作者：Nicholas Lovell

免费游戏的蜂拥而至致使该模式受到众多批评。

社交、休闲、手机和其他免费游戏都被嘲笑成非游戏，而是基于斯纳金箱的内容，其通过操作性条件反射歪曲游戏玩法，充满邪恶性。

免费增值游戏的批评声主要围绕两个问题：

* 基于参数的设计，游戏设计师根据数据制作游戏内容，而非出于取悦玩家的目的。

* 剥削鲸鱼玩家，多数人免费体验游戏，少数人豪掷千金。

Jurie Horneman最近在Twitter发表的1条评论让我发现免费游戏所面临的根本挑战，为什么这么多人觉得其不符道德标准，如何在免费游戏中平衡创收和呈现高质量有趣内容这两方面。

鲸鱼玩家 Vs. 真正粉丝

Jurrie的微博称：真粉丝掏钱是因为你；而鲸鱼玩家掏钱是因为自己。

这个观点让我清楚把握两个消费群体的主要差异。

真粉丝欣赏你的行为。在其他媒介中，他们是观看各场比赛的阿森纳粉丝（游戏邦注：不论国内还是国外）。滚石乐队粉丝追随乐队过去20年所开展的巡演。《哈利波特》粉丝购买每部小说的精装版和电影DVD，以及外传和霍格华兹长袍。

这些粉丝在钟情的娱乐品牌或富有价值的体验中投入大笔钞票。这关乎自我表达、地位、满足收集欲望，进行比较，或出于任何情感或社交原因。免费模式的出现对真正粉丝而言是件好事。他们能够免费挖掘更多内容。他们能够选择自己喜欢的内容，为其掏钱，同时免费获得其他内容，不论是游戏、书籍，还是音乐等其他内容。他们能够在内容中投入更少资金，从而更富效率地将这些资金花费在自己喜欢的内容。

鲸鱼玩家的冲动控制能力是否都很糟？

在众所周知的1972 Stanford Marshmallow实验中，心理学教授Walter Mischel测试了一群4岁儿童的冲动控制能力。每个小孩都独自坐在房间的桌子前。桌上的碟子有支棉花糖。孩子们被告知能够食用棉花糖。如果他们等20分钟才吃，就能得到另一支棉花糖作为奖励。

Mischel随后跟进孩子们在校园中的情况。他发现具备良好冲动控制能力的孩子（游戏邦注：主要指等待20分钟再吃棉花糖的孩子）“心理调节能力更好，更值得信赖，进行中学后，成绩更好”。

Tiny Tower from blogspot.com

《Tiny Tower》是款非常成功的免费iOS游戏，其主要瞄准缺乏冲动控制能力的群体。游戏完全采用免费模式，但玩家所采取的各种行动——创建摩天大楼新楼层，等待居民移入，都需花费时间。玩家很容易投入游戏货币Tower Bux加速这些活动。

截至发稿之时，《Tiny Tower》在App Store高营收作品榜单中位列第22。早前游戏刚问世不久，我曾撰文预测作品有望在头年创收300万美元。

其成功部分归功于游戏能够带给玩家即时满足感，而这是缺乏冲动控制能力群体所追求的方面。

鲸鱼玩家是否只是缺乏有效冲动控制能力？

我不希望将以《Tiny Tower》作为推销游戏的典型。游戏出自一对兄弟之手，他们深刻关注游戏内容，投入众多情感和激情。这是我目前最喜欢的iOS游戏。

这不是款涉及自我表达的游戏。其营收模式主要瞄准缺乏耐心的群体。

而在其他作品中（游戏邦注：如Zynga游戏），此模式表现得更极端。Zynga似乎极力运用书中所有心理学技巧鼓励玩家回访、升级、掏钱及向好友发送垃圾邮件。这些都是合法游戏设计（和营销工具）。

当内容表现得不尽如人意，缺乏情感投入，免费模式批评者就能轻松攻击这些游戏。

免费游戏的道德标准

我一直以来都在同这个问题作斗争。一方面，我觉得免费模式给开发者创造绝佳机会。这是他们首次能够在全球范围免费分享内容，通过网络互动性质，免费内容找到与忠实粉丝直接沟通的渠道。这是个绝佳机会。

另一方面，这让游戏得以剥削那些易受条件反射影响的群体—这是营销公司所握有的技巧，也是游戏领域鲜为人知的一面。

这不是免费增值模式的根本缺点。免费模式通常是分享高质量内容的合理渠道，能够向忠实粉丝提供他们渴望、重视以及愿意付费的内容。

若你怀揣爱和激情制作游戏，能够提供昂贵高质量付费内容（游戏邦注：但内容受到用户认可），你就能够瞄准真正粉丝，然后高枕无忧。

若你的游戏主要利用心理学技巧，而非取悦粉丝，你或许能够获得丰厚营收，但你瞄准的是鲸鱼用户。谨慎利用这种推销模式：我认为这不是个长久商业模式。

你瞄准鲸鱼玩家，还是真正粉丝？

* 若你的用户突然止步，意识到自己投入大笔资金，心中颇为懊恼，那么你瞄准的是鲸鱼用户

* 若他们清楚自己投入多少资金，觉得物有所值，那么你瞄准的是真正粉丝

免费增值模式并不邪恶。其对开发者和真正粉丝来说都是个前所未有的好东西。

选择瞄准鲸鱼用户，还是真正粉丝是开发者所要进行的重要决策。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Whales, True Fans and the Ethics of Free-to-play games

By Nicholas Lovell

The inexorable rise of free-to-play gaming has led to a vast array of criticism of the free-to-play model.

Social, casual, mobile and other free-to-play games have been derided as not being games, as being Skinner boxes, as using operant conditioning to make hollow mockeries of gameplay and as being evil.

The heart of the criticism of freemium games revolves around two issues:

* Metrics-led design,where game designers build games that deliver to a spreadsheet, rather than aim to delight gamers

* The exploitation of  whales, where most people play for free, but a few spend a bucketload of money

A recent comment on Twitter from Jurie Horneman has helped me understand the fundamental challenges in free-to-play games, why so many people think it is unethical, and how to reconcile making money in free-to-play with making high-quality, entertaining games.

Whales versus True Fans

Jurrie’s tweet said:

Trufans spend money because of what you do; whales spend money because of who they are

That insight has helped me to separate out the key distinction between the two types of spender.

A True Fan loves what you do. In other media, they are the Arsenal fan who attends every match, home and away. The Rolling Stones fan who has been to a gig on every tour they’ve done for the last twenty years. The Potter fan who has a hardback edition of every book, every movie on DVD, the extra books and a Hogwarts robe.

These are people for whom spending a huge amount of cash on their favourite entertainment brand or experience is value of money. It is about self-expression, or status, or satisfying a collector’s urge, or keeping up with the Joneses, or any number of other emotional or social reasons. The emergence of free-to-play is good for True Fans. They can explore more content, for free, than ever before. They can pick and choose which content, be that games, books, music or whatever, they love and spend lots of money on it, while getting their other content for free. They may even spend less money on content than they did previously, but allocate it more efficiently to the content creators whose work they love.

Do whales all suffer from poor impulse control?

In the famous Stanford Marshmallow experiment from 1972, psychologist Professor Walter Mischel tested the impulse control of a group of four year olds. Each child was put into a room sitting in front of a table. On the table, there was a marshmallow on a plate. The child was told that they could eat the marshmallow if they wanted to. If they waited for twenty minutes before they ate it, they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow.

Mischel then followed the children through school. He found the children with good impulse control (defined as waiting the twenty minutes for the second marshmallow) were “psychologically better adjusted, more dependable persons, and, as high school students, scored significantly greater grades”

(Note the obvious disclaimer for a study such as this that causality and correlation are not the same things.)

Tiny Tower, a highly successful, free-to-play, iOS game is targeted directly at people with poor impulse control. The game is entirely free-to-play, but every action you take -  building a new floor for your skyscraper, stocking the shops with goods to sell, waiting for residents to move in – takes real world time. It is very easy to spend the in-game currency, Tower Bux, to accelerate some of these actions.

At the time of writing, Tiny Tower is the 22nd highest grossing game on the App Store, and shortly after it was released, I wrote a post estimating that Tiny Tower was on track to make $3 million in revenue in its first year.

Its success is, at least partially, down to its ability to offer people the easy route to immediate gratification, something which people with poor impulse control are likely to grab.

Are whales just about poor impulse control?

I don’t want to single out Tiny Tower as an example of an exploitative game. It is a game put together with love and passion by a pair of brothers who clearly care deeply about their game. It is my favourite game on iOS at the moment.

It is not a game about self-expression, though. Its revenue model focuses mainly on people who can’t wait.

Elsewhere, in games from Zynga, for example, this revenue model is taken to a more extreme level. Zynga seems to be using every psychological trick in the book to encourage people to come back, to level up, to spend money and to spam their friends. These are all legitimate game design (and marketing tools).

When they are done cynically, without love, it is to see why the free-to-play detractors attack such games so easily.

The ethics of free-to-play games

I have been struggling with this issue for a long time. On the one hand, I think free-to-play (or freemium) offers content creators an amazing opportunity. For the first time in history, they can share their content, for free, around the world and, using the interactive nature of the Web, use the free content to discover a direct communication channel to their biggest fans. This is an amazing opportunity (and one of the many reasons why established media companies are so scared about the Internet in general and piracy in particular).

On the other hand, it has enabled games to exploit – using techniques honed in cynical marketing companies and the murky world of gambling – those people whose personalities make them easy marks for Skinner boxes and operant conditioning.

This is not a fundamental flaw of freemium. The free-to-play model can be, and often is, an ethical way of sharing high-quality content to the world, and giving your biggest fans something they crave, value and will pay for.

If you are making a game with love and passion (or a book, a single, a TV show) and can find a way to offer high-quality, premium stuff that is really expensive, but valued highly by your audience, you are targeting True Fans. Sleep easy at night.

If your game (or book, single, TV show) is all about psychological tricks, not delighting your fans, you may be very profitable, but you are targeting Whales. Be wary of cynical exploitation: I don’t believe it’s a long term business model.

Are you targeting Whales or True Fans?

* If your customers suddenly stop, realise how much they have spent, and suffer buyer’s remorse, you’re targeting Whales

* If they know how much they’ve spent and view it as value for money, you’re targeting True Fans

Freemium business models are not evil. They may prove to be the best thing that ever happened to content creators and True Fans alike (although not to twentieth century media distribution monoliths).

Choosing whether to target whales or true fans is one of the biggest decisions you can make.

Which will you choose?（Source：gamesbrief）