作者：Casey Alkaisy

游戏产业中正发生着一场改革，但是人们却对此而沉默。我们总是不断地谈论新技术以及如何更好地去创造游戏。还记得3D电视快速兴起又快速消失的事吗？或者动作控制？而现在几乎所有人都在谈论着VR，也许它将会取得巨大的成功。我们不应该停止创造体验游戏的全新方式。但是更重要的是，现在的我们拥有能够让玩家更有效地体验游戏的技术。有很多很难理解的数据需要我们去收集并理解。这是现在的电子游戏未开发的一个领域，也是许多大公司未去关注的一个领域（虽然免费游戏，手机游戏，MMO游戏已经这么做好几年了）。

事实是，如果在今天你想要凭借一个百万美元的授权内容在电子游戏产业中获取成功，你便需要使用live service以帮助自己监管并对消费者的行为做出回应。我并不是说单人游戏正在衰亡或者趋于灭绝。我也并非认为每一款多人游戏都会成为下一款《命运》或《全境封锁》。恰恰相反，正因为如今单人游戏逐渐减少，人们对于它的需求反而大大增加了。但说实话，如今的AAA级游戏都在某种程度上依赖于live service。是的，这同样也包括单人游戏。如果你是一名独立游戏开发者，那这点对你来说更加重要，因为你需要更加努力去让玩家沉浸于游戏中并在你的游戏系统中获得娱乐（游戏邦注：实际上今天便有许多聪明的初创企业将直播服务整合到了自己的游戏中）。

如果你花了好几年去创造游戏，将其发行到市场上便放任其不管的话，它便很难获得成功。人们对于游戏产品往往拥有更高的需求和期待值。所以你需要确保不管是通过在线还是离线的方式都要让玩家知道游戏还想着他们。作为人类的我们都会认为自己是与众不同的，这就意味着通过“海投”的方式与用户交流是不可行的。你必须去划分不同用户并基于不同用户发送适当的信息。

supermario brothers（from appchina）

所以为什么live service如此重要呢？对于新人来说，你需要去理解消费者的行为。让我们以超市为例，即我们都知道他们将巧克力摆放在收银台附近并将牛奶摆放在离收银台较远的地方的原因。而在数字领域亦是如此。在致力于电子游戏这么多年后，我可以告诉你人们总是会对excel表格中的数字感到骄傲。这意味着你需要去寻找能够提供给玩家他们想要购买的服务。从根本上来看，数字消费者行为便等价于像销量，用户黏性，用户留存，净推荐值等KPI。电子游戏消费者还拥有终身价值。而那些在小的时候玩过《超级玛丽兄弟》的玩家在今天更有可能与自己的小孩一起玩《马里奥》游戏。所以你应该确保将消费者与你那个有关终身价值和利益的等式连接在一起。而在这里live service不仅能够帮你销售产品，同时随着实践的发展也能够帮助你传递给玩家更多价值。

所以我该如何运行live service呢？这主要归结为三大元素，人，工具和对接受，改变与适应的渴望。

渴望：这是关于做你自己。你必须适应现在的我们生活在一个一切都需要靠计算的数据世界。所以你可能需要改变并适应现代游戏原则否则你将会走向衰败（但我也必须重申如果执行得当的话，高质量的单人游戏还是存在发展空间的）。即使你缺少下面的两点元素，你也需要寻找去娱乐消费者并确保他们沉浸于你的游戏的方法。

人：通常是指社区管理者，项目经理，门店经理和数据分析师。如果你足够幸运，你便能够找到那些能够同时扮演多个角色的人才。

工具：用户友好型后端工具，这是我强调过无数次的内容。不要之后才想着创造工具，你应该确保从第一天起便将工具添加到你的游戏设计中。确保你的live service团队拥有强大的工具能够对任何趋势做出快速反应并且不会过度依赖于运营团队的帮助。

一旦你拥有了这些元素，你便需要问自己，我该如何确保玩家始终感到开心？

以下便是我们在今天的游戏产业经常看到的情况：

游戏发行了。

在1至2年内发行了付费可下载内容。

时不时发行更新内容去修改漏洞。

完成这款游戏了，现在转向其它工作。

而最后一点也是一些公司在处理自己的游戏中很让人遗憾的方面。为什么他们能够如此轻松地放掉无数玩家并打算通过一个全新产品去尝试着召回这些玩家？我们必须问自己，我们还能提供给玩家什么东西才能够满足他们的所有需求呢？当决定致力于开发游戏续集时，如果我们能够认真对待那些还跟随着我们的玩家，我们便有可能迎来更大的成功。

所以我们要考虑以下问题：

你是否能够通过一些活动去迎合玩家们（不管是现实生活上还是线上）？

你是否或在过度期间积极改变游戏的某些内容（不管是真实的还是虚拟的）？

你是否会不断完善玩家体验？

你是否会添加免费内容？

你是否会直接与社区进行交流？

你是否会推动用户生成内容？

你是否会提供任何基于MTX的产品。

你是否会在其它平台上吸引用户的注意？如手机？

等等。

优秀的live service不仅能够扩展你当前的产品生命周期，同时也能够进一步推动之后的授权发展。我们知道人们的注意面正不断缩小，而生活和网络的发展速度则不断加快。这也是我们为何要在游戏内部和外部有效设置可靠且多元系统去迎合玩家的原因。

你需要做的只是计划在今后几年里如何去照料好玩家基础。因为如果你不这么做，别人便会抢了你的玩家。这并不是基于最后冲刺的业务，这更像是一场漫长的马拉松。而这也是你应该将live services添加到游戏设计中的原因。

（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）

Why having a Live Service team is important!

by Casey Alkaisy

There is an evolution happening in the gaming industry that people are actually very silent about. We keep talking about new technology and how we can make video games better. Remember the 3D-TV fad that came and went away even faster? Or motion controls? And everyone is currently talking about VR, it might become a success, who knows (I do believe in this one though, it’s freaking cool). We definitely shouldn’t stop innovating or creating new ways to experience gaming. However, more importantly we currently do have technology to be able to make the player experience much better than it currently is. There is so much data to collect and read it is impossible to fathom. Yet, this is an untapped area of video games that even big companies are not paying much attention to (Free 2 Play games, mobile games, MMO’s have been doing it for years though).

Here is the deal, if you want to succeed in video games today with a multimillion dollar franchise, you need to have some type of live service that enables you to monitor and react to your customer’s behavior. I am not saying that singleplayer games are dying or that they are becoming extinct. Neither am I saying that every multiplayer game out there needs to be a Destiny or The Division. To the contrary, single player games are appreciated today more than ever due to the scarcity of them. But fact of the matter is, AAA games coming out these days all rely on some type of live service to a certain degree. Yes, that also includes singleplayer games. If you are an indie dev, then this should be more important to you since you will need to fight tooth and nail to keep players engaged and entertained inside your echo system (actually a lot of smart startups are incorporating live services in their games today).

Making your game for years, releasing it in to the wild and forgetting about it does not cut it anymore. People have higher demands and expectations of gaming products. So you need to make sure that offline or online, the player needs to be thinking of your game. We as humans also like to think that we are special these days, which means the shotgun method of talking to your users is out the door. You have to start thinking about segmenting your customer base and targeting them with appropriate messaging.

So why is live services such a big deal? Well for starters, you need to understand consumer behavior. Let’s look at supermarkets, we all know why they have chocolate bars so close to the cashier and why milk is always the furthest away from there. Well, the digital side of things is not much different. After working in video games for several years and daily monitoring data, I can tell you that humans are proud to be numbers on an excel sheet. That means you need to look for the trends and make sure you can offer your players the services they want or are willing to purchase. Digital consumer behavior basically equates to KPI’s such as sales, engagement, retention, NPS etc. Video game consumers also have a life time value. People who played Super Mario Brothers when they were very young, most likely do play Mario games with their kids today. Making sure the consumer sticks with you equates to a life time value. All of this equates to money and you need money to stay afloat. So to summarize this part, live services will enable you to not only sell your product once, but also twice and many times over as long as you deliver the value to the player.

So what do I need to run a live service? It all essentially boils down to three things, the people, the tools and the desire to accept, change and adapt.

The desire: This one is all about being truthful yo yourself. You have to accept that we live in a data based world where everything counts. So either you change and adapt to modern gaming principles or you perish like THQ (but I say this again, that there is room for quality singleplayer games if executed correctly). Even if you do not have the people or the tools below, you need to find ways to entertain your customers and keep them engaged (hacks work to a certain extent).

The People: Usually a Community Manager, an Engagement Manager, a Store Manager and a Data Analyst if applicable. If you are lucky, you might find people who can fill multiple roles.

The Tools: User-friendly back-end tools, I can’t stress this enough. Don’t make tools as an afterthought, be sure to include them in your game design from day one. Enabling your live service team powerful tools will make them react faster to trends and rely less on operation teams to help them with code.

Once you got these in place, you will have to ask yourself, what can I do to make sure my player base is happy and healthy?

Here is what most of us are accustomed to see on today’s gaming scene:
A game is released.

Paid DLC is released in year 1-2.

Occasional game update to fix bugs.

Game is done, move on to the next thing.

The last bit is the sad part of how some companies are dealing with their games. Why they are happy with lettings thousands of players loose only to try and reel them back with a brand new product is beyond me. We need to ask, what else can we offer the player to make sure we are covering all their needs and then some? Because ultimately, once we decide to work on that sequel, we will have better success if we take care of the players that are currently with us.

So think about things like:

Are you entertaining players with events (real life or digital)?

Are you actively changing aspects of the game during seasonal periods (real life or fiction)?

Are you improving the experience?

Are you adding free content?

Are you engaging directly with your community?

Are you curating user generated content?

Are you offering any kind of MTX based products?

Are you engaging your users on other platforms? Mobile?

And the list goes on…

A decent live service will extend not only the current products life cycle but also the franchise for years to come. We all know how people’s attention span is getting smaller and smaller, as life and the internet is getting faster. That is why it is crucial to have rigid and dynamic systems in place that can entertain your player, both inside and outside of the game.

What you need to do is create a plan on how you are going to take care of your player base for years to come. Because if you don’t, someone else will. This business is not built on sprints anymore, it’s all about the marathons. That is why you should include live services as part of your game design.（source：gamasutra）