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为何Facebook推动硬核游戏发展并非上策?

发布时间:2013-02-08 15:44:59 Tags:,,,,

作者:Leigh Alexander

许多开发者都因游戏是iOS App Store中最受欢迎的类别而窃喜,除此之外游戏也能够推动着人们去使用全新的Android硬件(从创造性,文化和收益角度来看),并且这些流行的新设备也很大程度地依赖于游戏产业。

从某种程度来看,新硬件平台总是倾向于利用游戏去吸引用户的注意。即使这些平台是专门针对于游戏,但是游戏的设计和特性却总是受限于专门“服务”于它们的平台的特性和功能。

以Zynga的游戏为首的免费社交游戏(基于虚拟游戏机制)在Facebook上迅速发展起来,并推动着社交网站收益的提升。但那些引导玩家付费的障碍机制却似乎只会导致用户大量流失,在经过各种压榨后,最终剩下的只有少数愿意奉献的(愿意花钱)用户——一种方法不可能永远有效,并且Facebook用户也变得越来越聪明了。

我身边那些在过去沉迷于Facebook游戏的好友们如今都清楚带来无尽的告示循环,缺乏成就感的任务以及社交焦虑感的因素,并极力去摆脱它们。并且不只有他们这么想:2012年用户兴趣度的下降成为了Zynga首次公开募股的巨大绊脚石,并导致Facebook游戏收益下降了20%。

今年,Facebook想通过支持10款所谓的“硬核”游戏而再次重振其平台的游戏事业。我还未看到有关报告去解释Facebook这种“支持”的含义——是财政上的支持,还是从士气上鼓励传统开发者去帮助自己恢复游戏收益?但不管是从哪方面来看,他们都很难保持乐观。

ChronoBlade(from dotmmo)

ChronoBlade(from dotmmo)

让我们以nWay的《ChronoBlade》为例,这是一款还处于测试阶段的多人动作RPG,Facebook希望这款游戏能够帮助他们吸引更多硬核游戏玩家进入该网站。这款游戏主张突出“主机质量的图像和基于技能的战斗”,这与之前的Facebook游戏具有很大的差别。一方面,这看起来是个不错的想法:在接近该网站数十亿用户的基础后,为何不尝试着以硬核游戏去获取更多利益?

除了尝试着去利用休闲平台的扩展(这是硬核游戏开发者之前从未想过的),他们还需要考虑群用软件的开发——特别是当在硬件上销售硬核游戏变得越来越不靠谱。群用软件的主要用户群体还是家庭和小孩,而任天堂自己的品牌仍然拥有非常好的销售成绩。“硬核玩家”只想要像《塞尔达传说》这样的游戏。

这不只是硬件能力的问题,还涉及了平台的侧重点以及使用对象。如果能够投入更多资源,提供更成熟的内容或提高图像质量,那么这类型游戏便能够吸引那些从未使用过休闲平台的“硬核”玩家的注意。

近几年来,网页上的“主机质量”多人游戏体验所带来的挑战让许多工作室纷纷逃离了MMO领域,从而只剩下休闲和友好型游戏(就像《我的世界》)在此大放异彩。

在PC在线领域与《星球大战》等大受欢迎且可辨识度强的游戏品牌竞争更是沉重打击了Electronic Arts等公司。而对于新工作室来说这更是一种致命的冒险。

nWay的创始人是资深游戏开发者Dave Jones,他的上一家工作室Realtime Worlds便是最近PC上多人动作游戏发展的牺牲者。而如今,nWay选择回到同一个舞台上,除了需要面临Facebook游戏的盈利挑战,但是不需要牺牲设计完整性或用户体验——这也是巨头Zynga在短期之内想解决的问题。

除此之外,Facebook平台看起来并不存在多大的风险:他们并不需要游戏取得多好的成绩,只要游戏能在12个月内提高用户粘性并推动Facebook广告收益的增长便可。如果足够多的玩家对该平台的硬核游戏感兴趣,并愿意花钱满足自己的好奇心,他们便能够实现这一目标。

如果这一平台上出现了短期的利益热潮,这便能吸引更多开发商们从手机游戏领域(游戏邦注:Facebook在该领域的表现并不突出)转向社交游戏领域。

Facebook在最近所吹响的“硬核”游戏号角更是引起了一些非常有趣的问题,即关于现在我们该如何定义“硬核”,特别是当玩家所付出的时间和金钱程度不足以用来说明他们喜欢哪种类型的游戏时。他们所看重的是主题(《ChronoBlade》的网站便在介绍的时候突出了“多元宇宙”和“Chronarch”)?还是游戏质量?

值得注意的是我们在这一对话中听到了“主机质量”,但是主机的未来却非常让人担忧。骨灰级游戏爱好者可能会将《Sworcery》,《迷你大楼》,《Spaceteam》,《Spelltower》和《Hundreds》等作品列入自己最喜爱的游戏名单。但这些是否属于“硬核游戏”?它们是否具有“主机质量”?但是这些描述却没有什么意义。

当苹果最初在iPhone上呈现Epic和Chair的《无尽之剑》时,这其实也是在提醒开发商和严肃玩家:这是一个真实的平台,而开发商们可以在此创造一些真实的内容。对于那些选择离开“手机游戏”的开发社区来说这也是一大推动力量。

但是战斗指向型主机类游戏也只是App Store上众多具有深度内容和优化的游戏类别之一。激烈的战斗,神秘的科幻主题或者同步多人游戏元素,并非推动那些非常重视游戏的玩家认真对待手机游戏的主因。

不幸的是,我们仍找不到足够的证据能够定义Facebook游戏的范围和潜能。当然了,我们也希望nWay及其同行先驱们能够获得成功。

但是关于现代背景下的“硬核”,历史上“硬核游戏在休闲平台上”的失败,玩家对手机游戏的偏爱,以及基于浏览器的社交网站对于免费多人RPG游戏所面临挑战的复杂化等都让我不免怀疑,Facebook是否只是出于自身利益而推广硬核游戏。(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

Opinion: Why Facebook’s push to attract the ‘core’ is a bad idea

By Leigh Alexander

Many developers are excited that games are nearly the most popular category on the iOS App Store, and that games can be expected to help lead the adoption of new Android hardware as well — and it is excicting, from the perspective of creative, cultural and financial opportunity, to know these fashionable new devices rely on our industry so much.

But to an extent new hardware platforms have always leaned heavily on games to drive appeal and adoption. Even when those platforms were specifically intended for games, the design and identity of those games has always been beholden to the specifications and features of the platform designed to “serve” them.

The free-to-play social gaming boom on Facebook, led by Zynga and the viral game mechanics it helped pioneer, helped boost the social network’s revenues. But those high-friction mechanics seem best at ratcheting user numbers up quickly, then squeezing them until only a small, devoted (and paying) userbase remains — a trick that doesn’t work forever, and one to which Facebook’s users are becoming wise.

Many of my friends who used to play Facebook games know now that tunnel leads to a never-ending loop of notifications, unfulfilled quests and general social anxiety, and steer clear. They’re not the only ones: a huge 2012 fall-off in user interest has been a stumbling block for Zynga’s much-anticiated IPO, and has already led to Facebook’s game revenues declining some 20 percent.

Now Facebook wants to reinvigorate gaming on its platform by ‘backing’ ten so-called ‘hardcore’ game launches in the year ahead. I haven’t seen any reports clarify what Facebook means by “backing” — financially, or just cheerleading as it enjoins traditional developers to resuscitate its gaming revenues? But either way, it seems hard to be optimistic.

Take nWay’s ChronoBlade, a currently-in-beta multiplayer action RPG Facebook hopes will help lead the charge to bring core gamers to play on its network. It claims “console-quality graphics and explosive skilled-based combat” on a platform not traditionally known for promising or providing either of these things. On one hand, it seems like a decent idea: Close to a billion users on the network, so why not try to capture some revenue from the core set?

Except trying to capitalize on the proliferation of casual platforms has never worked out for the core developer before: Consider the mass software development exodus from Nintendo’s Wii and DS when it became evident that it was nearly impossible to sell most core-styled games on either hardware. They were and would remain largely for families and children, and Nintendo’s own brands would always sell best of all there. The ‘core’ just wanted Zelda.

This isn’t just a hardware capability issue, it’s to do with a platform’s focus and who is using it. Investing more resources, offering more mature content or increasing graphical quality rarely meaningfully succeeds in attracting “core” users to platforms they weren’t previously using.

And the incredible challenge of providing a “console-quality” multiplayer experience on the Web in any stripe has sent studios fleeing the MMO space in recent years, where again only casual and broadly-friendly titles (Minecraft, Minecraft and Minecraft) have thrived.

Trying to compete in the PC online space with a brand as popular, recognizable and universal as Star Wars concussed even Electronic Arts. It could be a lethal gamble for a new studio.

In fact, it has been before, for ChronoBlade’s very developers.

nWay’s founded by veteran Dave Jones, whose last studio, Realtime Worlds, was perhaps the most enormous and total recent casualty of the impossibly-high bar set for multiplayer action games on PCs. Now nWay essentially returns to the same arena, except with the additional challenge of monetizing games on Facebook without sacrificing design integrity or user experience — that’s a problem giant Zynga has only ever solved for the short-term, as its current struggles suggest.

Meanwhile, it looks like very little risk for Facebook: They don’t exactly need these games to thrive, they just need, say, 12 months of increased user engagement to get a boost in ad revenue. They can probably get that if enough hopeful gamers are interested in the platform’s core games and expend some goodwill checking it out.

Expect Facebook to pop up everywhere in the news to make sure everyone remembers that Jones made Grand Theft Auto. Expect a short term interest bump that’s sure to lure more developers away from the more malleable mobile space (where Facebook isn’t doing so well, games-wise) to help make the social network look good for another year or two.

The trumpeting of the “core” by Facebook in recent days raises a more interesting question about how we define “core” these days, especially now that the degree of time and money players expend doesn’t tell us very much about what kind of game they like. Is it theme (ChronoBlade’s website drops “Multiverse” and “Chronarch” on us in the introduction)? Is it the degree of quality they expect? Can’t be — there’s polish on everything these days.

It’s notable we’re hearing “console-quality” in this conversation, given that the future of consoles is so anxious. The most serious gamer hobbyists I know would list Sworcery, Tiny Tower, Spaceteam, Spelltower and Hundreds among their favorite mobile games these days. Are those “core games”? Are they “console-quality?” Those descriptors hardly seem to make sense anymore, a relic of an older climate.

When Apple first showed Epic and Chair’s Infinity Blade alongside its iPhone, it was as much — if not more — an advertisement to developers as it was to serious gamers. This is a real platform, and you can make Real Stuff on it, the demonstration seemed to say. That was an essential show of force to a dev community that thought of “cell phone games” as toss-aways.

But combat-oriented, console-like games are only one of many categories getting genuine depth and polish on the App Store (another set of UK ‘core’ development veterans lately stole my heart with The Room, an immersive puzzle game). It wasn’t intense action combat, inscrutable fantasy themes or synchronous multiplayer that led people who take games seriously to take mobile games seriously.

There is, unfortunately, still little evidence that defines the actual possible scope and potential of games on Facebook, except for the bleak fact that thus far, very little of meaning has stuck. Good on nWay and its contemporaries for pioneering — of course it’d be lovely to see them succeed.

But a muddy idea of “core” in the modern climate, the historical failure of “core games on casual platforms”, an increasing preference toward mobile games, and the fact that the browser-based social network only complicates the existing challenge of free-to-play multiplayer RPGs online makes me skeptical that Facebook’s “core push” as presently understood will be good for anyone except for Facebook. (source:gamasutra)


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