作者：Josh Williams

自从诞生以来，社交游戏产业发生了巨大的变化。然而，比起早前的一些测试游戏，单词游戏以及纸牌游戏等较为简单的社交游戏，如今的社交游戏大多斥资百万美元，并且普遍比那些传统的休闲游戏复杂得多。

而且，以前的社交游戏大多通过广告，激励奖励机制以及直接销售创收，但是如今的社交游戏却更多地受益于直接销售和Facebook Credits。

除此之外，在早期的社交游戏发展阶段，病毒式传播渠道非常重要。那时候的社交游戏设计总是尽可能地鼓励玩家反复向好友传播游戏信息，但去年Facebook对这种病毒式传播机制以及游戏与玩家间的交流方式进行了一次大改造。这么一来，我们倒想看看社交游戏产业将继续前进发展还是慢慢衰弱下去。

尽管Facebook游戏和应用的病毒式传播有所改变，但是却并未消失。优秀的开发者已经知道如何去适应这种新型病毒传播系统，并用一种全新的方式与用户进行交流。病毒式传播的改变同时也改变了社交游戏公司以广告和游戏设计为主的用户获取方式。以下是一些主要游戏开发者做出的有价值的改变：

facebook games(from facebookgames.club)

1.用户粘性漏斗之更深层次的病毒式传播。开发者发现，比起新玩家向好友宣传或者邀请好友加入游戏所发出的信息，忠实老玩家的病毒式传播信息更有效。现在更多游戏倾向于借助位于用户粘性漏斗底端的忠实用户，为他们争取到更多新玩家的游戏请求。如此，尽管每个用户所传播的病毒式信息日益减少，但是病毒式信息回复率却显著提高了。可以说数量是减少了，但是质量却提高了。

2.把病毒式传播当成一种用户留存工具。以前主要是利用病毒式传播信息争取新玩家。但是，随着Facebook应用系统，平台政策以及游戏文化的发展，这些信息越来越多地被用于挽留玩家，并吸引玩家再次回到游戏中。与同一款游戏中的好友进行交流能够鼓励玩家再次进行游戏，提高游戏的用户留存率，让玩家更加忠于游戏。同样地，现在好友间的病毒式信息的价值标准不再是基于它们能吸引多少新玩家了，而是他们在推动（1）“休眠玩家”重新回到游戏，（2）提高玩家的游戏时间长度以及游戏频率，以及（3）影响玩家的购买行为等方面的效率。

3.多元化病毒式传播测试和优化。最优秀的游戏开发者将会测试玩家的病毒式传播时间，地点和方式（游戏邦注：这些测试已不再是简单衡量所有已发送信息的数量，或者每个用户发送的信息数量，而是关注于好友真实的反应率，重视效能甚于数量）。开发者同样也在测试用户信息内容的创造性：即哪些信息可以号召最佳回应率，哪些病毒式奖励，礼物或帮助请求对用户的行动最有号召力？开发者也总是在测试并优化信息陈述的时间选择，以及游戏中的那些活动能够促进病毒式信息的传播。此外，开发者现在也针对不同类型的病毒式信息进行多元化测试和优化工作：病毒式获取渠道优化，病毒式用户粘性优化以及病毒式用户留存渠道优化。

4.将病毒式传播机制带入深层次的游戏设置中。今天，主要的Facebook应用都牢牢绑定了病毒式传播机制。而早前称霸于社交游戏中，让玩家发送垃圾邮件邀请好友加入游戏的“邻居”，“同伙”以及“工人”等机制在今天的社交领域越来越没有效率了。取而代之的是一些更琐碎但却更有意义的社交互动。一些较优秀的游戏让玩家能够自己创造游戏角色，并通过使用好友个性化角色而帮助他们进行战斗，或者创建一个虚拟世界。游戏鼓励玩家间进行一些有意义的贸易活动，鼓励玩家不要只与现实中的好友进行交流，也要在游戏中交朋友。所有的这些改变都促进了更有效的病毒式游戏设置，并扩大了“病毒式传播”的概念范围，即不再只是简单地用于形容用户获取方式。

5.进一步优化付费用户获取机制。如果忽略了去年社交游戏病毒式传播改变的情况，那我们便不能完整地分析它是如何对广告产生影响。在去年病毒式传播发生改变之前，很多应用都在体验高病毒式传播的K-Factors以及很长一段时间的“影响积分”机制，那时候通过广告而进行的病毒式传播用户获取率一般在40%以上，而且获得新用户的成本也一般较低。过去在Facebook上运行一个成功的广告相对来说比较简单且风险较低。但是今天，情况却完全不同了。单纯地去追踪用户印象，点击率，安装率以及安装转化率已经不能够满足市场营销者的需求了。如今游戏的市场营销者必须在用户获得方案中采纳一些更好的分析方法，更加深入地分析玩家行为。他们还必须进一步研究哪一部分用户的留存率最高，病毒式传播最有效率，以及每用户平均收益（ARPU）等。成功的市场营销者和游戏开发者将会考虑，对于那些在特定时间段看到一些特殊类型或综合广告的玩家来说，有多少人在看完游戏教程后继续进行游戏？有多少人愿意购买游戏货币？有多少人在安装游戏后隔天再次回到游戏中？有多少人在安装一周后再次回访游戏？这些玩家每天的APRU是多少？这些玩家带来了多少病毒式安装量？有悟性的开发者将能够非常精细且即时地回答出这些问题，而那些仍在使用旧式病毒式用户获得机制，以及广泛且不精准广告模式的市场营销者却只能哑口无言了。

在今天，病毒式传播机制仍然是成功的社交游戏设计中不可或缺的重要因素。比起彻底抛弃病毒式传播方法，那些成功的游戏反而能制定出更加标准化的方法，从而形成一些罕见但是却更有效且更有目标性的传播渠道。这些渠道不再一味地争取新用户，而是更加关注于挽留用户，提高游戏的用户粘性。随着Facebook用户的不断成熟，社交游戏和应用也不得不重新调整它们的病毒式传播技巧。

从病毒式增长到最近的病毒式用户粘性和留存率的转变，淘汰了许多难以适应的开发者，而那些幸存者也必须变得更加强大才能更好地适应这种变化。通过使用一些前所未有的数据优化和用户分析，一些优秀的社交游戏公司可以充分挖掘这个巨大的市场机遇。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Virality 2.0 – Developing Games for Facebook in the New Viral World

by Josh Williams

The social gaming industry has evolved rapidly since its birth. Whereas, quiz apps, word games, card games and other simplistic experiences led social games in the early days, today launching a leading social game is a multimillion dollar proposition and even at initial launch many social games are more complex than full-fledged traditional Casual Games.

Whereas social games once profited through myriad revenue sources– ads, incentive offers, and direct purchases– today the vast majority of revenue is derived from direct purchases and Facebook Credits.

Moreover, viral communication channels were essential to the early industry’s growth, and social game designs were oriented toward encouraging and enabling players to repeatedly message their friends at every opportunity.  Over the last year, however, virality has been completely transformed through sweeping changes to Facebook’s platform and policies for app communications with users.  As a result, social game businesses have had to keep pace, or die.

Though virality has changed for Facebook games and apps, it is not dead.  The best developers have learned to adapt to the new virality ecosystem, leveraging user communication channels to drive virality in new ways. Changes to virality have also driven larger changes in the way social companies acquire users via advertising and in game design as a whole.  The following are some of the most valuable changes leading developers have made to date:

1.Virality deeper in the Engagement Funnel. Developers have discovered that viral messages from faithful, long-term players are more effective than messages generated by prompting new users to broadcast to friends and invite them to join immediately upon installing a game. Apps are now encouraging messages from loyal users later in the engagement funnel, resulting in more genuine requests that are also better received.  As such, though viral messages sent per user are down significantly, viral response rates have actually gone up dramatically.  Volume has decreased, but quality is higher.

2.Virality as a retention tool. Previously, viral messages were employed primarily to acquire new users. As the Facebook app ecosystem, platform policies and gaming culture has progressed, however, these messages are used more and more to keep players coming back, and to re-engage dormant users. Communications from friends playing the same games encourage users to revisit, increasing retention and bolstering loyalty through viral channels.  As such, viral messages between friends are now evaluated not just on how many new user installs they achieve, but also on their efficacy at driving (i) dormant users back to the game, (ii) increasing player game session length and frequency, and (iii) influencing purchasing behavior.

3.Multivariate Virality Testing and Optimization. The best developers are testing when, where, and how to prompt players to message their friends.  These tests have progressed from measuring simplistic counts of overall messages sent, or messages sent per user, and are instead focusing on actual response rates from friends, optimizing for efficacy over mere volume.  Developers are testing the creative content of their messages: which calls to action garner the best response rates, and which viral rewards, gifts or help requests drive the most action per user?  Developers are also testing and optimizing the timing of message presentation, figuring out what activities in game should prompt a viral message. Moreover, developers are now conducting this multivariate testing and optimization around several types of viral messaging: viral acquisition channel optimization, viral engagement optimization, and viral retention channel optimization.

4.Deep Gameplay Ties for Virality. Today, leading edge Facebook applications tie virality deeply into gameplay.  Whereas simple “neighbor”, “gang”, and “worker” mechanics ruled the social gaming roost early on, these thinly veiled tactics to get players to spam all their friends to join a game are both less effective and less prevalent today.  Instead, games are being built around meaningful social interactions from the ground-up.  Leading edge games allow players to create custom characters, and to use their friends’ deeply personalized characters to help them in combat, or in building a simulation.  Games encourage meaningful trading and economics amongst players, encouraging players to not just interact with their existing real world friends, but to create new friends in-game.  All of these changes are driving more effective viral gameplay, and expanding the concept of “virality” well beyond that of simple user acquisition.

5.Heavy optimization of paid user acquisitions. No discussion of the effects that changes to virality have had on social apps over the last year-plus would be complete without analyzing how it has affected advertising. Before the viral changes of the past year, many apps experienced high viral acquisition K-Factors, or ‘influence scores’ for extended periods of time, viral acquisition lift from ad campaigns were frequently 40% or higher, and the cost of acquiring new users was measured in pennies and nickels rather than dimes and dollars.  Running a successful ad campaign on Facebook was relatively simple and guaranteed.  Today, the picture is very different, and not nearly as easy going.  Simply tracking Impressions, Clicks, CTRs, Installs and Install Conversions is no longer sufficient.  Instead, businesses must adopt more analytical approaches to their user acquisition programs, performing deep cohort and segment analysis of user behavior.  They must dig deep to discover which player segments experience the best retention, exhibit the best virality, and demonstrate the highest ARPU.  The successful marketer and developer will ask, for each segment of users who saw a particular type and combination of ad in a given timeframe, what percentage made it through the game’s tutorial?  What percentage bought in-game currency?  What percentage came back the day after they installed?  What percentage were back a week after install?  What is the ARPU of these users per day?  How many viral installs did these users drive?  Savvy developers are answering these questions with unprecedented precision, in near real-time, and marketers who rely on old style viral user acquisition and broad-based, inaccurate ad campaigns are having their lunches eaten as a result.

Virality is still an essential component in the design of successful social games today.  Far from abandoning the fundamental viral messaging approach, successful apps have streamlined their methods, resulting in more efficient, infrequent, targeted messages. These messages, however, are no longer conduits for mass user acquisition, but are now a means of retaining users and swaying patterns of engagement. As Facebook’s user-base has matured, social gaming and apps have been compelled to fine-tune their viral techniques.

The recent swing from viral growth to viral engagement and retention has killed off many weaker developers who were slow to adapt, but those that have survived are stronger for it. With unprecedented data optimization and user analysis, superior social gaming companies are making the most of their market.（source:gamasutra）