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以《City of Wonder》为例分析社交游戏设计弊端

发布时间:2011-06-17 18:43:00 Tags:,,,

游戏邦注:本文作者Dirk,原文发表于2011年2月9日。

在The Digital Life(在线广播节目)上与Brenda Brathwaite(游戏邦注:《Wizardy》和《DefJam Icon》等游戏开发者)和Soren Johnson(《文明IV》主设计师)就“社交游戏设计”进行交谈之后,我更加确信自己需要进一步了解Facebook游戏,并从中发掘更多“秘密”。所以在节目结束后我立马注册了一些Facebook游戏,并花费了2个多小时来玩这些游戏。其中我最喜欢《Millionaire City》和《City of Wonder》,所以我持续数周都在玩这两款游戏。最后我认为《City of Wonder》是最有趣的游戏,我便一直玩到现在了。我甚至邀请了妻子和其他家庭成员,朋友一起玩这款游戏。但是我在游戏早期就已注意到(甚至随着时间的推移越发明显),这款游戏的整体平衡性和游戏理念存在着严重的缺陷。简单的说,也就是Facebook上的游戏已渐渐偏离了传统游戏的设计理念,即并未提供给玩家非凡的游戏体验,而变成利用游戏从玩家身上获取更多利益。从理论上看。这两种设计理念是完全不同的,传统游戏是让设计者制作出让玩家愉悦的游戏体验,但是Facebook游戏则是利用市场营销者进行游戏推广,并因此获取较大盈利。Facebook游戏的设计理念将会使得电子游戏设计不再只是关注玩家的兴趣爱好,而更加侧重于花俏的交互式广告推广。讽刺的是,尽管现在的游戏开发成本比以往更低,但开发者仍然不得不将盈利作为重中之重,即使创造出绝佳的游戏体验,但它如果并非理想的吸金工具,那对他们来说也就没有什么意义了。但是这些游戏设计者已经控制不了自己了,因为不论是接受公司的命令还是自己的错误设计理念,他们都完全变成是只关注玩家身上的利益,但不能够提供给玩家更好的游戏体验了。

City-of-Wonder(from insidesocialgames.com)

City-of-Wonder(from insidesocialgames.com)

如下我们将对其进行详细分析。《City of Wonder》是一款非常简单的城市化游戏,玩家需要把原来较小且荒芜的营地变成一座宏伟且气势非凡的现代化都市,或者奇幻的未来城市。《City of Wonder》也拥有一些其它游戏中的“部件”,且更简化更抽象,如楼房,市民,探险,科技,同盟和敌人等。但是在《City of Wonder》中,游戏设计者却在真实地操纵着游戏的某些环节。就像在游戏的关卡设计中,设计者匠心独运,针对玩家的游戏时间,好友关系和金钱巧妙地安排了游戏设置。虽然游戏在刚开始不需要我们花费任何金钱,但这正是开发者采取的精明手段,让我们进入游戏并在后来阶段主动“掏腰包”。接下来我将对此进行分开论述,来看看这种游戏设计方法的弊端。

首先是时间问题。我所尝试过的所有Facebook游戏都可以说是围绕着时间进行的。就像《City of Wonder》会“强迫”你反复回到游戏中进行游戏。例如你在游戏中购买了住房,就说明你的城市人口增加了,而你就必须不时地点击游戏才能维持“城市”的正常运行。在游戏前期,你每次购买房屋后都必须每隔几分钟点击一次,而因此增加城市人口。而到后面的一些阶段,你便可以将点击频率缩短到一天1,2次。但是如果你想要获得更多积分,就不得不投入大量时间在游戏页面上进行反复点击了。如今,很多传统的城市化游戏也在使用这种“时间投资法”,让玩家主动投入大量时间以增加城市人口并获得游戏奖励。但是说到这里问题就出现了:在《Rise of Nations》和《Civilization》等游戏中,你却可以在“等待”的过程中执行其他任务,好游戏不会只让玩家麻木地等待并重复点击,因为它会为玩家提供其他更多可获得乐趣的内容。但是《City of Wonder》却并非如此,它的基本游戏模式便是点击,等待,点击,等待,点击再等待,如此反复着。这么看来这款游戏一点都不好玩呢。也许你会说因为这是一款休闲游戏,所以就应该如此简单,但是因为如此就能名正言顺地抹去游戏的趣味性么?而且,与传统游戏不同,Facebook上的游戏拥有控制玩家时间的魔力(而玩家却对此无计可施)。理论上讲,玩家可以自行决定登录或退出游戏的时间,但是Facebook游戏却有可能让你在任何不方便的时间段主动登录游戏页面。记得当我刚开始接触《City of Wonder》时,我便开始频繁地点击并登录游戏页面,甚至于工作时间也不中断。而我却不能控制自己,因为我“必须”这么做。坦白地讲,我已经深陷于这款游戏了。我迫切地希望能在游戏中获得积分,成功晋级,而这就要求我必须投入大量时间才有可能实现。所以说,这款游戏不只不是一款好游戏(虽然具有一定的吸引力),而且还规定玩家必须在一定的时间点点击游戏,大大约束了玩家自由选择游戏的时间。

City-of-Wonder(from insidesocialgames.com)

City-of-Wonder(from insidesocialgames.com)

接下来我们说说游戏好友问题。Facebook游戏之所以如此赚钱的一大因素便是它们能使玩家邀请好友加入游戏,创造一种网络效应,尽可能为游戏吸收更多用户。这可以称得上是一种双赢的方法。开发者不仅能因此获取更多利益,玩家也能够因此享受到更好的游戏体验。但是不幸的是,在我所尝试的游戏中,开发者仅仅只是关注于他们自身的利益,而忽视了玩家的游戏体验。我们就来谈谈这个问题。首先,我们在Facebook上的好友状态中只能看到好友在《Mafia Wars》,《FarmVille》或者《FrontierVille》等游戏中的成绩,以及他们需要何种帮助等内容。可以说这是社交游戏产业的一种标准模式,所以《City of Wonder》也不例外。这对我来说真的太可怕了。我不知道在科技知识领域有谁能够忍受这些信息的炮轰。也许有人对此不厌其烦,但是我却实在难以想象,当我在厌烦别人更新的游戏信息同时,他们是否也正在厌烦着我所更新的内容。《City of Wonder》正是想方设法地让你的好友接受这些“垃圾”信息。你既可以选择花费一定金钱在游戏中建造楼房,也可以在状态栏种张贴“邀请函”,向好友寻求帮助。甚至你在游戏中获得任何虚拟奖励也都会被通过状态栏向好友展示。随之而来你便会感到压力。游戏会尽可能地让你邀请好友加入游戏。这些游戏都有一个统一的设计模式,即在游戏屏幕左下方经常会有一块长方形区域,并在此以幻灯片模式播放你的好友列表,推动你在每次游戏时都能主动邀请好友加入游戏。太可怕了!所有“垃圾”信息。我想所有Facebook游戏开发者都希望能够“尽可能地吸引更多玩家,并让他们在游戏中花费大把的时间。”这看起来真的就像一种“寄生”行为,但是我却不能退出游戏,不能不在好友状态上更新任何游戏信息,也不能不邀请好友参加游戏。而其他仍在进行游戏的好友也会一直用“垃圾”信息来炮轰我。光是想象都觉得很可怕!所以这真的不是一个好机制,只能说是游戏设计的一大败笔!

但是这里出现了一个悲剧的事实:让我们假设游戏开发商之所以如此努力地吸引游戏玩家,是希望借此推动游戏的稳定发展,希望能让我们邀请更多好友加入游戏,能让我们在游戏中共享更棒的游戏体验。但是事实并非如此。让我们举个例子来说,《City of Wonder》存在的一个大问题便是失调的游戏整体。当你在游戏中到达一定级别时,你便会开始投入大笔的金钱(甚至超乎你的预算)购买虚拟商品,而这时很多商品的价格也正好是在你所期许的价格范围内。但是问题就出在这!如果你拥有一些较古老的建筑物,那么你便能以购买价的20%出售,或者选择保留下来。另外一方面,当你邀请了好友加入游戏后,这些好友刚开始并未拥有太多的虚拟财产。这时候也许你就会想和这些好友进行交易。但是设计者却不会让你这么做,因为这将会导致游戏整体失去平衡,并且会超出他们所设计的游戏范围,破坏了其它的游戏系统。虽然你的仓库里堆积着很多“便宜”的装饰物,而好友也希望你能够赠送给他们一些装饰物以装扮他们的城市,同时你们也会因此加深彼此间的好友关系,并改善游戏体验,但是Facebook游戏却不容许你这么做。为什么?因为他们希望你所邀请的好友也能跟你一样,亲自投入大量的时间和金钱。而如果你提供给好友免费的游戏道具,将会破坏开发者所设计的“圈套”,使得好友们不需要频繁地点击游戏就能有所收获。而且,如果你赠送了60朵花给新玩家,那么他便可以利用这些花培育出更多鲜花,而因此感到游戏的乐趣(虽然这些花不能推动他们去的游戏晋级)。这些游戏也许正是抓住了这一要点,所以他们更加关注的是如何通过玩家盈利,而不是玩家如何才能获得乐趣。因此便使得玩家间的交互性大大减弱,同时他们所获取的游戏奖励也相应减少了。这与游戏希望我们能够加深好友关系的初衷相违背,所以这便是这种游戏设计的悲剧所在。

city-of-wonder(from games.com)

city-of-wonder(from games.com)

第三个备受争议的问题便是金钱问题。Facebook游戏的辩护者也许会说:“你看,这些游戏开发者是以免费模式提供游戏,他们只是通过玩家后期消费而盈利。”是的,他们确实是这么做,而我也不会吝啬地不给钱,因为如果我喜欢一款游戏,我便会乐于支付金钱。但是问题就在于,你需要投入于这些游戏的真实成本到底是多少?早前你需要为一款游戏支付40至60美元,随后便可以无限制地进行游戏。但是最近出现的各种各样游戏模式却对玩家“狮子大开口”,收取越来越多游戏费用。《魔兽世界》对其游戏扩展内容采取了订阅销售模式。对于《魔兽世界》的忠实玩家,一整年下来如果买齐全套的游戏版本,那么就必须投入200多美元的现金。而这种代价换成在游戏中购买“金币”(Gold)以换得更好的武器便会更高。这真的是一笔很大的投资啊。除此之外,你从如此巨额投资中获得了什么也很重要:你可以在让人着迷的游戏世界里与好友过关斩将,并因此增进友谊(就像是让你在起居室也能经历电影版的奇幻体验)。但是我所尝试的游戏并未带给我这种体验,即游戏更侧重于枪林弹雨的格斗场景而忽略了玩家间的交流与角色发展,而这正是现在很多打着“社交游戏”旗号的游戏所面临的严重问题。所以我认为,即使《魔兽世界》会花费玩家200美元的投入,但是它却能提供给这类型玩家想要的游戏体验,所以是个“合理”的价格。

但是《City of Wonder》却完全相反。为了在这款游戏中升级,你需要不断增加游戏中的货币(即“Silver”),“幸福指数”(Happiness),“文化指数”(Culture),“交易指数”(Trade)以及“军队数量”(Military)。这些是推动你在游戏中晋级的重要资产(特别是在缺少足够资产的游戏初期)。除此之外,在游戏中还有一种虚拟货币“金币”,它的功能与其它资产类似,但是它却需要你支付现金购买。游戏所设定的最“优惠”政策便是50美元购得240个游戏金币,这可以说得上是一种变相收费的盈利模式,而这50美元就等于《魔兽世界》1年中向玩家收取的费用的25%比例。那么玩家能用这240个金币做些什么呢?他们可以用这些金币扩展自己的核心领土。因为在游戏初期游戏所设定的“价格”较低,所以玩家可以花费20或30个金币将领土扩展到原先的5倍,并在今后的几周内一直维持这片领土。那么现在你便可以选择购买一些有意思的虚拟商品了。在《City of Wonder》中,需要用金币购买的商品,市场,文化,军人,景观和装饰物等都比那些免费的商品吸引人。同时游戏中还设定了一些带有季节性甚至是“限量版”商品,以进一步推动玩家进行消费。虽然这些商品价格各异,但是大部分都是控制在25至50个金币之间。这些商品能够推动你进行下一步的城市扩张。就像“西点军校”虽然价值39个金币,但是因为它拥有较为强大的军事实力,所以我购买了它。而每一个“金墙”只需要1美元,并且对于游戏初期阶段来说是个很强大的军事建筑,所以我买了21个。价值30个金币的“金字塔”是游戏初期很棒的文化景观,所我也买下了它。而“摩天大楼”作为游戏初期一个整洁且有魄力的建筑物,有利于帮你改造荒芜的城市,所以我也买了。“圣诞树”因为太可爱了,而且还带有文化价值,我又买了。所以当你继续深入进行游戏时,将会发现这一点点的游戏道具根本就不够用。随着你的城市一步步扩大,你将会购买越来越多的商品或道具。而当你每次扩展城市时,所有的道具都会变得更加昂贵,也就是说原来价值二三十个金币的道具将有可能要价50个金币,甚至更多。

在大约6周的游戏时间里,我共计花费了1000个游戏金币。太可怕了。刚开始我还很庆幸自己并未花费200美元于游戏,我的PayPal账户里还剩75美元,所以我第一次购买金币是通过现金支付。为什么呢?因为“我一直在游戏中消费,每次消费都将近50美元。而我也必须在游戏中投入大把时间,随时观察我所购买的道具,并确保我不需要再次购买金币”。但是问题就在于,刚开始的两周我或许会对此感到满足,但是随着游戏的进行,我便开始希望拥有更多的“幸福指数”,而我的军队势力也在慢慢减落,所以我便需要购买更多的道具来满足我的这些希望,而这便需要我支付现金购买更多的金币。

《City of Wonder》允许你通过购买其他公司的商品兑换金币。虽然这种合作看似可行,但是却会为你带来一些不必要的麻烦。这让我想起19岁时,每周日都会用优惠券去购买娱乐杂志,并到优惠券所指定的餐厅吃饭。虽然有很多这种类似的合作交易,但是事实上对于玩家来说这并不是什么值得开心的“小便宜”,因为你是通过等价消费才换得这些好处的。我发现了一些“小窍门”,而且也厚着脸皮使用了这些窍门。我曾经申请了Discover卡(美国的一种信用卡),并因此获得了280个金币作为办卡“奖励”,在拿到金币我便立即取消了这张卡。我也曾在CoDaddy(游戏邦注:世界第一大域名注册商)上购买了URL(全球资源定位器),并以此获得了80个金币(因为我需要URL,所以这次交易对我来说没有坏处)。注册Gamefly的会员也使我获得了一些金币。我也曾为我继子申请了一个游戏账户,但是在一个月后因为账号没人使用便立即取消了。事实上这些都可以称得上是虚伪的交易行为。就以Discover卡为例吧,我不仅浪费了自己的时间,而且也在自己的信用度上留下了不好的痕迹。而当玩家发现自己因此遭受损失后,唯一能做的便是取消交易了。但是对于Playdom(《City of Wonder》的开发者)来说,他们可以通过这种合作向Sears(Discover卡的零售商)收取“介绍费”。这也可以说是另外一种形式的“寄生”行为。

很多Facebook游戏的收费模式所存在的问题便是,虽然一直强迫玩家支付更多费用,但却只能提供一些较为平凡的游戏体验。《City of Wonder》就面临着这一问题,因为很多玩家游戏了一天后,很少会感受到游戏所带来的乐趣。你只是一直在重复点击和等待,并不会有任何愉悦感和成就感。对于我来说,这款游戏最大的乐趣便是自己能够建造一座设计优良,构思奇特的城市。但是游戏却不鼓励你这么做。为什么?因为你每次建造城市时都不得不重新移动自己的建筑。例如我的城市里有500座不同的建筑和好几百个仓库,而每移动一座建筑就需要点击三次,而每次调整城市移动建筑也意味着每一栋建筑需要进行多次点击才能进行重新安置,再加上一些地理限制,所以有可能需要玩家进行1500次左右的点击。可以说这种程度的微观管理一点都不有趣。如果游戏允许你放弃所有建筑而白手起家,重新开始规划自己的城市,那将会较简单且有趣吧,但是游戏却不允许你这么做。为什么?因为他们想要你支付你所拥有的金币。如果你实在想放弃已有的建筑物,那么唯一能做的便是消费金币。简单来说,这款游戏弊端连连。比起为玩家提供更多游戏乐趣,这款游戏更关注于如何拉动玩家购买金币,并消费现实货币。他们还在尝试着各种方法企图从玩家身上“压榨”出更多利益,而因此也把游戏中的乐趣都“压榨”没了。

现在,我们将不再会因为这些实例而惊讶了。越来越多游戏开发者都对这些游戏“虎视眈眈”,他们没有理由无视这么大一棵摇钱树。好吧,那我就来说说他们应该如何做才能更好地利用这棵摇钱树。首先,上述的那些问题将会发生变化。市场将会遏制这种吸金的“黑洞”现象。也许不是今天,也不是明天,但是在不久的将来这种情况一定会发生改变。将会有越来越多玩家要求能从自己的投资中得到回报,也就是获得更多更棒的游戏体验。而游戏设计者也将针对这些玩家的要求做出相应改变。其次(这点建议你可以马上就行动起来),你要始终记住这句话“善待别人,正如你希望别人善待你一样”。我敢保证,这些游戏设计者并不是按照自己的想法设计游戏,而是纯粹受到利益的驱使。我们生活在资本主义社会,游戏公司也需要不断赚钱才能不被社会淘汰。但是否因为这样他们就可以制造出如此低劣的游戏设计呢?我能确信,如果这些设计者是按照自己的想法认认真真地制作游戏,那么我们现在看到的游戏成果将会大不相同吧。所以,对于Facebook游戏设计者来说,他们需要面对的第一步便是创造一款自己也想要玩的游戏。过去的电脑游戏是设计者按照玩家的想法设计出来的,所以会让玩家产生“哇!我想要玩这款游戏!”的想法。但是如今的Facebook游戏却是按照市场营销者的想法设计的,即“如何做才能更受欢迎?如何做才能让玩家吸收更多好友加入游戏?如何做才能让玩家一直投入金钱?如何做才能让玩家投入大把时间(不论他们愿不愿意)?”《星际争霸2》一年只需要玩家花费60美元,《魔兽世界》是200美元,那么《City of Wonder》呢?玩家甚至会在几周内就花费了数百,甚至上千美元的开支。像Playdom和Zynga等公司一直致力于制作内容平淡,但却基于利益的游戏,换句话说,这些游戏可以称为“印钞机”,因为除了能够为开发者大量吸金外,我不能从它们身上看到任何优秀的游戏设计特点。

是的,我现在仍在体验《City of Wonder》这款游戏,每天登录一两次,不断点击点击再点击。但是不论我是否在游戏初期享受到游戏的乐趣,我现在之所以还在玩这款游戏,是因为我在游戏中投入了金钱(不想因此让其付诸东流),而且我的好友们也仍沉迷于游戏中。但是总有一天我将会停止游戏。而那时我也会意识到,这款游戏的设计是针对Playdom本身,而非作为玩家的我。而那时,这股最赚钱的Facebook游戏热潮也将慢慢平息下去,并在游戏设计史上画上最平淡且最无趣的一笔。这些游戏公司为了赚取如此庞大的利益,而将世界上最棒的游戏设计者聚集在一起制作这些不入流的作品。在此我也希望这些游戏界的天才能够尽快创造出更多针对游戏玩家Facebook游戏。广大游戏设计者们,我们的希望寄托在你们身上了!(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Facebook Game Design is an embarrassment

by Dirk on February 9th, 2011

After a conversation on The Digital Life with Brenda Brathwaite and Soren Johnson about “Social Game Design”, it became clear that I needed to get to know Facebook Games better and see if there was more there than I thought. So right after the show I signed up for about a dozen Facebook Games. I played all of them for at least an hour. Two of them, Millionaire City and City of Wonder, I liked better than the rest and played them for a week or more. Then I decided that I liked City of Wonder best of all and have been playing it ever since. I even recruited my wife, my family and my friends to play it. And what I noticed early on, and what become glaringly obvious now the longer we play it, is the entire balance and conception of this game is seriously flawed. So, here it is in a nutshell: the design of Facebook Games has abandoned the old-school approach of trying to design a great game experience for players and instead is trying to design an engine to optimize revenues from the players. It is a huge difference in philosophy, where the marketers who are paid to make money have taken over from the engineers who are paid to make great experiences and in the process are reducing video game design from a deep and joyous hobby to a prettied-up form of interactive advertising. It is ironic, because we are at a moment where these games can be made much more cheaply than before, and there is plenty of money to be made even if the outcome is a great experience not a cash optimization engine. But these designers just can’t help themselves. Either through corporate mandate or their own misguided design philosophy, they are focused on taking more money from the player while giving them far, far less.

Now, let’s talk specifics. City of Wonder is a very simplified Civlization-style game, where the objective is to grow from a tiny, primitive encampment into a large, powerful modern – or even slightly futuristic – city. It has all the usual goodies, sometimes highly simplified or abstracted – such as buildings, citizens, exploration, technology, allies, enemies…it’s really all there in one form or another. Now, in City of Wonder the designers are pulling the strings on a few different things. First of all, at the highest level, the designers are making decisions around crafting the game around our time, our relationships and our money. The game doesn’t cost anything to start playing, so those are the levers they are pulling to get us to “pay” for our play. Let’s talk about each of those separately, and how they represent failures in game design.

First, time. All of the Facebook Games I tried are centered around our time. City of Wonder compels you to come back again and again to take action on the game. For example, you add more population by buying residential structures and clicking on them every so often. Early residences require frequent clicking, even every few minutes. You click, you get a tiny increase of population. A few minutes later you do it again. Then, at later levels, you can buy residences that only require you to click once or twice a day. You’ve essentially advanced to the point where you are enabled to spend less time coming back and clicking. Now, traditional Civ-style games also use the passage and investment of time as a lever to increase population and accomplish other things. Here’s the problem: in games like Rise of Nations or Civilization, while you are “waiting” for your growth there is a lot else to do. The game is rich and lush and dynamic. You aren’t sitting around waiting to click because you’ve got a whole bunch more to think about. Not so in City of Wonder. The basic pattern is click, wait, click, wait, click wait. It isn’t fun. Now, you can say it is more simple because it is a “casual game”, but shouldn’t it still be fun? Also – unlike traditional games – Facebook Games control your time, not vice-versa. Yes, technically you can log into and out of these games whenever you want. But they are structured to pull you in at inconvenient times. I remember when I was first playing City of Wonder, when the clicking and checking in is most frequent, and I was firing it up on and off all during the workday. I didn’t want to be doing that; I felt like I had to. That, frankly, sucked. At least with a traditional game, I am in control of the time. I might need to be in the game for the game to make progress, but it is up to me when, where and how that is going to be. Other than being a great game and, as such, somewhat addictive, it is not prescribing that I need to be around to click at such-and-such a time.

Now let’s talk about our relationships. One of the things that makes Facebook Games so profitable is their ability to get each player to suck in a bunch of their friends, creating network effects as more and more players stream into the game. That is lovely and a major win-win. That should create an opportunity for the developer to be more profitable, and for the player to have a better experience. Unfortunately, in the game design of all the games I played, the focus is only on the profitability of the developer and not on the joy of the player. Let’s talk about that. First of all, we’ve all seen the spammy wall posts of some friend having accomplished something, or needing help, in Mafia Wars or FarmVille or FrontierVille. It is an industry standard. City of Wonder is no different. This is a terrible practice. I don’t know anyone in the tech intelligentsia who likes to get bombarded with these things. Maybe there are other demographics that don’t have a problem with it, but it irritates me to get hit with them, and it mortifies me to think I could be irritating others by my playing a game. Well, City of Wonder does everything possible to get you to spam people with this garbage. Certain buildings either will cost you cash money to build, or you need to post an invitation to help you on the walls of a bunch of people. For many of the little things you achieve in the game, they are always pressing you to post it on your wall. The pressure is constant. Then, they are trying to get you to invite more people into the game. All of these games follow a design pattern, where there is a generous rectangle-shaped portion of the screen – usually in the lower left – going thru a slideshow of your friends at all times when you are playing, trying to coax you into inviting them. Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam. It’s all built from the perspective of, “We want to suck as many people into spending as much of their time in this game as we can.” It is literally parasitic. I can’t opt out of it – I will NEVER post anything on my wall, or invite any friends to play other than who I have. Yet they are going to keep bludgeoning me with it. Terrible. Not user-friendly. Clumsy, blunt, just a total failure of design.

But here’s the tragic part: let’s for a moment stipulate that whatever they need to do to bring in more players is necessary for their viability. It’s not, but let’s stipulate it. Well, at least let us really make the most of our friends playing. Let the shared nature really enhance our experience. It doesn’t. For example, one of the problems with City of Wonder is that the tuning is off. You reach a point when you hit a level in the mid-teens where you start getting far, far more money than you can possibly spend, while everything else is capped out below where you want it to be. The problem just keeps growing and growing and growing. At the same time, you have old obsolete buildings that you can either sell for 20% of their purchase price or store away. On the other hand, as you invite in new friends, or friends who join and passively connect with you, as they are starting out they have very limited means. Well, let me trade with them. I understand the designers can’t let me give them things that are unbalanced and beyond their level – which would destabilize other game systems – but I’ve got plenty of low level decorations that they would appreciate if only largely for aesthetic reasons that are wasting away in my stockpile. It would make them happy, create a nice connection between us, and even improve their game. But no. Can’t do that. Why? They want that person’s time and money. My giving them things for free would take away from the forced nature of their continuing to click, click, click thru the system. Forget the fact that if I gave 60 plots of flowers to a new player they could create something really lovely that made them happy yet which was relatively powerless. No, the game is too laser-focused on maximizing their money machine to the detriment of the players. Player interaction is limited at best and rarely rewarding. That is in stark contrast to the frenzied ways by which the game tries to get us to make our friends involved. It is, at the risk of hyperbole, tragic.

The third lever is the most contentious of all, and that is money. The basic line of Facebook Game apologists is, “Look, they offer these games for free, they need to build in ways to make money on them.” Yes, yes they do. I do not begrudge them that, certainly. If I’m going to play I am happy to pay. The question is, what should the game cost? In the old days you pay $40, $60 for a game and you get unlimited use. More recently you have alternate models that get more money out of players. World of Warcraft has the subscription model, along with their expansions. For an ongoing World of Warcraft player, someone who plays year-round and buys all of the expansions, you are looking at a yearly investment of about $200. This can be even higher if you buy gold in the game to get better gear. So it is a significant investment. However, what you get for that investment is also significant: it is an immersive world, one where you can join your friends in a virtual reality and go on quests, fight monsters, have relationships…it is like bringing a great movie or fantasy franchise right into your living room. While it is personally not a game that I play – the core “hack n slash dungeon crawl” tradition that it extends remains too much on the fighting side and too little on the relationships and true character development side – it is really the pinnacle of what a game like that can be for its players. $200 sounds like a lot of money, but the value is good. It is what I would call a “fair” price.

By contrast you have City of Wonder. Now, this is a little bit nuanced to explain over the radio but I’m going to try. To thrive in City of Wonder you need to be continually increasing your in-game money (which is called Silver), your Happiness, your Culture, your Trade and your Military. Those are the assets which enable you to grow. Especially in the early game, you are always butting up against your limits, needing more of those to do anything. Now, there is another mechanic which falls outside of those called Gold. It actually functions as another lever just like those, but the big difference is that to get it in any meaningful quantity it costs you real money. The sweet spot for buying gold is $50 for 240 gold. So, that is the cost of a typical shrinkwrapped game, or 25% the cost of a year of World of Warcraft. What can you buy with 240 gold? Well, you could start by expanding your core lands a bit. In the early going this is pretty cheap, so let’s say you expand out five sizes and it will cost you maybe 20 or 30 of that gold. Not bad. That will sustain you for a few weeks. Now, from there you have lots of cool things to choose from. Each category of building in City of Wonder – residential, goods, markets, culture, military, wonders and decorations – has options to buy that can only be had with gold that are significantly better than anything you can acquire without gold. They also have seasonal or “limited edition” choices to compel the completist. They cover a wide range of prices, but in general are between 25 and 50 gold each. They give you a quick and powerful shot in the arm for whatever area you are struggling with. West Point for 39 gold is a wicked powerful military building. I bought it. Gold Walls only cost $1 each but are super powerful military buildings in the early game. I bought 21 of them. The Pyramids is a great early cultural wonder for about 30 gold. I bought it. A Skyscraper is a neat, powerful market building that is especially fun in the early game when your structures are very primitive. Bought it. The Christmas Tree is super cute and provides culture, too. Bought it. Oh, and as you continue playing, those handful of levels you made your land larger aren’t enough. You need to keep growing. And growing. And growing. Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. Each time you grow it becomes more expensive; if I want to grow again it will cost me 50 gold. Not. Buying. Yet.

In total I’ve spent over 1,000 gold in about six weeks of playing. Horrified? Yeah, me too. Thankfully I haven’t spent the $200 that is seemingly necessary. I had $75 sitting dormant in a PayPal account, so the first $50 I spent was real money. My justification? Very sensible: “I buy games all the time. They typically cost around $50. I will put enough time into this game to justify that. I will never buy gold for it again.” Great. The problem is, that really only satisfied me for a week or two. Already I needed more happiness, my military was starting to get underpowered, and there were all these other neat things I wish I could buy. So where did I get all of the extra gold?

City of Wonder allows you to buy things from other companies in exchange for gold. The process of combing these deals looking for a good one and then doing what is required to complete it is a dulling, even soul crushing, activity. It reminds me of when I was 19, going thru the coupons every Sunday, or buying the Entertainment Book and only eating at the restaurants that gave the deals in it. There are a ton of these services-for-gold deals, and most of them are actually losing propositions in terms of how much money you spend compared to the amount of gold you get. But I’ve found some good ones, and shamelessly exploited them. I applied for a Discover card. It got me 280 gold. They happily approved me and I happily cancelled the card as soon as it arrived. Buying URLs through GoDaddy got me 80 gold. I had URL’s I wanted to buy anyway, so that wasn’t bad. Signing up for a Gamefly membership got me a bunch of gold. We needed to get a new game for my stepson to play when he was visiting, so I used the account to do that and then canceled it after a month. And onward. It is a slimy business. Take the Discover card example. I lost, wasting time and accepting the ping on my credit. Discover lost, wasting cycles making me a customer only to get an immediate cancellation. Only Playdom, the maker of City of Wonder, won as they scooped the referral fee from Discover. It is another parasitic case.

The problem with the revenue model for most popular Facebook Games is that they compel the player to spend more, FAR more, than much better games would cost in order to play an inferior experience. Because the problem with City of Wonder at the end of the day is that it isn’t a whole lot of fun. You do a lot of clicking. And a lot of waiting. There is not much joy or feeling of accomplishment. For me, the potentially fun part of City of Wonder is building a really cool, well designed and conceived, city. But the game tries to prevent – not encourage – you to do this. How? You have to move buildings around one at a time. At this point I have around 500 different structures in my city, and hundreds more in my storehouse. To move each of them requires three clicks. Thus to move everything once – and re-arranging a city requires moving most things more than once, just thanks to the geographical limitations – is some 1,500 clicks. There is nothing fun about that degree of micro-management. It would be easy to have a single command to put away all of your buildings so you can build form scratch – which would be easy and fun – but the game doesn’t allow this. Why? They want you to pay gold to do it! The only way to “put away” all of your buildings at once is to spend a significant amount of gold, somewhere in the neighbourhood of $10 in real money worth. That, in a nutshell, is everything that is wrong about these games. Rather than thoughtfully identifying the ways in which they can make the game truly joyous – which may, in turn, make the investments in gold and real money more palatable – they continue to look for nooks and crannies out of which to squeeze more of our money. The only thing they are really squeezing is the fun, right out of the game.

Now, we shouldn’t be terribly surprised about this. People are flocking to these games. There is seemingly no incentive for them to change what they are doing because this is a money machine. Well, I have two points to make on that. First, this is going to change. The market will stop responding to these black holes of suckdom. It may not be today, or tomorrow, but it will change. There will be a demand for the experience-to-investment ratio to get substantially better. And then the games will dutifully shift to meet the market. But my second point is the more immediate one. Remember the Golden Rule? Treat others as you would like them to treat you. I can assure you that the designers of these games are not designing experiences they want to play. They are designing business-driven income generators. We live in a capitalist society, and a game development company needs to make money to stay in business. What we have instead are games that are generating massive profits while being true embarrassments of experience design. The design decisions are shameful, and I can assure you if the designers were creating something they wanted to play they would craft things that were far different. Well, take the first step Facebook game designers. Create something you want to play. The great computer games of the past came from the minds of gamers, people who thought, “Wow, I would LOVE to play this!” and had a vision and made that vision real. This generation of Facebook games are coming right from the minds of marketers: What theme can we copy that is popular? How can we get people to add more friends? How can we get people to keep spending money? How can we force people to spend time in the game whether they want to or not? Starcraft 2 is $60 to play for a year. World of Warcraft, $200. City of Wonder? Hundreds if not thousands of dollars – for weeks at times, not even a year! The sweet stench you smell is Playdom and Zynga and companies like them that are pursuing an empty, profit-centric strategy of game design. Better would be to call it “cash engineering” with game themes, because I’m not seeing very much in it that reflects game design as the remarkable creative craft that it is.

Yes, I still play City of Wonder. I log in once, sometimes twice, a day and click, click, click. Whatever enjoyment I once had from it is long gone, and I really only continue because of my investment to date and people I know are still doing it too. But one of these days I will simply stop. What was an experiment, turned into actually playing, quickly becoming the cold realization that the design of the game was all about Playdom, the developer of City of Wonder, and not at all about me. This generation of Facebook Games will go down as one of the most profitable, but least inspired and interesting periods in the history of game design. All the money it has sucked into it has, in the process, drawn many of the best game designers in the world down into this particular crevice. Here’s hoping that accumulation of talent serves to create a more humane and gamer-driven approach to Facebook Game design sooner rather than later. Designers, we’re counting on you.(source: goinvo


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