作者：Brandon Sheffield

带有卡片收集元素的社交/手机游戏在日本市场大受欢迎，像去年Konami的《驭龙者》便取得了巨大的成功，而最近Gung Ho的《Puzzle & Dragon》也攀上了排行榜的最顶端。

实际上，《Puzzle & Dragon》在日本每个月可以获得800万美元的收益。在GDC China大会上，市场营销公司D2C Inc全球业务总监张晓雷便说道，这类型游戏之所以会成功便是源于玩家对于收集的渴望。

Dragon Collection(from anjelsyndicate)

从根本上来看，创造卡片是一种很棒的设定，玩家将深深沉迷于此，并希望获得更多的卡片。因此关于这类型游戏的主题通常都是关于“可爱的女孩”，历史内容以及授权内容。如果玩家已经非常熟悉这些性能，这对于游戏的发展便更有帮助。

张晓雷说道：“游戏中的主角从虚拟理念转变成了卡片。尽管这并不是多大的改变，但是它却从心理上很大地影响着我们的用户。”收集是一种强制性行为，玩家将受此推动去寻找数百张，甚至是上千张的卡片。

Ngmoco的《Rage of Bahamut》是这类型游戏中第一款成功的西方游戏，但是许多西方玩家还是认为这些游戏太过肤浅，难以呈现出真正吸引人的游戏机制。张晓雷并未回避这一内容。

他说道：“如何获得稀有卡片这点非常重要。所有玩家都会为了获得强大的卡片而投入更多的金钱。”如果玩家能够了解游戏中的角色便更有帮助——例如当中国玩家在玩一款有关《西游记》的游戏时，他们便会因为知道孙悟空是个厉害的角色而愿意为他花钱（而更快得到他）。

张晓雷表示，玩家对抗玩家模式和战斗模式能够帮助游戏提高用户留存。例如当玩家获得一张新的卡片后，可以与其他玩家交换其它卡片，加入公会而变得更加强大。而为了在某些游戏中进化卡片，玩家就需要将其与同类型的其它卡片相结合（游戏邦注：大约循环8次才能到达最后阶段）。换句话说，如果不花钱，玩家便需要投入更多时间。

从开发层面来看便非常简单了。张晓雷说道：“只要改变行头以及某些技能，游戏便能够呈献给玩家一些全新的感觉。”如果游戏的进化系统非常出色，玩家便会愿意为游戏投入更多精力。

有人会好奇为何这种类型在日本如此受欢迎？这种游戏类型刚进入手机平台1年。而张晓雷认为这种人气的积攒部分原因是游戏开发的简单化——当开发者创造了引擎后，他们便可以只是改变图像和UI而不断创造出更多新版本，从而有效地减少开发成本。这类型游戏的游戏玩法都比较基础，也就是玩家可以在等地铁的时候游玩，这一点对于日本玩家来说尤为重要、

更重要的是，日本整个国家已经形成了一种收集文化。他说道：“小时候当我生活在日本时，我也会收集各种卡片，有时候还是来自方便面碗里的卡片。而为了收集齐一款卡片，我便会不断去购买方便面，并最终完成全套收集。这与玩家在游戏中的收集心理是一样的。”

他也承认这种类型在中国和西方市场还有待发展，因为这些市场的玩家已经习惯于对战斗元素的掌控。他们可能会认为这些卡片游戏太过乏味。卡片游戏并不未强调技能，他说道：“而是谁在游戏中投入更多钱或更多时间，他便是游戏中的强者。我想这也是这类型游戏的薄弱处。”

但是他还是很看好这一市场的发展。他说道：“基于自身的设计标准和参数，卡片游戏将成为一种独立的游戏类型。在欧洲和美国市场，卡片游戏已经获得了一定的认可，这也将改变日本游戏公司对于西方玩家的看法。”

（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）

GDC China: If you want players to pay, compel them to collect

By Brandon Sheffield

Social/mobile games with a card collecting element have been massively successful in Japan, with titles like Konami’s Dragon Collection making early waves last year, and Gung Ho’s Puzzle & Dragon currently topping the charts.

In fact, the number one game in the genre is making some $8 million U.S. per month in Japan. At GDC China, Xiaolei Zhang, global business director for marketing company D2C Inc. says the reason for this success is a desire to collect.

Essentially, make the cards pretty enough, and players will feel attached to them, and want to get more. Thus the major themes of fantasy, “cute girls,” historical content, and licenses, says Zhang. If players are already basically familiar with the property, it can help a lot.

“The protagonist of the game changes from a virtual idea to a card,” he says. “Even if the change is very small, psychologically it has a very profound impact to our users.” The collection is compulsive, with players gathering hundreds, or thousands of cards.

Ngmoco’s Rage of Bahamut was the first successful Western game of this type, but many Western players tend to think these games are pretty-yet-shallow pay to play schemes. Zhang doesn’t shy away from this.

“How to get very rare cards is very important,” he says. “All these players will pay lots of money in order to get these strong cards.” This is especially true when they know the characters – using an example appropriate for the Chinese audience, he noted that if you’re playing a game about The Journey To The West, you’ll know the Monkey King is a powerful character, and you’ll want to buy him in order to get him quicker.

PVP and battle modes are important for user retentions, says Zhang. You can get new cards, exchange them, join guilds, and become stronger. But evolution if cards is also important – in order to evolve a card in some games, you need to combine it with another card of the same type, likely around 8 times to get to the final stage. That can be difficult without paying.

On the development side though, this is very simple, and Zhang endorses it fully. “By simply changing the wardrobe and some skills, it’s easy to give the player some new feelings,” he says. If your evolution system is excellent they’ll feel the game is worthy of their energy.

Why is genre so popular in Japan, you might wonder? The genre is only one year old, on mobile. But Zhang says part of the popularity is how easy the games are to develop – once they’ve made the engine, they can constantly make new versions, just changing graphics and UI, drastically reducing development cost. On top of that, the gameplay is bite-sized. You can play it between subway stops, which Zhang says is important in Japan.

But above it all, there’s just that cultural desire to collect, he says. “In Japan, when I was young, I also collected cards, sometimes from the instant noodle bowls. So when I wanted to collect the whole set of these cards I bought lots of instant noodle bowls, and I finally successfully collected the whole set. I think this psychology is the same.”

He admits that this genre will be a bit of a struggle in Chinese and Western markets, where players are used to fine control of combat. They may think these card games are too monotonous, he says. But these games aren’t about skill. “Card games are about who spends more money or more time in the game, that’s who’s powerful,” he says. “So I guess that’s one of the drawbacks.”

Still, he’s very bullish on the market. “I think card games will become an independent genre with its own design standards and metrics,” he says. “In Europe and the U.S. card games have won a certain amount of acceptance, and this has made several Japanese companies modify their worldview of Western gamers.” You play it, you ask for it, you get it! (source:gamasutra)