2d手機(jī)游戲開(kāi)發(fā)

by William Kwan

關(guān)冠偉

我的手機(jī)游戲如何在2周內(nèi)獲得365K應(yīng)用商店下載(以及為什么以后我退出獨(dú)立游戲開(kāi)發(fā)者) (How My Mobile Game Got 365K App Store Downloads in 2 Weeks (And Why I Quit Indie Game Dev Afterwards))

I’m not a successful game developer. My most popular game, Frantic Architect, only had 410,678 free installs before being removed from the App Store; nothing compared to the likes of Flappy Bird or 2048.

我不是一個(gè)成功的游戲開(kāi)發(fā)商。 我最受歡迎的游戲Frantic Architect ，在從App Store移除之前，只有410,678次免費(fèi)安裝。 與“ 飛揚(yáng)的鳥(niǎo)”或“ 2048”之類的東西相比沒(méi)有什么了。

But I was 21, had an unconventional but respectable background in games, and had built the game by myself with relatively little effort. This looked like the perfect jumpstart to my career as an indie game developer.

但是我當(dāng)時(shí)21歲，在游戲領(lǐng)域具有非常規(guī)但受人尊敬的背景，并且我自己花費(fèi)了很少的精力就制作了這款游戲。 這看起來(lái)像是我作為獨(dú)立游戲開(kāi)發(fā)人員的職業(yè)生涯的完美起點(diǎn)。

Instead I quit.

相反，我退出了。

It’s been a year and half since Frantic Architect came out. Things move quickly in tech and I don’t spend much time reflecting on abandoned ventures. But browsing through the App Store now, I see casual mobile game developers finding success with the same strategy I used back then. I doubt it’ll still work years down the line, but for now it does, and it’s very straightforward (not saying it’s easy).

自Frantic Architect問(wèn)世以來(lái)已經(jīng)一年半了。 科技的發(fā)展日新月異，我不會(huì)花很多時(shí)間思考廢棄的企業(yè)。 但是，現(xiàn)在瀏覽App Store，我發(fā)現(xiàn)休閑手機(jī)游戲開(kāi)發(fā)人員以我當(dāng)時(shí)使用的相同策略獲得了成功。 我懷疑它是否還會(huì)繼續(xù)工作多年，但是目前它確實(shí)可以，而且它非常簡(jiǎn)單(并不是說(shuō)很容易)。

You don’t even need the couple years of game programming and design experience I had. If your goal is to develop a mobile app quickly, you don’t care about what kind of app it is, and you want to replicable method to acquire ton of users fast without spending a fortune on ads, then the casual mobile game niche is for you.

您甚至不需要我有幾年的游戲編程和設(shè)計(jì)經(jīng)驗(yàn)。 如果您的目標(biāo)是快速開(kāi)發(fā)移動(dòng)應(yīng)用程序，而不在乎它是什么類型的應(yīng)用程序，并且想通過(guò)一種可復(fù)制的方法來(lái)快速獲取大量用戶而又不花大錢(qián)在廣告上，那么休閑移動(dòng)游戲的利基市場(chǎng)就是為了你。

I’ve got no interest in repeating the experiment because I think it’s a shitty business model. Maybe you can prove me wrong.

我對(duì)重復(fù)實(shí)驗(yàn)沒(méi)有興趣，因?yàn)槲艺J(rèn)為這是一種糟糕的商業(yè)模式。 也許你可以證明我錯(cuò)了。

March 17, 2016

2016年3月17日

I rolled out of my bed in my university dorm and checked my Skype. My game had been submitted to Apple for review a week ago and I knew it could go live at any time. I was in Toronto, and my product manager was in Paris, so I had gotten into the habit of waking up to a flood of messages.

我從大學(xué)宿舍的床上滑下來(lái)，檢查了Skype。 我的游戲已在一周前提交給Apple審核，我知道它可以隨時(shí)發(fā)布。 我當(dāng)時(shí)在多倫多，我的產(chǎn)品經(jīng)理在巴黎，所以我養(yǎng)成了醒來(lái)時(shí)要大量信息的習(xí)慣。

I recall reading some congratulatory message about my game getting featured worldwide by Apple. I turned on my iPad and opened up the App Store. Sure enough, Frantic Architect was sitting there as a Best New Game.

我記得曾經(jīng)讀過(guò)一些祝賀性消息，稱我的游戲在Apple的全球推廣下得到了認(rèn)可。 我打開(kāi)iPad并打開(kāi)了App Store。 果然，《 瘋狂的建筑師》被評(píng)為最佳新游戲。

I got access to the analytics a few days later. Day 4 was my by best day with 58,486 downloads.

幾天后，我可以訪問(wèn)分析了。 第四天是我最好的一天，有58,486次下載。

By two weeks, downloads had already dropped off precipitously. I wasn’t too disappointed because I wasn’t expecting this volume of users to begin with. During the 6 months which I worked/procrastinated on my game, I was given very little indication of how well it was going to do besides the fact that I had gotten a contract from one of the most successful casual mobile game publishers at the time, BulkyPix.

到兩周時(shí)，下載量已經(jīng)急劇下降。 我并不感到失望，因?yàn)槲也⒉黄谕@么多的用戶開(kāi)始。 在我從事/拖延游戲開(kāi)發(fā)的6個(gè)月中，除了我從當(dāng)時(shí)最成功的休閑手機(jī)游戲發(fā)行商之一獲得合同的事實(shí)之外，我?guī)缀鯖](méi)有得到任何進(jìn)展的跡象， BulkyPix。

However, I was underwhelmed with the ad revenue given the download numbers.

但是，鑒于下載數(shù)量，我對(duì)廣告收入感到不知所措。

This was the first alarm bell which made me question whether I should keep doing this. That initial spike of traffic at launch was nowhere near enough to generate livable income, and I didn’t want to constantly push out new content to keep my game relevant because I didn’t think the game was very good to begin with. More importantly, I didn’t even know what kind of content players would want.

這是第一個(gè)警鐘，使我懷疑我是否應(yīng)該繼續(xù)這樣做。 發(fā)行時(shí)最初的流量高峰遠(yuǎn)不足以產(chǎn)生宜居的收入，我不想不斷推出新內(nèi)容來(lái)保持游戲的吸引力，因?yàn)槲艺J(rèn)為游戲一開(kāi)始就不是很好。 更重要的是，我什至不知道播放器需要什么樣的內(nèi)容。

My initial batch of users found out about the game through the App Store feature, which led to the game hitting the top charts in over a hundred countries, resulting in even more downloads. But I had no idea who these people were, or why they were interested in my game. As far as I knew, they just happened to download it because it was in front of their faces.

我的第一批用戶通過(guò)App Store功能發(fā)現(xiàn)了有關(guān)該游戲的信息，這導(dǎo)致該游戲在100多個(gè)國(guó)家/地區(qū)排名最高，從而獲得了更多的下載量。 但是我不知道這些人是誰(shuí)，或者為什么他們對(duì)我的游戲感興趣。 據(jù)我所知，他們只是偶然下載了它，因?yàn)樗谒麄兊拿媲啊?

It turned out to be a good thing that my game wasn’t a cash cow because a couple months later, BulkyPix declared bankruptcy and I never got paid a penny. I was pretty pissed but this wasn’t why I left indie games. I needed to generate reliable revenue, but my approach, which I had shamelessly copied from other games, was flawed.

事實(shí)證明，我的游戲不是搖錢(qián)樹(shù)，這是一件好事，因?yàn)閹讉€(gè)月后，BulkyPix宣布破產(chǎn)，而我卻一分錢(qián)也沒(méi)有得到。 我當(dāng)時(shí)很生氣，但這不是我離開(kāi)獨(dú)立游戲的原因。 我需要產(chǎn)生可靠的收入，但是我從其他游戲中無(wú)恥復(fù)制的方法存在缺陷。

The entire strategy relies on getting your game featured by Apple or Google. A casual mobile game isn’t going to stand out among the thousands of other games released every month if you just post it on random places on the Internet.

整個(gè)策略取決于使您的游戲成為Apple或Google的特色。 如果將休閑游戲發(fā)布在Internet上的隨機(jī)位置上，它將不會(huì)在每月發(fā)布的成千上萬(wàn)種其他游戲中脫穎而出。

In order to get featured, you need to get through to their editorial teams. You could try sending mass emails and LinkedIn connections to try to find an inside contact to pitch your game to (I’ve never done this but I guess it’s worth a shot) but what most of the top casual mobile game developers do is pitch their games to well-known publishers. These publishers meet with the Apple and Google editorial teams regularly, and will pitch them your game in-person. Their connections and reputation are your best way of getting that coveted spot on the front page of the store if your game is mediocre like mine was (I assume yours isn’t much better, or else you aren’t making casual mobile games).

為了獲得關(guān)注，您需要聯(lián)系他們的編輯團(tuán)隊(duì)。 您可以嘗試發(fā)送大量電子郵件和LinkedIn連接，以嘗試找到內(nèi)部聯(lián)系人來(lái)宣傳您的游戲(我從未做過(guò)，但我想這很值得一試)，但是大多數(shù)頂級(jí)休閑手機(jī)游戲開(kāi)發(fā)商所做的就是宣傳他們的游戲。游戲給知名發(fā)行商。 這些發(fā)行商會(huì)定期與Apple和Google編輯團(tuán)隊(duì)會(huì)面，并親自向您推薦您的游戲。 如果您的游戲像我的游戲一樣平庸(我認(rèn)為您的游戲并沒(méi)有更好，或者您不是在制作休閑手機(jī)游戲)，那么他們的聯(lián)系和聲譽(yù)是您在商店首頁(yè)上獲得夢(mèng)co以求的位置的最佳方式。

To get your game through to a publisher, you need to pitch them a game which fits their portfolio but also has a unique selling point. If they accept your game, they’ll handle all the business stuff in exchange for a large percentage of the revenue and ownership of the IP, and you just focus on making the game good.

為了將您的游戲推向發(fā)行商，您需要向他們推薦一款既適合他們的產(chǎn)品組合又具有獨(dú)特賣點(diǎn)的游戲。 如果他們接受您的游戲，他們將處理所有業(yè)務(wù)，以換取IP收入和所有權(quán)的很大一部分，而您只是專注于使游戲變得更好。

The overall strategy can be broken down into 5 steps:

總體策略可以分為5個(gè)步驟：

Comb through the top charts and the featured games on the App Store and Google Play and look for games which are dead-simple to build. As I’m writing this, prime candidates would be games like Fire Up! and Dunk Shot.

梳理App Store和Google Play上的熱門(mén)排行榜和特色游戲，尋找難以構(gòu)建的游戲。 在我撰寫(xiě)本文時(shí)，主要候選人將是Fire Up之類的游戲！ 和灌籃高手 。

Find the publishers behind those games and look for the ones which have worked with many different developers. Look for patterns across their portfolio of games. Generally, they all have short gameplay session duration and simple mechanics. There’s isn’t much difference between most of these publishers in terms of what they accept, so if one of them likes your game, chances are there’ll be others which like it as well.

查找那些游戲背后的發(fā)行商，并尋找與許多不同開(kāi)發(fā)商合作過(guò)的發(fā)行商。 在他們的游戲組合中尋找模式。 通常，它們都具有較短的游戲時(shí)長(zhǎng)和簡(jiǎn)單的機(jī)制。 這些發(fā)行商之間的接受程度并沒(méi)有太大差異，因此，如果其中一個(gè)發(fā)行人喜歡您的游戲，那么就有機(jī)會(huì)也有其他發(fā)行人也喜歡它。

Make prototypes fast. Don’t code anything except for the core gameplay loop and keep the graphics simple. It’s fine to rip off other games as long as you have one unique selling point. This is usually a mechanic, but you can also just skin an existing game concept in an interesting way if you have the artistic talent.

快速制作原型。 除了核心游戲循環(huán)外，不要編寫(xiě)任何代碼，并保持圖形簡(jiǎn)單。 只要您擁有一個(gè)獨(dú)特的賣點(diǎn)，就可以剝離其他游戲。 這通常是一種機(jī)制，但是如果您具有藝術(shù)才華，也可以通過(guò)一種有趣的方式來(lái)修飾現(xiàn)有的游戲概念。

Send playable builds to all the publishers you researched earlier. Keep your email pitch brief. It shouldn’t take more than a sentence to describe that one selling point.

將可玩的版本發(fā)送給您之前研究過(guò)的所有發(fā)行商。 保持電子郵件簡(jiǎn)短。 描述一個(gè)賣點(diǎn)不需要多用一句話。

Sign a contract and finish the game. You’ll probably have to make the sales material such as ads and descriptions as well. Pay special attention to the graphics you need to submit to Apple and Google.

簽訂合同并完成游戲。 您可能還必須制作銷售材料，例如廣告和說(shuō)明。 請(qǐng)?zhí)貏e注意您需要提交給Apple和Google的圖形。

My first 3 games were universally rejected, but this was only a few hundred hours of lost work, and I could have reduced this to a few dozen if I hadn’t fallen in love with the first two games and kept adding features to them in spite of the fact that they were getting ignored/passed on by every publisher I showed it too. Don’t do that. Scrap your rejected games quickly and mitigate your losses. Casual mobile games should be easy to make, so starting over is often faster than iterating on a boring or broken design.

我的前三場(chǎng)比賽被普遍拒絕，但這只是幾百個(gè)小時(shí)的工作損失，如果我不愛(ài)上前兩場(chǎng)比賽并繼續(xù)在其中添加功能，我本可以減少到幾十個(gè)小時(shí)盡管我也向每位發(fā)布者都忽略了它們/將它們傳遞給了我。 不要那樣做 快速報(bào)廢您拒絕的游戲并減輕損失。 休閑手機(jī)游戲應(yīng)該易于制作，因此從頭開(kāi)始通常比在無(wú)聊或折斷的設(shè)計(jì)上迭代要快。

When I say your publisher will handle the business stuff, I mean they’ll maximize your chances of getting featured. You might think that there are other avenues of marketing they can help with. There are, but it mostly involves sending sales material to a lot of gaming and tech-related news/review/social media sites. Not very impactful if your game is another casual mobile game. To give a sense of how little this helps, the Google Play version of Frantic Architect only had a grand total of 3,817 downloads. It was submitted to the same sites which the iOS version was (I don’t know what all these sites were, but you can find a bunch of them if you Google the game). It just didn’t get featured on Google Play.

當(dāng)我說(shuō)您的出版商將處理業(yè)務(wù)事務(wù)時(shí)，是指他們將最大程度地發(fā)揮您的特色。 您可能會(huì)認(rèn)為還有其他可以幫助您進(jìn)行營(yíng)銷的途徑。 有，但主要涉及將銷售材料發(fā)送到許多與游戲和技術(shù)相關(guān)的新聞/評(píng)論/社交媒體網(wǎng)站。 如果您的游戲是另一款休閑手機(jī)游戲，影響不大。 為了大致了解這一點(diǎn)，Google Play版本的Frantic Architect僅下載了3,817次。 它被提交到了與iOS版本相同的網(wǎng)站(我不知道所有這些網(wǎng)站是什么，但是如果您使用Google游戲，可以找到很多這些網(wǎng)站)。 它只是沒(méi)有在Google Play上出現(xiàn)。

What does seem to help, from what I’ve researched, is cross-promotion between different games in a publisher’s portfolio. Basically, instead of paying a ton of money for ads, you get the ads for free from other games the publisher owns. I don’t have the data for the sources of Frantic Architect’s downloads, but I doubt BulkyPix ever did this for me. It was a mistake to overlook this when I signed the contract, but it wouldn’t have prevented the game from dying.

根據(jù)我的研究，似乎有幫助的是發(fā)行商產(chǎn)品組合中不同游戲之間的交叉促銷。 基本上，您無(wú)需為廣告花費(fèi)大量資金，而可以免費(fèi)從發(fā)布者擁有的其他游戲中獲得廣告。 我沒(méi)有Frantic Architect下載源的數(shù)據(jù)，但我懷疑BulkyPix是否曾為我這樣做。 當(dāng)我簽訂合同時(shí)忽視這一點(diǎn)是一個(gè)錯(cuò)誤，但這并不能阻止游戲的滅亡。

If I had to describe why making casual mobile games is a dumb way to make money, I’d compare it to running a hot dog stand. It has a cookie-cutter business model and even though the food is terrible, customers come because it’s fast and convenient. The higher-end indie game developers are like restaurant owners, who put out good food but struggle to make money just the same because there’s just as much competition. Regardless of whether you’re running the restaurant or the hot dog stand, how do you convince someone that they need to come and eat your food, when there are so many other places they can go?

如果我不得不描述為什么制作休閑手機(jī)游戲是一種愚蠢的賺錢(qián)方式，我可以將其與運(yùn)行熱狗架相提并論。 它具有千篇一律的商業(yè)模式，即使食物很糟糕，顧客也因?yàn)樗目焖俸捅憬荻鴣?lái)。 高端獨(dú)立游戲開(kāi)發(fā)商就像餐館老板一樣，他們提供美味佳肴，但由于存在同樣多的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)而難以賺錢(qián)。 無(wú)論您經(jīng)營(yíng)的是餐廳還是熱狗攤，當(dāng)有很多其他地方可以去時(shí)，您如何說(shuō)服某人他們需要來(lái)吃您的食物？

Of course, a select few will make it out on top as successful hot dog stands and restaurants. But why not choose a market with less competition, and one where you can succinctly explain to your customer why they should buy your product, instead of a vague promise of fun and satisfaction?

當(dāng)然，少數(shù)幾個(gè)將成為成功的熱狗攤位和餐館的佼佼者。 但是，為什么不選擇競(jìng)爭(zhēng)較少的市場(chǎng)，而您卻可以在其中向客戶簡(jiǎn)潔地解釋為什么他們應(yīng)該購(gòu)買(mǎi)您的產(chǎn)品，而不是含糊其詞的樂(lè)趣和滿足感呢？

I still love games. I was raised on them and I’ll probably be a gamer for the rest of my life. But if I’m ever going to make another game, I’m not going to treat it as a business.

我仍然喜歡游戲。 我在他們身上長(zhǎng)大，一生可能會(huì)成為游戲玩家。 但是，如果我要制作另一款游戲，就不會(huì)將其視為公司。

I don’t know much about running a company. I’ve abandoned multiple other projects since Frantic Architect, so I don’t even consider it a particularly painful failure. But I don’t think it’s due to luck or more effort that my current venture, a game server provider for a survival crafting game, is on track to surpass the total revenue of Frantic Architect next month, yet has a userbase of hundreds instead of hundreds of thousands, and has been growing steadily since launch a month and a half ago. I get why people need my service, I can charge accordingly for it, and I can improve it without having to take wild guesses at what to do.

我對(duì)經(jīng)營(yíng)公司一無(wú)所知。 自Frantic Architect以來(lái)，我已經(jīng)放棄了其他多個(gè)項(xiàng)目，所以我什至都不認(rèn)為這是一個(gè)特別痛苦的失敗。 但是我不認(rèn)為這是由于運(yùn)氣或更多的努力所致， 我目前的企業(yè)是一家生存手工游戲的游戲服務(wù)器提供商， 有望在下個(gè)月超過(guò)Frantic Architect的總收入，但擁有數(shù)百名用戶，而不是數(shù)十萬(wàn)，并且自一個(gè)半月前推出以來(lái)一直穩(wěn)定增長(zhǎng)。 我明白了為什么人們需要我的服務(wù)，我可以相應(yīng)地收費(fèi)，并且我可以改進(jìn)它，而不必大膽猜測(cè)要做什么。

Too many people look at the apps at the top of the App Store and mistakenly think that those are the the most successful. But targeted customers are worth way more than random customers, and the businesses which understand this are the ones worth learning from, even if they aren’t in the spotlight.

太多的人看了App Store頂部的應(yīng)用程序，卻錯(cuò)誤地認(rèn)為它們是最成功的。 但是，目標(biāo)客戶比隨機(jī)客戶更有價(jià)值，而且了解目標(biāo)客戶的企業(yè)是值得向他們學(xué)習(xí)的企業(yè)，即使他們沒(méi)有受到關(guān)注。

翻譯自: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-my-mobile-game-got-365k-app-store-downloads-in-2-weeks-and-why-i-quit-indie-game-dev-a3ebd1fa3229/

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