lessons of success are inevitably more short-lived than the lessons of failure.

“In mobile gaming technology, platforms and audience trends move at break neck speed. Even if you did happen upon the formula for success now, you can guarantee a few weeks later that formula would be irrelevant.”

Case studies

And even those games that do manage to find an audience don’t necessarily find financial success too.

Take Punch Quest, for instance. RocketCat and Madgarden’s endless runner launched to positive reviews and healthy download numbers, but poorly-tuned monetisation mechanics left its developers out of pocket.

To their credit, RocketCat and Madgarden have been admirably open about the game’s difficulties, and the Punch Quest story can serve as a useful case study for free-to-play developers.

That’s what industry events need more of – talented developers who are willing to talk about their failures. Smaller meet-ups in particular – where one-man developers and tiny indie studios arrive seeking wisdom – would benefit from some cautionary tales alongside the aspirational stories.

Success stories are undoubtedly worth listening to, and taken together, they contain lessons to be learned. But let’s face it, we humans have a tendency to dwell endlessly on failure while complacently accepting success as an inevitable consequence of our limitless genius.

So we might as well turn that self-recrimination into something useful – and help the industry in the process.(source:pocketgamer)