作者：Jon Walsh

在带有无数免费选择的手机游戏市场中，规则总是快速改变着。发行商们开始分裂成两派，一派是能够理解并满足玩家的期许，而另一派则做不到这点。他们的这种区别更是体现在每一款游戏所创造的数百万美元收益上。

未来的游戏将能在你发现前，并在玩家需要时带给他们想要的内容。我们将其称为“定制应用体验，”这便是大众定制化长久以来所等待的“圣杯”。定制应用体验是基于发行商通过对玩家的了解而面向不同领域传达真正独特的游戏体验所发展起来的。结果非常清楚—-基于这种精确的定位，游戏的用户留存和最终盈利将出现飞速发展。

Custom App Experience(from kiosk)

我们以前讨论过，“所有的玩家都是不同的”，但是我们却并不清楚该如何区别对待他们，即使我们能够这么做。首先，我们需要整合划分玩家的更深入理念，并将其当成是“定制帮手。”定制帮手的理念是让发行商能够根据玩家的行为将特定玩家划分成不同群组进行分析。举个例子来说吧，你可以着眼于某些玩家的主要参数，从而明确哪些玩家能够战胜第四个关卡而哪些玩家不能。如果你发现战胜第四个关卡的玩家进行应用内部消费的可能性是其他玩家是3倍，那么该信息便能够有效地推动你采取相应完善措施。基于这些分组进行实验能够帮助发行商快速且明智地进行思考。

对此，你可以使用一个基于事件和参数的分析系统将这些思考变成特定的行动。通过控制服务端的应用参数，你可以为每个主要的玩家群体创造一组独特的参数，利用A/B测试，让你所划分的不同群组玩家去尝试独特的玩家体验。从表面上来看，定制应用体验是面向手机应用发行商的一种游戏改变工具，即能将资深玩家与新手区分开来，并将比较成功的游戏变成既受玩家喜欢，也能带来巨大利益的产品。

还有许多机遇能够从策略上推动着定制应用体验的发展。也许你创造了一组能够到达第12个关卡的玩家群体，尽管你的最大努力是将其全部转换成付费玩家，但是他们却很少有人愿意掏钱购买游戏内容。这时候你便应该提供能够让他们兴奋的独特应用内部购买（IAP）包—-即只有这些特殊的玩家才能看到的内容，并且具有时间限定。随后，对于那些未购买这一IAP包的玩家来说，你可以通过提高他们遇到广告的频率而获取盈利。

假设你拥有一款无尽奔跑游戏，玩家将为了排名而竞争。你便可以基于技能排名去创造玩家群组。对于那些技能欠缺的玩家，你可以提供给他们较为简单的游戏版本，而对于那些技能高超的玩家，你便可以不断提升游戏难度。这么做不仅能够减少新手玩家的挫败感，同时也能够持续带给资深玩家更多挑战。并且所有玩家也都能在排行榜上竞争者。当缺少技能的玩家变得更厉害时，他们自然就会进入高技能群组，并迎接更复杂的挑战。

如果你在一件应用商店中拥有多款应用，你便可以考虑给予那些从你当前的应用转向最新应用的玩家适当奖励。你可以在交叉推广期间使用这种奖励作为一种诱惑。你需要决定该给予他们怎样的推动，礼物或其它奖励，将其设定在应用参数中，并为同时玩这两款应用的玩家创建一个定制群组。

你可以面向一个特定玩家群组公开全新游戏关卡，同时向非付费玩家运行一个IAP转换销售并向付费玩家运行增销销售，或给予那些只陷入某些谜题中的玩家一定提示。所有的这些方法都能够让具有创造性的制作人受益，并能够与一些合适的发行工具结合在一起而创造出意想不到的结果。你们所面对的选择是多种多样的。

幸运的是你不需要在应用中创造所有的这些复杂系统，或者尝试着从一些列笨拙的工具中将其组合在一起。面对像Fuseboxx?（游戏邦注：是一个一站式应用发布平台）这样复杂且非常适合免费游戏的发行平台，你只需要创造一切简单并且能够灵活控制的系统，剩下的就交给Fuseboxx?就行。

定制应用体验是手机应用产业中真正的游戏改变工具。所以请不要再以同样的方法去对待所有用户，也不要再提供一些他们不想要的内容。请耐心听取他们的想法，划分不同用户并提供适合他们的体验，如此你的游戏才有可能攀上到畅销游戏排行榜单的榜首。

（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）

Custom app experiences: The holy grail of mass customization

By Jon Walsh

In a mobile game market with hundreds of thousands of free choices at players’ fingertips, the rules are evolving quickly. Publishers are now separating into those that understand and can do what it takes to meet or exceed player expectations and those who can’t. And the difference can be measured in millions of dollars — per game.

The future of gaming is giving your players what they want, when they want it – before they know it. We call it the “Custom App Experience,” and it is the long awaited holy grail of mass customization. Custom App Experience revolves around the concept of knowing your players so well that you can deliver a truly unique game experience to every segment. The results are clear – retention and monetization go through the roof with this kind of precision targeting.

We’ve previously discussed that “all players are not equal,” so why treat them that way? Well, most likely because you may not know exactly how to treat them differently, even if you could. The first step is to embrace the slightly more advanced concept of player segmentation, often referred to as “custom cohorting.” The idea of custom cohorting is to enable publishers to analyze specific players as a group according to their behavior. For example you could look at key metrics for players that made it past level four in a game to those that didn’t. If you found that players that passed level four were three times more likely to make an in app purchase, that’s useful information that can drive a specific action for improvement. Experimenting with cohorts can lead to amazing high-level insights quickly.

From there, you can use an effective event- and parameter-based analytic system to turn these insights into specific actions to take. By controlling app parameters from the server-side, you can then create a unique set of parameters for each of your major cohorts, A/B test different scenarios, then go live with a completely unique player experience for each segment you’ve identified. Custom App Experiences are literally a game-changing tool for mobile app publishers, separating the experts from the novices and moderately successful games into money printing machines that players love.

There are many opportunities to strategically leverage Custom App Experiences. Maybe you create a segment of players that have reached level 12 that, despite your best efforts to turn them to convert to paying players, have not yet made a purchase. Now is the time to give them a unique, custom in-app purchase (IAP) bundle that they would be crazy not to buy – a bundle that only these specific players will ever see, and for a limited time only. Then, for those players who do not buy this IAP bundle, you can increase the frequency of ads to try to monetize them in other ways.

Let’s say you have an endless runner game where players compete for leaderboard supremacy. You can create a number of cohorts based on a skill rating for your players. For the lesser-skilled players, you can give them an easier version of the game, and for the more advanced players, you can increase the difficulty. Not only does this reduce the frustration for rookie players, but it also keeps the game challenging for those serious players. Also, all your players will be able to compete on the leaderboards. As your lesser-skilled players get better, they naturally migrate up the ladder of skilled segments, getting a difficulty that is ideally suited for them.

If you have multiple apps in an app store, then why not reward players who migrate from your current apps to your latest? You can even use this reward as a lure during your cross-promo campaigns. Just decide what boost, gift, or other reward you want to give them, set it up in your app parameters, and build a custom cohort for players that played both apps.

You can reveal new game levels to specific player segments, simultaneously run an IAP conversion sale to your non-buyers and an upsell sale to your paying players, or give in-game tips to players stuck only on certain puzzles. All of these and more are possible with a creative-minded producer and the right set of publishing tools. The options are virtually limitless.

Fortunately, you don’t need to build all of these complex systems into your app or try to sew them together from a series of clunky tools that weren’t built to work well with others. With complete publishing platforms like Fuseboxx?, which works best with free-to-play games, you just need to build in a few simple but flexible controls and Fuseboxx? does the rest. It’s unbelievably powerful, yet incredibly easy to use, and here’s the kicker … it’s FREE!

Custom App Experiences are truly a game changing tool in the mobile app industry. So stop treating all your users the same and not giving them what they want. Listen to them, segment and deliver each of them an experience that’s tuned specifically for them, and you’ll be well on your way to climbing the top grossing charts!（source：venturebeat）