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系列分析:与用户留存和游戏沉浸相关的逻辑分析,中篇

发布时间:2015-07-13 14:25:27 Tags:,

上篇分析请参阅

篇目6,解析影响用户留存率的“40-20-10”规则

作者:Henric Suuronen

在Facebook上获得成功的关键因素不是病毒性机制或大笔营销资金,而是用户留存率。许多社交游戏行业从业者和公司都认为Facebook平台的改变使得游戏成长几乎无望,他们大加抱怨甚至为此感到愤怒。我给他们提的建议是,停止抱怨并将注意力转到制作更好的内容上,开发出吸引用户回头的游戏。看看Wooga(游戏邦注:本文作者是这家公司的雇员)的表现,过去6个月内日活跃用户总数增加1倍以上,现在公司在Facebook的日用户数超过400万,这个数据着实令人敬畏!

2007年我开始制作Facebook游戏时,发现很难测算留存率度量值,也不知道基准数。大部分只是传闻而已,可用的确切信息非常少。为公众所接受的DAU/MAU(游戏邦注:日活跃用户与月活跃用户的比值)是留存率度量时代的开端,但还不足以帮你制作出更好的游戏。

在下文中,我将用“40 – 20 – 10”规则来解决这个问题。规则中的数字表示的是日留存率、周留存率和月留存率。规则所传达的信息如下:如果你想让游戏的DAU超过100万,那么日留存率应该大于40%,周留存率和月留存率分别大于20%和10%。本文第一部分将主要探讨日留存率。

cityville(from sid.cl)

cityville(from sid.cl)

日留存率超过40%

也就是说,在所有首次安装应用并等待Flash文件加载的玩家中,超过40%的人会在第二天继续玩游戏。应用流量来源和玩家总游戏时间都会使这项数据产生较大波动,所以游戏发布后数天内达到45%并不意味着成功。但是,如果在发布1个月后留存率仍然大于40%而且DAU在20万和40万间,那才是真正值得庆幸的事情。如果这项数值跌到20%以下,那么游戏便极难获得成功。要使日留存率达到最大值,哪些才是你应该考虑的主要因素呢?

初次加载时间。初次加载越快越好,超过1分钟的加载时间会让你的游戏陷入困境。然而,减少时间所产生的效果似乎并非呈线性,从50秒缩短至40秒与从30秒缩短至20秒产生的效果不同。

本地化。如果你未将游戏本地化,离开游戏的玩家比例会相当高。比如,法国玩家发现游戏使用英语时就会迅速离开。

教程。这是最重要的因素之一。你应当简化教程,同时还要在此过程中传达游戏的趣味性和情感。你必须说服玩家,这款游戏很有价值而且比其他游戏更好玩。不断开展用户测试,重复检验教程中各个步骤。需要当心的是,在优化时不可只盯着教程完成率。短教程显然会获得很高的完成率,但可能导致日留存率或月留存率很低。

任务系统。在完成教程之后,应该直接将用户引向有趣且充满吸引力的任务系统。决不可让用户对接下来要做的事感到茫然。

可玩性循环。主可玩性循环是否有趣且易于理解?是否有意义?现实世界中是否有类似的东西?可玩性循环的重要性自不必说,这是游戏的核心!如果该因素无趣且无法发挥应有的作用,那么周留存率和月留存率将惨不忍睹。但糟糕的可玩性循环仍有可能侥幸获得超高的日留存率。

情感因素。游戏前3分钟是否向用户传达某种情感?游戏中是否有用户之前从未见过的动画、可爱的动物或某些精美的效果?认真观察测试用户脸上的表情,是微笑还是厌烦?

首次间断前的游戏时间。要使游戏对玩家产生足够的吸引力,至少需要10分钟的持续游戏时间。以20分钟为目标,随后设置某个间隔,这样玩家便只能在等待和付费间做出选择。

约定游戏机制。玩家在首日离开游戏时能否约定某些在第二天完成的事?游戏中应该有些用户可自行安排的奖励或完成行动等待时间。这些与日常奖励不同,后者对留存率的影响极小。

结束。应该让用户首次离开游戏时感到自己已经完成游戏中所有能做的事,事物都保持“良好的状态”。比如说,《Cityville》中所有的商业建筑均已供货,农场种下过12小时或24小时方能成熟的作物。用户会觉得即便他们没在玩游戏也能有效运转,这真是种奇妙的感觉!第二天回到游戏中时,点击所有图标就可以获得奖励。

影响日留存率的因素显然还有很多,但以上列举出的是主要因素。

上文主要谈论游戏第1日用户留存率,下面会侧重阐述游戏第7日和第30日留存率,这些留存比例源自40-20-10规则,规则认为游戏第7日留存率大于20%,第30日留存率大于10%。我不会说明哪些元素对第7日或第30日留存率影响更大,下述方面都会影响游戏用户长期留存率。

游戏循环设置

前部分已有提到游戏循环设置,但没有加以说明。游戏循环设置必须保持趣味性,这里强调的是保持。最佳例子就是《Cityville》,其中累积收入,获得奖励就一直饶有趣味。制作嵌入庞大游戏循环设置的动画是个缓慢过程,循环10次或许就十分有趣,但若是100或1000次呢?慢动画带来的不是趣味,而是会令人生厌,将给游戏第7日和第30日用户留存率带来消极影响。

巧妙-深度

若你将策略置于游戏主要循环设置之上,巧妙-深度元素从长远看就十分重要。即便“最有趣”的游戏循环设置,若没有进行战略性选择或考量,长久之后都会变得枯燥。巧妙-深度元素对第30日留存率影响最大,而对第7日就不那么明显。巧妙-深度策略生效的最佳体现是你仍然拥有活跃高级玩家,即便他们已经完成所有任务/目标(游戏邦注:他们还有战略/优化部分可供体验)。

可视扩展内容

可视扩展内容是用户刚开始就能看到但无法访问的领域,这是促使玩家继续体验的长期目标和动力。《Cityville》用户希望知道他们能够在嵌有山峰或海湾的空间完成什么活动。扩展内容是玩家的天然目标;这同好奇心结合就是个强大动力。人类都希望征服/扩充更多实际空间。征服空间越多,玩家对游戏的依附程度就越大,放弃体验造成的损失就越多。

玩家“空间”

不论是建造城市、餐厅、农场还是小岛,你自然希望每个游戏回合都能够把体验目标(游戏邦注:就是你的空间)变大变好。这也是电玩游戏缺少的元素,因为这些游戏通常都是基于等级。玩家同空间之间的密切联系会促使留存率提高。这就是为什么首个游戏回合要持续较长,要给创建者提供充足资金。玩家因此能够建造充满房屋和装饰品的城市,产生依附性,持续回访。

社交性竞争

好友数量会影响玩家留存率以及好友之间的互动内容。这里我不详述社交活动。如果你能够在游戏中融入玩家在现实生活中相互竞争的元素,那么留存率将会得到明显提高。这里指的竞争元素是金钱、美貌、名气、速度和相似性。如果你打算设计诸如此类的竞争内容,那么同时要确保该元素在游戏下方的高分榜单中体现。不要以玩家的经验值排列次序,相反应根据上述元素。最典型的例子就是《Millionaire City》,游戏参照玩家资本净值排列次序,谁更富有呢?

millionaire-city-screenshot(from 1888freeonlinegames.com)

millionaire-city-screenshot(from 1888freeonlinegames.com)

我知道这不是传统游戏设计要点,但就Facebook当前渠道来看,这对留存率很重要。这里的意思是你要把要求(游戏邦注:如完成房屋建设所需的道具、聘请好友填充职位)同游戏循环机制绑定。玩家想要前进,就得完成这些要求。植入不时要求玩家发送请求的独立道具并不够。游戏需要植入众多要求,不论玩家等级如何。若设置得当,这会带来相当可观的营收。

清晰的长期目标

这点有时容易忽略。玩家的游戏目标是什么?玩家从游戏开始到体验2-3个月后是否对此了然于心?在《Cityville》中,我希望能够成为Mayor,占领整片版图,在《Frontierville》中,我希望结婚,明确森林版图。有时玩家理解的目标会令人错愕。我曾问过一位测试玩家《Frontierville》的长期目标,她回答表示:“就是实现淘金标语目标”。玩家认为“淘金-即将来临”信息的意思是她只有体验足够久才能实现目标。检验你是否有效传递游戏长期目标的最佳方式是让体验游戏30分钟的初级玩家用10个词语形容游戏重要目标。如果玩家回答不出或答案和预期不同,那么情况就不容乐观。

记住,留存率是王道,“40-20-10”规则是目标!

篇目7,习惯养成是长期留存用户的关键

作者:Nathan Lovato

亚里士多德曾说“我们是由自己反复做的事情造就的。”换句话说,我们人类就是由自己的习惯铸就的。

我们每个人都有许多习惯,例如一醒来就到厨房里冲咖啡,或者在上班前登录自己喜爱的MMO游戏。

习惯是一种机械性的行为。习惯于重返游戏的玩家很可能就是不断回头的客人。这也正是为何习惯养成,处理习惯的过程是长期留存用户的关键。

在进入游戏与习惯性信息相关的具体说明之前,让我们先来了解一下习惯的心理学原理。

习惯是什么?

根据维基百科的解释,“习惯是一种经常重复并且在潜意识情况下发生的惯性行为。”换句话说,它是一种我们几乎不需要思考就能重复的行为模式。比如我们过马路时要先看看左右两边的情况。

习惯可以培养。我们必须以足够多的时间和频率有意识地重复一个过程才能令其变成一种自发行为。你的玩家亦是如此。

更具体地说,习惯是由一个提示(信号),一个日常程序(或自发反应)组成的。无论提示如何出现都能够触发日常程序。

1-habit-loop(from gamasutra)

1-habit-loop(from gamasutra)

(习惯循环。有无奖励均可,但有奖励更有利于培养习惯。)

我们自身都有不少根深蒂固的习惯。例如每天早上我醒来的时候(提示),就会打开窗户(日常程序)。当我开启电脑(提示)之时,总会先查看我的信息(日常程序)。习惯就像游戏开发过程中的“if”条件一样具有机械性。

现在习惯构造就是习惯养成的一个过程。也就是创造提示和日常程序之间连系的循环。

培养一个新习惯究竟需要多长时间?

2009年有份研究报告显示,完全培养一个习惯所需时间不尽相同。该研究让参与者在18至254一时间中培养一项自发性的反射行为。这对应的是他们何时到达自律性的节点,即他们完成培养了某一习惯的节点。平均来看,参与者要历时66天才能培养一个新习惯。这个结果与我们在网络上看到的21天习惯培养法则截然不同。

也就是说,今天我们还没有培养玩家习惯所需时间的标准科学答案。这意味着我们没有准确的根据来了解玩家何时已陷入玩游戏的习惯。但我们却能知道,重复可以让某一行为具有自发性。早期的持续重复可以强化这一行为。

简单的习惯可以在数天内就形成。任何极易执行并且具有奖励性的事情都会很快转变成一种习惯。这通常是我们容易跌入的陷阱:你很容易在刚打开浏览器的时候查看自己的Twitter或Facebook状态。我们打开食橱拿块巧克力塞进嘴里也同样是毫不费力之举!但这两种行为都不健康。

游戏极擅长让玩家的行为显得富有回报感,因此也能够强化一种新习惯的形成。另一种极为有效的手法就是在已经成形的习惯之上培养新习惯。

有效的习惯养成

我们已经知道习惯是由提示和日常程序组成。为了推动习惯成形,我们会创造多种习惯之间的联系。我们要让日常程序变成新的提示。让我们以一个举子来说明:

*你看到智能手机上的推送通知。这是一种提示。

*你查看推送通知。这是日常程序,但也是一种提示。

*你点击《Candy Crush》的通知并开始玩游戏。这是基于查看推送通知这一习惯的一种新日常程序。

这些习惯类型很快成形,因为他们扩展了已经确立的机制。

如果你想让用户养成玩游戏的习惯,就得从提示和日常程序的角度重新思考自己的设计。用游戏设计术语来说,这对应的是反馈循环的概念。

反馈循环

在电子游戏中,反馈循环的原理如下:

1.玩家对游戏系统及自己的短期目标有一个心理表征。

2.玩家采取一系列行动(摁压按钮)。

3.游戏系统根据自身规则响应玩家的输入行为。

4.游戏向玩家发送反馈(如动画,AI反应,积分等)

5.玩家处理这种反馈并更新自己在游戏中的资产。游戏又开始一轮循环了!

总而言之,循环反馈的概念意味着玩家采取行动,游戏作出回应。游戏以持续性的方式如是反复。这正是你插入提示的切入点,这样才能触发玩家的日常程序。

简单的反馈循环图(from gamasutra)

简单的反馈循环图(from gamasutra)

所以反馈循环一般始于来自游戏的提示,而提示又触发了玩家的反应或日常程序。游戏回应日常程序,并自我更新为玩家提供新提示。例如:

1.屏幕上出现怪物。这是一个提示。

2.玩家攻击怪物直到它死为止。这是日常程序。

3.游戏呈现怪物的死亡动画。地上出现一个小箱子。这是一个新提示。

习惯养成的3个秘诀

据Susan Weinschenk博士(《100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People》作者)曾指出,培养新习惯需要3个技巧:

1.将用户所需处理的事情分解成更小的步骤

2.消除用户所需制定的决策

3.向用户呈现其持续进步的状态和积极反馈

换句话说,培养有效的游戏习惯关键在于短期反馈循环。优秀的游戏通常很擅长培养习惯。游戏化概念在今天如此盛行,就是因为它能够加快和强化任何应用的反馈循环。

所以你首先得分解玩家行动的步骤。这可以用多种方式来实现。在AAA和休闲游戏中,这些步骤清晰明了并且是逐个向玩家呈现。

Dead-Space(from gamasutra)

Dead-Space(from gamasutra)

(许多游戏使用文本或GUI动画方便玩家在游戏早期操作日常程序)

游戏经常邀请玩家不断重复相同的步骤,所以当玩家了解游戏规则后,他们就知道要怎么做了。对于街机游戏来说尤其如此。其他游戏会使用任务系统给予玩家一系列极为明确的短期目标。这也有利于减少玩家所需制定的决策。

例如在MMO游戏中,NPC会告诉你“杀死3只小鸡,把它们的肉带回来。”在魔兽中,地图会让你知道到哪去找小鸡。玩家就知道要怎么做,要去哪里……以及他们会得到什么回报!玩家在游戏中完成任务就有明确的回报。除此之外,游戏在玩家获得经验值或无成每个次级目标的时候,都会给予提示让他们知道自己的进度!积分及其他动画GUI元素也会提供富有价值的持续反馈!

这正是成功的休闲游戏能够留存大量用户的原因。

这有点像是在控制玩家。你可能会问,玩家并不喜欢被控制呀。

但实际上,如果你想让毫无经验的用户掌握游戏运行方式,最好不要给予他们完全的自由。你想培养的每个用户习惯都是基于能够触发玩家日常程序的一个独特提示。这个提示在习惯开始成形之前要多次出现。

随着玩家对游戏的深入了解,他们也将更加需要自由体验的空间。他们将能够更好地应对游戏挑战。但这通常始于游戏习惯开始成形之后。比如MMORPG玩家在游戏后期就会更想参与复杂的突袭任务。

另外,你想强化的习惯也并不仅仅源自你的游戏!要知道有些玩家习惯并不一定是我们项目的专利。《暗黑破坏神》玩家也可能毫无障碍地体验《流放之路》,因为这两款游戏有许多共性。要记住我们也要考虑到这些玩家的习惯。例如,《暗黑破坏神3》刚开始对于许多砍杀型玩家来说是一个很令人抓狂的过程,因为游戏迫使他们经历许多标准困难模式。

为了更好地了解我们该如何驾驭习惯的力量,让我们以一款游戏举例说明。

你可以拿任何一款成功的多人模式或社交游戏进行研究,看看它们如何培养玩家习惯。我们知道,习惯成形与游戏核心的反馈循环渊源颇深。任何优秀的游戏设计都会激发新习惯的成形。我们都愿意反复玩一款极具娱乐性的游戏。但我们仍然有可能培养出坏习惯或无法强化已经成形的习惯。

案例研究:《最终幻想14:重生之境》

长期来看,MMORPG的生存很大程度上取决于庞大的活跃和资深用户社区。为此,它们必须构成强大的玩法习惯。《最终幻想14》就是这种典型。它是一款相当新颖的MMO,拥有庞大而忠实的用户。这也正是我们选择它进行分析的原因。

游戏最初是让玩家创建自己的虚拟角色。此时,游戏是用其精致的美术设计吸引玩家眼球。其角色创建菜单进行了高度优化,并且融入了游戏世界。创建角色之后,每个玩家都会进入教程阶段,由此进入Eorzea世界。

游戏的首批任务类似于魔兽,提供了让玩家进入某个区域的任务。这些任务不但提供了简小而明确的短期目标,它们还后续创造了通过每个区域的明确路径。程序生成事件为玩家原来的线性路径增添了一些变化。

Final-fantasy-XIV(from gamasutra)

Final-fantasy-XIV(from gamasutra)

游戏围绕其核心玩法设置了许多任务。这有利于强化玩家机制,令Eorzea世界显得更为丰富。玩家所从事的每项活动或操作都有其自身奖励:经验点数,金钱或道具等。

游戏提供了一个名为“命令”的日常任务系统及其快速升级的奖励。游戏鼓励玩家体验不同的职业,玩家可以只用一个角色完成所有升级。《最终幻想14》是少数迫使玩家穿过其地下城的游戏之一。如果你想进入游戏核心,就必须完成清除地下城和boss这个强制性任务。这要求每位玩家至少都要理解基本的组队玩法,并在最终做好组队游戏的准备。而这一点又有利于提升整个玩家社区。游戏还为玩家提供了长期或短期回合的选择。

总体来说,这款游戏提供了经典而出色的MMO体验。它与许多优秀的现代MMORPG一样,提供短小而明确的反馈循环。除此之外,游戏还通过提供围绕其核心机制而设计的大量内容培养强大的玩法习惯。

关于道德性的思考

我们是借用户心理来设计游戏,必须谨慎对待我们设计选择中的道德操守。培养具有创造性的长期习惯与鼓励成瘾性之间具有微妙的界线。我们要正视游戏天生具有成瘾性这一现实,它们极易满足我们对积极反馈的需求。

长期留存并不仅仅依赖习惯养成。它来自健康的习惯培养。我们希望用户以积极的方式重返游戏,想让用户拥有愉悦的体验。但游戏成瘾的玩家却并不会获得这种体验。

总结

让我们的玩家养成重返游戏的习惯是打造一个强大社区的必要之举。为了推进习惯养成,我们可以让游戏玩法循环关注以下两个特点,并以此创建早期游戏内容:

1.给予玩家明确的遵循步骤。

2.给予玩家短小的遵循步骤。

我们要用积分,经验值,奖励或游戏内动画等形式为玩家提供持续的反馈。

篇目8,列举游戏提高玩家留存率的10种途径

作者:Mickey Blumental

很久很久以前,在iOS与Android系统还未问世前,手机游戏尚未成型。

8年前,手机游戏还是新兴市场,当时我特别希望全球最大型的游戏开发商能涉入移动设备,制作出拥有极高人气的作品。无论是《生化危机》、《急速快感》、《最终幻想》、《Project Gotham Racing》还是《模拟人生》,各种游戏题材将会面临全新的设计挑战。

回想那时,几乎所有手机游戏都是热门主机与PC游戏的粗劣仿制品。手机性能尚不完整,笨拙按钮并不是理想控制器。鉴于此,我们制作了一些在当时可堪称为佳品的游戏。但如果没有考虑到这些限制条件,它们的画面确实是有失水准。

花费几美元便可体验一个半小时似乎物有所值。实际上,对于大多数玩家而言,这些游戏固然有趣,但玩过就算了。因此,最重要的是在玩家表现出“看,我手机上有《生化危机》”这种新奇感淡化之前,就要让他们能够完成整个游戏体验。

然而这些时日已经逝去。触屏设备的兴起引来出色作品。我发现自己更喜欢在iPad上玩游戏。它并不是完美游戏平台,尤其不适合模拟主机游戏体验,但作为开发人员兼玩家身份的我最喜爱这种设备。

此时,让游戏尽快招徕玩家已无多大必要。

事实上,保持玩家长时间体验游戏对玩家与开发者都有利。对玩家而言,他们会对游戏产生情感依恋,获得成就感,而后长时体验。

对开发者而言,留存用户相当重要,原因如下:

1.交叉推广与曝光。每当推出新作品或升级版本时,你可以交叉推广自己的作品,但这只对老玩家有用。

2.应用商店中的大部分收益来自应用内置购买。明智且正当的盈利方式能保证游戏能够吸引玩家长时间投入。

3.口口相传。玩家投入越长时间,他们更有可能向他人宣传游戏,为获得游戏内奖励而推荐他人体验游戏,利用博客或Twitter进行推广。

留存用户与游戏营销不应该混为一谈。前者并非指代吸引新玩家,而是留存旧玩家长时体验。借此可以促进游戏推广,但其本身不属于营销战略。比如,在电视剧中设置悬念能够保证不少观众下周继续收看,但却无法立即吸引新观众。另外,如果用户不断听到关于某电视剧的赞美,他们最后更有可能试着看看。

其实提高用户留存率有多种途径。其中最佳举措是推出优秀作品。有些游戏极具成瘾性与趣味性,它们不必引诱便能留存玩家。

然而,即使游戏不够出色,你也不必感到绝望。毕竟品质不是必要条件。实际上《Farmvile》中除了无需动脑的点击,并没有所谓的玩法,但它却能吸引大批玩家。它有点像可卡因毒瘾,只是它携带着更具突破性的社交性。

以下是提高游戏用户留存率的10种简单途径:

1.成就

成就一词来源于,通过得分收藏虚拟徽章极具沉迷性,但这却无多大意义,最多是代表胜者为王,但事实是没有哪位玩家在乎游戏得分(除了你)。而你在乎的唯一理由是你认为其他人同样在意此方面。情况恰恰相反。但是解锁成就机制仍十分有趣。也许是因为玩家们自我感觉良好。

成就可能是在游戏主要范围外,完成额外困难任务,在战斗游戏中获得诸如高组合装备,也可能是重复上万次同个动作获得刷任务的奖品。

如果取得成就难度颇大,耗时过长,玩家不久就会放弃游戏进程,也就是说即便是在深长的隧道,也应该在终点处设置一盏让玩家看到希望的明灯。正确设置成就机制能为玩家指点迷津,带领他们体验更长路径。

2.任务

任务类似成就,只是着重点不同。通常同一时间内只能激活三个任务,而在任务完成后,除了解锁新任务,游戏还会奖励玩家虚拟货币与奖励(游戏邦注:包括金币、经验值等)。无尽游戏中的任务特别有效,因为拥有三个不同活跃任务可以调整游戏重点,增添每个回合的多样性。通常该过程还伴随玩家逐渐进步,保证游戏结构化发展。

punch_quest(from multiplayerblog.mtv)

punch_quest(from multiplayerblog.mtv)

任务系统能够激励我完成《Punch Quest》、《Zombie Tsunami》、《Into the Dead》与《Jetpack Joyride》这类游戏。

3.升级

升级是人为地提高玩家精通游戏的方法。你突然获得成功,取得可观分数,但这并不一定是因为你的技能水平提升了,而有可能是因为你购买游戏内部升级道具提升了你的状态值,降低了整个游戏难度。为何要费力使用小型枪械射击鸭子,而不用追踪火箭发射器或原子弹呢?应让玩家投入大量时间刷任务以获取足以购买所有升级内容的虚拟货币。同时这也是盈利的大好商机,你可以为懒惰玩家开辟捷径,让他们利用现金便可快速获取升级内容。

升级是从角色扮演题材中提出的基本概念,而后通过调整逐渐适用于大多数休闲游戏(游戏邦注:尤其是无尽游戏)。再加上任务系统便可为玩家提供进步感与发展感,而事实上你仍在游戏不断重复同一个两分钟的循环。

有两款无尽奔跑游戏包含成瘾性升级系统,它们分别是《One Epic Knight》与《Jetpack Joyride》。

4.日常奖励

游戏应吸引玩家至少每天登陆一次。玩家下载游戏后甚至可能不会登陆并兑换奖励,但此时,我们可以曝光即将出炉的升级内容与新作,或向他们展示相关广告。但你需在这宝贵的几秒钟内抓住玩家的注意力,因此你最好深谙此道。

问题是,为玩家提供过多奖励会破坏虚拟经济,而奖励过少则是侮辱玩家智商(令人担忧的是,不少游戏会采用后者方法并侥幸获胜)。最佳方案是创建出随着连续登陆天数的增加,逐级递增的奖励模式,或者也可以向玩家提供以实物为奖品的刮刮卡,同时还能无害地满足他们的“赌瘾”。

snoopy’s cash dash(from snoopy-streetfair.com)

snoopy’s cash dash(from snoopy-streetfair.com)

比如《Snoppy’s Street Fair》每隔五天会奖励你一笔高级金币,但前提是要每天登陆。

5.重返游戏

为何要以奖励承诺吸引玩家回到游戏进程,而不是采用惩罚威胁?如果玩家没有定期登陆,他们的稻谷将会枯萎,宠物会痛苦死去,妻子会带着孩子离开,堡垒会遭到入侵并完全烧毁,所有厕纸都会用光。

如果游戏能够成功吸引玩家频繁访问,放弃他们的社会生活、责任与睡眠,那你将有望成为大富豪。

但你也会因此而罪孽深重。

6.定期更新

如果你让玩家养成期待定期更新的习惯,他们会相当期盼。大部分时候玩家是喜爱游戏的,但他们并不清楚开发者是否会继续推出新内容。

我们可以采取某些巧妙举措令玩家知晓新内容即将问世。比如《1000 Heroz》承诺,会在1000天内每天为玩家呈现一道新关卡,直到推出成型作品。《愤怒的小鸟里约》就有一个针对未来内容的空白占位符,让玩家对新内容有所期待。

Angry-Birds-Rio-Beach-Volley(from androidzone.org)

Angry-Birds-Rio-Beach-Volley(from androidzone.org)

7.季节性内容

季节性内容会令玩家喜悦,同时也会营造一种紧迫感,因为其提供的独特奖励会在假期结束后终止,而下一个奖励要等到明年。因此在短期内,玩家需要经常体验游戏,确保没有错失限时奖励。奖励通常是装扮品,

这对那些沉浸在收藏与展示虚拟道具的目标用户而言颇具价值。

千万不要忘记更新应用图标,突显节日气氛,比如使用圣诞帽或是挂上南瓜灯。孩子们也会都这样做,可见这是必要事项。

此外,体现当前假期与季节还能告知玩家目前开发团队仍在支持该游戏。但要记得在三月移除圣诞装饰,否则所有努力将会换来相反效果。

8.社区

该方面较难实现,而且应针对游戏类型特别定制。这需要大量工程,而且开发者投入的时间与精力未必能够有所回报,因此要谨慎小心。你的游戏支持玩家展示自己的创意吗?他们可以与其他玩家分享自己的锦囊妙计吗?《My Singing Monsters》邀请玩家发送唱歌的不同剪辑片段,而后组合成一个微视频。

My-Singing-Monsters(from androidtapp)

My-Singing-Monsters(from androidtapp)

My-Singing-Monsters(from androidtapp)
My-Singing-Monsters(from androidtapp)

《Carmageddeon》允许玩家录下自己碾压路人,撞上其它车辆的经过,而后直接将视频上传到Youtube上。

《Snoopy’s Street Fair》为玩家提供照相馆,在此你可以与该作中的角色合影。

其它游戏还会利用复杂玩法,创建论坛,方便玩家探讨战略,交流建议。

9.收藏品

我们应精妙设置收藏品,可以是奖励玩家的探索与投入时间,或是出现在半途中。总之,这两种情况均能提高玩家的游戏时长。

如果游戏世界颇为枯燥,设计较为粗糙,那么增加供玩家收集的收藏品只会适得其反。在《Aquaria》中寻找宝藏是件美事,因为探索这个美丽的世界本身就是件乐事。

Aquaria(from lgdb.org)

Aquaria(from lgdb.org)

《Crackdown》是内容大量重复,表现一般的第三人称射击游戏,而寻找魔法球的支线任务则补救了这些不足。缩放游戏环境,寻找暗示魔法球位置的相关线索是我在该游戏中曾体会到的最大乐趣。

10.重玩价值

如果你的游戏充满乐趣,玩家可能会重新体验。同时,增加更多复杂层次也能鼓励玩家重玩游戏。比如提供附加支线挑战,鼓励玩家以更高分数战胜同个挑战的奖牌系统。解锁难度更大的关卡。这种用户留存方法最具实用价值,资深玩家喜爱这种模式。但前提是游戏应足够出色与有趣,才能保证他们重返进程。

严格上说,上述的方法都无法取代推出一款佳作,毕竟市场上的劣质产品偏多。而且,上述所有留存方法并非都适合你的游戏,因此不要削足适履地硬搬这些做法。而应仔细思考,看看哪种模式对你的游戏更有意义。

篇目9,解析影响用户留存率的社交游戏机制设计要点

有许多游戏开发商愿意绞尽脑汁将玩家引进门,但在留住玩家这个环节上却甚少花费心思,传统的游戏市场推广模式几乎没有考虑过如何取悦玩家。

AAA级游戏发行领域最重视发行当天的销售成就,曾有一名主流游戏发行公司的首席财务官自称,他可以从游戏发行首天的销量,预测一款游戏销售的生命周期。由此不难理解,AAA级游戏领域为何如引重视首发当天的市场表现,这也正是他们并不在乎游戏发行后情况的原因——他们每款游戏已向用户收取40美元费用,而且又没有任何后续收益,发行商已经由此大赚一笔,所以他们用不着顾虑用户最后对游戏的看法如何。

需要说明的是,我们关注的并非AAA级游戏领域,如何各位有志于自主发行游戏、开发网页游戏,或者运营互联网项目,就不能不考虑用户的感受。

(游戏邦注:即使是AAA级游戏也已经不同以往,他们也会想法留住用户,以便销售更多的DLC内容)

出于运营考虑,我们还得保证用户频频回访游戏,这就要求我们在设计游戏时就得转变“让用户体验更多东西再走”的思维,采纳“鼓励用户继续光临”的做法。在此我们主要讨论关于保证用户留存率的问题。

留存率的重要性

用户获取成本正在不断攀升,所以用户留存率也因此凸显其重要性。为了实现这个目标,开发商就必须选择在市场营销中付出更多代价招徕用户,或者使用更多高招提高老主顾们的付费意愿和消费水平。

留存率是游戏设计者应铭记于心的关键要素,只有通过成功吸引玩家频频重返游戏,才能实现理想的用户留存率。

下文将以一些典型的社交游戏为例,分析它们实现留存率的游戏机制特点。需要说明的是,这里所举案例并非开发者设计游戏的不二法则,而只是为各位提供参考建议。

提供每日奖励

最简单的机制之一就是每天都为到访的用户提供奖励,《宝石迷阵闪电战》通过一个老虎机设置让玩家赢取奖励币,而害怕损失的心理正是人的一种天性和本能,所以它可以刺激玩家每天不断回访游戏,以防错过一些免费的奖励币。

增加每日奖励内容

Restaurant City(from gamerboom.com)

Restaurant City(from gamerboom.com)

也有些用户并不喜欢老虎机的奖励模式,他们更希望获得有价值、罕见的的非游戏虚拟货币奖励。为吸引玩家定期回访游戏,Playfish旗下的《Restaurant City》提供的是持续增加的游戏物品。

这些奖励是随机性的物品,但玩家总能通过持续访问游戏而获得更多奖励。

持续性

多数社交游戏的核心是持续机制,《FarmVille》中的庄稼以及《Millionaire City》的租金就可以说明这一点。

开发商可采用一个可靠的机制(例如收割庄稼或收租),让玩家自发形成一种他们必须种植庄稼,并在等待片刻后收割庄稼的心理意识。

《Mafia Wars》这类游戏将持续机制发挥到极致:玩家如果能量不足时就得花些功夫等待恢复元气(或者也可以花钱补充能量)。与此同理,社交游戏还应该给玩家一种心理暗示,即他们应该先“歇一会儿”,而庄稼成熟或者能量恢复时,他们就得重返游戏。

另一个例子是《FrontierVille》,它同时采用了种植庄稼和能量恢复机制(但有些人认为,这对玩家来说无异于一种双重麻烦,实际影响了该游戏的可玩性)。

投入性

投入性是持续性的一种更为强大的变体,它与持续性最大的不同点在于,支持玩家按照自己的时间安排重返游戏。

举例说,假如所有庄稼的生长周期都是12小时,那么玩家在某个百无聊赖的下午4点时种植了一些庄稼,那么他们就得将闹钟设置到凌晨4点以便错过收割庄稼。有些极为狂热的游戏玩家可能无所谓,但对一般玩家来说则不然,他们并不喜欢这种设置,并认为“这种催人三更半夜起床摘菜的游戏太没水准了”,这种设置很有可能成为玩家丧失游戏热情的杀手。

而《FarmVille》和《Millionaire City》这类游戏却为玩家提供了何时重返游戏的选择,玩家在《FarmVille》中可自主选择种植树莓(生长周期为2小时)还是洋蓟(需生长4天才能收割)等多种农作物。如果玩家在某个无赖的下午想打发时间时,就可以选择种植只需要数小时就能收割的庄稼,或者某周需要外出时,就可以种植周一回来再收割的庄稼。

这种灵活有弹性的设置更有利于培养玩家对游戏的情感依赖——因为这种“定时收割庄稼”的安排完全由用户自主决定,所以它就会在潜移默化中被列入用户脑海中的日程表,从而增加了用户返回游戏的机率。

篇目6篇目7篇目8篇目9(本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao)

篇目6,RETENTION IS KING!

Henric Suuronen

Retention is really key to being successful on Facebook, it is not virality or deep pockets for marketing. Many persons and companies in the social games industry rant and rave about how it is impossible to grow on Facebook due to the changes in the platform. My suggestion to them is to stop ranting and make better games instead, games that users want to come back to. Look at wooga (my employer) over doubling the Daily Active Users in the past 6 months now bolsting >4MM Daily users on Facebook. Pretty awesome!

When starting out to make Facebook games in 2007 I found it hard to know what retention metrics to track and which are the benchmark numbers to aim at – there was just a lot of hearsay and very little concrete information available. The publicly available DAU/MAU is a start but not nearly enough to help you make a better game.

Next I will tackle this with what I call the “40 – 20 – 10″ -rule. This rule looks at 1-day Retention, 7-day retention and 30-day retention. The message of the rule is that if you want to create a >1MM DAU game your 1-day retention should be >40% and the 7-day and 30-day rates should be >20% and >10% respectively. Since this blog-post would be pretty long I will in this first part focus on 1-day retention.

1-Day Retention -> Target >40%

This means that out of all players installing your app for the first time and starting to load the Flash file >40% of them should also play the next day. This value can fluctuate quite a bit depending on the source of your traffic to the app and also lifetime, so don’t think the war is won after having 45% a couple of days after launch. If you however have >40% let’s say 1 month after launch with 200-400K DAU you should feel really good. If this value is <20% you will have hard time having any success with your game, ever. So what are the main factors you should consider for maximizing the 1-day retention rate?

Initial Loading Time. The faster the better, if your loading time is over 1min you will be in trouble. However there seems to be a pretty steep cliff the drop-off is not linear, the improvement is not nearly as big when shortening from 50s to 40s as when dropping from 30s to 20s.

Localization. If you have not localized your game a surprisingly high % of for example French players will instantly leave your game when they discover it is in English.

Tutorial. This is one of the most important things. Think about simplicity but in the same time delivering FUN and EMOTION. You must convince the player that your game is worth a while and more fun than others. Do real user testing over and over again to iterate the steps. Be careful not to stare only at the tutorial completion rate when optimizing it, a short tutorial will obviously have great completion rate but might result in poor 1-day or 7-day retention.

Mission System. After completing tutorial user should directly be lead to a fun and engaging mission system. User should never be left with the feeling “what now?”.

Gameplay Loop. Is the main gameplay loop fun and simple to grasp? Does it make sense? Is there something like it in the real world? I can’t stress enough the importance of the loop – it is the game! If it does not work and is not fun 7-day and 30-day retention will be very bad. You can actually get away with a bad gameplay loop and still have good 1-day retention.

“wow” or “emotion” -factor. Does the game deliver any kind of emotion to the user in the first 3 minutes? Is there a nice animation, a cute animal, some nice effects or something the user has not seen before? Watch the faces of the test users, do the smile, laugh or just look like they are bored?

Length of First Session. There should be at least 10minutes of play to hook the player deep enough to the game. Aim at delivering 20minutes before the game stalls and the user has to either wait or spend money.

Appointment gaming. Can user set something to happen for the next day when leaving the game on the first day of playing? There should be some user set reward or action completion waiting. This is not the same as the daily bonus, which has VERY little effect on retention.

Closure. User wants to leave the game after playing for the first time with the feeling that he or she has done everything possible in the game and left it in a “good state”. This means for example that all commerces in Cityville have been supplied with goods and the farms are seeded with 12h or 24h plants. The user will feel like the game is making money even though the user is not playing – amazing feeling! And when coming back the next day there will be all this yummy icons and rewards to click.

Okay, there is obviously dozens of other factors affecting 1-day retention but the listed above are some of the main ones. Stay tuned for the next part where I will tackle 7-day and 30-day retention. (Source: GAMES CHANGED MY LIFE)

Retention is King! (part 2)

In this post I will continue on exploring factors that affect greatly retention in social games. In my previous post: “Retention is King (Part 1) I focused on 1-day retention. In this post I will move on to 7-day and 30-day retention. As you may recall the target ratios for these came from the 40-20-10 rule which said that 7-day retention should be >20% and 30-day retention >10%. I will not distinguish which aspect affect more 7-day or 30-day, just treat the list as things that affect long-term retention. Obviously there are more things than in the list but these are some that came into mind.

Repeatedly Fun Gameplay Loop

The gameplay loop was already mentioned in the my previous post but in can’t be stressed enough. The main gameplay loop must be repeatedly fun and here is stress the word repeatedly. Good example can be found in Cityville where it never seems to stop being fun collecting the income and seeing the rewards pop-out. You can make a very animation heavy gameplay loop with will be slow and maybe very fun 10 times but how about after 100 or 1000s of times? All the slow animations can instead of fun become very annoying and have a huge negative effect on your 7-day and 30-day retention.

Smart-Depth

Smart-Depth is crucial in the long-term when you want to build strategy on top of the main gameplay loop (Check my previous posts for the definition for Smart-Depth). Even the ‘funnest’ gameplay loop might become boring in the long-term if you don’t have to make any strategic choices or think. Smart-depth will typically have the greatest effect on 30-day retention and not so visible in 7-day retention. The best way to know that your smart-depth works is that you still have very active advanced players even though they have run out of missions/goals to do (since they have the strategic/optimization part to play around with).

Visual Expansions

With visual expansions I mean areas that the user can see from the start but not yet access. They give long-term objective and desire to the player to continue. The users want to know what you can do in the area with the mountain or the bay in Cityville. The expansions give a natural objective for the player; this combined with curiosity is a powerful driver. Human beings want to conquer/expand to more and more physical space. The more space you have conquered the more attached you are to it and the more you would lose if you stop playing.

Your “Space”

Whether you are building a city, restaurant, farm or an island you want each play session to make the object (your space) you are working on look better and bigger. This is what arcade games usually can’t deliver since they are level-based. The user becomes very attached to the space increasing retention. This is why it is very important to have a long enough first session with plenty of cash in a city builder. The user will be able to develop a nice city with many houses and decorations and become attached to it thus returning the next day and later too.

Social Competition

The amount of friends (not so surprisingly) affects the retention of a user but so does what you can do with the friends. I will not go into the social actions in this post but instead talk about social competition. If you manage to create in your game something users in the real world also compete against each other the retention benefit can be great. Here I talk about amount of money, beauty, popularity, speed and similar. If you manage to define a subject of competition like this also reflect that in the High Score List below your game. Don’t list users based on XP level, instead on the amount of this attribute. Good example of this is Millionaire City that lists players based on Net Worth of the player – who is richer?

Requests tied to the main game loop

I know this is not a traditional game design point but on Facebook with the current channels they offer this is very important for retention. The point here is that you have to tie the requests (items needed to finish houses, hire friends to fill positions etc.) to the main game loop. User must be required to do this over and over again as he advances in the game. It is not enough to have a separate item or items that every now and then will require the user to send a couple of requests. Your game must be able to consume hundreds and hundreds requests regardless of the players level (newbie to advanced). If done properly this will also boost your monetization nicely.

Clear long-term Objective

This one is sometimes very easily overlooked. What is the player trying to achieve in the game? Is it clear to him from the first session to 2-3 months into the game? In Cityville I have the desire to become Mayor and occupy the whole map (see the point on visual expansions above), and in Frontierville I want to get married and clear the whole map from woods. Sometimes the objective the users perceive is a bit surprising. When I once asked a test user what is the long-term objective in Frontierville she answered: “To get to the Gold Rush sign-post”. The user thought the “Gold-Rush – Coming soon” post meant that she has to play long enough to get there. The best way to check whether you nailed the long-term objective of the game is to ask a vanilla user who has just played the first 30min of the game to describe the main objective of the game in 10 words. If the user can’t do it or the response is not what you thought in the gameteam you might be in trouble.

Remember, retention is King and the “40-20-10″ -rule is your target!

篇目7,Why habit formation is the key to long term retention

by Nathan Lovato

This tutorial was originally published on the GameAnalytics blog

“We are what we repeatedly do”, said Aristotle. In other words, we human beings are shaped by our habits.

Each and every one of us has hundreds of habits. Be it heading to the kitchen as soon as we wake up to make some coffee… or logging onto our preferred MMO to tackle our dailies before work.

As you know, habits are mechanical. A player who gets used to coming back to your game will most likely keep coming back to your game. It is that simple. And that’s why habit formation, the process of creating habits, is the key to long term retention.

Before we jump onto the specifics of habit formation as far as games are concerned, let us take some time to better understand the psychology of habits.

What are habits?

“A habit is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur unconsciously” (Wikipedia). In other words, it is a pattern of behaviors we repeat almost without even thinking about it. Like looking both ways before we cross the street.

A habit is acquired. We have to consciously repeat a process enough times and with a certain frequency before it becomes automatic. So do your players.

To be a bit more specific, habits are formed of a cue (a signal), and a routine (or automatic response). Whenever the cue comes up, the routine is being triggered.

The habit loop. The reward is optional (or it can be intrinsic), although it makes it easier to establish the habit.

We all have hundreds of those habits engrained in ourselves. For example every morning, when I wake up (the cue), I open the shutters (the routine). When I start the computer (the cue), I always check my messages first (the routine). Habits are about as mechanical as “if” statements in game development.

On a side-note, if you ever wondered why behavior trees work so well for game AIs: we do behave in such a procedural way ourselves. To a certain extent at least.

Now habit formation simply is the process by which habits are formed. That is to say the loop that is going to create a link between a cue and a routine.

How long does it take exactly for a new habit to form?

A report from Lally and al. released in 2009 shows that the time it takes for a habit to fully form can vary tremendously. In their study, it took from 18 to 254 days for the participants to develop an automatic reflex. This corresponds to the point when they reached their asymptote of automaticity: the point beyond which a habit has fully developed. On average, it took the participants 66 days to get into a new established habit. This is quite different from the empirical 21 days rule we can see shared around the internet!

To say the least, there is no scientific consensus today on the time it takes for habits to form. This means that we have no definitive rule of thumb to know when our players fell into a playing habit. What we do know however, is that a behavior becomes automatic through repetitions. And it seems that insisting on repetitions early reinforces the behavior much faster.

Simple habits can start to be formed in a matter of days. Everything that is very easy to do and naturally rewarding will soon turn into a habit. This is often a trap for us: it is very easy to check your Twitter or Facebook whenever you open your browser. It is both effortless and pleasant to open the cupboard and grab a piece of chocolate! But neither is a healthy habit.

Games are good at making actions feel rewarding, thus at reinforcing the creation of new habits. But this is not all. Another very efficient way to get into new habits is to build them on top of existing ones.

Efficient habit formation.

We have seen that habits are made up of a cue and a routine. In order to facilitate their formation, we want to create a link between multiple habits. We want routines to become new cues. Let me clarify that with an example:

You see that you have notifications on your smartphone. That’s a cue.

You check your notifications and read through them. That’s a routine. But that’s also a cue!

You click on your Candy Crush notification and play a quick game. That’s a new routine based on your habit of checking notifications.

Those types of habits form fast, as they extend established mechanisms.

If you want your users to get into a habit of playing your game, you have to rethink your design under the lens of cues and routines. In game design terms, this corresponds to the concept of feedback loop.

The feedback loop.

In video games, a feedback loop works as such:

The player has a mental representation of your game’s system and of their short-term goal.

He acts in consequence (presses a button…).

The game’s system treats the input based on its rule set.

It sends some feedback to the player (animation, reaction from the ai, score bonus…).

The player processes this feedback and update their representation of the estate in the game. And the loop starts again!

But to sum it up, the concept of feedback loop just means that the player acts, and the game reacts. Over, and over, and over again, in a continuous way. This is where you are going to put your cues, in order to eventually trigger a routine from the player.

A diagram of the simple feedback loop

So the feedback loop generally starts with a cue that comes from the game, which triggers a response or routine from the player. The game treats that routine, and updates itself to provide the player with new cues. Here’s an example:

A monster appears on the screen. That’s a cue.

The player attacks the monster until it dies. That’s a routine.

The game shows the monster’s death animation. A little chest appears on the ground. That’s a new cue.

The loop goes on, and on…

The 3 secrets of habit formation.

According to Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D. (author of the handy book 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People), there are 3 techniques to facilitate the formation of new habits:

Break the steps the user has to take into tiny chunks.

Eliminate the need to take decisions.

Show them their continuous progress and positive feedback.

In other words, the secrets of efficient habit formation in games boils down to a short feedback loop. Good games are naturally good at enhancing habit formation. If gamification is so popular nowadays, it is because it has the power to both speed up and strengthen the feedback loop of any application.

So first of all, you want to break down the steps the player has to take. This can be done in many ways. In both AAA and casual games, those steps are shown explicitly and given to the player one by one.

Many games use text or GUI animations (i.e. a touching finger) to give the player routines to follow in the early game.

A game often invites the player to repeat the same steps over and over, so once the player knows its rule-set, he also knows what to do. This is true for arcade games in particular. Other games give the player sets of very clear short-term goals using quest systems. This also has the advantage of eliminating the need for the user to take decisions.

Diablo 3, a bit like World of Warcraft, gives you clear short term goals and a linear path to follow at first

For instance, in an MMO, an NPC will tell you something like: “kill 3 chickens and bring me back their meat”. In World of Warcraft, the map would even tell you where to find the chickens exactly. The player knows what to do, where to go… and what he will get in exchange! There is a clear reward that’s being offered in exchange for completing the task. On top of that, gaining experience points or clearing each sub-objective give the player hints about his progress! Score, combos, and other animated GUI elements also offer valuable, continuous feedback.

That is how successful casual games operate and retain large amounts of players.

It feels a bit like controlling the player. Don’t users crave for control, may you ask?

We may think that they do. But not really. Well, at first at least, they likely won’t! If you want unexperienced users to learn how your game works, it will generally be counter-productive to give them complete freedom. Every habit you want encourage will be based on a unique cue that will eventually trigger a routine from the player. This cue has to come up with a number of times before the habit starts to form.

Eventually though, as they get to know your game better, your players will appreciate more and more room to experiment freely. They will get better at processing everything the game will throw at them. But that is often after the playing habit has started to form. In practice, this is for example the player of an MMORPG who wants to do complex raids in the end game.

And by the way, the habits you are looking to reinforce won’t necessarily be formed thanks to your game only! We have to keep in mind that some of the player’s habits are not necessarily specific to our projects. A Diablo player will have no trouble jumping onto Path of Exile for instance, as both title share many similarities. This is important to note as we have to take those players in account as well. I.e. Diablo 3 felt frustrating at first for many Hack and Slash players as they were forced to go through the normal difficulty mode.

In order to get a better understand of how we can harness the power of habits in practice, let’s take a look at a game that works well.

You could take any successful multiplayer or social game to study how they make the formation of habits possible. As we have seen, habit formation is strongly linked to your feedback loops, which lie at the core of all games. Any good game design stimulates the formation of new habits. We are likely going to play an entertaining game again and again! But we can still encourage the wrong habits or failed to reinforce existing ones.

Case study: Final Fantasy XIV

In the long run, the survivability of an MMORPG relies hugely on having a large community of both active and experienced users. Because of that, they need to build strong playing habits. Final Fantasy XIV managed to do just that. It is a pretty fresh MMO that built both a large and a faithful audience. That is why we are going to take a look at it right now.

The first moments of the game are spent creating your avatar. At that point, the game catches the player’s attention thanks to its fine art direction. The character creation menu is highly polished and anchored in the game world already (with its lovely ethereal visual effects). Past the character creation, each player goes through a tutorial phase that will introduce him to the world of Eorzea.

Fast-forward to the first quests. A bit like World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 14 provides the player with quests that will lead him through an area. Not only do quests provide the player with small, explicit short-term goals, but their succession create a clear path through each zone. Procedural events breathe some variation into the linear path the player is given.

The game is filled with activities that all revolve around its core gameplay. This helps to reinforce the player’s mechanics and to make the world of Eorzea feel rich. Each activity or action the player takes comes with its own reward: experience points, money, items, etc.

The game offers a system of daily quests called “mandates”. They offer bonus rewards that are pretty handy to quickly level up in crafting jobs. The game encourages you to experiment with classes as you can level them up all with a single character. Final Fantasy XIV is one of the few MMOs that force you to run through its dungeons. Clearing dungeons and bosses is mandatory if you want to progress into the main story. This forces every player to get at least a basic understanding of team play, and prepares them for the end game. Which in turn helps to improve the whole community. Last but not least, the game gives you the option to play in short or long sessions.

All in all, Final Fantasy XIV offers a pretty classic MMO experience, but a polished one. There is nothing extraordinary in that short case study. But we can note that Final Fantasy XIV, like most good modern MMORPGs, offers a short and clear feedback loop. Not only that, but the game encourages the formation of strong playing habits by offering a lot of content that revolves for the most part around its core mechanics.

A quick note on Ethics

As we designers play with the psychology of our users, we do have to be careful with the ethics of our design choices. There is a fine line between encouraging the creation of lasting habits and encouraging addiction. Let us face it: games are addictive by nature. They easily fulfil our need for positive feedback.

Long-term retention does not only rely on habit formation. It relies on healthy habit formation. We want our users to keep coming back to the game in a positive way. We want our users to have a pleasant experience. Addicted players don’t.

Summary

To sum this article up, getting our players into a habit of coming back to our game is necessary to build a lasting community. To facilitate habit formation, we can build our early game around gameplay loops that focus on 2 characteristics:

Giving the player clear steps to follow.

Giving the player small steps to follow.

All we have left is to provide the player with continuous feedback in the form of score, experience points, rewards, or in-game animations.

篇目8,10 Ways to Retain Your Players

by Mickey Blumental

The following blog was, unless otherwise noted, independently written by a member of Gamasutra’s game development community. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of Gamasutra or its parent company.

The following blog was, unless otherwise noted, independently written by a member of Gamasutra’s game development community. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of Gamasutra or its parent company.

A long long time ago, before the age of iOS and Android, mobile phone games were pretty crap.

Eight years ago it was a new and growing market and I had tons of fun trying to fit some of the world’s biggest game franchises into mobile devices that were about as suitable for gaming as your average microwave. Resident Evil, Need for Speed, Final Fantasy, Project Gotham Racing, Sims – each game genre brought with it new design challenges.

Back then almost all the phone games (that made money) were malformed bastardized versions of current hit console and PC franchises. The hardware was constrained in terms of performance and the clunky phone keys weren’t the ideal game controller. Considering these limitations, we made some awesome games back in those days. But if you don’t consider those limitations (and why should you), these games were somewhat bleh.

Getting an hour and a half of gameplay for a couple of dollars seemed like good value. In fact, it was an act of mercy, as playing through those games, for the most part, was about as fun as flossing. So it was all about getting the player to finish the game before the “hey look, Resident Evil on my phone” novelty wore off.

Those days are over. Touch screen devices have amazing games. I find myself playing on the iPad more than any other platform. It’s not a perfect gaming platform, especially not for games that try to emulate console games, it’s the one I’m most excited about both as developer and gamer.

Suddenly getting your customers out the door as fast as you can is no longer necessary.

In fact, keeping players engaged with your game for longer is beneficial for both player and developer. The player develops an emotional attachment to the game and a sense of accomplishment and investment over a long period of time.

For the developer user retention is important for the following reasons:

1. Cross promotion and visibility. Your games can cross-promote each other whenever new games or updates are released, but that is only effective if people are still playing the older games.

2. Most of the revenue in the app store comes from in-app purchases. Monetize your game correctly and wisely and you would have every reason to want people to play your game for as long as possible.

3. Word of mouth. The longer players play your game, the more likely they are to tell others about the game, recruit other players for in-game rewards, blog or tweet about it.

User retention should not be confused with marketing. It’s not about getting new players, it’s about keeping the players you did get for as long as possible. One of the positive rewards is a boost in marketing, but it is not a marketing strategy in its own right. For example, having an awesome cliffhanger in a TV show is going to ensure many viewers return the next week, but it’s not going to get new viewers to tune in right away. On the other hand when people keep hearing how awesome that TV show is, they are more likely to eventually give it a chance.

There are many ways to facilitate user retention. The best one is having a good game underneath it all. Some games are so addictive and fun they don’t really need to seduce the player to stick around.

But don’t despair even if your game is terrible. Quality is not necessary. Farmville offers practically no gameplay beyond mindless clicking, but it has done a fantastic job hooking players. A bit like a crack-cocaine addiction, only it carries a more devastating social stigma.

Here are super simple ways in which you can increase your game’s user retention:

1. Achievements

Achievement whore is a term that was coined for a reason. It can become very addictive to collect these virtual badges with points that mean absolutely nothing to anyone. It’s supposedly something that is meant for bragging rights, but in fact nobody in all of existence ever, except you, cares about your gamer score. No one. In fact, the only reason you care about it is because you think others might care too. They don’t. Yet, it is still for some reason fun to unlock achievements. Perhaps it is just because people like to feel good about themselves.

Achievements can range from accomplishing extra difficult tasks beyond the main scope of the game – like getting ridiculously high combo in a fighting game, or it can simply reward tedious grinding for performing the same action 1000000 times.

If the achievements strike the player as too difficult or time consuming they are going to give up on them fairly soon, so while it should be a long tunnel, there should always be light at the end. Done correctly achievements can help draw a map for the player that takes them on a longer path through the game.

2. Missions

Missions are similar to achievements, but have a different focus. There are usually only three missions active at one time, replaced with new missions as they are beaten and they almost always reward the player with in-game currency and rewards (coins, experience points, etc.). Missions are especially effective in endless games as having three different active missions changes the focus of the game and adds variety to each session. It is usually accompanied by a progression ladder that gives the game structure it would otherwise lack.

A missions system kept me playing through games like Punch Quest, Zombie Tsunami, Into the Dead and Jetpack Joyride far longer than I would have otherwise.

3. Upgrades

Upgrades are an artificial way to make the player better at the game. Suddenly you get further and score better, but it’s not necessarily because you honed your skills to perfection as much as the fact that you bought in-game upgrades that improve your stats and overall make the game easier. Why bother trying to shoot a duck with a small gun when you can use a heat seeking rocket launcher instead? Or a nuclear bomb? The player needs to invest a significant amount of time to grind all the currency needed to buy all the upgrades. This is also a good opportunity for monetization as you can offer lazy players a shortcut and offer the upgrades faster for real world money.

Upgrading is a basic concept lifted from the Role Playing genre and tweaked to fit more casual games, especially endless games. Together with the missions system, it’s another way to offer a sense of progression and development when you’re in fact still playing the same two minutes over and over again.

Two games with very addictive upgrade systems are the endless runners One Epic Knight and Jetpack Joyride.

4. Daily Rewards

Tempt your players to log into your game at least once a day. They might not even play the game beyond loading it and claiming the rewards, but it’s a great opportunity to flash any news about upcoming updates or perhaps other games you’re about to release – or just flash obnoxious ads in their face. You grab the player’s attention for a few priceless seconds, so you had better put it to good use.

The problem with rewards is that if you give the players too much you break your virtual economy and if you give them too little you insult their intelligence (it’s worrying how many games do the latter and actually get away with it). A good solution is to create a growing reward ladder that increases every consecutive day of logging in, or alternatively offer the player a scratch card with a good chance of winning something substantial – harmlessly scratching the gambling itch at the same time.

Snoopy’s Street Fair rewards you with a generous portion of deluxe currency every five days, but only if you keep logging every day.

5. Come Back or the Puppy Dies

Why lure players back with the promise of rewards when you can do it with the threat of punishment? If the player doesn’t log in regularly their crop will wither, their pets will die an agonizing death, their wife will leave them and take the kids, their fortress will be invaded and burnt to the ground and all the toilet paper will be used up.

If your game succeeds in compelling the player to visit on an hourly basis, giving up on their social life, responsibilities and sleep, you are going to be a very rich person.

Though a lot of good all that money is going to do you in HELL.

6. Regular Updates

Once you train your players to expect regular updates, they will look forward to them. Many times players like a game, but they have no idea if the developer is still supporting it.

There are clever ways to let players know that new content is on the way. 1000 Heroz promised players a new level every day for 1000 days until the whole game was released. Angry Birds Rio had empty place holders for future content with a date on each spot telling the players when to expect it.

7. Seasonal Content

Seasonal content puts people in a festive mood, but also has a delightful sense of urgency to it as it offers unique rewards that expire when the holiday ends until the same time next year.

So for a short period of time players are urged to play your game more to ensure they don’t miss out on limited time rewards. The rewards are usually cosmetic, which doesn’t make them any less rewarding to the target audience that is obsessed with collecting and showing off their virtual items.

And don’t forget to update the app’s icon to reflect the holiday by sticking a Christmas hat or a jack-o-lantern on it. All the cool kids are doing it, so it must be the thing to do.

Reflecting current holidays and seasons also tells the player that the game is currently being supported by the development team. Just remember to remove the Christmas decorations by March or the whole thing will backfire.

8. Community

This one is a tricky one to pull off and must be tailored to the type of game you have. It can be a lot of work which does not always recoup the time and effort invested, so tread carefully. Does your game allow your players to show their creativity? Can they share their cleverness with other players? My Singing Monsters invited users to send clips of them singing different parts and then assembled it into a silly little video.

Carmageddon lets players record themselves flattening pedestrians and crashing into other cars and then upload the videos directly to Youtube.

Snoopy’s Street Fair provides you with a photo booth in which you can take pictures with Snoopy characters.

Other games capitalize on the fact that they offer complex gameplay and provide players with forums in which they can discuss strategy and exchange tips.

9 collectibles

Collectibles could be done cleverly, intelligently rewarding exploration and time investment, or they could be a half assed throwaway. In both cases it’s likely to get players to play the game a bit longer than they would otherwise.

If your game world is bland and badly designed adding collectibles for the player to collect is basically just twisting the knife. Looking for hidden treasures in Aquaria is rewarding because it is already fun to explore that beautiful world.

Crackdown is an immensely repetitive and average 3rd person shooter that is saved by a side mission to find hidden orbs. Scaling the environments in search for audio and visual hints for orb locations is some of the most fun I ever had in a videogame.

10. Replayability

If your game is fun people are likely to play through it again. This can be further encouraged by adding more layers of complexity to the game. Offer additional side challenges, offer a medal system that encourages to beat the same challenges with better scores. Unlock hidden harder levels. This is the user retention technique with the best nutritional value that veteran gamers will really appreciate. It only works if your game is good enough and fun enough to justify a return visit.

But seriously, none of these techniques are an alternative to having a good game. There are enough crap games out there. Not all of the listed user retention methods might suit your game, so don’t bend backwards like a pretzel trying to fit them in. But give it a thought and see which ones make sense for your game.

That’s it for user retention. Next week we’ll discuss water retention.

篇目9,ARM yourself: Keeping your customers is the secret to success

It’s amazing how many games companies don’t think like this. How much effort they put into getting customers through the door, and how little they put on keeping them when they arrive.

Actually, when you think about it, it’s not amazing at all. Games companies have never cared about satisfying their customers.

The traditional marketing model for the games industry has put zero thought into satisfying customers. Literally zero.

AAA publishing is about the release day. The CFO of a major games publisher once told me that he could predict the lifetime sales of a game, down to the nearest ten thousand units or less, based purely on day one sales. No wonder AAA marketing is focused so intently on initial launch, and has no interest at all about what happens after that.

This isn’t surprising either. When the business model consists of charging a user £40 for a game, with no recurring revenue, it really doesn’t matter if the user hates the game. You’ve already got their money.

We’re not in KAAAnsas any more, Toto

We’re not focused on AAA games any more. If you are reading this, you are interested in self-publishing, or web games, or Internet business in general. Unlike traditional games publishers, we care about our customers.

(Even AAA games aren’t like that anymore. Keeping users interested means you can sell them more DLC, or just stop them from trading the game in at a retail store.)

We also care, for commercial reasons, about making sure that they keep coming back. I’ve already written about the changing nature of game design, moving from “one more go” to “come back tomorrow” (and more about that in the Monetisation post). In this post, I want to talk about Retention.

Why does Retention matter?

Retention matters because customer acquisition costs are going up. To compete, you need to either outspend customers on marketing, or get smarter at making the customers that you do get stay with you longer and become more profitable.

The great news for game designers is that Retention is at the core of what you do. Retention is about giving players good reasons to want to keep coming back to your game. And you want to do that anyway, right?

What follows are some examples of games that have used a variety of gameplay mechanics to encourage retention. Note that this is not an exhaustive list, and I’d like you to think of them as firelighters to ignite your design imagination, not as a template to follow.

Most of these examples come from social games, where the need to drive Daily Active Users is well understood. As I’ll discuss in a later post, the ARM yourself framework applies to many games and many situations, but is often most easy to explain in the context of Facebook games.

Daily rewards

The simplest mechanism is to give people an opportunity to get a daily bonus simply for turning up. Bejewelled Blitz does this by offering a one-armed bandit that you spin to win bonus coins. Since the fear of loss is a strong human motivator, the fear that “if I don’t come back, I might lose out on some free coins” brings players back every day.

Increasing daily rewards

I am not a fan of simply harnessing slot-machine psychology to win coins – I much prefer mechanisms that give users a sense that they have got something valuable and rare, not just in-game currency. Restaurant City from Playfish does just this, by rewarding players with an increasing number of ingredients if they come back regularly.

While this is part random (the exact ingredients), players can increase their rewards by returning regularly,

Maintenance

The heart of many social games is a maintenance mechanic. Think the crops in Farmville or the rents in Millionaire City.

By using a believable process (like harvesting crops or collecting rents) you build an expectation in your players that they have to plant crops, wait a while and then harvest them.

Games like Mafia Wars turn maintenance on its head: you have scarce energy which takes time to replenish (or you can pay to top it up). It’s the same broad principle of giving players a reason to believe that they have “finished” playing for a while, and should return later, once their crops have grown or their energy has been replenished.

Frontierville combines both. It has a crop-growing mechanic AND an energy mechanic. (Personally, I find the double whammy too much, and find Frontierville close to unplayable as a result. However, it is Zynga’s second most successful game with nearly 30 million according to Appdata, so the combination clearly works for some people.)

Commitment

Commitment is a much more powerful variant of maintenance. The key difference – and this is crucial – is that the player sets when they need to come back.

Let’s take, for example, a harvest mechanic in which all plants take 12 hours to grow. If I plant crops at four in the afternoon during a dull lull at work, I would have to set my alarm for 4am to get out of bed and harvest them. While some extremely committed players might do this, I wouldn’t. What’s more, I am likely to think “bloody stupid game trying to get me to get up in the middle of the night” which is the beginning of the end of my emotional commitment to your game.

Instead, games like Farmville and Millionaire City give the player the choice of when he or she needs to come back. Farmville offers the option of raspberries (which take two hours to grow) and artichokes (which take four days) – and almost everything inbetween. As a player, I can say “it’s a boring day in the office, I can come back in a couple of hours” or “I’m going away this weekend, I’ll plant some crops I can harvest on Monday”.

Not only does it give me flexibility, but because I made a mental and personal commitment to the game – because the timing of when I need to come back seems like it was my decision – the job “harvest crops” goes on my mental to-do list, increasing the likelihood that I actually return.


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