作者：Christian Nutt

Jan Richter是Bigpoint公司（游戏邦注：代表作包括《Battlestar Galactica Online》）的免费网页游戏设计师。他认为：“我深信免费游戏设计有许多负面形象，比它实际应得的还差。”

他把自己在GDC欧洲会议发言稿的标题定为“为什么免费游戏设计如此可怕”。他表示“免费游戏设计这么有趣，只是因为它是一种新的类型。它的盈利模式、吸引玩家和设计游戏的方式都是一片未开发的领域。”因此，免费游戏设计令人兴奋。

为了证明他的观点，他分享了在Bigpoint公司工作两年半搜集来的重要数据资料。他在参与制作《命令与征服》和其他主流套装游戏之后加入该公司。

1、MMO将变成免费模式

你可能不认为《魔兽世界》是免费游戏，但Richter却表示，“从玩家的角度看，它就是免费游戏。”

“你可以（通过第三方）购买金币，也可以大大缩短游戏进程……我甚至可以说大多数玩家很乐意这么做。”

Richter称：“在线游戏因游戏时间长、富有深度的进程系统而形成一个可靠的市场领域，对此而言，免费模式是一个销售游戏的高级商业模式。我坚信它会成为MMO的主导模式。”

然而，免费模式不是整个游戏产业的万能药。如你在《使命召唤》中看到的单人模式，“绝对不会比免费模式更能盈利。”因为单人模式只适用于普及率极高或寿命极长的游戏，大部分主机游戏都不属于这一类。”

Free(from blog.homegain.com)

2、第一印象是关键

玩家第一次看到游戏的时候，是设计师吸引玩家注意力的最重要时刻——你不能指望他们会在游戏面前逗留很久。它与常规游戏的最重要的区别是，后者不可能非常快地展示游戏的深度，所以在游戏机制运行时没有必要保证让玩家沉迷其中。”

Richter认为，“教玩家一些东西，却不让这个东西富有趣味，这是不可原谅的。免费游戏迫使设计师这么做，因为玩家会轻易进入也会轻易退出游戏。他的工作是保证玩家尽可能长时间的玩游戏”。

Richter的建议是：“尽量让玩家第一次看到游戏就觉得惊艳，从最初的5分钟到1小时内，确保你以正确的方式向玩家展示游戏有趣的地方，为玩家提供足够的内容和规定的目标。”

3、时间表极其重要

Richter指出，“为了提高游戏的效益，你要看看你必须越过什么重要的时间线。”

作为假设，他展示了一个数据的漏斗图：漏斗的宽部表示最初的一个月有300万玩家登录游戏网站；漏斗的底部表示第二个月还留在游戏中并且消费的玩家。这个阶段的人数从最初的300万变成3000。

Richter解释道：“你怎么利用这个漏斗图来指导设计？就是寻找你想让玩家通过的点在哪里，以及如何改进游戏的那个点。”

他认为关键时间表的发展是注册、成为活跃玩家、消费游戏内容和第二个月继续留在游戏中并再次消费。

为了让玩家注册，他认为，你可以“给他们一艘新的巨型飞船，只要他们用邮箱注册就行。”无论遇到什么瓶颈，以下方法都很管用：“随着玩家的游戏进展给予重要的奖励和开放新的玩法”，这是让玩家达到漏斗底部的关键点。

4、免费游戏不存在道德问题

Richter承认，关于玩家对免费游戏上瘾的话题，存在许多争议。

Richter又表示：“这个话题导致人们质疑，认为免费游戏存在剥削玩家的道德问题。但是，这么看待事情是不对的。”

“如果你认真考虑一下，你会发现问题的重点不是伤害那些无法走出游戏世界的玩家，而是他们的游戏时间太长，以致于玩家把游戏当成了一种习惯，而不仅仅是一种娱乐体验。你必须把游戏设计成多人模式，有极长的寿命，有充足的内容，让游戏成为玩家日常生活的一部分。”

类比家庭影院或骑自行车等这类爱好，你会发现这些活动中同样存在成瘾的可能。“每个人都可能认识一些极端热衷某种爱好的人。”

例如，他在自行车店注意到最贵的轮子是2000欧元。Richter分析道：“总有一些人乐意在爱好上面砸个1万或2万欧元。如果你是自行车店的店主，你不卖这些愿意出价1万欧元的人自行车，你就是傻子了。”

5、让游戏吸引玩家不断游戏

Richter指出，最大的问题是留住玩家，而不是让玩家消费。

Richter列了一个等式：玩家取得成本< 转换率 x ARPPU x 游戏寿命 x 传播力。这个等式表示“为了让你的游戏大获成功，你必须跨越的一条魔法线”。（游戏邦注：ARPPU表示从每一个付费玩家身上获得的平均收益）

这个问题不是在于等式本身和等式中的四个数值，而是你必须仔细查看你的游戏在什么地方没有发挥它的潜能。Richter表示：“如果你把游戏的运营情况分解成这四个部分，你就很方便地确定你应该在什么方面改进游戏。”

因为硬核游戏的传播力本来就弱，你必须把精力放在其他方面，你必须延长游戏的寿命，才能使等式生效——“至少，真正爱好游戏的玩家会继续玩6个月。”

好消息是，“只要你越过了这条魔法线，在市场营销方面的投入就会有回报了。此时，玩家会大量消费，游戏会吸引大量玩家。”

简而言之，解决方案就是，制作出让玩家想坚持玩的游戏。让玩家消费并不是挑战，留住玩家才是难题。（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）

Five key facts about free-to-play design

by Christian Nutt

“I’m convinced that free-to-play game design has a lot worse of an image than it actually deserves,” says Jan Richter, head of design for free-to-play browser developer Bigpoint (Battlestar Galactica Online, pictured).

He titled his GDC Europe session “Why Free-to-Play Game Design is Fucking Awesome.” He says that “free-to-play game design is really interesting simply because it’s new,” and that “the way you earn money, engage players, and have to build your games is not explored territory,” which keeps things exciting.

To prove his point, he shared several significant bits of data he’s gleaned from his two and a half years at Bigpoint, which he joined after working on the Command and Conquer series and other mainstream packaged games.

1. It’s the logical next step for MMOs

You may not think of World of Warcraft as a free-to-play game, but “from a player perspective, it actually is,” says Richter.

“You can buy gold [through third parties] and shortcut a lot of the progression system… I’d even say the majority of people are happily doing so.”

“It is the superior business model to sell games in a defined market segment: online games that have huge playtimes and a prominent and deep progression system,” says Richter. “I’m convinced it’s going to be the dominant model for MMOs.”

It is not a panacea for the entire business, however. A single player campaign like those you find in Call of Duty “will never monetize over free-to-play,” he says. “It’s applicable to only games that are extremely viral or have extremely long lifetimes, which excludes most of the console market.”

2. The important thing is to engage players on first contact

First contact with your game is where you want to grab the player’s attention — you can’t count on them sticking around. The really crucial distinction is that, just like with a regular game, you can’t get to the depth super fast, so it’s not necessarily about engaging them “when the game mechanics run.”

“There’s no excuse for teaching people something and not making it fun,” says Richter. And free-to-play forces designers to do this, because people can so easily enter — and exit — the games. His job is to make sure people stay as long as they can.

“Make the first session as awesome as you can,” he says. “From the first five minutes to the first hour, make sure how you provide fun right away — and provide context and set goals.”

3. Milestones are massively important

“Look at what critical milestones they have to pass to increase the performance of your game,” says Richter.

As a hypothetical, he showed off a funnel that starts with 3 million potential players driven to the game’s website in a month. At the bottom of the funnel are the players who stay — and pay — for a second month. Starting with 3 million, 3,000 is a realistic number.

“How you can use that” funnel, Richter says, “to make a better design, is to look at the points you want to get users across, and how you can improve that individual aspect of your game.”

The milestones he looked at are registration, becoming an active player, paying for content, and then staying for a second month and paying once again.

To convince someone to register, he says, you might “give them a new giant spaceship just for registering their email address.” This philosophy works across all of the choke points: “having critical rewards for people and providing new gameplay for people as they progress” is key to getting people to the bottom of the funnel.

4. There’s no morality problem with free-to-play

There’s a lot of talk around concepts like whales, and people who get addicted to free-to-play games, Richter admits.

“That leads to a suspicion of a moral problem of getting people ruined by free-to-play games,” he says. But that’s the wrong way to look at things.

“If you really think about it, it’s actually not about ruining people who can’t let go of games; it’s that they have such high lifetimes you’re actually providing people with a hobby more than a game experience. You need to build games that are so long, stretched, and have so much content and multiplayer aspects, that it’s actually part of their everyday life,” he says.

Compare it to hobbies like home theater or cycling, and you’ll find those have their “whales,” too. “Everybody has somebody like that in the people they know,” Richter says.

For example, he was at a bicycle shop and noticed the most expensive wheel was 2000 euros. “There are people out there who are happy to spend 10 or 20k euros on a hobby, and you would be stupid if you were a bike shop owner, and you didn’t sell people bikes for 10 grand if they ask for them,” he says.

5. “You have to build games that people will enjoy for months and months and months”

The big issue is retaining users, not monetizing them, argues Richter.

Richter shared an equation — User acquisition cost < Conversion x ARPPU x Lifetime x Virality. This equation represents the “magic line you have to cross for your game to really become huge,” he says. (Note: ARPPU means “average revenue per paying user”.)

The issue isn’t the equation itself as much as the four data points in it — those are what you have to scrutinize to see where your game fails to hit its potential. “If you break it down in those four pieces, it really helps to identify which aspect of your game you really should work on,” he says.

Since hardcore games have poor virality, you need to concentrate on other aspects, and you need a long lifetime to make the equation work — “a hobby someone will play for the next six months, at least,” says Richter.

The good news is that “once you cross that line, marketing spending gets profitable,” he says. “And once you get there, they can spend hundreds of thousands, and bring in millions of users.”

The solution, in other words, is building games players want to stick with. Monetizing users is not the challenge; retention is.(source:gamasutra)