开发者谈切入游戏开发市场的7个选择视角

原作者：Kate AppFollow 译者：Willow Wu

根据Newzoo的数据，手游行业预计会在2021年之前突破1000亿美元里程碑，实现十年两位数增长。去年，它占据了全球游戏市场50%以上的份额。手游成为了人人都想分一杯羹的热门产业，独立开发者和发行商梦想着自己能创造出新的现象级产品。

手游成功的关键是什么？

我们邀请了来自GameAnalytics、Lab Cave、Kolibri Games、Unity和Wooga的手游专家来讨论成功手机游戏所需的必要元素，并分享他们的宝贵经验。

Candy Crush Soda Saga(from pocketgamer.biz)

以下是从讨论中总结出的塑造成功手游的7个技巧：

1.在发行之前规划好游戏的营销事项

大多数人怀着满腔热血开发游戏，觉得自己的游戏一定会成为市场的新风向标。要记住，游戏也是一个产品，你的首要目标应该是如何用它盈利。有人下载、安装游戏并不意味着游戏成功卖出去了。F2P游戏的盈利是一个持续性的过程，你的任务是建立适合盈利模式、确定有效的销售方式（通常是由LTV决定），而且你必须在游戏开发初始时就着手规划。要建立盈利模式，你得确保有一个清晰、可行的计划，包括考虑可能获得的成果、用户流失率、可利用的工具和其它必要信息。

2.关注游戏类型的市场趋势

选择一个适合的游戏类型。手游市场饱和度高，各个类型之间的竞争非常激烈，选择和大公司同样类型的游戏一般不可能会成功。如果你没有庞大的预算和丰富的经验，那就做一个小众产品。

3.使用短迭代

游戏开发者可能犯的严重错误之一就是花很长时间去尝试不可行的东西。相反，他们应该在有限的时间内专注于迭代更改。完成你宏伟愿景的20%就好，因为这20%的工作将发挥80%的效果。使用这种开发方法可以避免将大量的时间、精力和资源浪费在那些实际上不会对你的游戏起到任何帮助作用的事情。

4.了解用户拓展方式

不仅仅要在Facebook、App Store等线上平台跟玩家交流，还要安排语音通话甚至是视频通话。你会发现玩家其实真的很期待跟开发者讨论游戏，即使这款游戏才刚发行不久。

5.不要无视玩家遇到的问题

记得回复玩家的评论。尽量每个都回复，或者至少回复那些负面的。曾经App Store中有一款游戏（我们不指明）就因为这一点损失大量用户，评分不断下滑。玩家在评论中抱怨连连，可是没有人回应。最终导致评分降到2.0/5，大量玩家卸载游戏。因此，你一定要回复应用评价中玩家给出的反馈。

6.从其他发行商获得反馈

成功工作室或者手游发行商的反馈是极其重要的，他们会思考一些你或许从没想到的问题，推测可行的解决办法。比如说，游戏发行第一天的留存率非常好，但是第七天就不忍直视了，这或许是因为游戏太简单或者内容太少。所以你需要有人告诉你“嘿，我打到这里了，没得玩了，我想……”把游戏展示给你信任的人，听听不同角度的想法。这些人可能已经看过类似的游戏，你遇到的问题他们已经解决过很多次了。有了这些反馈，你就能更快、更有针对性地优化游戏，省下数月的时间。别一直埋头单干。

7.不要害怕游戏会被抄袭

任何上架商店的游戏，只要有可取之处，很大概率会被抄袭。这就是当下行业的本质，维护游戏版权是一件很难的事。你能做的只有加快脚步，赶在别人之前成功。及时收集反馈，尽快解决问题。

不要害怕探索手游的未知领域，这不是什么深奥的尖端科学问题，行业中的大部分人都在努力探索适合自己的路线。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

According to Newzoo, the mobile gaming industry is expected to hit $100 billion by 2021, achieving a decade of double-digit growth. And it generated more than 50% of the global games market last year. Mobile games have become a real honeypot, and more indie developers and publishers are dreaming about making a new Pokemon Go.

What makes a mobile game successful?

We invited mobile game experts from such brands as GameAnalytics, Lab Cave, Kolibri Games, Unity and Wooga to discuss core elements of a successful mobile game and share their best practices.

Here are takeaways from the discussion and tips to create a successful mobile game:

1. Plan game monetization before the launch

Most people are really passionate about developing a game and they think it’s going to be the next big thing. Remember that the game is your product, and your main goal is to how to monetize game app. A user downloading and installing the game doesn’t mean you sold the product. The selling part in F2P mobile gaming is an ongoing process and it is your job to build the right game monetization model and identify the sale (usually defined by LTV). Start thinking about the selling process and what qualifies as a sale from the very first moment of creating your game. Make sure you have a clear roadmap of possible outcomes, churns, levers to use and other information necessary for your game app monetization model.

2. Keep an eye on genre trends

Choose wisely the genre you want your game to enter. In gaming, they’ve become competitive, saturated and mainstream by any means. And making just the same game against the biggest companies out there you’re most likely not going to succeed. If you don’t have a crazy budget and experience, go to a niche.

3. Use short iterations

A huge mistake a game developer can make is spending a lot of time trying to build something that would not work. Instead, focus on making the smallest iterative changes in a given time. Do 20% of the work of what your grand vision is because that 20% of the work will have 80% of the impact. Using this mobile game development approach you won’t spend a bunch of time, effort and resources on things that are not actually going to have any impact on your game.

4. Master customer development approach

Talk to your customers not only online on Facebook or on the App Store, but schedule calls or even video calls with them. You’ll be surprised how much they are willing and excited to talk to the developers of the game they play, even if it’s a new game.

5. Don’t leave your players in trouble

Don’t leave your players’ reviews unanswered. Try to reply to all reviews, or at least to negative ones. There was an issue that a game (we won’t name it) had in App Store that cost a developer both high app rating and users. The game had connection issues on the launch. Its players started complaining in the reviews, but nobody answered them. This simple ignoring ended up with 2.0 rating and tons of uninstalls. So make sure you cover user feedback you get from app reviews.

6. Get feedback from other publishers

It’s easy to launch and do your own thing, but feedback from a successful studio or mobile game publishers is super important. They may think of solutions, that you have probably never thought about. For instance, if a game has great Day 1 retention and horrible Day 7 retention, it might be because the game is either too easy or there’s not enough content. So you need people to tell you “Hey, I get to the stage and get bored and this is what…”. Show your game to somebody you trust and get their feedback. They see things differently, they have probably seen games like yours and solved your problems many times. Such feedback will definitely help you fix your game faster and save you months of work. Don’t go about it on your own.

7. Don’t be afraid that your game could be copied

When a game is on the store, and if it’s any good, it will probably get copied. It happens not because you showed it to people, that’s just the nature of the industry right now. It’s very hard to copyright a game. The only thing you can do is be faster and be successful before anybody else. Move fast, and make sure that you get feedback and implement it as soon as possible.

Don’t be afraid to dive into the unknown by publishing a mobile game. Nothing is rocket science, and most people in the industry are ready to point in the right direction.

（source:gamasutra.com ）