作者：Nicholas Lovell

我曾不止一次听说了人们对虚拟商品和花钱买乐趣的一些误解，“喜欢玩免费游戏的用户就会买虚拟商品，因为他们已经习惯于花钱获得娱乐体验，而虚拟商品正是我们提供的乐趣所在。”

但事实并非如此。

用户并不会因为自己喜欢玩游戏，然后就为其中的虚拟商品付费。假如你执拗于前面那种想法，那就很难利用病毒传播功能和强迫循环，设计出极具盈利性的游戏。

虚拟商品仅在社交背景下，例如在线游戏、虚拟世界、社交环境这些领域才能发挥作用。而促使人们在游戏中购买虚拟商品的动机，则与他们在日常生活中购买真实物品的原因并无二致，主要包括：

1.为了与众不同；

2.为了走在时尚前沿；

3.为了获得集体认同感；

4.为了卖弄风情。

了解这一点后，你就会知道传统AAA游戏设计与成功的虚拟商品项目设计之间的第一个原则性的区别。

我常向客户提出这个问题：

“你在家中一人独处，身边没有他人时，一般会怎么着装？”

a）穿上最体面的衣服；

b）随便套一件旧T恤和运动裤之类的衣服。

很显然没有人会选择a答案。

然后我就会指出在线游戏中的道理也同样如此，假如没人看到你的衣着，你又何必在打扮上花那些冤枉钱？

horse_armor(from extraguy.com)

这也正是《Oblivion》这款游戏中的马鞍惨遭滑铁卢的根本原因。

许多设计师会说“可是我们在单人游戏的奖励框架中也植入了这些配饰，到了在线世界怎么就行不通了？”

问题的关键在于“奖励”和“购买”是两种截然不同的概念。对一个玩家来说，如果他觉得有什么必要购买某件东西，那一定是他认为该物品可以让自己获得一种别样的感觉、体验和社交益处。他们需要的是：

·感觉自己变得更强大（游戏邦注：例如获得更精良的武器，更快升级）

·赶上潮流（例如在2007年圣诞节前《跑跑卡丁车》中有百万玩家购买了圣诞帽）

·与众不同（例如为自己的虚拟形象购置一套独特的行头）

·融入集体（例如某公会所有成员都会以清一色的着装示人，以便人们了解他们来自哪个帮派）

玩家不会为了获得虚拟商品而购买虚拟商品，他们也并非为了娱乐价值而掏钱。

他们是为了展现自我，为了彰显身份等原因（就像你买名牌衣服一样）才购买虚拟商品。

认清这一点有助于你打造一个成功的虚拟商品项目，如果仍然执迷不悟，那就有可能遭遇虚拟商品无人问津的尴尬。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Why People Pay For Virtual Goods

by Nicholas Lovell

[This blog post originally appeared on GAMESbrief]

I was at the Games Gone Wild event in London yesterday (good attendees, format needs work).

I heard a fundamental misconception about virtual goods and entertainment purchases repeated a couple of times.

“Consumers who enjoy playing free to play games will purchase virtual goods because they are used to paying for entertainment. And that’s what we offer them.”
This is not true.

Consumers do not play a game, decide that they are enjoying it and therefore decide to buy a virtual good. And if that’s what you think, you are going to struggle to design games with viral mechanics and compulsion loops that monetise well.

It’s not a big secret

Virtual goods only work in social settings: online games, virtual worlds, social games. And the compulsion that makes a player purchase a virtual good are the same as the compulsions that make us buy goods in the real world:

We want to stand out.

We want to get ahead

We want to belong

We want to flirt

Understand this, and you have got the first principle of the difference between a traditional AAA game design and the designs needed to make a successful virtual goods business.

Dress up, or look scruffy

I often ask clients this question:

“When you are at home, with no-one watching you, do you:
a) dress up in your best trendy clothes; or

b) hang out in an old T-shirt and a tracksuit (or whatever your equivalent is)

No-one has ever answered (a).

I then point out that the same is true online. If no-one else can see what you are wearing, why will you spend money on it?

This, in essence, is why Oblivion’s horse armour flopped so badly.

Many designers say “but we’ve always included wearables in our reward structure for single player games. Why don’t they work in online worlds?”

The answer lies in the difference between “rewards” and “purchases”. For a player to feel the need to purchase something, they have to get a feeling, an experience, a social benefit from it. They need:

to feel more powerful (i.e. have better weapons, level up faster)

to fit in (like the one million people who bought a Santa Hat in Kart Rider in the run up to Christmas 2007)

to stand out (like anyone buying a unique set of clothes for their avatar)

or a combination (like a guild all kitting themselves out in purple clothes so everyone recognises them).

(see Free to play gamers will pay for power-ups and self-expression, but not for new content for more on this topic).

Players do not buy virtual goods for the goods themselves. They don’t buy them for entertainment value.

They buy them for self-expression. For status. For all the same reasons that you buy branded clothes in the shops.

Harness this, and you will have a massively successful business. Fail to understand this, and you will be creating horse armour until doomsday. （source:gamasutra）