开发者聊Messenger即时游戏平台的优缺点

原文作者：Adam Telfer 译者：Megan Shieh

Facebook的即时游戏平台（Instant Games）推出至今仅过了一年多的时间，但在此期间该平台已经迅速发展成为了许多开发商的发行首选。随着手游市场的逐渐饱和，要想在应用程序商店中脱颖而出变得越来越困难，因此Facebook推出的这个新平台成为了许多开发商的突破口。

自该平台推出以来，许多游戏都实现了惊人的增长。比如Game Closure推出的《EverWing》，该游戏目前的每月活跃用户高达1000万人。由于Facebook的病毒性传播性质，以及其13亿每月活跃用户，Messenger上的许多游戏都得以快速增长。不过也不是所有开发商都能从中受益，本篇文章列举出了该平台的一些缺陷和优势。

Messenger Games（from gamesindustry.biz）

缺陷一：留存率比手游较低

与手游不同，Facebook上的即时游戏属于“应用内游戏”。玩家不会收到推送通知，他们的手机主屏幕上也不会显示这些游戏的图标，这样一来，能够提醒玩家回归游戏的机会就少了很多。

因此，开发者必须依靠其他渠道来提醒玩家回到游戏中，比如朋友或Facebook的AI机器人发来的消息就可以起到提醒的作用。除此之外，开发商们还得为玩家提供快速访问通道。

作为开发商，你必须想办法让自己的游戏保持在玩家Messenger上的“近期访问”列表中，而且必须维持在尽可能高的位置，这样他们才能一眼看到你的游戏。但同时你不能让玩家觉得你的推送很烦人，否则他们会屏蔽你的应用程序，这样一来留存什么的就根本不可能了。

缺陷二：研发技术不够完善

历经多年，HTML 5已经取得了很大的进步。Messenger上的《神秘庄园（Mystery Manor）》和《Golden Boot》等游戏体验表明，HTML 5的性能都快赶上手游了。然而，能够运行3D、显示花式过渡仅仅是第一步而已，HTML5方面的技术还有很大的发展空间。

另一个方面是开发商需要确保自己的游戏可以在尽可能多的设备类型上快速加载。Messenger是许多国家的主要聊天工具，但并非所有用户都是使用高端设备。这就意味着虽然HTML5的研发技术能够跟得上最新设备，但不代表你就该把即时游戏设计得那么高端。更重要的是启动要快，即使在连接速度较慢的情况下也该是如此。

目前市面上已经出现了一些不错的相关引擎，比如Pixi.JS、Phaser和Construct。然而其中许多都不是很全面，没有提供很多现成的工具。习惯使用Unity引擎的开发者们必须在这些新引擎上投入大量时间才有机会开发出高质量的游戏，正因如此，所以目前在Messenger上名列前茅的游戏大多是由熟悉HTML5的开发商所研发的。直到有一个成熟的开发引擎出现，这种情况可能会一直持续下去。

缺陷三：你的游戏将不容易被找到
截至2018年2月16日，该平台上有不到200款游戏。这个数量很小，但…只是目前很小。

问题源于Facebook处理游戏的方式——目前所有游戏都被放在一个 “游戏”列表中，排列的方式很简单，规模大的游戏排在上面，新游戏可以在顶部呆上一段时间。至今为止，Facebook还没推出任何可供开发者吸引用户的工具，所以新游戏要想获得初期成功将会非常困难。

优势一：大量潜在用户

从另一个角度来看，当你获得了可靠的留存并得到推广以后就可以看到前所未有的增长。以《Mahjong FRVR》为例，自1月16日以来，该游戏的每月活跃用户从32万急速增加到了150万多人，而这些下载都是通过口口相传或自然生成的，这种情况在手游领域就从未出现过。
最重要的是这款游戏并没有什么惊天动地的卖点，游戏中没有任何真正激励你和朋友一起玩的功能，只是一个相当简单的麻将游戏而已。想象一下，如果这款游戏带有很大卖点的话，用户数量还不得飙上天？

优势二：自带社交功能

另外一点是社交机制。在手游领域，原意将游戏连接到Facebook上的玩家越来越少了，他们不想一直给朋友发“骚扰信息”，也没有很积极地想要分享自己的游戏喜好。而且随着时间的推移，现在的手游更主张“跟陌生人一起玩游戏”，而不是跟朋友一起玩。

然而游戏与Facebook账号的连接，对玩家而言显然是有很大影响的，它的作用也不只是传播而已，在留存和参与方面也起到了很大的作用。当一位玩家和真实世界中的朋友一起玩一款游戏时，TA的参与度会瞬间提升——比起战胜陌生人，在排行榜上战胜朋友的感觉明显更好。
Messenger即时游戏平台提供了更大的参与度和留存率增长空间，因为Messenger上的游戏体验是直接和玩家的朋友圈联系到一起的。在这种情况下，和朋友一起玩游戏感觉就是很自然的一件事情。

优势三：无需另外下载一个APP
最后一个关键优势是出于手机使用习惯的改变。根据ComScore最新报告显示，大多智能手机用户一个月下来甚至都不会下载一款应用程序。

在这种背景下，移动聊天APP中的参与度和活跃用户人数已经飙升到了创纪录的水平。与此同时，要想让用户在手机上安装新的应用程序变得非常困难，他们反而更喜欢在聊天APP中玩游戏。Facebook推出这一平台的目的不是要求玩家们去适应这个新平台，而是让他们在自己最常用到的APP中玩游戏。

历史证明，获得成功的最佳途径并非要求人们去改变他们的习惯，而是在他们已经习惯的事情上实现提升和创新。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

It’s only been a little over a year since Facebook first launched its Instant Games platform, but things have been changing rapidly.

The platform has quickly become a hotbed for new development, with many developers jumping onto the opportunity. As mobile has matured, with many developers finding it tougher and tougher to stand out on app stores, messenger games have become a new platform to drive growth.

Since Facebook Instant Games has launched, many games have seen exceptional growth. Games like Everwing by Game Closure is currently sitting at ten million monthly active users. Because of the viral nature of the platform and the access to billions of players – 1.3 billion MAU according to Facebook – these games can grow fast.

But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows for messenger game developers, and approaching the platform as ‘just another mobile platform’ has proven detrimental to numerous developers. So today I’d like to talk about the three major challenges that messenger games face, and the three opportunities for developers to take advantage of.

Three Challenges

Lower Retention
The first is to note that retention on Instant is lower than mobile. Retention on the platform is more akin to Facebook Canvas games than mobile. While this sounds low, it does reflect the nature of the platform.

Facebook Instant Games are an ‘app within an app’ and aren’t the same as mobile. Players don’t have push notifications or home screen icons that remind players to come back.

Retention on the platform doesn’t come from having quick access to the game on a player’s home screen. Instead, developers have to rely on other channels to remind players to come back to the game, and give quick access to playing. Players can be prompted by messages from their friends, or messages from a Facebook bot (a dedicated channel within Messenger for your game).

Developers have to find ways to be constantly high on the player’s list of recently used channels on messenger, without feeling spammy. Otherwise players will mute the app and retention will no longer be possible.

Technology

The second challenge is in the technology. HTML5 has come a long, long way. Playing games like Mystery Manor and Golden Boot on the platform show that HTML5 is closing in quick on mobile performance. However, being able to run 3D and display fancy transitions is just the first step for the technology.

The other aspect is ensuring you can load quickly on as many device types as possible. Messenger is the chat app of choice in many countries, and not all of them utilise the top end devices. This means that while HTML5 technically can run top tier tech, but as an Instant Game that doesn’t necessarily mean you should. What’s more important is a fast start-up time, even in slower connections.

Thus far, there have been a few great engines built for the platform. Engines like Pixi.JS, Phaser, Construct are great places to look. However, many of these are extremely lightweight and don’t come with many tools out of the box. Dev teams used to the ease of development when working with engines like Unity will need to invest heavily in an engine to create quality games.

This is why the current leaders on the platform are typically existing HTML5 development studios over mobile developers moving over. Until there’s some established engines on the platform to ease development, technology-focused developers have the advantage.

Discoverability

The last challenge isn’t necessarily a big problem… yet. As of February 16, 2018, there are less than 200 games launched on the platform. This is low, for now. But the issue stems from the way that Facebook is handling games on the platform.

Right now, they are just displayed in a long list within the ‘Games’ tab. They are listed in a simplistic manner, putting the bigger games on top, with some new games getting a boost temporarily. Thus far, Facebook hasn’t opened up any tools for developers to acquire players in any other manner. So for now, developers are extremely restricted in how they can create that initial ‘spark’ of growth. Build a great game, try to push up the list as far as you can, and hope that your game can grow when it’s up there.

Three Opportunities

User Growth

On the flip side of discoverability, when you do get retention right and when your game is promoted on the list, you can see unprecedented growth.

Take Mahjong FRVR, for example. Since January 16th, they have grown from 320,000 monthly active players to over 1.5 million. All only by organic downloads and virality. That’s not something that happens ever on mobile. This game has minimal virality features (no feature in the game really incentivises you to play with friends) and is a fairly simple mahjong game. Imagine if this game was built for virality from the ground up?

Social Connections

The second opportunity is social mechanics. On mobile, the percentage of players that want to connect with Facebook has been declining over time. Players don’t want to spam their friends, they don’t want to share their playing habits on mobile, and mobile games have shifted towards pushing players to play with random strangers rather than your own friends.

However, from working on Facebook and mobile games for the last ten-plus years, it’s clear what impact Facebook connection rates have on players. It’s not just about virality, it’s also about retention and engagement. When a player has their real friends within a game, they are instantly more engaged. Beating a friend on a leaderboard is far more gratifying.

Messenger gaming opens up the opportunity for stronger engagement and retention simply because Facebook connection is embedded in the experience. Games instantly have a player’s social graph within the game. It feels natural to be playing with friends. The social aspect is inherent in messenger games.

It’s Where the Players Are

The last key opportunity is because of the nature of changing habits in players behaviour on mobile. Looking at recent data, ComScore reports that a majority of smartphone users are downloading zero apps per month.

While this is happening, engagement and active user bases within mobile chat applications have surged to record levels. While gaining installs on mobile is incredibly difficult, players are engaging more in messaging apps. The promise of messenger games is not to create a new platform and ask players to adopt it, but to meet players where they are already most engaged.D
If I’ve learned anything about technology and new platforms over the last years, its that the best path for a technology to become ubiquitous is not to demand people to change their habits. It’s to innovate and enhance from what they were already doing.

Adam Telfer is co-founder of Chatterbox Games, a Berlin-based startup focused solely on messenger games. They recently raised a pre-seed from Reaktor Ventures and Angel Investors.

Telfer recently joined us on The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast, discussing the future of free-to-play games. （Source: gamesindustry.biz ）