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开发者打破关于Android vs iOS游戏的6大流言

发布时间:2013-06-20 17:25:22 Tags:,,,,

作者:Gregg Tavares

在Chris Pruett于GDC上的谈话“Fact and Fiction: Lessons From Wind-Up Knight and Rise Of The Blobs”中,他尝试着去打破iOS vs Android游戏的一些流言。

Chris阐述了他们是何时创建公司Robpt Invader,他说了许多有关手机开发的事以及自己所汲取的经验教训。在2011年秋天,他们发行了《Wind-up Knight》,在2013年又发行了《Rise of the Blobs》。以下便是他提到的一些流言:

流言1:你应该面向iOS开发游戏,而如果它在iOS上表现得很好,你就应该考虑将其移植到Android上

这所根据的理论是,如果你可以在iOS上谋取巨大的利益,你也可以通过将游戏移植到Android平台上而赚取额外利益。

他们的经验是,《Wind-up Knight》在所瞄准的所有平台上都具有较高的评级。所以首先,这只适用于拥有高评级的游戏。其次,他们决定在Android平台上试试看,确保他们能在将游戏发行于iOS前处理好用户的抱怨。同时根据来自网络的建议,他们认为iOS玩家更愿意购买付费游戏,所以他们便在Android上采取免费模式而在iOS上添加0.99美元的价格标签。

结果便是,2011年11月他们在Android上发行了游戏,并取得了很好的成绩。他们获得了谷歌的推荐,这真的很棒。同时他们也非常幸运地获得了苹果的推荐。他们不仅多次获得这两家公司的推荐,同时还出现在iOS圣诞假期推荐名单中(游戏邦注:因为苹果将在此期间关闭iTunes Connect),这便意味着他们的推荐状态将维持2周时间。

gdc-2013-chris(from gamasutra)

gdc-2013-chris(from gamasutra)

着眼于他们的数据,你便可以发现作为iOS上的一款付费应用,它的表现并不是很突出,尽管得到了推荐。在2月份的“App a Day”推广活动中他们对游戏实行了限免,并因此获得了100多万的下载,但是在iOS上的发展也远不及Android上的发展。在他发表这些谈话时,这款游戏在Android平台上已经拥有800多万玩家了。

OS Breakdown(from gamasutra)

OS Breakdown(from gamasutra)

所以他们从中学到了什么?他们也许不应该将Android作为之后转向iOS的测试平台。另一方面,因为他们在两个平台上使用的是不同模式(一个付费一个免费),所以并不能有效地进行比较。

在第二款应用《Rise of the Blobs》中,他们采取同时发行策略。他们决定游戏中两个平台上都使用免费模式,并带有应用内部购买机制,最终游戏在两个平台上也都获得了较高的评级。而对于iOS版本,他们在广告宣传上只花费了10万美元。并且这款应用也同时获得了Google Play和iOS App Store的推荐。

installed base growth(from gamasutra)

installed base growth(from gamasutra)

结果:从安装数来看,他们在Android平台上的表现仍然超过iOS。

OS Breakdown(from gamasutra)

OS Breakdown(from gamasutra)

如此看来流言1便不攻自破了。也许在某段时间里这种说法是可行的,但是在今天却不是如此。

流言2:你应该尽可能将游戏翻译成不同语言。

《Wind-up Knight》只有英语和日语版本,以下是游戏现在的表现:

player sessions by country(from gamasutra)

player sessions by country(from gamasutra)

我们可以看到游戏的大多数玩家是来自美国,日本和中国,而收益则主要来自美国和日本。日本之后便是英国,但是其比例却只有4%。

total purchases by country(from gamasutra)

total purchases by country(from gamasutra)

所以他们便想着,也许是因为他们只在日本执行本土化策略(游戏邦注:因为这是他们除美国外唯一能够赚取较大利益的国家),而如果他们能在其它国家也实施本土化,即将游戏翻译成更多语言,游戏在其它国家便能够获得更多利益。

所以对于《Rise of the Blobs》,他们共提供了7种语言版本,而以下是游戏的表现:

players by language(from gamasutra)

players by language(from gamasutra)

这与之前游戏的结果一样。只多出了少数一些国家。我们可以注意到,他们在韩国也执行了本土化,但是韩国甚至未出现在表格中。

profit by region(from gamasutra)

profit by region(from gamasutra)

收益也仍与之前一样。大多数收益也是来自日本和美国。没有一个国家的比例超过4%:

如此这一流言也是不成立的。显然你只需要在日本执行本土化策略便可。其它语言并不重要。

流言3:比起Android用户,iOS用户花的钱更多

对此存在许多原因。因为iOS更贵,所以使用该系统的用户一般更有钱。或者因为你不得不在iOS App Store中绑定信用卡,所以你能够在此更轻松地消费。又或者因为市面上有大量廉价的Android手机,所以拥有这些手机的用户也不是很有钱。而这些理由似乎都较为直观。

iOS chart ranking(from gamasutra)

iOS chart ranking(from gamasutra)

他们在iOS排行榜上的经历与其他许多开发者相似,即尽管获得了推荐,但是一旦推荐终止,他们的排行便急剧下滑。他们以为如果付费应用在Android上的表现不突出,那么它在iOS上的时代也会结束。而一旦你的排名出现下滑,你便结束了,除非你具有大把的钱去挽救游戏。这里所突出的点在于,如果付费应用在iOS上不能赚取利益,那么它便不可能比Android版本更赚钱。

人们相信如果一款应用是基于免费模式并带有应用内部购买机制,那么iOS用户便仍会花比Android用户更多的钱,但这却不是他们的发现。

conversion rate(from gamasutra)

conversion rate(from gamasutra)

游戏在这两个平台上的评级是相似的。同样游戏的用户行为在这两个平台上也是相似的。而因为他们在Android上用于更多用户,所以他们便能在Android上赚的更多钱。

流言4:iPad用户行为不同于其他用户

为了证实这一流言,他们仔细研究了玩家的游戏长度。《Rise of the Blobs》的iOS玩家游戏时间是其Android玩家的2倍。不只是iPad用户,而是包括所有iOS用户。

median session length(from gamasutra)

median session length(from gamasutra)

而在《Wind-up Knight》中,iOS玩家的游戏时间更是Android玩家的3倍多。

median session length(from gamasutra)

median session length(from gamasutra)

在一款付费iOS应用中,用户每次游戏的平均时间为1个小时。

median session length(from gamasutra)

median session length(from gamasutra)

他认为也许是因为许多iOS玩家都是使用iPad玩游戏,但事实并非如此:

iPad & iPhone(from gamasutra)

iPad & iPhone(from gamasutra)

实际上,iPhone用户的游戏时间长于iPad用户。所以我认为关于iPad用户不同行为的流言可能是真的,但却不是大多数人都不同。

流言5:Android平台分裂性是个噩梦

他们使用Unity3D进行开发,并且几乎没有任何问题。在1970种设备中他们只在3种设备中碰壁。其中的2种设备是因为市场问题,但这在Google Play更新后便解决了,所以他们只需要为1个带有GPU驱动器问题的设备制定解决措施。

fragmentation(from gamasutra)

fragmentation(from gamasutra)

他们认为这一流言也崩溃了。

他们也想要强调从市场建立方式来看,支持Android用户更加艰难。在iOS上,如果你想要退款便可以直接联系苹果。而在Android上,你则需要联系开发商。就像他们的iOS版本游戏只收到316条支持请求,但是Android版本却收到了4170条请求。而内容多半是“我们的孩子在你们游戏中购买了300美元的内容,而我不知道手机上设有亲子保护措施。”

流言6:手机用户不喜欢复杂的游戏

有人跟他们说,因为他们的游戏太过复杂,所以将会遭遇失败。

他们不相信这是真的。他们拥有一些非常清楚这些游戏的超级粉丝,并且这些粉丝也很乐意与别人分享游戏截图,从而成为他们游戏的最大推动者。

他们也不是说更加休闲的游戏能够获得更多用户。只是复杂游戏也存在自己的市场。

所以以下便是我对于Chris谈话的总结:

我认为第5点的分裂性问题比3年多以前更严重了。那时候有支持单点碰触的设备,带有轨迹球的设备以及带有键盘的设备等等。而现在,几乎所有设备都是支持一个多点碰触屏幕。对于《Rise of the Blobs》这款一个手指就能玩的游戏来说,不管你将手指放置在屏幕哪里都没关系。所以这对于这款游戏没有多大影响。而《Wind-up Knight》却是一款带有2个按键的游戏。我猜带有虚拟手掣的的游戏将具有更多问题,但是因为我从未创造过游戏,所以也不能发表过多意见。

实际上,iOS玩家的游戏时间是Android玩家的2至3倍也是在暗示着他们去寻找更多数据。他们的游戏体验是否真的不同还是追踪系统出现了漏洞?因为Android版本具有多重任务,所以也许用户可能会在游戏中进进出出,而2次游戏回合可能只能算1次?Chris整合游戏回合的参数是否是每15分钟算一次?另一方面,如果iOS玩家的游戏时间超过了你的预期,他们便会花更多钱于带有消费品的游戏中,并购买更多消费品。

我认为比起讨论这些流言,你最好能够着眼于这些反例并从中吸取教训,从而才能更好地创造自己的游戏。

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

Android vs iOS Game Myths

by Gregg Tavares

I was hoping Chris Pruett would post a version of his talk, “Fact and Fiction: Lessons From Wind-Up Knight and Rise Of The Blobs” but he has not done so yet. The talk is available on the GDC Vault so if you attended GDC you can watch it there. It’s only 23 minutes.

In it he attempted to break some common myths about iOS vs Android games. Of course this is just his experience but he made the point that most of the myths of iOS vs Android are not backed up by any data so he brought all his data.

I’m kind of hoping if I post this he’ll feel compelled to post a version of his talk in his own words instead of mine. Hey Chris, Post your talk! In the meantime here’s my summary of his talk

Chris said when we started his company, Robot Invader, he read everything he could about mobile development and all the collected wisdom. In fall 2011 they released Wind-up Knight, and in 2013 they released Rise of the Blobs. He read a lot of advice but none of them were backed up with data. So here’s his data.

Myth #1: You should develop for iOS and maybe if it does really well on iOS you should consider porting to Android

The theory being that iOS is where you make all your money and if it does really well you might be able to make a few extra bucks on an Android port.

Their experience was, Wind-up Knight is highly rated on all platforms they are on. So first off, this applies only to highly rated games. If your game is not highly rated maybe this won’t fit. Second they decided to ship on Android first to do experiments, make sure they’d addressed user complaints before they ship on iOS. Also based on the advice from the net they thought iOS players are more likely to buy a paid game so they shipped free-to-play on Android but $0.99 on iOS.

What happened was they shipped in November 2011 on Android and it did amazingly well. They were featured by Google which was really awesome. They fixed a few issues and shipped the iOS version 1 month later. They were super lucky there too as they were featured by Apple. Not only that they were featured multiple times by both companies but on iOS they were featured during the Christmas Holiday season when Apple goes on vacation meaning their featured status says up for 2 weeks.

Looking at their data you can see as a paid app on iOS it didn’t do well, even being featured. They made if free in February for a Free App a Day promotion and got over a million downloads but after that grown on iOS was never close to growth on Android. At the time of the talk they had 8 million players the vast majority on Android.

So what could they learn from that? Well one, they probably can’t treat Android as a test platform to prep for iOS. On the other hand the apps were treated differently, one launched as free to play, the other has paid, so they couldn’t really compare them.

On their second app, Rise of the Blobs, they did a simultaneous launch. They made it free-to-play on both platforms with in app purchases and it was highly rated on both platforms. On top of that, for the iOS version only they spent around $100k in advertising. The app was featured on both the Google Play store and the iOS App store for the same duration

The result: They still did way better on Android in terms of user install numbers.

So in their opinion Myth #1 is is busted. It might have been true at one point but it’s not true today.

Myth #2: You should translate your game to as many languages as possible.

Wind-up Knight shipped with English and Japanese only and here’s how it did

The majority of players were from the USA, Japan, and China and as for revenue almost all of it came from the USA and Japan. After Japan the next biggest was the UK and it was 4%

So, they thought maybe that was because they only localized for Japan as that’s the only other country they made any good money from and if they localized to more languages they’d do way better in other countries.

So for Rise of the Blobs they localized to 7 languages and here’s the result

It’s almost the same as it was before. A few counties came on. One thing to notice is they localized for Korean and yet Korea isn’t even on the chart.

Looking at revenue it was still the same as before. All the money came from Japan and the USA. No other country accounted for more than 4%

So, from their POV this myth is busted. Apparently you only need to localize to Japanese. The other languages don’t matter.

Myth #3: iOS users spend more money than Android users

There could be many reasons for this. iOS is more expensive so those users have more money. Or maybe because you have to put your credit card into the iOS App Store it’s easier to buy. Or maybe because there are extremely cheap Android phones those people don’t have money to spend. These all reasons seem to make intuitive sense.

Looking at their iOS Chart ranking they had the same experience they’ve seen several other developers have which is that while they were featured their rank stayed high but as soon as it stopped being featured the ranking fell off a cliff. They feel like paid apps never did well on Android and their era on iOS may also be over. Once you fall off the ranking you’re done unless you can spend $$$$$$ to bring it back up. The point here is that paid apps didn’t make money on iOS so that’s not a way to get more revenue vs Android.

People believe that iOS users will still spend more than Android users if the app is free-to-play with in app purchases but that’s not what they found.

The rates are basically the same for both platforms. Behavior of users on both platforms for the same game is the same. Clearly since they have more users on Android their making more money on Android.

Myth busted

Myth #4: iPad user behavior is different from other users

Trying to figure out if this myth is true they looked at session length. For Rise of the Blobs iOS users play about twice as long as Android users. Not just iPad users but all iOS users.

For Wind-up Knight iOS users play almost 3x Android users

Even stranger, when it was a paid app iOS users played for an AVERAGE of hour per session.

That’s AVERAGE session! WTF! He thought maybe that’s because a lot of iOS users were on iPad but that’s not the case

iPhone users play longer than iPad users. So, I guess the Myth, that iPad users play different, is true but not in the way most people think.

Myth #5: Android fragmentation is a nightmare

They develop in Unity3D and had almost zero problems. Of 1970 devices they only had trouble with 3 devices. 2 of which were a market issue they couldn’t work around but that were solved by a Google Play update so they only had to make a special workaround for 1 device that had a GPU driver issue.

So in their opinion this Myth is busted.

But, they did want to mention that it’s more a of a pain to support Android users because of the way the markets are set up. On iOS if you want a refund you talk to Apple. On Android if you want a refund you talk to the developer. Over their entire life so far they’ve had 316 support requests from iOS and 4170 Android requests. Things like “my kid bought $300 of stuff in your game and I didn’t know there was a parental lock built into the phone”.

Myth #6: Mobile users don’t want hard games

They were told their games would fail because they are hard.

They don’t believe this is true. They have super fans that have cleared their games and they post screenshots and become their biggest promoters.

They’re not saying a more casual game won’t get more users. Just that there is a market for hard games.

So that’s my summary of Chris’s talk.

My 2 cents:

I think #5, fragmentation, might have been a much bigger problem 3+ years ago. At that time there were devices with single touch, devices with a trackball, devices with keyboards, etc… Now pretty much all devices are a single multi-touch screen with no extras. On top of that, at least for Rise of the Blobs, it’s a 1 finger game and it doesn’t matter where you put your finger. That would seem to have at least a minor influence. Wind-up Knight is a 2 button game. I’m only guessing that games with virtual joypads might have more issues but then I have no idea since I haven’t made a game.

The fact that iOS users are playing 2-3x more than Android players suggests a place for more data. Do they actually play different or is there a bug in the tracking? Android’s are multi-tasking so maybe users switch in and out of a game and something that looks like 2 sessions is actually 1? Does Chris’s metrics merge sessions that are under a say 15 minutes apart? On other hand, if iOS users do play more you’d expect them to spend more on the types of games that have consumables since more play equals consuming more consumables so YMMV.

I’m sure you might have opinions on this as well. I think rather than argue about it it’s just good to see this counter example to the common wisdom. Maybe if you’re getting different results you’re not doing something that Robot Invader is and you could do much better if you were or visa-versa, maybe if they were doing something similar to you they’d get results similar to yours.(source:gamasutra)


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