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Mark Long从《机甲世界》看免费模式发展趋势

发布时间:2012-12-21 14:56:52 Tags:,,,

作者:Martin Robinson

在启动《机甲世界》的公开beta测试之前,该游戏已引发强烈轰动。于去年4月首发的关于Khang Lee未来构想的预告片中,纳米病毒的瓦解,以及四处巡逻的精致重甲战士无疑引起全球的敬畏之情。游戏行业人士也对此表达羡慕之情,发行商开始展开与独立开发商Adhesive的长期示好阶段。

游戏行业的资深元老,Zombie Studios创始人兼早期《Spec Ops》的开发者Mark Long表示:“同他人一样,去年4月,YouTube上的这段视频给我留下了深刻印象。我请求认识该作美术总监Khang Lee的朋友帮忙,与他取得联系。而后同他结为好友,并开始为Adhesive出谋划策,因为他们正与多家发行公司协商这方面事宜。”

Hawken(from pcgamer.com)

Hawken(from pcgamer.com)

Long成功了,而其他向Adhesive伸出橄榄枝的大型公司却失败了,不过Long背后的靠山也不乏一些游戏行业的大人物。“我引领他们走向免费游戏领域,Riot与《英雄联盟》的风险投资人也穷追不舍,最后,我带领大家成立了Meteor这家发行公司。”

“Adhesive成员对此并不是太感兴趣,但我们说服他们,该游戏不能仅局限于XBLA游戏领域。那样会让用户群体受到限制。XBLA平台十分适合发行游戏,但我们希望他们相信,他们可以主宰自己的命运,成立自己的发行公司,继续推出其它作品,而不是为他人效力。”

《机甲世界》不再是一款XBLA游戏。现在,玩家可以在PC上免费体验这款游戏,虽然目前仅限于装扮道具升级,但其微交易渠道已极大提升其盈利性,未来还将提供更多便利,让玩家能够支持自己的部落,租用自己的服务器。

那么,Long是如何设法抢先大型发行商,获得《机甲世界》的发行权?也许,这要归结于其对未来的现实看法,以及他居于当前模式之上思考问题的意愿。他指出:“我能够预见,短期内,你将拥有超级平板电脑,并在该设备上利用蓝牙控制器体验《机甲世界》。你还可以将该设备与电视连接,而后在电视上体验该作。我认为,平板电脑最终会成为硬核游戏的主机平台。”

但我们还不清楚是否可以实现这个愿景,虽然该团队已经能够通过Gaikai服务在Android平板电脑上体验该游戏。它是以XBLA游戏的身份起步,但目前尚无回归主机平台的计划,而Long也不愿意多谈它的未来走向。

“目前,PC平台适合发行游戏,这要取决于多种原因。现在我们处在主机周期与传统PC游戏高峰期之间。同时,巴西、土耳其、中东、俄罗斯、波兰等市场也在崛起,这些地区的玩家群体之前从未如此普遍。”

“现在,你可以利用控制器体验《机甲世界》。什么是主机体验?这有点难以定义。我认为,下一代主机之后的设备,会开始出现‘Xbox即服务’的现象。我们从免费增值模式看到了媒体的分类。对我们来说,电子游戏是最不适合以实体盒装形式出售的商品之一。”

免费增值模式已经成为《机甲世界》运营模式的核心,Long也一直坚信,未来游戏行业会向免费模式方向发展,他坦承,由于游戏瞄准硬核类型,免费一词会快速遭到抵制。他坚称:“硬核玩家并非有意抵制免费游戏理念,而是免费移动与社交游戏中存在的某些元素,例如《FarmVile》中的糟糕做法令他们排斥。它们不是游戏,而是强制循环模式,即你需花钱消除挫败感,而用户极其反感这种做法。”

“但这并不意味着免费游戏无法纳入AAA类型。如果不存在免费增值模式,我们又打算创造一款类似《机甲世界》的新型游戏,我们将会面临极大风险。这有点类似电影行业——即你在其中投入更多资金,你确实更有可能取胜,但是一旦失败,那将带来毁灭性灾难。”

“我相信,免费游戏如同MP3行业。它会改变所有事物。你无法与免费模式抗衡。音乐领域可以解除专辑模式,从根本上改变音乐的推广渠道,虽然有时这并不是好办法。但游戏行业可以做到。现在,某些游戏品牌独霸着这一行业——如果动视能够每年推出三款游戏,那我们将会永无止境地体验下去。”

那么,你该如何回避免费模式中的负面问题呢?Long坦言:“我们的宗旨是不要利用玩家。不要成为另一个Zynga。我们只出售玩家需要的内容。游戏中设置了定制服务系统,能够为玩家提供某些便利,最终,我们打算出售部落工具,以及运行自己服务器的能力。但这仅仅是种定制服务。”

当然,越来越多的免费游戏不再遭遇轻视,也不再被核心游戏社区抛弃。世界上最热门的游戏之一就采用了免费模式,而《机甲世界》当然也不会因为与这一模式连襟而遭到唾弃。有了推动《英雄联盟》投资方的支持,Meteor与Adhesive必然要发挥自己的实战经验优势。

“从多种方面来看,《英雄联盟》可谓是一款真正的极客Dota模式。它已取得巨大成功。我们希望,第一人称射击游戏可以更胜一筹。”

声称将打败一款全球玩家最多的游戏(每天有1200万活跃用户),这确实是一个不容小觑的豪言壮语。那么《机甲世界》最终是会逐渐淡出舞台,还是与《英雄联盟》平起平坐呢?

“我相信结果会是后者,但这不是狂妄说辞。每年,主机销量每年下降25%,这可不仅仅因为主机设备逐渐老化——–当然与《机甲世界》无关,这主要因为游戏行业呈现出更多巨大变革。”(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

“Free-to-play will change everything.”

by Martin Robinson

Hawken’s already made a splash, even before its open beta began earlier this week. When the trailer for Khang Lee’s vision of a future corrupted by nano-viruses and patrolled by angry, sexy mechs debuted last April, the world watched in awe. And the games industry watched in envy, beginning a long courtship period between several publishers and the independent developer Adhesive.

“Like everyone else I saw it first on YouTube in April last year, and I was blown away,” says Mark Long, a veteran who’s worked throughout the industry, most notably forming Zombie Studios, developers of the early Spec Ops games among others. “I asked a friend that knew the art director Khang Lee, so I asked to be put in touch with him. I became friends with Khang, and began advising Adhesive as they were negotiating with various publishers who were talking to them.”

Long succeeded where other bigger names had failed in wooing Adhesive, although he had the backing of someone behind one of the biggest names in gaming. “I was steering them towards free-to-play, and the venture capitalist who helped fund Riot and League of Legends was chasing them, and I brought everybody together and formed publisher Meteor as a result.”

“The Adhesive guys were interested in the least friction – but we convinced them that the game could be much bigger than just an XBLA game. There’s a very limited audience there. XBLA’s a great place to publish, but we convinced them they could become masters of their own destiny, form their publisher and then go on to do other titles rather than working for the man.”

Hawken’s no longer an XBLA game. It’s playable for free right now on PC, its economy boosted by microtransactions that, while currently limited to cosmetic upgrades, will eventually branch out to offer a little extra convenience, and a way for players to support their own clans and hire their own servers.

So how did Long manage to step ahead of the big publishers to land Hawken? Maybe it’s down to his starkly realist vision of the future, and his willingness to think beyond current models.

“I see a future very near-term where you’ll have super-tablets that you’ll be able to play Hawken with on a Bluetooth controller,” he says. “You’ll be able to play it on your TV by hooking it up. I think ultimately the tablet will become the hardcore console.”

It’s not explicitly on tablets yet – although the team has played it on an Android tablet thanks to the wonder of Gaikai – and nor, right now, is it on console. It may have started as an XBLA game, but there’s no word on it returning, and Long’s unwilling to make a statement either way on whether it has a future there.

“Right now, PC is the place to be for a variety of reasons. We’re between console cycles, and traditionally PC gaming spikes then. Also there’s an emergence of gamers in places of the world that have never really played before like Brazil, Turkey, the Middle East, Russia, Poland.

“You can play it with a controller now. Increasingly, what is a console experience? It’s a little difficult to define. I see maybe not the coming generation, but the one after, to be just Xbox as a service. What we’re looking at, in free-to-play, is the unbundling of media. Videogames are one of the last things that you get in your car and drive to a store to buy.”

Free-to-play has become a core part of Hawken’s model, and while Long’s a firm believer that a free-to-play future awaits the industry, he acknowledges that for the hardcore that the game’s aimed at, that’s fast become a dirty term. “It’s not that hardcore players resist the idea of free-to-play,” he insists. “It’s that what exists in free-to-play mobile and social, it’s things like Farmville which are terrible. They’re not games, they’re compulsion loops – you spend money to eliminate frustration, which is a great way to piss off your customers.”

“But it doesn’t follow that free-to-play doesn’t belong in triple-A. If free-to-play didn’t exist and we wanted to create a new IP like Hawken, it’s extremely risky. It’s kind of like the movie industry – the more money you spend, the more likely it is that you’ll be successful, but those failures, when they happen, are catastrophic.

“I believe free-to-play is like the MP3 of our industry. It will change everything. You just can’t compete with free. Music unbundled albums, and it radically changed the way that music was marketed, although sometimes not in a good way. The games industry could do with that, though. We’re dominated by a couple of franchises – if Activision had their way they’d make three games a year until, well. We’d never stop playing.”

So how do you sidestep some of the more negative connotations of the free-to-play model? “I think our entire philosophy is don’t f**k the player over,” Long bluntly replies. “Don’t do a Zynga. Only sell what they’d want. There’s customisation, a little bit of convenience in there and then eventually we’re going to sell clan tools, the ability to run your own server. But right out of the gate, it’s just customisation.”

Of course, there are a growing number of free-to-play games that aren’t viewed with disdain, and aren’t treated like outcasts by the core gaming community. Indeed, one of the world’s most popular games is free-to-play, and Hawken surely won’t be harmed by association with it. With the backing from the same investor who’s helped propel League of Legends to superstar status, it’s inevitable that Meteor and Adhesive are leaning on their learnings.

“In many ways we’re taking a page from that playbook. League of Legends is arguably a really geeky Dota mod. It’s hugely successful, though. Our hope is that a first person shooter could beeven more successful.

When you’re talking about trumping a game that’s got a strong claim to being the most played in the world, and that attracts some 12 million active players every day, that’s no small claim.

Can Hawken eventually eclipse or even equal the success of League of Legends?

“I want to say yes, but I don’t what that to sound like hubris. But there’s a 25 per cent year on year decline in console sales, and that’s not just because the consoles are aging – it’s really not about Hawken as much as it is about this massive disruption that’s going on in the games industry.” (source:eurogamer)


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