开发者谈提高玩家忠诚度&留存率的3个策略

原作者：Kate AppFollow 译者：Willow Wu

我们的玩家是一群易变的人。对于许多主流玩家来说，追求“闪亮的新玩具”是再普遍不过的事。然而，还有一群年龄相对较大、更专注的玩家，他们可以为一个游戏投入好几年的时间，而且依然玩得津津有味。

这就是游戏圈。

所以在这种情况下，你要怎么培养玩家的忠诚度？还有你要怎么确保他们会不断回到游戏中来？你可以采取一些策略，在此我们为你列出了其中三个。

1.关注你的用户
作为一个游戏开发者，忽视玩家的珍贵反馈可能是最糟糕的事之一。

在玩游戏的过程中，玩家会对你所有的设计选择发起挑战，总是能发现瑕疵漏洞。这不一定是坏事，但是当情况发生时你就得准备好纸笔，记录下来。

忠诚的粉丝都很想跟你分享反馈，更重要的是他们渴望你能听到。但是他们通常不会选择电子邮件这种更为直接有效的途径，而是会在评论以及论坛中发布观点，这会影响到你游戏的整体评分。

ubisoft assassins creed rebellion（from pocketgamer.biz）

总的来说就是，记录很重要，还有就是让他们知道你有在倾听。如果你仍然没有被说服，那我再给出另外几个理由:

1) 你可以给游戏设开发者们树立更高的标准

游戏巨头公司也会犯不倾听玩家想法的错误，而我们剩下的人也需要反省同样的问题。关注玩家的想法，这样他们就会站在你的阵营，与游戏建立更加紧密的联系，鼓励他们通过积极的途经提供有价值的反馈。

2）可以提升留存率

负面评论是不可避免的，我们不可能让所有人都高兴，但是这其中有不少人是会对潜在玩家产生影响，甚至是吓走他们。尤其是那些还没得到回应的问题。

所以用户的反馈你要怎么处理呢？简单来说就是跟他们交流。感谢玩家的参与、关心他们的问题并鼓励他们留下反馈。要与玩家建立长期稳定的关系，这一步是非常关键的。

《速降王者》开发人团队RageSquid就是一个很好的例子。他们利用Discord建立了一个专门的bug反馈频道，真正做到了鼓励玩家提供反馈，也让他们的评论区一片好评。

2.考虑游戏特色要求
游戏设计是一项很困难的工作，有时这个过程会让我们头昏眼花，看不到其它的选择。虽然并不是每个玩家都能理解技术方面的限制，但他们还是会提供很棒的游戏特色点子。

那么，他们是在哪里提出的呢？如前所述，几乎都在评论区。对玩家来说，直接发表评论比查找开发者的联系方式、再打开邮箱写邮件要方便得多。

不管是打几分的用户都有可能提出关于游戏特色的建议，所以你很难根据评分去寻找。快速解决这个问题的方法之一是快速浏览并留意关键词，比如“我认为……”“他们应该……”“添加”“更改”或“修复”。

独立开发者尤其要注意这个问题。有些玩家会被这些工作室所吸引是因为他们拥有这种近距离的发言渠道，而且有把握开发者会看。如果我们给一家大型游戏公司发邮件，比如Rockstar，提出我们对游戏的看法，得到回复的可能性微乎其微（主要是因为他们收到的邮件太多了）。而面对thatgamecompany和FACEPUNCH这样的公司，玩家就会有不同的期待。

满足用户的期待，给他们接近的机会、回复他们、抱着开放的心态。你的玩家数量无法与3A竞争对手的相较，所以做个积极回复玩家的开发者，让他们觉得自己是特别的。

3.交流

如果你从未做过APP评论相关的工作，它可能会让你望而生畏。然而，开启交流不一定要雇佣客户支持团队，或者是从早到晚都在回复评论。以下是帮助你迈出第一步的建议：

1）关注游戏特色方面的评论
它们会毁了别人对游戏的第一印象，即使有些用户还没下载安装。这些评论就是游戏的门面，新玩家所看到的第一感受。因此你要确保它们是积极的，或者至少简单地给出回复。

重要的是要保持对它们的关注，并确保每个精选评论都得到详细的回复。就如上文所说的，这是很多用户最初看到的内容，所以这些评论对转化率的影响是最大的。你通过这种方式建立信任，而信任会在不断变化的游戏开发大环境中带来宝贵的忠诚。

2）回复负面评论
负面评论的理想数量是不超过15%。那些1星、2星评论会拉低APP的整体评分，可能会让你失去数以千计的潜在用户。回复负面评论其实是为你提供了一个把不满意的客户转化为满意的机会。

向他们保证你已经记下/解决了问题，这有助于建立良好的品牌形象。如果他们得到了满意的结果，就有可能去改评分，帮助你提升所有关键的转化率。

3.回答问题
有时候用户会卡住或者需要更多信息。回复玩家的求助能够建立信任、提升忠诚度，当然还有转化率。

一定要回答那些多数人都遇到的问题，并尽力帮助其他在使用APP时遇到困难的用户。这可能会是一个用户体验方面的问题，所以不要觉得麻烦。

回报
给予玩家回复就是改变游戏口碑的最好办法。我们注意到，一旦你抽出时间为他们作出解答，大多数人都会去修改评分，对游戏更投入。

然而，这个道理反过来也成立。为了获得开发者的关注，有一名用户把他的评论修改了18次，但很不幸开发者始终没有注意到。如果开发者能及时做出反应，他们或许就能避免一个差评，更重要的是一个不开心的顾客。

总结

看到现在，你应该能知道本文的主题：交流。从产品开发到发行后，玩家在这一过程中的感受、体验很大程度上决定了他们的忠诚度。当玩家觉得自己有真正参与其中时，情感投入就是一件自然而然的事，这也是游戏产业所独有的。

你不能改变电影的某个情节、书本的某一章节，但是你可以提出建议让开发者对你喜欢的游戏做出相应的调整和提升。倾听、回复玩家的反馈和想法是提高用户忠诚度最快的方法。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

We gamers are a fickle bunch. For a lot of mainstream gamers, “Shiny New Toy” syndrome is all too prevalent. However, some of the older and more dedicated players can easily sit down with the same title they’ve been playing for years and still have a blast.

Such is the gaming scene.

So amidst this, how do you foster loyalty among your gaming audience? And how can you make sure they keep coming back? There are a few things that you can do, and luckily for you, we’ve listed 3 of them below…

1. Pay Attention to Your Audience
As a game developer, one of the worst things you can do is overlook valuable feedback from your players.

While playing through your game, your players will push the boundaries of all your design choices, and will almost always find something that breaks. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but you’ll want to make sure you have your pen and paper at the ready for when this happens.

Loyal fans of your game will always want to share feedback with you, and more importantly, be heard. But they’ll usually bypass your handy support email and share their thoughts in reviews or forums, which as you know, can affect the overall rating of your title.

Basically, it’s important to take note, and let them know that you’re listening. If you’re still not convinced, here’s a couple of reasons why should:

1) You can raise the bar, and set a new standard for gaming developers.
A few gaming giants are guilty of not listening, and this sadly reflects on the rest of us. Listening to your audience will bring them on your side, make them feel a part of your game, and encourage them to give you valuable feedback about your title in a positive way.

2) It can improve your retention rate.
You’ll always get a couple of negative reviews here and there (unfortunately, we can’t please everyone), but a barrage of them can influence other potential players and scare them away, especially if those reviews haven’t been addressed.

So how can you address feedback from your audience? The easy answer is, talk to them. Thank players for participating, take care of their concerns and encourage them to leave feedback. This is a crucial step of building an ever-long relationship with your players.

A great example of this are the developers behind Descenders, RageSquid. Using Discord, they introduced a dedicated bug channel, which actually encourages their players to give feedback, and kept their review section clean with positive comments.

2. Consider Feature Requests
As difficult a job as game design is, sometimes the process gets so head-heavy that we lose sight of alternatives. And while not every player understands the limitations of technology, they still offer great ideas for new features or adjustments to existing ones.

Where do they do this? As mentioned above, it’s almost always in the reviews. It’s simply easier for players to voice their ideas here than to grab the developer’s contact details and open an email.

Feature request reviews can be all over the rating map, so there’s no rating range that’s going to catch all such comments. A quick way to tackle this it to quickly scroll through and keep an eye out for keywords like “I think…”, “They should…”, “Add”, “Change”, or “Fix”.

Indie developers need to be especially aware of this. Some gamers gravitate towards these types of companies precisely because of the access they feel they have. If we email a gaming giant, like Rockstar for example, about some ideas we had for one of their games, it’s unlikely we’d get a response (mainly due to the sheer volume of emails they get). However, players will expect a different experience when emailing someone like thatgamecompany or FACEPUNCH.

Be the experience that your users are hoping for. Give them access, be responsive, and be open. You won’t have the same sheer volume that our triple AAA competitors have, so be the ones that respond to their players, and make them feel special.

3. Start Your Communications
If you’ve never worked with app reviews, this job may seem daunting. Yet, to start the communication with your users, you don’t necessarily need to hire a customer support team, or spend the whole day answering the reviews. Here’s how you can start:

1）Take care of featured reviews
These bad boys can ruin the first impression of your game even if a user hasn’t installed it yet. These reviews are the face of your game, the first impression that new players see. So you want to make sure they’re good, or simply answered.

It’s important to stay on top of them and make sure that every featured review has a detailed response. As mentioned, this is the first point-of-contact for a lot of users, so these reviews impact your conversion the most. You build trust by doing this, and that trust brings loyalty in a continually shifting GameDev landscape.

2）Respond to negative reviews

Ideally, this number will not go beyond 15% of all reviews. These 1-star and 2-star reviews make your app rating lower, so your game could lose thousands of possible installs. Responding to negative reviews offers you a chance to convert a dissatisfied customer into a happy one.

Assuring them that you’ve either logged or fixed the problem helps build your brand identity. And if satisfied, they’re likely to change their rating, helping you increase that all important conversion rate.

3. Answer questions

Sometimes users just get stuck or need information. Responding to these inquiries builds trust, loyalty, and of course, conversion.

Be sure to answer especially common questions and try to help out any users that seem to be having trouble when using the app. This might also be a UX issue, so don’t be opposed to looking into that as well.

Rewards

Your replies are the best way to change a gamer’s opinion. We’ve noticed that they easily change their rating and become more devoted once you’ve found the time to answer them. However, this works the other way around as well:

A user updated their review 18 times to draw the developer’s attention, but sadly didn’t get any reaction. If the developer had reacted quickly here, they may have avoided an unfortunate rating, and more importantly, an unhappy customer.

What you can take away from this…

By now, you should have seen a clear theme from this post: communication. Gamer loyalty is all about feeling included in the process of developing and launching your title. It’s easier to be emotionally invested in something once you feel apart of it, which is something very unique to the gaming industry.

You can’t change a plot to a film, a chapter in a book, but you can suggest tweaks and improvements to your favorite gaming titles. Listening and being responsive to feedback and ideas is the quickest way to get loyalty.

（source:gamasutra.com ）