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从创造免费游戏中吸取经验教训

发布时间:2015-04-22 14:36:43 Tags:,,,,

作者:James Batchelor

如今的免费游戏市场是电子游戏中最重要的一部分,但是免费游戏工作室门仍在学习如何有效地驾驭这一模式。

像下周的免费游戏峰会等活动将向开发者们分享一些经验,但大多数开发者还是在创造过程中不断获得学习。当然了,大多数工作室都能够从那些已经踏进免费游戏领域的人,特别是早前尝试者身上吸取一些灵感。

英国工作室Jiggery Pokery便是较早进入免费游戏市场的一份子(游戏邦注:即带着自己的第一款游戏《GodFinger》)。就像该工作室的Matthew Wiggins所说的那样,这里对于许多公司来说就像一个新世界一样。

他说道:“那时候并没有能够与之比较的对象。特别是在手机领域,所以我们的大多数信息都是源自早前的Facebook游戏。我们尝试了许多不同的内容以判断什么是可行的什么则是不可行的,以及什么内容能够帮助我们快速获得经验。”

同时,来自Monster & Monster(《Deep Loot》的开发商)的Dan Griffiths表示他的团队在公司创立前需要进行“许多研究”工作。

他说道:“那时候我们所得到的建议是付费定价只适用于已经建立起来的品牌和授权。我们采取了这一建议但也仍然进行不断的尝试,因为判断世俗认知是否适用于作为创造者的自己并不是件容易的事。”

“所以我们便发行了一款付费游戏和一款免费游戏,并从中了解到‘免费尝试’游戏的威力。当我们意识到那时候的免费游戏比付费游戏更适合自己时,我们便开始研究这一模式的各种变量以寻找适合我们需求,同时也不会违反我们的道德理念的内容。”

特权与风险

我们可以清楚地判别免费游戏模式的优势与劣势,因为在全球许多成功的游戏背后也出现了许多失败的作品。

然而Wiggins和Griffiths都强调了两个要点。

Wiggins说道:“免费游戏能够消除玩家尝试你的游戏的障碍,但这并不意味着他们就会下载你的游戏。你还是需要投入与开发一样多的精力去进行市场营销。”

“免费游戏的优势在于能够消除人们尝试你的游戏的大量障碍。作为一家初创企业,你总是希望能够尽可能消除游戏的准入障碍,所以这便是一种有效的选择。对于免费游戏存在一个明显且巨大的市场,特别是在手机领域。”

Griffiths补充道:“免费游戏的主要劣势在于安装数量,即你需要做到与转换率保持平衡。你将在手机市场上与一些巨头公司的游戏展开竞争—-这也是为何畅销应用排行榜单的前列很少发生变化的原因,像我们这样的小公司总是缺少足够的市场营销资源。”

Monster & Monster同样也积极地消除人们对于免费游戏的一大误解:“这并不是一张印钞许可证。”

Griffiths说道:“一些独立开发者似乎认为免费游戏就一定会‘大卖’。要知道这也只是一种业务模式,一款免费游戏是否受欢迎既取决于玩家的喜好,也会受到开发者所采取的市场营销方法的影响。”

免费游戏的未来

尽管免费游戏市场似乎已经站稳了脚步,即各种各样成功的游戏带来了许多游戏设计和盈利方式,但是开发者仍然相信这些游戏存在更多完善的空间,能够进一步吸引用户的注意。

例如Griffiths认为有些游戏中的购物体验仍然太过蹩脚,他的团队已经探索了各种方式去解决这一问题。就像工作室Autumn Walk将游戏内部商店被设计成像裁缝店一般的存在,在这里玩家可以在购买衣服前先试看看。

Deep Loot(from play.91)

Deep Loot(from play.91)

同时,像《Deep Loot》的货币加倍器等“冲动购买”选择被证实是非常有效的方法,因为比起依赖于让人困惑的“购买加倍”按键,它们从视觉上看来更有效。

Griffiths说道:“将玩家带进商店中是非常困难的,有时候在游戏中我会想要购买某些事物去支持开发者们,但是我却找不到该在哪里进行消费。”

“对于创造不仅没有摩擦同时也带有乐趣的游戏内部消费还存在许多需要付出努力的地方。对于我们的虚拟商店,包括我们所销售和呈现的内容以及给予玩家的奖励等等,我们还需要不断进行创新—-毕竟还是有很多人将购物当成一种嗜好。”

然而在计划如何获得所有重要的游戏内部收益前,Wiggins强调工作室们应该有效地做出持续游戏开发的预算。他建议将预算分为3个主要部分:开发,软发行和发行后。

Jiggery Pokery因为与最早成立的应用商店发行商之一的Ngmoco合作而获益。这帮助该工作是获得了游戏投资与建议,对于他们之后的发行具有很大的帮助。

Wiggins说道:“尽可能廉价地获得有价值的教训真的非常重要。而与那些更有经验的人合作便能够带给你巨大的帮助。”

“需要记住的是:不要指望你的第一款游戏一定就会取得成功。你应该将其当成是了解模式与市场,并组建一支强大的团队和过程的机会。我们应该学会为之后的游戏创造留出更多空间。对于业务迭代也该基于同样的方式。”

Griffiths也表示赞同,并补充道,开发者不应该忽视最重要的元素,那就是游戏质量。

他说道:“你的游戏免费出售并不是意味着你便可以呈现给用户廉价的产品价值。购买一款付费游戏的玩家在决定自己是否喜欢游戏前至少会玩5分钟的游戏—-而在他们真正开始游戏前便已经对游戏做出了贡献。”

“但是关于免费游戏,玩家便未事先做出这样的贡献—-所以通常情况下玩家在开始游戏30秒内便会判断出自己是否喜欢游戏。这时候你就应该快速抓住玩家的注意力并通过提供给他们高质量的游戏体验而吸引他们在游戏中消费。”

本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转发,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Lessons learned from free-to-play

By James Batchelor

The free-to-play market is now one of the most dominating sectors of video games, but studios are still learning how best to harness the model.

Events such as next week’s F2P Summit go some way to sharing insight, but most developers learn as they go. Of course, most studios are able to take inspiration from those that have already ventured into free-to-play, particularly early adopters.

UK studio Jiggery Pokery was an early entrant into the free-to-play market with its first title GodFinger. As the studio’s Matthew Wiggins tells Develop, it was new ground for many companies.

“There wasn’t much to compare it against at the time, particularly on mobile, so most of our understanding came from looking at some of the early Facebook games,” he said. “We tried a lot of different things to see what worked and what didn’t, which was great for gaining a lot of experience quickly.

Meanwhile, Dan Griffiths of Deep Loot developer Monster & Monster says his team had to do “a lot of research” before the company was even founded.

“The advice at the time was that premium pricing would only work for established brands and franchises,” he said. “We took the advice on board but we still tested the waters ourselves because it’s not always easy to know whether the conventional wisdom will apply specifically to you as creators.

“So we released a premium game and a totally free game and we learned the power of a game being at least ‘free to try’. Once we decided that free-to-play was more viable for us at that point in time than premium, we started researching the variations on the model to find one that suited our needs and didn’t offend our moral sensibilities.”

PERKS AND PERILS

The advantages and disadvantages of the free-to-play model have been well-documented, as much by the globally successful games as the plethora of unfortunate failures left in their wake.

However, Wiggins and Griffiths are keen to highlight two crucial points.

“F2P is great at removing barriers to players trying your game, but that won’t automatically mean you’ll get downloads,” says Wiggins. “You need to work on marketing just as much a development.

“Advantages are that it removes a massive barrier to entry – price – for people to try your game. As a startup, you want to remove barrier to entry as much as possible, and so that’s a great way to do it. There is also a clear and large market for free-to-play games, particularly on mobile.”

Griffiths adds: “The main disadvantage is the sheer number of installs you will need in order to break even on conversions. You’ll be going head to head with competing games from the biggest players in the mobile market – there’s a lot of reasons why the top grossing apps chart doesn’t change much at the top and it’s partially due to marketing resources that little companies like us don’t have.”

The Monster & Monster dev is also keen to dispel one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding free-to-play: “It’s not a license to print money”.

“The opinion among some indie developers seems to be that free-to-play is ‘selling out’ and is viewed with a certain distaste that we don’t feel is justified,” he says. “It’s merely a business model and it’s popularity is down to player preference as much as it is marketing approach.”

THE FUTURE OF FREE

While the free-to-play market seems to be well established, with many game design and monetisation conventions found across a variety of successful games, developers believe there is still room for improvement in how such titles engage their audiences.

Griffiths, for example, believes the in-game shopping experience can still be too jarring in some titles, and his team has been exploring ways to improve on this. In the studio’s Autumn Walk, the in-game store is designed like a tailor’s shop in which players can try costumes on before they buy them.

Meanwhile, ‘impulse buy’ options like Deep Loot’s coin doubler have proven to be effective, because they demonstrate the effects in a visual way rather than relying on a confusing ‘buy doubler’ button.

“Getting players into your shop is difficult to do without being obnoxious but on the same token, in some games I’ve wanted to buy something to support the developers and then couldn’t find where to spend my money,” says Griffiths.

“There’s almost certainly a lot more that can be done to make shopping not only frictionless but also more enjoyable. We will continue to innovate in our virtual shops, in terms of what content we sell and also the presentation and player reward aspects – after all, a lot of people treat shopping as a hobby too.”

However, before even planning how to gather that all-important in-game revenue, Wiggins stresses that studios need to budget effectively to continue development beyond launch. Specifically, he recommended splitting your budget into three parts: development, soft launch and post launch.

Jiggery Pokery benefitted from working with Ngmoco, one of the earliest app store publishers. This helped the studio get funding for the game and insight that would help them with future releases.

“It’s really important to learn valuable lessons as cheaply as possible,” says Wiggins, “and working with others who have more reach or experience that you will help that a lot.

“The thing to remember is: don’t bank on your first title being successful. Use it as an opportunity to learn about the model and the market, and build a strong team and process. Leave enough in the tank so that you can move on to a second – or more – games building on that knowledge. Iterate the business in the same way you would the games.”

Griffiths concurs, adding that developers must never lose sight of the most crucial factor: game quality.

“Just because your game is given away for free doesn’t mean that you can get away with cheap production values,” he says. “Players who’ve bought a premium game will normally play it for at least five minutes before deciding if they like it – they’ve already made a commitment of sorts before they even started playing.

“With free-to-play games, there’s no such commitment – it’s quite common for players to decide they don’t like a free title within 30 seconds of starting the game. So grab your players’ attention quickly and then start earning those in-apps through providing a high quality experience.”(source:develop-online)

 


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