青少年社交游戏开发要点编辑本段回目录
作者：Mike Thompson
每天来自世界各地的玩家共会打开8000多万款社交游戏，但是却只有15%的游戏能够吸引他们再次回到其中。社交游戏领域拥有极高的抛弃率，但是我们也需要记住许多游戏都是面向于广大玩家——但很难同时迎合所有玩家。在Spil Games，我们便认为面向利基用户定制游戏是获得稳定的用户基础并将其转变成忠实用户的最佳方法。
专门面向十几岁的少男少女，或者那些可能陪孩子一起玩在线游戏的家长们开发游戏将有可能为游戏呈现出巨大的发展机遇。实际上，91%的孩子都属于游戏玩家（我们知道这里存在着巨大的市场），而我们需要做的便是想办法吸引这些玩家去玩自己的游戏。当提到成功，开发者必须将基于用户的设计与利基用户的独特兴趣和行为结合在一起。当然了，做到这些并不要求你具有心理学博士学位，还有其它战术能够帮助你更好地理解游戏开发过程。我认为这是一种三步设计方法：
1.了解你所面对的用户的心理基础。
2.使用焦点小组去检测你的发现结果。
3.在现实用户身上测试游戏。
让我们深入分析：
Girlogo Games（from insidesocialgames）
1）了解利基用户的心理
在将游戏交给用户前，你需要先清楚他们的想法。当你面向的是十几岁青少年时，你就需要深入了解这些玩家的心理想法，从而才能确保他们会喜欢你的游戏。换句话说：不要相信你作为“成人”的直觉。要知道研究游戏玩法背后的心理学原理是件很有趣的事。整合心理现象，如正反馈循环（为了再次创造出某些正面结果而持续一个行动或行为），将通过延长平均游戏长度并循环游戏玩法而影响游戏行为。
在面向利基用户开发游戏时还必须考虑到性别差异。我们发现许多游戏成份能够从整体上吸引所有孩子（不管男生女生），但是我们也发现男生和女生总是会受到不同游戏元素的吸引，特别是在6至12岁之间的青少年。举个例子来说，青少年男孩喜欢一些极端的游戏，即强调成功者和失败者，带有鲜明的竞争成份并能够让他们清楚地呈现出游戏结果。
青少年女孩虽然也喜欢竞争，但是她们同样也对非竞争游戏玩法很感兴趣，因为这能帮助她们培养自尊并让她们感受到自我存在价值。同时这个年龄的女孩们总喜欢在日常生活中扮演不同的角色。而掌握了她们在日常生活中的角色扮演（如父母，其他兄弟姐妹等），如模仿喂养家禽或上班等行动，你便能够将其带进游戏主题中，从而创造出一款真正有趣的在线游戏。
Girlogo Games（from insidesocialgames）
2）突击测试：在游戏创造过程中使用检查表和焦点小组
当然了，我们并不可能从最初的心理或行为研究中掌握一切。只有有效整合焦点小组，调查发现以及来自利基用户的直接反应，我们才能够创造出一款真正优秀的游戏。
在这一开发阶段，我们可以将玩家当成联合开发者，即帮助我们创造出完美游戏的重要力量。调查和焦点小组是测试一款全新游戏或角色，并掌握用户对此反应的最佳方法。
就像当我们在一款授权游戏上进行完善或更新时，焦点小组便是一种有效的方法。就像我们的目标是在一款烹饪游戏中设置一个女厨师的角色。而在欧洲进行几次的焦点小组讨论后，也就是听取了上百名青少年玩家及其父母分享他们对厨师角色的想法和反应，我们最终决定换掉该女厨师的服装，发行和妆容，从以此吸引更多青少年女孩及其家长的注意。
Girlogo Games（from insidesocialgames）
3）基于对利基用户的分析而设计用户界面
在游戏开发的第三阶段中，也就是让现实玩家在实验室玩完整的游戏，我们发现了一个很容易被忽视的游戏开发元素：也就是不同用户的使用问题。例如有些用户的手指较短。所以作为开发者，我们不只需要确保孩子们会喜欢我们所创造的游戏，同时还必须保证他们能够操作这款游戏。这些玩家的手指长短直接影响着他们的输入方式，所以不管他们是握着鼠标还是在智能手机上玩游戏，任何一些小细节都将直接影响着这些孩子对于游戏的看法，甚至有可能让他们厌烦到想丢掉爸爸的手机。
我们的可用性测试便揭示了一些重要发现。如孩童玩家很难用娇小的双手去控制平板电脑设备。为了握住平板电脑，孩子们的手指可能会不小心碰触到屏幕，从而影响游戏控制。而开发者便可以通过忽视这种碰触系统去解决这一问题，例如设置靠近按键或活动区的手指也能触动游戏运行，并忽视其它手指碰触等。
总结：
尽管我们见证了游戏领域的飞速发展，但是对于开发者来说，如果想在这个竞争激烈的世界里存活就必须进一步了解用户行为。掌握特定用户的喜好和行为不仅能够增强开发者的信心，同时还能帮助他们在整个过程中更合理地分配资源。开发者可以使用焦点小组和可用性测试所获得的数据而决定在创造过程中将侧重执行哪些任务。如果明确了目标用户真正在乎的内容，开发者便无需浪费时间去定义无意义的动画细节了。只要我们能够整合最合适的元素，我们便有可能创造出大热门游戏，并有效吸引用户的注意从而帮助我们获得更大的利益。
（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译）
Guest Post: Getting Schooled on Developing the Best Games for Teens and Tweens
By Mike Thompson
There are over 80 million social games played each day, yet only 15 percent of these games are played more than once by a user. We’re seeing a high level of abandonment in the social gaming space, but keep in mind that many of these games are developed for mass audiences— where it’s very difficult to please everyone. At Spil Games, we prefer to operate in a world where tailoring gaming experiences to niche audiences is an ideal way to reach an engaged consumer base and convert them into loyal users.
Thinking specifically about tween girls, teenage boys or even parents looking to play online games with their kids, developing games for niche audiences can provide a major growth opportunity. If fact, 91 percent of kids are gamers – we know the market is there – it’s simply a matter harnessing these consumers to get them to play your game. When it comes to success, it is crucial for developers to incorporate a user-centered design approach to appeal to niche audiences’ unique interests and behaviors. Getting it right doesn’t require a PhD in psychology, and while it certainly couldn’t hurt, there are several different tactics to understanding the basics throughout the game development process.
I think of it as a three-step design approach:
1. Understand the psychological foundations of the audience for which you are developing.
2. Use focus groups to double-check your findings
3. Validate your game by testing it on real users.
Let’s dive deeper …
I. Open your Textbooks: Psych 101
Before you can get into your audiences’ hands, first things first: Get inside their heads. Specific to the teen and tween demographic, it’s essential to know the basic psychology behind these players so that they will find your game content engaging. In other words: Don’t trust your own “grown up” intuition. The psychology behind gameplay is fascinating to read up on. The incorporation of psychological phenomena, such as a positive feedback loop (continuing an action or behavior because of the reoccurring positive outcome,) for example, has been shown to influence gaming behavior by extending average length of play and recurring gameplay.
It is also important to examine gender differences when developing games to niche audiences. We find that there are many game components that motivate kids in general, but we also see that boys and girls tend to be motivated by different aspects of games, especially for players that fall between the ages of 6-12. For example, younger teenage boys prefer games that are extreme, with winners and losers, and an overtly competitive component where they can clearly show off results.
Tween girls like competition as well, but are also interested in non-competitive gameplay that helps them to develop self-esteem and feelings of self-worth. Tween girls are also at an age where they are eager to act out different roles they see exhibited in their daily lives. Understanding that they see their daily role models (parents, older siblings, etc.) duties like feeding household pets and being held accountable for a fulltime job could all translate into successful online game themes.
II. Pop Quiz: Implementing Checklists and Focus Groups in Game Creation
Of course, not everything can be learned from textbooks, or rather, initial psychological or behavioral research. It is just as important to incorporate a human component to the development process by taking a look at focus group reactions, survey findings and direct feedback from niche audiences into making a game as awesome as possible.
In this phase of the game development process, think of your gamers as co-developers, aiding you in fully baking out the perfect game. Surveys and focus groups are the perfect way to test out a brand new game or character and see a small-scale perspective of how your audience will react.
A great focus group example is when we were tasked to rebrand and update a character in one of our staple franchises. The goal was to modernize the female chef character of a cooking game. After several focus groups in Europe, working with hundreds of tween gamers and their parents to determine their thoughts and reactions to the chef character, we ended up fully revamping her wardrobe, hair and makeup to appeal to these tween girls and their parents.
III. Physical Education: Designing User-Interface around Niche Audience’s Anatomy
In phase three of the game development process, that is, having real gamers play completed games in the lab, we have found an essential aspect of developing a game is all too easily forgotten: audience specific usability issues. For instance, with little gamers come little fingers. As a developer, we need to make sure that we are not only creating games kids will love, but also making sure that they can actually play them. The size of these gamers’ hands and fingers directly impact the way they type, hold a mouse and play games on a smartphone or — minor details which can ultimately impact whether a kid loves your game, or wants to throw their dad’s smartphone out the car window!
Specifically, our usability tests reveal several findings. One demonstrated younger kids find holding a tablet device to be very difficult for their little hands. In an attempt to grasp the tablet, the children often accidentally touch the screen with their fingers, which impacts the game controls. Developers can implement more forgiving touch systems to combat this issue, for example by placing the finger closest to a button or active region in control and have all other finger pressure ignored.
Graduation:
We are witnessing a very exciting time for the gaming space but for a developer to survive in this highly populated world, it is essential to take the necessary steps to understand audience behavior. Understanding specific audience preferences and behavior can not only instill confidence in a game’s success post-development, but also help developers allocate resources appropriately throughout the entire process. Developers can use data from focus groups and usability tests to prioritize what to spend the most time on during the creation process. There’s no need to spend hours refining certain animation details if you know your target audience cares more about the potential ways they can customize the game. There are plenty of hit games yet to be developed, we just need to make sure to hone in on the most applicable aspects to incorporate, so that awesome games can reach audiences effectively and start earning return.(source:insidesocialgames)
