作者：Fraser MacInnes

谈到游戏设计，数据属于禁忌字眼。设计师将自己看作是心存目标的创造者，而非围绕公式的数学家。

显然制作杰出手机游戏（或是任何游戏）没有什么秘密的量化公式。

但我们能够从数据和分析中得到某些推断，避免犯下明显的设计错误。

data-driven decision(from salesgrowthspecialists.com)

独特设计

玩家放弃或开始同其他玩家沟通或进行消费的热点地区都能够通过分析进行测量。

正确的模式识别有助于我们洞悉玩家的内心想法。

盈利——另一禁忌字眼。

众所周知的是，游戏行业和玩家最近都患上了盈利疲劳症。过去几个月来，我看到许多这样的头条新闻：开发者呼吁业内人士不要再基于创收模式设计游戏，而是要着眼于玩家。

他们的说法完全正确。

数据并非神通

数据不应被用于发挥人类心理学作用，进而从用户身上压榨更多资金，同时呈现存在不当沉浸性且鲜有娱乐价值的游戏体验。

这里的罪魁祸首是资源管理游戏。你启动游戏，在色彩斑斓的卡通地图上放置若干建筑。你因放置这些建筑而赚得若干游戏货币。好啊！

你的建筑吸引特定类型的非玩家角色（NPC），你因此获得保费货币。然后游戏要求你创建其他内容，服务此NPC。

游戏设定完成计时器，要求你消费你在不到1:30分前赚到的游戏货币，立即完成建筑。所以你这么做了。

绚烂的色彩！悦耳的音效！感觉棒极了。

游戏约定机制

随后游戏要求你创建其他东西，将此建筑添加至发展中的虚拟世界，增加自豪感。

游戏再次设定完成计时器。你被骗了！你点击砖墙，无法继续前进或是在游戏中进行有意义的操作，直到你的建筑最终完成。

游戏巧妙给玩家提供两个可能选择。

它创建游戏约定——这无疑会附带基于计时器的通知信息，数据传递让玩家返回游戏（游戏邦注：他们最终可能会在此进行消费）的最佳效果，同时让你享有通过付费持续进行体验的选择。

所以你们——或者至少一定数量的你们，会选择通过付费立即完成建筑。游戏出于你无法具体言明的理由促使你这么做——完成最后一个建筑后，伴随其中美妙音效的脑内啡开始逐渐消失。

必须点击！

你瞧，现在你有足够资金，能够购买道具让计时器向前推进，但也可以不必如此。你现在无法购买这一道具。你需要进行等待，除非你选择支付现金购买保费货币。

听起来很熟悉？当然——这是玩家在社交游戏头10分钟的进展方式，这绝非偶然。

这是个定量过程，每个步骤都有相应的数据论证，都促使玩家购买游戏货币。

玩家并非斯金纳箱中的实验老鼠

我不想陷入有关人类乐趣是否能够简化为瞄准目标，然后模拟大脑正确部件的讨论，但显然开发者给予玩家更多尊重非常重要。

通过数据信息进行游戏设计（游戏邦注：在此设计主要由秘密操控构成）是错误之举。

基于数据的典型游戏设计范例是，亚洲玩家似乎对此并无忧虑，因为他们能够购买所谓的“致胜道具”，尽管这带来免费游戏付费和非付费玩家之间的巨大不平衡性。

若是在西方免费游戏中采取相同举措，用户会在你的办公室外搭棚示威抗议。这毫不夸张——这一情况曾发生在某家我任职过的公司。

数据只是一个工具

数据作为设计工具非常合理。

甚至是必不可少。这仅限于数据旨在将游戏变得更杰出或更有趣，而非为了给发行商带来更多收益。

数据本身不是游戏制作的规则手册，它最多是个指南。

没有人类的真实想象力推进设计，这不过是个搜刮金钱机器的安装指南。

如果这就是你想要制作的内容，那么你应该转投赌博行业。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

iQU’s Fraser MacInnes on making data a valid tool for game design

by Guest Author

When it comes to game design, data is a bit of a dirty word. Designers see themselves as creators with a vision, not mathematicians with a formula.

It’s true that there’s no secret quantitative formula for making a great mobile game – or any game for that matter.

But there are certain things we can infer from data and analytics to avoid making obvious design mistakes.

Different by design

The hotspots where gamers give up, or instigate communication with another player (or fail to do so where it would improve the experience), or, indeed, spend money, are all measurable with analytics.

The right pattern recognition can help to provide a mind’s eye view into the brain of a gamer.

Monetisation – there’s another dirty word.

It’s no secret that the games industry and gamers alike have monetisation fatigue. I’ve seen plenty of headlines over the last few months where developers have appealed to the industry to stop designing for monetisation models and start designing for gamers.

Guess what? They are completely right.

The numbers don’t know

Data should not be used cynically.

It should not be used to exploit the wrinkles of human psychology to extract ever more cash from an audience while providing an experience that is addictive for the wrong reasons and of little entertainment value.

The big culprit here is resource management titles. You start the game and place some buildings on a luridly coloured cartoon map. You earn some in-game currency for placing those buildings. Yippee!

Your building attracts a certain type of non-player character (NPC), so you get some premium currency for attracting that NPC. Then you are asked to build something else to serve that NPC.

A completion timer is set, so you are asked to spend the in-game currency you earned not 01:30 minutes ago, on completing the building now. So you do.

Sparkly, shiny, flashy colours! Plinky plunky sounds! That feels nice.

Appointment to play

You’re then asked to build something else as a result of now having that last building as a proud addition to your growing virtual world.

A completion timer is set again. Bam! You hit a brick wall and can’t progress or do anything meaningful in the game until your building has finished.

Cleverly (or crassly, depending on how you look at it) the game has opened two possible options to the player.

It has created an appointment to play – which you can bet will have a timer-based notification attached to it, informed by data for its optimum effectiveness in getting the player to return to the game where they may end up spending some money after all -  while also giving you the option to pay now to keep playing.

So you – or at least a healthy percentage of you – opt to pay now to complete the building. You’re motivated to do so for reasons you can’t quite articulate – the endorphins that followed that sweet hit of audio/visuals that erupted after you completed your last building are starting to wear off.

MUST CLICK ON!

Lo and behold, you have almost enough in-game currency left to buy that thing that will move the timer on… but not quite. You can’t buy that thing now. You have to wait, UNLESS you opt to buy some premium currency with some real cash.

Sounds familiar? Of course it does – that’s the player progression for the first ten minutes of all too many so-called social games and it’s no accident.

It is a quantitative process with provable, data-driven justifications for each step, each of which is leading the player inexorably towards buying in-game currency.

Rats in a monetisation maze

Without wanting to get into a debate about whether human pleasure can really be reduced to targeting and then stimulating the correct parts of the brain, it’s surely important that developers treat their audience with a little more respect than they would a lab rat.

Using data for design, where that design largely consists of furtive manipulation, is just plain wrong.

Using big data to infer how gamers like to play games before optimizing for it, however, can be very useful.

A classic data-driven example of game design is that gamers in Asia seem to be unfazed with being able to buy the so-called ‘win button’ (that is, an item that gives a significant advantage) despite the huge imbalance this creates between paying and non-paying users of free-to-play titles.

Try the same in a western free-to-play game, and you will literally have people pitch tents outside your office to picket and protest.

This is not an exaggeration – it actually happened at one of the companies I worked at!

Data is A tool, not THE tool

Data, as a tool for design, is valid.

Necessary even. But that’s only true when the data is about making the game better or more fun for the players (which, as illustrated by the example above, is a culturally sensitive issue) as opposed to simply more profitable for its publisher.

Data on its own is not a rulebook for games creation. At best, it’s a guide.

Without the imaginative vim of a real human imagination driving the design forward, it’s just an assembly manual for a cash-harvesting machine.

And if that’s what you want to create, maybe you should be working in the gambling industry instead.（Source：pocketgamer）