2020年末，又有一款SLG游戏在海外取得了不菲的成绩。由FunPlus发行的末日生存题材SLG游戏State of Survival（以下简称SOS），这款游戏2020年8月上线，11月冲击到中国手游收入排行第五名，并在12月末月流水突破了8000万美元。这款游戏的成功可以归结于多种因素，优秀的产品设计、高效的广告投放和积极的社群运维等。下面就逐一来介绍一下这个游戏以上各方面的优秀之处。
At the end of 2020, another SLG game has achieved remarkable results overseas. State of Survival (hereinafter referred to as SOS), a doomsday survival-themed SLG game published by FunPlus, which was launched in August 2020, hit the fifth place in China’s mobile game revenue ranking in November, and exceeded $80 million in monthly flow at the end of December. The success of this game can be attributed to a variety of factors, such as excellent product design, efficient advertising and active community operation and maintenance. Here’s a look at each of these aspects of the game’s success.
1.游戏产品拆解：
·游戏题材：
SOS题材为末日生存，乍一看，这个题材在SLG游戏中偏小众，有可能打通垂直领域的市场，但《守望黎明》、《Age of Z》两款游戏在出海榜单上也有非常不错的成绩，只能说明末日生存题材在海外是比较有优势的。相比众人熟知的日式中二病，欧美中二病经常与末世、丧尸危机等词挂钩，这种题材的游戏对于欧美玩家的吸引力非常大。
The theme of SOS is survival of doom, at first glance, this theme in SLG games is niche, and is possible to achieve success in the market of vertical areas, but “Last Shelter Survival” and “Age of Z” are the two games in the list of oversea revenue also have very good performance, which can only indicates that the theme of survival of doom in overseas is more advantageous. Compared with the well-known Japanese chunibyo, European and American chunibyo is often linked with words such as post-apocalyptic and zombie crisis, and the games of this theme are very attractive to European and American players.
·美术表现：
SOS比起《守望黎明》、《Age of Z》等同款题材的产品，美术风格更加细腻和写实，如此的效果就是场景和人物的表现更加真实，配合末日生存的游戏题材，玩家在游戏中的沉浸感更强。
Comparing to “Last Shelter Survival” and “Age of Z”, SOS’s the art style is more detailed and realistic, so the effect is that the performance of scenes and characters more realistic, with the game theme of survival of the end, the player in the game immersion is stronger.
·游戏玩法：
在SLG游戏竞争日益激烈的今天，优秀的玩法创新是突破重围的关键。SOS使用了COK的底层框架，即“坐标型沙盘大地图+资源重复性消耗的商业化模式+数值对抗战斗为主”的模式，但融入了英雄养成、PVE模式、联盟地域强社交模式。
Nowadays, SLG game market has become increasingly competitive, excellent gameplay innovation is the key to break through the siege. SOS uses the underlying framework of COK, i.e. “Coordinate sandbox large map + resource repetitive consumption commercialization model + numerical confrontation battle-based” model, but incorporates hero development, PVE mode, and strong alliance territory social mode.
对于SLG这种慢节奏的游戏来说，前期的用户留存是非常重要的。SOS的新手教程区别于其他SLG产品，给予玩家更多的引导，比如一步步解锁关键的功能性建筑，逐步开放游戏内容，而不是让玩家经历短暂的新手教程后进行自由探索。SOS在这个过程中适当地插入解密、塔防等经典PVE玩法，玩家通过操作人物走位、释放技能和部署道具等操作体验击退丧尸的快感。这种玩法的加入有效解决了玩家在SLG游戏前期可能会经历规划混乱、目的不明确、缺乏参与感等问题，让玩家能平稳过渡到体验基建、资源采集、玩家对抗等核心玩法的阶段。
SOS’s beginner tutorial differs from other SLG products by giving players more guidance, such as unlocking key functional buildings step by step and gradually opening up the game content, rather than letting players explore freely after a short tutorial. SOS appropriately introduced classic PVE gameplay such as decryption and tower defense into the process, and players experience the thrill of repelling zombies through operations such as operating characters to walk, releasing skills and deploying props. The addition of such gameplay effectively solves the problems players may experience in the early stages of SLG games such as planning confusion, unclear purpose and lack of participation, allowing players to smoothly transition to the stage of experiencing infrastructure, resource collection, player confrontation and other core gameplay.
总结：
末世题材的相对优势和优秀的玩法融合使这款游戏非常出众，看过美剧《行尸走肉》的观众都知道，末世的背景下有两个主要矛盾，人类和僵尸的对抗（PVE），人类之间的对抗（PVP），SOS通过玩法结合将这两个主要矛盾融入游戏内容中，是该游戏在设计上胜出同类产品的关键。
The relative advantages of the post-apocalyptic theme and the excellent integration of gameplay make this game very outstanding. Viewers who have seen the American series “The Walking Dead” know that there are two main conflicts in the post-apocalyptic context, the confrontation between humans and zombies (PVE) and the confrontation between humans (PVP), and SOS integrates these two main conflicts into the game content through the combination of gameplay, which is the key for the game to outperform similar products in design.
2.市场买量：对口市场的单点爆破，素材新颖卖点明确
买量往往是市场推广中的核心一环，优秀的买量策略往往能带来大大提高推广效率。但SOS买量的数据显示他并没有采用大量买量的策略。以2020年12月为例，Dataeye的统计数据显示，SOS日均投放200组素材，最高峰值296，远低于同类竞品（《守望黎明》日均约250组;《Age of Z》日均约450组;《万国觉醒》日均约800组）。
Buying volume is often a core part of marketing, and an excellent buying strategy can often lead to greatly improved promotion efficiency. However, the data of SOS buying volume shows that he does not use the strategy of buying a lot of volume. Take December 2020 as an example, Dataeye’s statistics show that SOS put 200 groups of material on average per day, with a peak value of 296, which is much lower than similar competitors (about 250 groups per day for Last Shelter Survival; about 450 groups per day for Age of Z; about 800 groups per day for Rise of Kingdoms).
SOS的在投放中资源大多集中于欧美地区，而这部分地区的收入占比也是最高的，超过60%。原因也比较好理解，欧美市场对于末日生存题材的接受度更高，加之2020年爆发的疫情原因，让这种题材的热度进一步升温。
SOS mostly concentrated in Europe and the United States in the placement of resources , and this part of the region is also the highest revenue share, more than 60%. The reason is also relatively understandable, the European and American markets are more receptive to doomsday survival themes, coupled with the reasons for the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, so that the heat of this theme further heated up.
在买量资源的集中爆发策略下，SOS的广告素材也颇有特点。很多视频素材标题标有“4X strategy”和“生存”的特点（ 4X指：eXplore：派出斥候横跨游戏地图以探索周边的版图 eXpand：建立新定居地或增加原定居地的影响力以扩张领土 eXploit：开发并妥善利用领土中所拥有的资源 eXterminate：攻击并征服其他竞争对手），而视频素材的内容也着重强调“人类根据地建设”和“对抗僵尸”两点，同时与游戏内的PVE内容相照应，提升广告宣传的真实性。当玩家被视频素材吸引体验游戏时，体验到符合广告宣传内容的玩法，对提升用户留存和付费都有不错的效果。
Under the strategy of concentrated explosion of buying resources, SOS’s advertising materials are also quite unique. Many of the video titles feature the “4X strategy” and “survival” (4X refers to: eXplore: sending scouts across the game map to explore the surrounding territory; eXpand: establishing new settlements or increasing the influence of original settlements to expand the territory; eXploit: developing and properly utilizing the resources held in the territory; eXterminate: attack and conquer other competitors), and the content of the video material also emphasizes “human base building” and “fighting zombies”, which corresponds to the in-game PVE content to enhance the authenticity of the advertising campaign. When players are attracted by the video material to experience the game, they can experience the gameplay in line with the advertising content, which has a good effect on improving user retention and payment.
总结：
SOS的市场买量策略并不是大范围大规模投放，而是集中资源到对口市场的集中爆破，辅以真实、震撼的视频素材吸引玩家，大大提升转化率，达到高效买量的效果。
SOS’s strategy of buying volume is not to make a large scale placement, but a concentrated blast of resources to the counterpart market, supplemented by real and shocking video material to attract players, which greatly improves the conversion rate and achieves the effect of efficient volume buying.
3.社区运营：
这里选择由莉莉丝发行的一款SLG游戏万国觉醒（以下简称ROK）为对标产品，看一看两款游戏社区运营的频率和内容有什么区别。
Here we choose an SLG game Rise of Kingdoms (hereinafter referred to as ROK), published by Lilith, as a benchmark product to see what the difference is between the frequency and content of the two games’ community operations.
SOS的社区运营频率和整体的互动量比较高，以关注量较高的Facebook官方账号为例（ROK约170万关注，SOS约109万关注），12月ROK官方共发文17次，而SOS基本每天都有发文，且平均每天发3-4条贴文，转评赞总和SOS也高于ROK。
The frequency of SOS’s community operation and the overall amount of interaction is relatively high. Taking the official Facebook account with a high attention span as an example (about 1.7 million followers for ROK and 1.09 million followers for SOS), ROK officially posted 17 times in December, while SOS basically posted every day and sent an average of 3-4 postings per day, and the total sum of retweets and likes for SOS is also higher than ROK.
内容方面，ROK贴文包括活动预热、官方赛事通报、游戏角色介绍、小话题讨论等，尤其是活动预热做得非常积极，圣诞节活动提早了20天开始向玩家透露活动玩法和福利等信息。
In terms of content, ROK postings include event previews, official tournament briefings, game character introductions, small topic discussions, etc. In particular, the event previews are done very actively, with Christmas events starting 20 days early to reveal information to players about event gameplay and benefits.
而SOS的贴文除了版本更新信息、活动预热信息之外，有将近一半是关于游戏直播和youtube创作者的，这部分贴文通常附有跳转链接，对玩家的指向性非常强。在12月，SOS官方就推了将近20个youtube玩家频道，可以看出现在SOS在重点培养一批游戏视频创作者，虽然现在这些创作者的粉丝量不高，最多可能刚刚破万，但在数量上还是对游戏热度提升有很大的帮助。
In addition to version update information and event preview information, nearly half of SOS posts are about live game and youtube creators, which usually have URL links. In December, SOS officially pushed nearly 20 youtube player channels, so it can be seen that SOS is now focusing on cultivating a group of game video creators, although the amount of fans of these creators is not high now, at most may just break 10,000, but the number is still a great help to improve the popularity of the game.
4.整体总结：
海外SLG市场虽然竞争激烈，但仍有很大的开发空间，SOS依靠优秀的美术表现，新颖的玩法融合高效的市场买量和社区运维，依旧能在SLG垂直领域中，以后来者的姿态占有一席之地。对于已经运营了一段时间的SLG产品来说，SOS的成功经验也有不少值得学习之处。在玩法上/活动策划上进行创新，优化目前版本中玩家的不良体验（如SLG游戏升级等待的时间怎样填充，通过PVE、小游戏？），视频素材如何创新以吸引玩家目光，买量资源如何规划以获得更高的收益等。
Although the overseas SLG market is highly competitive, there is still a lot of room for development. SOS relies on excellent art performance, novel gameplay combined with efficient market buying and community operation and maintenance, and still manages to occupy a place in the SLG vertical as a latecomer. For SLG products that have been operating for some time, there are many things to learn from SOS’s success. Innovation in gameplay/activity planning, optimizing the bad experience of players in the current version (e.g. how to fill the waiting time for upgrade in SLG games, through PVE, mini-games?) How to innovate the video material to attract players’ attention, how to plan for buying resources to get higher revenue, etc.