What role does the operations manager of a mobile game company play?

In the eyes of many people, mobile gaming is a high-end and lucrative industry, especially the Honor of Kings that is often reported in the newspapers, which has led more and more laymen or APP colleagues to believe that mobile gaming is an industry that can make people rich overnight. Is this really true? The answer is of course true. There are quite a lot of examples of people who turned their lives around and reached the peak of their lives because of a game . But that was in the past. Judging from the current market conditions, it is almost impossible to create a hit mobile game.

Nowadays, mobile games rely heavily on promotion . There is almost no big difference in the quality or gameplay of the games made by everyone. So which one will players play? It all depends on who has more money and more exposure. As a player, do you really think that the games you play are chosen by yourself? That would be too naive. Most players don’t know what they want. When they look for a game, they often download the one they see recommended. Otherwise, why are so many publishers scrambling to get on Apple's list? This is the reason.

This article briefly introduces the situation of mobile games. So what role do operators play in a mobile game company? What kind of work do you do? Next, as an old hand in mobile game operation , let me explain it to you in detail.

The structure of a mobile game company

The structure is similar to that of an APP application development company, which is also composed of business, operations, planning, technology, design and cute administrative girls, and of course finance. I think the finances of a game company are much more exciting and interesting than those of an APP application company. After all, during the promotion period, the promotion budget of tens of millions is no joke. You have to know that this is the expense of a week or four or five days. Moreover, if you come across a money-making game, it is possible to earn tens of millions in a month. You can truly experience the feeling of counting money until your hands cramp.

Among them, the business department is responsible for external affairs and contacting channels for promotion. Planning is the construction of the overall framework of the game and the planning of numerical values. Technology is to realize the planning requirements in the form of code, while design is to add beautiful flesh and blood to it, such as the cute Angela. As for operations, they are like angels who coordinate all the above positions. Ahem, I'm serious. Operations personnel were angels with broken wings in their previous life.

Relationship between operations and departments

Operations and Business

In a mobile game company, operations and business work most closely together. Business is external, and operations is internal. It is the responsibility of operations to convey external information to the internal. When I was operating a game , I would organize the information I received from the business department, such as rating requirements, rectification suggestions, and other feedback from other channels, and give it to the planners for internal discussion and digestion of these external feedbacks. In the later stages of the game, the job of operations is to urge business to obtain more resources and bring in more users. Business requires operations to optimize game data or provide additional support to gain more advantages when exchanging resources.

Operation and planning

A good couple who love and hate each other. The core gameplay, data and daily activities of the game are all formulated by the planner. If there is no operation, the planner will arbitrarily carry out various activities he likes without considering KPI. After all, most plans have product plots, and what they enjoy doing most is making users have fun. So the question is, games also need to make a profit, and you can't make much money by doing sentimental activities. So this is when operations come in. They set the frequency and purpose of in-game activities each month based on KPIs. For example, if a new hero is released every month to drive recharge, if the planner is allowed to decide it himself, it may be determined based on user demand, then it is very likely that there will be a recharge activity every two months or even longer.

The analysis after the new version is launched is often done jointly by planners and operators. Based on my years of experience, I have found that many planners do not like to do version analysis. They are either forced or induced by operations to do it, or operations directly take over the job. In our game company, the operations department is responsible for version analysis. After it is completed, the new version will be summarized for everyone including the business staff, which is quite challenging.

Operations and Technology

There is relatively little communication between operations and technology. In a well-structured game company, there will be a dedicated technical exporter who is responsible for distributing the requirements submitted by operations. Small companies may operate one-on-one and seek technical help to solve various problems, such as inability to log in, abnormal recharge, etc. It would be best if you know some code as an operator, so that communication with technology can be smoother. Technology is a single-threaded way of thinking. When communicating, you must pay attention to the skills and not beat around the bush. Just say what you mean.

Operation and design

Make a picture. The daily operations work is certainly not done by oneself. Instead, submit the requirements to the designer. This is a matter of wits and courage. Why do I say so? For example, the most common phrase operations say is: This is not what I want. The designer will ask: What do you want? What I want is a feeling like a spring breeze, but this design is just not good enough. Therefore, you must maintain a good relationship with the designer, otherwise they will not edit your photos. Let me also tell you an insider tip: Never call the artist, or you will be beaten to death. The best name is designer, or fairy is also acceptable.

Daily operations

Go Live

Going online is a physical job. Currently, there are more than 30 well-known channels. Together with the unknown ones, it is estimated that there are more than 100 channels that can be put online. The workload of bringing these 100 channels online is quite huge. Apart from the huge workload required for the initial launch of the product, such as submitting APK packages, materials, guides, gift packs, etc., the workload for subsequent launch is relatively small. Normally, when the version is updated, just submit an update package.

Data analysis

(Here comes the point) Data analysis is the core value of operations. According to the life cycle of mobile games, during the game's internal testing period, the main task of operations is to analyze whether user behavior meets the planner's expectations based on data. For example, it is expected that there will be a small hurdle at level 15, which can be overcome by recharging or logging in the next day. We can use the data to analyze whether players recharged because they were stuck at this point, or lost players because of this point. If the data shows that most players simply give up the game at this point, then one word: change. During the game's internal testing period, the requirements for data analysis are extremely high and the level of refinement is also very high. It can be as detailed as the number of times a user clicks a button, the length of time they stay on the page, etc.

The two most important indicators for a game are retention and payment. Retention is determined after the initial optimization of the product, and no matter how it is optimized later, there will not be much improvement. Therefore, after the game is launched, improving the product's payment rate and AR PU value is the most important thing for operation. How to improve? Data analysis. Use data to analyze what props players want most at the moment, and then mix them into various interesting activities to encourage users to recharge and purchase them. When facing different paying users , we also have to take them into consideration. It is very tricky to know what to sell to users paying three or four hundred yuan and what to sell to users paying three or four thousand yuan. Doing game data analysis and operation is a long process of accumulation. It all comes with experience and cannot be rushed. In the next issue of the "Tiger Talks about Operations" public account , we will analyze some of the unspoken rules of the channels and how to obtain resource recommendations, which are absolutely useful information .

Event Operations

There are some overlaps between event operations and data operations , but the focus is different. Students who are involved in activities must also understand data analysis, and they must analyze the data of their own activities even if it means crying. Compared with students who do data analysis, event operations do not need to be overly professional. A very clever way is to copy all the activities conducted by competitors and analyze them one by one. Then, based on your own imagination, you can come up with one or two activities a week without any pressure. Many activities can be made periodic. For example, the check-in and sharing activities of Honor of Kings are almost standard features of the game.

Just remember these points when doing activities. Any activity has a purpose, whether it is to increase activity, increase payment rate, or increase paid ARPU value, etc. Different purposes require different forms of activities. Activities like check-in are designed to increase activity. The purpose of giving away five-star heroes when logging in the next day is to increase the next-day retention. We all know that games with high next-day retention are very popular among channel partners. Therefore, many developers will try every possible means to increase retention. The activity also has a very obvious effect on recharge, and the recharge during the activity can reach 5 to 10 times the daily amount.

User Operation

For a game to be able to operate for a long time, in addition to the high quality of the game itself, user maintenance can also play a icing on the cake. User operations can be roughly divided into forums, QQ groups, WeChat , Tieba , etc. User operations can be found wherever users gather. In addition to collecting user feedback and suggestions, community operations serve more as an outlet and a place for information release, such as advance notice of events. To do user operations, you must be a professional player and have an in-depth understanding of your own game. Otherwise, you will be confused when you encounter problems reported by users, which will be difficult to deal with.

Our user operations colleagues all have hard indicators, such as a certain ranking in the in-game leaderboard. In order to achieve this KPI , you are forced to thoroughly study every gameplay. At that time, we required that you must be in the top 20 of the leaderboard. There was no room for negligence, and you would be knocked down if you were not careful. In order to improve, you will be more eager than users to know about version updates, event developments and other information within the game. Treating yourself as a player and serving other players is a more effective approach.

Game companies will also divide the work of buying traffic to operations, which depends on the company's structure. Large companies will set up a special marketing department to buy traffic, while small companies will leave it to the business department to take the lead. This depends on the actual situation.

In short, game operation accompanies the life cycle of the game and fills every necessary gap. When it is necessary to collect user suggestions, the operation will collect suggestions; when there are bugs in the game and compensation is required, the operation will draft a compensation notice and publish it; when the game encounters rumors that the server will be shut down, the operation will take up legal weapons to protect its own rights and interests. Of course, this is not generally done. At most, a server-wide notification would be sent out (hahaha, it’s not as strictly prohibited as everyone imagines). In almost every game, there will be people who maliciously spread rumors or cheat people out of money within the game, so operations must always keep a close eye on them. This is all within the scope of operations responsibilities.

Operations itself is a tough job, but it has a lot of room for growth. There are many people around me who have been promoted to supervisors or managers after working in operations for 3-4 years, or they can start their own business . So, come on! Classmates.