游戏邦在:
杂志专栏:
gamerboom.com订阅到鲜果订阅到抓虾google reader订阅到有道订阅到QQ邮箱订阅到帮看

SOE总裁称MMO应采用免费模式以免流失用户

发布时间:2013-01-28 10:09:42 Tags:,,,

作者:Chris Morris

在免费游戏运动中,索尼在线娱乐(Sony Online Entertainment)很大程度上是坚定的反对者,然而,它竟然将AAA游戏《PlanetSide 2》定为免费模式,又将传统游戏《EverQuest》转变成免费模式。

现在看来,这是自然而然的事,但对于SOE总裁John Smedley和他的团队而言,接受免费模式是一次信念上的飞跃。

everquest_2(from ggftw.net)

everquest_2(from ggftw.net)

Smedley表示:“有时候你做决定时你会觉得‘天呐,我们还是咬紧牙关,祈祷一切都会好起来吧。’我们决定采用免费模式时,就是那么想的。现在回顾过去,我们很疑惑‘以前到底是怎么活下来的?’生活在一个零售商主宰软件销售的世界真是太可怕了。”

Smedley尽管没有透露任何收益数据,但他声称自从采用免费模式,《EverQuest2》的新玩家增加了300%,《EverQuest》的道具销售额上涨了125%,总注册量增加了350%。最近发布的《Planetside 2》的注册玩家达到160万,每周登录玩家达到75万。

Smedley指出,在《Planetside 2》的玩家中,大约有10%购买道具。他承认尽管有些同行会更加关注那90%不消费的玩家,但他并不担心。

“所有人都很满意,这就是我们的发展策略的核心。简单地说就是:我们提供工具,让玩家之间互动。就好比我们建立一个角斗场,提供武器……我们可能放出老虎,也可能推出新武器,如坦克。在我看来,我们没有获胜,这意味着,公司将内容(生成)作为像我们做的那种游戏的首要战略的时代已经终结了。《星球大战:旧共和国》就是明证:玩家购买游戏,喜欢游戏,玩游戏。最后还是离开游戏。”

这部分解释了为什么Smedley对骇客行为采取这么公开的零容忍态度。12月,他因向《Planetside 2》的骇客们宣战而上了新闻头条。他封杀了一个骇客,并在Twitter上指名道姓。

“我做到这个地步是因为那个家伙是知名的AIMbotting网站的长老之一。我认为骗子是最可恶的人——特别是在游戏领域。他们就是卑鄙无耻,他们的欺骗行为伤害了其他玩家。在游戏《PlanetSide 2》中,欺骗意味着将自己的快乐建立在别人的痛苦之上,简直卑鄙到极点……我们可能因此流失玩家、收益下滑,甚至威胁到生计。”

Smedley以玩家的身份谴责骇客行为。他是《PlanetSide 2》的忠实爱好者。他表示自己经常玩《EVE Online》和《英雄联盟》。他还看大量游戏节目。

他真正期待玩到的游戏是《EverQuest Next》,不过他目前还不能透露太多。

SOE已经公布了一些关于这款游戏的信息,但Smedley表示希望今年能透露更重要的信息。

“有时候,你知道一些事后你就会很想说出来——我现在就是这样。我们把公司的未来押在这款游戏上面了……最后一款《EverQuest》游戏启动于2005年。我们在过去四年放弃了两个设计想法,因为觉得‘雷同’,特点不够突出。后来当我们定下一个设计时,在场所有人都觉得我们疯了。我们在这个设计上花了一周的时间,因为‘我们就是疯了,不过我们就是不能停止想这个设计……它将成为世界上最大的沙盒游戏。”

《EverQuest Next》是一个制作了多年的黑盒项目——直到上个月,Smedley和他的团队才将它展示给《EverQuest》的团队和《EverQuest 2》的团队。Smedley说自己在演示的前一个晚上紧张得睡不着觉——还好两支团队都很热情地接受了它。

玩家想玩到这款游戏还要再等一阵子,不过应该不会太久。Smedley透露:“今年底,玩家应该会拿到我们正在制作的版本——我指的不是测试版。”(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

MMO devs will lose the fight against content churn, says SOE’s Smedley

By Chris Morris

Sony Online Entertainment has become largely pseudonymous with the free-to-play movement, offering triple-A titles like PlanetSide 2 for no cost from day one, and converting legacy games like EverQuest to the model.

It’s fairly seamless these days, but when Smedley and his team decided to embrace free-to-play, it was a big leap of faith.

“Sometimes you make a decision and you’re like ‘Oh God, let’s buckle in and hope everything goes well.’ That’s how it was with free-to-play,” he says. “Now we look back and wonder ‘How did we ever survive before this?’ Living in a world where retailers control your software was horrible.”

Though he did not reveal revenue figures, Smedley says that since the move to free-to-play, SOE has seen a 300 percent increase in new players for EverQuest 2, a 125 percent increase in item sales for EverQuest and a 350 percent bump in overall registrations. Planetside 2, its most recent release, has more than 1.6 million registered users, with 750,000 logging in to play every week.

Roughly 10 percent of those Planetside 2 players end up paying for items, says Smedley. And while he acknowledges some parties might focus on the 90 percent who don’t pay, he’s not concerned about it.

“Everybody is content for everyone else,” he says. “That’s the core of our strategy moving forward. A simple way to put it is: By allowing players to interact with each other, we’re providing tools. It’s like we’re building a gladiator arena and throwing in the swords. … We might bust the tigers out or bring in new kinds of weapons, like a tank. In my opinion, the days when companies can make content [generation] the number one strategy, in the kinds of games we make, are over, because we can’t win the war. Star Wars [The Old Republic] proved that. Players bought it, loved it and they played the game. Then they left.”

That, in part, is why Smedley takes such a very public no-tolerance stance on hackers. In December, he made headlines by declaring war on Planetside 2 hackers – banning one and naming him on Twitter.

“The reason I took that step was because that guy was one of the senior people at one of the most famous AIMbotting sites there is,” says Smedley. “I think cheaters are disgusting human beings – specifically when it comes to gaming. I fail to see it is anything but being a scumbag, to cheat, because it’s hurting other people. In a game like PlanetSide 2, you’re ruining someone else’s fun and that is the height of scumbaggery. … We might lose players because of that. That means they’re hurting our revenue and our living.”

Smedley comes to that opinion as a “gamer” himself. He’s an avid Planetside 2 player. He says he regularly plays EVE Online and League of Legends. And he watches a lot of TwitchTV.

What he’s really itching to play, though, is the one game he can’t talk much about: EverQuest Next.

SOE has been dropping hints about the game for a while now, but Smedley says to expect a much bigger reveal this year.

“There are times you know something and you’re bursting to talk about it – and that is the case here,” he says. “We’re betting the company’s future on this game. … The last EverQuest game launched in 2005. We’ve blown up two design ideas over the last four years because they were too ‘me too.’ It wasn’t enough of a change. We settled on a design that, when we looked at it, everyone in the room thought we were crazy. We gave it a week and came back, and we all said ‘yeah, we’re still crazy, but we can’t get the idea out of our heads. … It’s going to be the world’s largest sandbox game.”

EverQuest Next was a black box project for years – and it was only last month that Smedley and the team showed it to the EverQuest and EverQuest 2 teams. Smedley says he was so nervous the night before the presentation that he couldn’t sleep – but that both teams received it enthusiastically.

Players will have to wait a bit longer to try it themselves, but maybe not as long as you’d expect. “Players will get their hands on an actual release version of what we’re doing late [this] year – and I don’t mean a beta,” says Smedley. (source:gamasutra)


上一篇:

下一篇: