作者：Zoya Street

问题：

即时多人免费手机游戏有市场吗？现在，在移动设备上玩的，大多数成功的多人免费游戏都是异步的。虽然这听起来好像正是使用手机玩游戏的情况（不固定的短时间游戏），但数据也表明大多数人其实在家玩手机游戏持续的时间更长。

Order-And-Chaos-Online(from geeky-gadgets)

回答：

Eric Seufert，Grey Area市场与用户开发主管

我绝对相信同步即时多人游戏在移动设备上是有市场的；这是由于平板市场的不断成长。我认为游戏必须既适合小屏幕短时间游戏（比如坐电车时的2分钟游戏时间），又要适合大屏幕长时间游戏（在家用iPad游戏1小时）。即时多人游戏更适合第一种情况，因为它融合了一些单人模式的机制。虽然不是手机游戏，但Kixeye的《War Commander》和《Battle Pirates》确实是兼顾了短时单人和长时多人这两种模式的好榜样。

Tadhg Kelly，Jawfish Games创意总监

我快要搬到美国，担任一家专注于这一领域的新工作室的创意总监。所以我希望有市场（笑）。

更严肃地说，我也认为是有的。如果即时多人游戏执行良好，响应迅速，它就是最令人着迷的游戏类型之一。另外，不像多大部分异步游戏，它往往产生大量自然而然的结果，这样就较少依赖内容来维持游戏的乐趣了。所以，快节奏的多人游戏通常也能留住玩家。

《光晕》和《Bridge》就是这样的。多人游戏的诀窍好像是玩家需要许多不同的事可做（这样才能产生策略和战术）、短暂的回合时间和良好的配对安排。最后一样是必须的，因为多人游戏的主要缺陷之一总是让菜鸟碰上专家，输得一败涂地后就退出游戏。

有市场吗？有。这个问题更多的是关于是否有传输开发商。就规模和成本等方面而言，不容易找到异步的、响应性好的服务器。这可能就是为什么大多数工作室往往避开即时多人游戏，而倾向于平行的、系列的（回合制）或单人游戏。

Oscar Clark，Applifier倡导者

市场很大，但大多数开发者不知道这个模式有多复杂多困难。

第一个是关键量—-即时意味你必须在相同的时间里有足够多的、你愿意与之游戏的在线玩家。这要求极大量的个人承诺和日程安排才能维持。这不是一个小问题，绝对需要大量营销和技术投入才能成功。

异步游戏更容易维持。玩家只需要有一个持续的游戏状态，这个状态可以由游戏来测定，即使他们不在线。游戏需要沟通所有影响玩家及其好友的活动。

回合制游戏更成问题，因为你通常要等所有其他玩家完成他们的回合，你才能开始你自己的回合；通常来说，这是不太有趣的体验。甚至是在桌面游戏设计中，也常常通过要求玩家同时执行他们的“顺序”和完成回合，以努力缩减这种令人沮丧的体验。

多人游戏中，最糟糕的一种情形就是，一开始就要求主持玩家和所有玩家在场。这实在是太糟了，因为只要一个玩家中途退出，即使不是故意的，游戏就会被中断。

如果我们想让这种模式成功，我们就必须考虑玩家参与游戏需要付出的努力，并确保优势压倒劣势。

Martin Darby，Remode工作室文化总监

绝对不能低估技术层面的问题。在制作《Habbo》时，我们遇到的就是技术问题。你得让大量游戏循环在授权游戏服务器上运行，这样才不会被破解，根据玩法的即时程度，这对延迟插补也提出要求。顺便一提，我们的下一款《Habbo》游戏也会登陆移动设备，所以考察跨平台的要求是相当有意义的。

Melissa Clark-Reynolds，Minimonos创始人

我认为我们不应该把各种移动设备笼统地称为“手机”。人们用手机做的事和用平板电脑做的事是非常不一样的。平板电脑可以触摸、旋转、照相等，制作好游戏就要利用这些特点。我想玩多人触屏游戏。我认为这个问题完全错了。是的，人们想在平板上玩多人即时游戏。这些游戏不应该是HTML5或流媒体版本的网页游戏—-这是对设备的浪费。

Anthony Pecorella，Kongregate的《Virtual Goods》制作人

有一些具有不同的特征和体验的异步多人游戏类型。例如，扑克游戏的异步多人程度非常高，在iOS平台上很受欢迎。毫无疑问，短时异步游戏—-游戏持续1-5分钟的多人游戏（游戏邦注：如扑克、益智比赛、某些卡片收集游戏和各种迷你游戏等）是有市场的。快速流动有助于配对（长时游戏对玩家的占用时间长，这样就减少了供新玩家匹配的玩家数量了），游戏持续长度短对移动设备用户来说更有利。

另一方面，在动作导向、中等时长的游戏中，如第一人称射击游戏、DotA式游戏、即时策略游戏、MMORPG等，甚至采用这种模式的，也早就存在了，如“N.O.V.A.”系列、《Order and Chaos》和即将发布的《Solstice Arena》。这些游戏并不太适合在排队或等公交车时用手机玩，但正如已经提到的，我们知道人们的游戏时间更长了，特别是用平板电脑的玩家，即使他们玩的就是多人游戏。

手机和电脑/游戏机之间的界线越来越模糊了，正如Wii U和Ouya游戏主机所示。就凭现代手机的处理能力，连接电视的性能和操作硬件，有理由认为几乎所有类型的游戏都可以在移动设备上获得成功。

Charles Chapman，First Touch Games主管

对于异步、回合制游戏，讨论网络连接质量是相当无意义的。无论连接质量好坏，多费了几秒钟发送的“回合数据”是没有差别的。

对于同步游戏，特别是动作游戏，不太理想的网络连接对玩家体验的影响极大，虽然某些游戏是有办法弥补这个不足的，但总有其他游戏很难克服这个困难。主机游戏当然也一样，但在移动设备上，这个失败系数上升了。用户（有理由）期望游戏运行顺畅，当不顺畅时（往往不是设备的问题），你的游戏就会受到抨击。

回答最初的问题，根据我们的经验，这种游戏绝对是有市场的，但通常由于设备操作的原因，要实现同步多人模式确实有困难。这个模式仍需要我们不断探索，现在还不是围绕它制作整个游戏的时候。（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）

Is there a market for real-time, multiplayer, free-to-play games on mobile?

by Zoya Street

Question:

Is there a market for real-time, multiplayer, free-to-play games on mobile? Most successful f2p, multi-player mobile games these days are asynchronous. While this may sound better fit to the use case of a mobile phone (short sessions at unpredictable times reduce the likelihood of engaging into an online game), data also suggests that most people actually play at home in longer sessions.

Answers:

Eric Seufert Head of Marketing & User Acquisition at Grey Area

I definitely think there’s a market for synchronous real-time multiplayer on mobile; it has developed out of continued growth in the tablet space. I think games must accommodate both gameplay components for universal contextual relevance: short sessions on the small screen (ie the 2-minute session on the tram) and longer sessions on the larger screen (the 1-hour session on the iPad at home). Real-time multiplayer is a better fit for the second gameplay scenario, but a mobile multiplayer game can still accommodate the first scenario by incorporating some single player-style development mechanics. While not on mobile, Kixeye’s War Commander and Battle Pirates games are good examples that provide for both the short session and the long session with both single-player and synchronous multi-player modes.

Tadhg Kelly Creative Director at Jawfish Games

Well I’m about to move to the US and become the creative director of a startup focused in this space. So I sure hope so

More seriously, I think there’s something to it. When well executed, responsive and fast, real multiplayer games are one of the most engaging kinds of game there is. Also, unlike most async games, they tend to create lots of emergent outcomes and so are less reliant on content to keep play exciting. So, fast multiplayer often retains players too (oh and by the way, it’s really good for you: )

All of this is as true of Halo as of Bridge. The real tricks for multiplayer seem to be that the player needs a high agency (lots of different things they can do, which breeds tactics and strategy), short round time and good matchmaking. This last is essential, as one of the main fall-offs in multiplayer has always been novices playing experts, being blown out of the water and then leaving.

Is there a market? Yes. The question is more whether developers are set up to deliver. Synchronous, responsive servers and so forth are very difficult to get right in terms of scale, cost and so on. This is perhaps why most studios have tended to shie away from them, preferring parallel, serial (turn-based) or single play instead.

Oscar Clark Evangelist at Applifier

There is a massive market, but most developers haven’t got a clue how complex and difficult it is.

First thing is critical mass – realtime needs you to have enough players that you want to play with online at the same time. This requires a huge amount of personal commitment and scheduling to sustain. This is a non-trivial problem and going real-time inevitably requires a huge marketing and technical investment in order to pull off.
Asynchronous games are way more easy to sustain.  Players simply need to have a persistent game state which can be interrogated by the game even if they are offline and the game needs to communicate all the actions which affect that player and their friends.

Turn-based games are more problematic as you generally have to wait for all the other players to take their turn before you can act yourself; generally a frustrating experience. Even in board game design there have been attempts to reduce this frustration by requiring players to submit their ‘orders’ and resolving turns simultaneously.
The worst case scenario for multiplayer management occurs with games which require a host and all the players to be present at the start. This is a nightmare as its so easy for them to be disrupted by even just one player dropping out half-way through, perhaps not even deliberately.

If we want this to work we have to consider the effort required for the player to participate in the game and make sure the benefits outweigh the issues.

Martin Darby CCO of Remode Studios

The whole technical side is definitely not something to be underestimated.  These are all areas we have dealt with making games for Habbo.  You have to have a lot of the game loops running on authorative game servers so they can’t be hacked, this also needs lag interpolation depending how real-time the gameplay is.  Incidentally though our next Habbo game should run on mobile too so it will be quite interesting to see what the uptake is across platforms.

Melissa Clark-Reynolds Founder of Minimonos

I think we should stop lumping all kinds of devices together and calling them “mobile”.  People want to do very different things on a phone screen vs a tablet.  Lets remember all the cool stuff tablets can do (touch, movement, camera….) and make cool games that use those features.  I want to play multiplayer touch based games (oops that kinda sounded better in my head).  I think the question is all wrong.  Yes, people want to play multiplayer real time games on tablets.  Those games should not be HTML5 or streamed versions of browser games – what a waste of the device.

Anthony Pecorella Producer of Virtual Goods at Kongregate

There are a few general types of synchronous multiplayer that have different characteristics and experiences.  For example, poker games are very much synchronous multiplayer and have had huge success on iOS.  There’s no question that there is room for short-session synchronicity – games that last 1 – 5 minutes but involve other live players (poker, puzzle battles, some collectible card games, various mini-games, etc.).  Quick turnover helps with matchmaking (long games tie up players, reducing the pool of available players for new entrants) and the session length remains palatable for mobile users.

On the other end of the spectrum are action-oriented, mid-length games like first person shooters, DotA-style, real time strategy, MMORPG, etc.  Even for this model, there are some games out there already, like the “N.O.V.A.” series, Order and Chaos, and the upcoming Solstice Arena, that have more traditional live multiplayer.   These don’t work as well for the stereotypical mobile use case of standing in line or waiting for the bus, but as has been pointed out we are seeing longer play sessions, especially with tablets, that make sense for even these types of multiplayer.

The line between mobile and computer/console is being blurred more all the time, as the Wii U and the Ouya demonstrate.  With modern mobile processing power, the ability to tether to a TV if you so desire, and physical controllers for those who want them, there is no reason to think that nearly any type of game cannot succeed using mobile devices.

Charles Chapman Director of First Touch Games

For an asynchronous, turn-based game the quality of network connection is pretty much meaningless. It either works or it doesn’t, and the ‘turn data’ taking a few seconds more to arrive makes no difference.

A less than ideal connection for synchronous play, especially in an action based game, has a serious impact on the user experience, and though there are ways of mitigating these issues for some game types, for others it’s more of a challenge. This is of course the same for a console games, but in mobile the number of failure points are increased. Users (rightly) expect stuff to work, and when it doesn’t (often through no fault of the devs), your app reviews can get a hammering.

In answer to the original question though, from our experience there is definitely a market for synchronous multiplayer, but the practicalities, often out of the devs control, make it really tough to execute on. It’s is still something we’re pursuing though, but for now it’s not something we’d build an entire game around.（source：gamesbrief）