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原作者：Matthew Forde 譯者：Vivian Xue 人們經(jīng)常說“沒有事情能真正結(jié)束”，這句話也是近年來游戲行業(yè)的工作教條。 那些游戲發(fā)行后就高枕無憂的日子一去不復(fù)返了，游戲發(fā)行后還得對它進行修改、調(diào)整、提供補丁，開發(fā)者需要時時關(guān)注玩家的想法，根據(jù)玩家反饋更新游戲。 PocketGamer.biz希望報道一些保持長期熱門，并擁有忠實粉絲的游戲。 本期“Live and Kicking”欄目邀請到了Pixonic工作室的制作人Oleg Poroshin，他們的第三人稱射擊游戲《戰(zhàn)爭機器人》剛迎來了發(fā)行五周年紀念日。 PocketGamer.biz：4月14日是《戰(zhàn)爭機器人》發(fā)行五周年紀念日，從發(fā)行到如今成熟完善，你怎么看待游戲一路走來的表現(xiàn)？ Oleg Poroshin：《戰(zhàn)爭機器人》從發(fā)行至今經(jīng)歷了很長一段時間。這些年來，我們對玩家、對游戲本身，以及游戲的潛力有了更加深入的認識。 我個人認為如今游戲無論是在指標上，還是應(yīng)用商店排名上都達到了歷史最佳。我們能取得如今的成功，歸功于我們自游戲發(fā)行以來一直堅守的核心原則： —與分析團隊保持密切合作：我們總想盡可能了解游戲的所有指標。如今，我們每天會追蹤游戲中一億多場活動。我們的分析團隊對游戲了如指掌，能從游戲設(shè)計師的角度分析它，而我們的設(shè)計師們總是很清楚他們加入的新功能會如何影響游戲指標。 過去的兩年內(nèi)，我們邀請了很多玩家社區(qū)的KOL來公司與我們一同慶祝游戲發(fā)行紀念日，他們向團隊提出了很多游戲存在的問題。在這之后，我們會開會正式討論解決方案。這對我們來說是一個極為寶貴的經(jīng)歷，激勵著我們前進。 最重要的是在分析情況時保持理智，密切關(guān)注可能出現(xiàn)的問題。這種態(tài)度，加上我們的分析團隊以及玩家的反饋幫助我們在過去的五年內(nèi)不斷發(fā)展。 PocketGamer.biz：目前游戲團隊有多少人？ Oleg Poroshin：截至目前，團隊共有100名員工。我們把很大一部分工作外包出去了。現(xiàn)在游戲制作組有62名員工，運營組有38名員工。 PocketGamer.biz：你認為用戶服務(wù)和更新有多重要？你們怎么對待這類工作？  War Robots(from apple.com) Oleg Poroshin：過去五年里，《戰(zhàn)爭機器》一直以“游戲即服務(wù)”（game-as-a-service）模式運營，我們定期更新有趣的內(nèi)容，并提供高質(zhì)量的用戶服務(wù)。 建立一個快速全面解答玩家問題的系統(tǒng)是至關(guān)重要的。沒有用戶的反饋，很多游戲功能都無法得到改進。 舉個例子，匹配系統(tǒng)：搜尋對手需要一定時間，長短取決于用戶的等級。但多久算過長呢？15秒、30秒還是60秒？玩家反饋中出現(xiàn)得越頻繁的問題，就越應(yīng)重視起來。 我們一年會發(fā)布11至12個更新——修復(fù)補丁不包含在內(nèi)。通過更新我們推出了新的機器人、武器、功能和活動，改進了技術(shù)，修復(fù)了小問題。 PocketGamer.biz：游戲發(fā)行以來，你們在維持龐大的用戶群和用戶活躍度方面采取了哪些策略？ Oleg Poroshin：我們的每月活躍用戶（MAUs）中有35萬名兩年以上的老玩家，我們?yōu)榇烁械接葹轵湴?。在我們的營銷團隊一直以來的辛勤付出下，游戲?qū)崿F(xiàn)了長期留存，我們的核心玩家數(shù)量仍在不斷增長。 過去五年來，游戲的總下載量超過了1.3億次，因此通過二次營銷(retargeting)挽回曾經(jīng)的玩家是一項重要工作。我們越來越重視玩家社區(qū)的建設(shè)，積極地和社交媒體上的玩家互動，因為這些是我們最活躍、最忠誠的玩家。 獲取新玩家是我們的另一項重要任務(wù)。我們積極嘗試各種形式的廣告和平臺，有些甚至還在測試研發(fā)階段。每年都會誕生一些新的營銷方式，我們不想錯過。 PocketGamer.biz：過去五年你們根據(jù)市場變化對游戲做了哪些調(diào)整？ Oleg Poroshin：《戰(zhàn)爭機器人》的一大賣點是游戲的高度耐玩性。我們不斷為玩家提供新的娛樂元素：地圖、機器人、技能和其他功能。我們?yōu)槲淦髟O(shè)計了新的特效，使游戲煥然一新。 在過去五年里，游戲項目越來越龐大、復(fù)雜，因此我們在增加新元素時必須格外謹慎。我們在做決策前通常會先觀察同行在做什么。 舉個例子，我們對《堡壘之夜》的通行證(Battle Pass)很感興趣，想過做一些類似的東西。很多手游開發(fā)商都效仿了這個盈利模式。我們會觀察并選擇一個最好的方案，把它應(yīng)用到《戰(zhàn)爭機器人》里。 PocketGamer.biz：你認為《戰(zhàn)爭機器人》的長久吸引力源自哪里？你們是如何維持這種吸引力的？ Oleg Poroshin：自《戰(zhàn)爭機器人》發(fā)行以來，我們一直致力于優(yōu)化游戲經(jīng)濟。我們的目標是為玩家提供他們想要的東西。很長一段時間里，游戲缺乏有趣的低價道具，當我們最終推出這些道具時，我們和玩家實現(xiàn)了雙贏。 任何開發(fā)者的主要目標就是弄清玩家想要的是什么。在優(yōu)秀的分析團隊的協(xié)助下我們能夠預(yù)測玩家需求，協(xié)調(diào)團隊不斷改良相關(guān)機制，在每一次發(fā)布更新時滿足玩家的需求。 PocketGamer.biz：你愿意分享游戲目前的KPI嗎？比如下載量、日活躍用戶和留存率。 Oleg Poroshin：游戲目前的總下載量是1.3億，擁有35萬名2年以上的月活躍玩家。我們的社交媒體賬號擁有150萬名粉絲——如果加上我們的KOL的粉絲數(shù)那就更多了。 有意思的是，過去五年我們的開發(fā)團隊在Jira（項目與事務(wù)跟蹤工具）上完成了3萬個任務(wù)。 PocketGamer.biz：從過去或目前的開發(fā)工作中，你得到了哪些經(jīng)驗教訓(xùn)？現(xiàn)在的你會對過去的哪些事情采取不同的做法？ Oleg Poroshin：每次更新發(fā)行都增進了我們對玩家的了解，提高了我們處理問題的能力。顯然，一切不會永遠按計劃發(fā)展。 即便我們用上了所有分析方法，我們?nèi)匀粫凸懒送婕覍π鹿δ艿姆磻?yīng)。一個例子是我們最新的3v3競技模式，每位玩家在游戲前要抵押，游戲結(jié)束后，所有的抵押物由勝方玩家分攤。 我們很擔心玩家們無法接受它，產(chǎn)生負面評價。然而，玩家們似乎都很喜愛這個新模式，它成為了測試階段最受歡迎的模式。我們最開始在游戲里加入視頻廣告時也有相似的憂慮。 PocketGamer.biz：最后，《戰(zhàn)爭機器人》的開發(fā)經(jīng)歷為你現(xiàn)在的工作帶來了什么啟發(fā)？ Oleg Poroshin：《戰(zhàn)爭機器人》擁有巨大的潛力，項目仍在火熱開發(fā)中。我們已經(jīng)制定了全新的內(nèi)容計劃。 我們最近的一次調(diào)查顯示玩家想要更多的競技模式，因此我們在考慮“single-entry”(一種錦標賽形式，選手只能參加一次比賽，游戲邦注)和團體錦標賽。 這里劇透一下，我們正在研發(fā)一個特色功能，它將對游戲歷史產(chǎn)生重大影響。 本文由游戲邦編譯，轉(zhuǎn)載請注明來源或咨詢微信zhengjintiao It is often said that nothing is truly finished and it’s a saying the games industry has taken to heart in recent times. Long gone are the days of developing and publishing a game without the need to tweak, adjust and patch it after launch, with new titles requiring constant operation and updates to keep them at the forefront of consumer thought. Here at PocketGamer.biz we want to take the opportunity to highlight games that have bucked the trend and found an audience that has kept them thriving long after launch. In this entry of our Live and Kicking series, we caught up with Pixonic producer Oleg Poroshin following the fifth anniversary of its third-person shooter War Robots. PocketGamer.Biz: With War Robots passing its five-year anniversary on April 14th, how do you reflect on its performance from launch to the mature title it is now? Oleg Poroshin: War Robots had a long way to go since the day of its launch to today. As the years pass, we’re getting better at understanding the audience, the game itself and its potential. Personally, I think that as of today, the project is in its best shape metrics-wise and our ratings in the app stores are at their highest. All of this is possible because since launch we stayed true to our core values: -Attentive work with analytics: We always want to know as much as possible about all of the project’s metrics. As of today, we track more than 100 million in-game events daily. Our analytics team knows the game well enough to look at it with game designer optics and our game designers are always aware of how the features they introduce influence the metrics. - Listening to our audience’s opinion: It’s important for us to be sure that the whole company is aware of what’s happening with the project. Only our players can be honest and open about any pros and cons of a recent update or in-game event. Every week we publish the updates to our test server where we gather the initial player feedback. There hasn’t been a time yet when we didn’t have anything to fix after a test. For the past two years, we’ve been inviting community opinion leaders to our office for War Robots’ birthday. Our guests present to the team what issues they think are present in the game. After that, we informally discuss possible solutions. This is an extremely valuable and truly motivating experience for all of us. The most important thing is to always be rational when evaluating the situation and always keep an open eye to spot possible issues. This together with analytics and player feedback has been helping us develop for the past five years. How big is the team currently handling live ops at Pixonic? As of today, 100 people are working on the project at the office. We also outsource a large chunk of our work. Currently, we have 62 employees in the production team and 38 employees in the operating team. How important do you consider customer support and updates to be? What has been your approach to this? During all five years of its existence, War Robots has been a games-as-a-service. That implies regular updates that add new interesting content and the best quality user support. It’s critical to build a system for fast and thorough answers to the players’ questions. There’s a whole array of features that simply can’t be improved without user feedback. For example, the matchmaking system: you can measure time finding a rival, a difference in user ranking, etcetera. But how much time finding a rival is too much time? Is it 15 seconds, or 30, or 60? The more frequently a problem appears in support threads, the more priority it gets. We’re publishing 11 to 12 updates a year – excluding hotfixes. With said updates, we release new robots, weapons, features, technical improvements, bug fixes and entertaining in-game events. What steps have you taken to ensure that War Robots maintains a sizable and active player base all this time after its launch? One thing we’re exceptionally proud of is that 350,000 of our MAUs are the players who have been with us for more than two years. Thanks to good long-time retention metrics and constant work of our marketing team, our core audience is still growing. For the past five years, we’ve had more than 130 million installs, so it’s important to work on retargeting campaigns to make sure they all return. With every year that passes, the community we build becomes even more important. We need to be active on social media because that’s where our most active and loyal players are. Acquiring new users is also what we’re actively working on. We’re testing all of the advertising formats and platforms there are, even the ones still in beta-testing. Every year there’s a new trend in marketing and we don’t want to miss a thing. How have you adapted War Robots through market changes during the five years that the game has been live? One of War Robots’ USPs is high replayability of the core gameplay. We’re constantly adding something new to keep the players entertained: maps, robots, abilities and other features. Recently, we’ve added a variety of new effects for the weapons to refresh the game. In the past five years, the project has truly become enormous and complicated and we have to be very careful when introducing something new. We never rush and usually look at what other companies in the industry are doing before implementing something. A good example is the Battle Pass in Fortnite. This feature got us curious, and we’ve thought about making something similar. A lot of mobile games developers picked up this idea as well. We’re looking at the best ones and adapting them to fit War Robots. To what do you attribute War Robots consistently impressive grossing performance and how do you sustain it? We’ve been working on improving the in-game economics ever since War Robots was released. Our goal is to offer our players exactly what they want. For a long time, we lacked interesting low-priced goods. It was a win both for us and the players when we finally introduced them to the game. The main objective of any developer is to find out what the user wants. Thanks to our advanced analytics we can plan the players demand. With every release we’re forming our supply and support it with different mechanics that are constantly under improvement by our team. Any KPI’s such as downloads, DAU or retention you’re willing to share? More than 130 million installs and more than 350,000 MAUs, all of whom have been with us for more than two years. Our social media following is now 1.5 million – even more if we count our influencers. Fun fact: for the past five years our developer’s team closed 30,000 issues in Jira. What lessons have you learned/are you still learning from War Robots? Is there anything about the game that, in hindsight, you’d now handle differently? With every release we’re getting better at understanding our players and solving issues. Obviously, not everything goes according to plan. Even with all the analytics, we can still underestimate the players’ reaction to a new feature. The latest example is the new competitive mode where six players have to make a bid to enter and then the whole bank is distributed between the three winners. We were very worried that the idea won’t be accepted by our players and the feedback will be negative. However, everybody seems to love the new mode and it has become the most popular mode during its testing. We’ve had a similar situation when implementing video advertisements. Finally, how has your experience with War Robots informed where you are/what you’re working on now? War Robots has great potential as the project is actively developing. We’ve got plans for some drastically new content to make. Our latest research shows that the players want more competitive modes, so we’re thinking about single-entry and team tournaments. Spoiler alert: we’re working on a secret feature that will be a huge step in War Robots history.（source：PocketGamer.biz） |
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