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

参数只是信息来源 并非游戏设计答案

发布时间:2013-03-13 17:26:46 Tags:,,,

作者:Laralyn McWilliams

本文无关免费增值游戏的好坏之争,也无意讨论社交游戏是否邪恶。

参数是关于发展,关于变化的一个话题。它是根据之前的行为结果培养新行为,让你知晓为何理解结果可以改变玩法的一个要素。

巨大的成功

这要追溯到2006年,当时我正在参与开发《Free Realms》。那时候市场上除了一些亚洲引进的作品,并没有太多免费增值游戏。我很幸运能够与索尼在线娱乐的一批出色的开发者共事,在这个团队中,我们理解如何制作一款出色的MMORPG,但对免费增值模式知之甚少。

Free Realms(from gameogre)

Free Realms(from gameogre)

在游戏发布之后,我们开始搜集数据并查看参数。虽然追踪并记录玩家选择已经成为多年以来运营在线游戏的一个重要环节,但我们很快意识到我们需要更快速地获得更完善的信息。这开启了一个发布后调整的新时代,参数扮演着关键角色。

参数不但让我获得信息,也能让玩家直接向我反馈情况。这并不像主机游戏“猜测、发布和祈祷”的设计过程,我并非在闭门造车环境下制定决策。将对游戏的领悟、追踪变化、查看参数以及倾听玩家意见结合起来,我们对玩家体验进行了重大的调整,并且极大提升了我们的收益。

这就是免费增值模式的益处:快乐的玩家,快乐的开发团队,快乐的运营人员和高管。

我开始在各个会议上讲述参数设计方法。我提到了这一方法所提供的重要设计工具,以及它如何引导开发者针对实时运营的游戏制定决策。我分享了一些关于休闲玩家玩法模型的参数,包括让开发团队大感意外的一些发现。

就这样我进入了社交游戏领域。

进行尝试

社交游戏开发主要围绕以下三个核心概念:

*参数是一切决策的基础

*盈利取决于阻力

*调整参数和盈利策略可提高“鲸鱼”玩家的数量

查看在线游戏参数的一个普遍方法就是使用漏斗。典型的用户留存和盈利漏斗如下:

funnel(from gamasutra)

funnel(from gamasutra)

如果你想查看实际落到底部的鲸鱼玩家情况,那就得再放大漏斗,因为这一群体在所有玩家基础中就是这么一点规模。

对许多公司来说,现代免费增值游戏设计(尤其是社交和社交/移动游戏领域)基本上着眼于鲸鱼玩家。他们为取悦这类玩家而调整游戏,尽管游戏个性也是让玩家在其中进行高消费的一个重要优势。

但这些游戏也并不仅仅是为迎合鲸鱼玩家而调整——它们是为最大化玩家消费额而调整。由于盈利取决于阻力——玩家要付费绕过一些阻止他们继续游戏、完成或享受乐趣的障碍,最大化鲸鱼玩家手中的金钱就意味着,持续提升阻力直到找准他们会经常付费的“穴位”为止。

对流失率的影响

随着阻力增长,玩家碰壁的情况也愈加频繁,每次游戏时段就开始缩短,或者刷任务让他们感到厌烦,并导致他们最终退出游戏。在线游戏总是有特定数量的玩家退出(流失率),社交游戏的流失率相当惊人,因为其阻力曲线甚为陡峭,导致多数玩家很快离开游戏。

我进入社交游戏设计领域时,已经拥有免费增值游戏设计经验,并且也是参数型设计过程的拥护者。我尝试理解社交游戏的“最佳方法”,发现人们不做任何解释,仅凭参数来制定决策。我还看到他们调整了可增加短期收益的参数,全然不顾这些变化对整体玩家流失率的影响。

我继续在行业会议上讲述参数对设计师的重要意义,但有次在一个晚宴上听到一名设计师说:“噢,你是个参数女士。”当时我有点无语,我相信参数可以作为一种信息来源。但我总是指出参数并非解决问题的答案,它们只是寻找答案中的一个步骤。但我却看到许多人是在未理解长期变化影响,或者玩法情感体验的情况下使用参数设计。

添加趣味性

我在制作社交游戏过程中遇到了一些需要增加阻力的调整。这些调整可能会让一小部分付费玩家更花钱,但也会增长其余玩家群体的流失率。我添加了一些瓦解游戏体验的元素,让玩家走出在游戏中“无所作为”的状态——让他们掏钱玩游戏。

这些调整当然可以让公司获得更多收益。游戏公司并不邪恶,没有人会用游戏绑架玩家,令其陷入万劫不复之地。相反,这家公司拥有大量希望制作出好游戏的出色人才。公司发展(在一定程度上也可以说公司薪水)要取决于游戏是否赚钱。

我在这些决策上进退两难,我观察这个行业并试玩了其他社交/移动游戏,发现玩家很难对自己真正喜欢的游戏保持粘性。我和朋友甚至在一些游戏中掏了钱……只是没有像鲸鱼玩家那么多。我看到这些游戏将我们甩了出来,我看到任何在线游戏的核心——玩家社区,在阻力曲线上升时就开始出现问题。

这些公司也会开始出现状况,因为“流失时间”开始缩短。这一领域的竞争加剧,游戏的盈利策略极为相似,游戏无论玩法机制如何,都给人彼此雷同的感觉。

然而游戏的产品价值已在增长,在如此短暂的流失时间下,即便是大型公司也无法快速推出新游戏,以便将流失玩家导入自己的新游戏中。

好友被失业,游戏没有变化,公司也没有变化,尽管我存在担忧和疑虑,我自己还是没有变化。

在2012年3月末,我又被诊断出口腔癌。

永不言弃

身为“参数女士”,我做了大量调查研究。最初,我只是做一些盲目的调查,因为我自己对这方面并没有多少了解。我查看了一些过去的研究案例,或者基于不同癌症类型的研究结果。当我的调查渐入佳境时,我开始查看统计学结果,存活机率以及其他数据点。我通过参数寻找答案,开始感到绝望,因为这些“答案”并不乐观。

幸运的是,我偶然发现了由著名生物学家Stephen Jay Gould所著的《The Median isn’t the Message》一文,他被诊断出罕见的癌症类型,他的医生拒绝向他提供资料。他就自己展开调查,然后就知道了原因:这种病的存活机率很糟糕,剩余寿命的中间值是8个月。

“当我得知8个月的中间值时,我的第一反应就是:好吧,有半数人会活得更长,现在就要考虑我成为这半数人的机率有多大。我马不停蹄地阅读,最后得出结论,并最终松了一口气:太好了。我采取了每一个能够延长寿命的操作,我还年轻,我的病处于发现早期,我可以得到全国最好的治疗方案,我知道如何正确读取数据而不陷入绝望。”

我突然想起自己已经知道的结论:参数并非答案。它们只是一种信息来源,与所有信息一样,它们也需要解释。有些解释,甚至是结果本身,都需要一种情境。即使是Gould这种科学家也指出“……态度对战胜癌症来说至关重要”。

抛弃旧观念

我在化疗和放射治疗时期在家工作,但当我康复可以回办公室时,我已经变了。当一名设计师询问我他是否可以在游戏中添加更多任务时,关键时刻来临了。在这款游戏中,这些任务无疑为玩家带来更多趣味。它们可以刺激并推动故事向前归展。它们减少(或在一定程度上降低)刷任务的乏味。

付费跳过刷任务是一个核心盈利元素。而做出一个明显对玩家有利的调整,又会有违公司的利益需求。在一款付费游戏、订阅游戏,甚至是《英雄联盟》这种免费增值游戏中,就不存在这些问题。但在基于阻力的社交游戏盈利世界中,任何消除阻力的做法都会消除盈利。其关注的重点并非拥有快乐的玩家,而是拥有一个付费玩家基础。

这个时候——-告诉设计师不要添加任务并弱化刷任务机制,坚定了我离开社交游戏的决心。

优化玩家体验

我仍然相信社交游戏领域以及玩家。如果有人想要更出色的游戏,那是因为有庞大的Facebook用户群体并不是很了解这类游戏。他们才刚开始看到游戏可以成为生活中颇有意义的一部分而已。

我仍然相信参数作为一种信息来源的重要性。参数是你同玩家最为直接和真诚的交流渠道。我也还是相信免费增值游戏,它们迫使我们这些开发者抬头认清现象,要为玩家而不是自己设计游戏。

至于社交/移动游戏“最佳方法”,尤其是基于阻力的盈利策略,我认为这里还有更好的方法。玩家留在你的游戏中是因为他们对其产生了情感联系。他们为你的游戏买单,因为这种情感联系对他们来说是有价值的。

而围绕逐渐增加阻力来设置游戏盈利策略,则会产生情感影响。玩家愿意为某物付费并不意味着他们喜欢这么做,也不意味着你就没有对游戏造成消极影响。

我们已经看到《英雄联盟》、《指环王online》、《坦克世界》、《Free Realms》等免费增值游戏所取得的巨大成功。玩家会付费节省时间,获得独特或外观迷人的道具,或者定制自己的游戏体验。他们会为趣味付费,为虚荣买单,为地位解囊,为更多内容掏钱。

我们没必要一直拿砖头砸他们,直到他们掏钱请求我们罢手。

社交和移动游戏公司陷入了这个误区。面对一个竞争如此激烈的市场以及节节攀升的成本,开发者的工作甚至是整个公司都面临风险。但我们也不能说调整回已经证明可行的模式就是正确做法。若是那样,你就得承担风险。你得脱离数据并理解游戏情境。你得长期投身于游戏开发,而不是为了增加明天的利润调整游戏。你得将玩家视为自己的同盟而不是测试样本。

你得改变旧思维,并像Stephen Jay Could那样思考。

我们的结局并非最大限度地压榨玩家的金钱,而应该是培养快乐的玩家,让他看到游戏在改善,社区在壮大,游戏鼓励他以积极方式消费,玩家社区就是他的家。

我们的最终追求并不只是鲸鱼玩家,而是优化整个漏斗中的玩家体验。

总结

我在9月份的PET扫描结果很清晰。现在我处于缓解期,我每月都会去复诊一次,让专家查看癌症是否复发。我接下去5年都要做PET扫描和检查,完成这些后我才能算是“康复”。当我觉得喉咙后发痒时,我就会难以入眠。

我还是不时地查看统计资料。许多人说这种癌症有90%的治愈率。这真是一个全新的研究领域,有一小部分证据表明,癌症转移到肺部的机率高于预期。肺转移是一项更棘手的事情,即便你可以做二次放射治疗。

但这无关幸存统计资料,中间值也并非信息。正如生活和参数一样,这是一种发展和变化。它让你根据旧的行为结果培养新行为。

它强调的是理解结果对游戏体验方式的影响。(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

The Metrics Aren’t the Message

by Laralyn McWilliams

Metrics can rule you — but should they? The Workshop Entertainment’s new design director and Free Realms veteran Laralyn McWilliams explains how a pivotal moment in her life showed her that overreliance on analytics and friction in social games isn’t the answer.

This article isn’t about whether free-to-play games are bad, or social games are evil. For the record, I don’t believe either case is true.

This, like life and like metrics, is about evolution. It’s about change. It’s about picking new behaviors based on the results of previous behaviors. It’s about how an understanding of the end game can change the way you play.

I’m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.

It started back in 2006, when I began working on Free Realms. There really weren’t many free-to-play games outside of a few upstarts from Asia, so the whole space felt brand new. I was lucky enough to work with a great group of developers at Sony Online Entertainment with an unprecedented amount of experience in online games. As a team, we understood how to make a great MMORPG, but free-to-play was the Wild West.

After launch, we started gathering data and looking at metrics. Although tracking and logging player choices had been an important part of online games for years, we quickly realized we needed better information and we needed it more quickly. This kicked off a frantic but exciting year of post-launch changes, and metrics played the key role.

Metrics gave me information, but they also let players talk to me directly and honestly. This wasn’t the “guess, ship, and pray” design process of console games. I wasn’t making decisions in a void anymore. With a combination of understanding the game, tracking changes, watching metrics, and listening to players, we made significant improvements to the player experience. We also significantly improved the amount of money we made.

This was free-to-play at its best: happy players, happy development team, happy businesspeople and execs.

I started speaking about metrics at conferences. I talked about what an important design tool they provide, and how they can guide your decisions on a live game (or on the game before launch via usability testing). I shared some metrics about play patterns among casual players, including some findings that were genuinely surprising to the development team.

Then I entered the world of social games.

We do what we must because we can.

Development of social games revolves around three core concepts:

•Metrics are the basis for all decisions.

•Monetization is based on friction.

•Metrics and monetization are tuned to optimize the output of whales.

A common way to look at metrics for online games is using a funnel. The typical funnel for user retention and monetization looks like this:

The funnel would have to be scaled larger than your monitor for you to actually see the whales down there at the bottom. That’s the size of a group they represent when viewed in context with the rest of the player base.

For many companies, modern free-to-play design — especially in social and social/mobile — focuses on the whales. The game is tuned to please the whales, even though the personality that lends itself to the highest spend in a game is certainly an edge case.

The games aren’t just tuned to please the whales, though: they’re tuned to squeeze the maximum amount of revenue out of them. Since the monetization is based on friction — on players paying to bypass elements that stop them from playing, completing, or enjoying aspects of the game — squeezing the most money out of the whales means continually turning up the friction until you hit the “sweet spot” where they pay regularly.

For the good of all of us (except the ones who are dead).

With the increase in friction comes the increase of players who hit the wall where the session gets so short or the grind gets so tedious that they quit playing. Online games have always had a certain amount of players quitting (called churn). The churn in social games is tremendous because the friction curve quickly gets so steep it curves most players right out of the game.

I’d entered the world of social game design with strong experience in free-to-play design and as an outspoken advocate for metrics as a part of the design process. As I tried to understand social game “best practices,” I watched as people made decisions based purely on metrics with no interpretation. I watched as they made changes that increased short-term revenue without regard to the churn consequences of those changes on the larger player base.

I continued to speak at conferences about the importance of metrics as an information source for designers, but when I met someone at a dinner and he said, “Oh, you’re the metrics lady,” I felt unsettled. I believed in metrics… as a source of information. I’d always said that metrics aren’t the answer — they’re one step in discovering the answer. Yet I was seeing metrics used without any attempt to understand the long-term effects of change, or the emotional side of the play experience.

And the Science gets done, and you make a neat gun… for the people who are still alive.

So here I was working on social games, faced with changes required to increase the friction. These changes would get the small group of paying players to pay more but they would also increase the churn across the rest of the player base. I was adding elements to disrupt the play experience — to knock the player out of the Zen state of connection with our game — to get him to pay money.

These changes would almost certainly generate more revenue for the company. The company wasn’t evil. No one was twirling the ends of his moustache while tying helpless players to the railroad tracks. On the contrary, this company was filled with great people who wanted to make great games. Company growth — and to some extent company salaries — depended on the game making money.

As I struggled with these decisions, I watched the industry and I played other social and social/mobile games. I saw players struggling to try to stick to games they genuinely liked. My friends and I were even paying money in some games… just not at the whale level. I watched those games churn us all out. I saw the heart of any online game — the community of players — start to flounder as the friction curve increased.

Even as players struggled to stay connected to games that seemed determined to churn them out, I saw companies start to struggle because the “time to churn” was getting shorter. There was more competition in the space and the monetization mechanics in the games were so similar that the games started to feel the same regardless of gameplay mechanics.

Yet the production values were rising, so given the short churn time, even the big companies couldn’t put out games quickly enough to churn players into another one of their games.

Friends got laid off. The games didn’t change. The companies didn’t change. Despite my misgivings and doubts, I didn’t change.

Then in late March 2012, I was diagnosed with Stage IV throat cancer.

Even though you broke my heart. And killed me.

As you would expect of “the metrics lady,” I did a lot of research. At first, it was dumb research because I didn’t know any better. I looked at outdated studies or ones based on a different type of cancer. When I started doing better research, I looked at statistical outcomes, survival odds, and other data points. Despite everything I believed, I looked to metrics for answers. And I started to despair because the “answers” weren’t promising.

Luckily, I stumbled upon The Median isn’t the Message by Stephen Jay Gould, the noted biologist. He’d been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and his doctor refused to give him statistics. When he did the research himself, he understood why: the survival odds were terrible, with a median life expectancy of eight months.

When I learned about the eight-month median, my first intellectual reaction was: fine, half the people will live longer; now what are my chances of being in that half. I read for a furious and nervous hour and concluded, with relief: damned good. I possessed every one of the characteristics conferring a probability of longer life: I was young; my disease had been recognized in a relatively early stage; I would receive the nation’s best medical treatment; I had the world to live for; I knew how to read the data properly and not despair.

Suddenly I remembered what I already knew: metrics aren’t the answer. They’re just a source of information and, like all information, they have to be interpreted. Some of that interpretation — and even the outcome itself — requires emotional context. Even as a scientist, Gould recognized that “…attitude clearly matters in fighting cancer.”
And tore me to pieces. And threw every piece into a fire.

I worked from home during chemotherapy and radiation, but when I was well enough to return to the office, I had changed. The pivotal moment came when a designer asked me if he could add more quests to the game. In this specific game, quests clearly made the game more fun for players. They were motivating and moved the story forward. They reduced — or in some cases eliminated — the tedium of grind.

Except paying to skip the grind was a core monetization element. Making a change that was clearly in the player’s benefit would be against the benefit of the company. In a premium game, a subscription game, or even a free-to-play game like League of Legends, there would be no question. But in the friction-based monetization world of social games, anything that removes friction also removes monetization. It’s not about having a happy player base: it’s about having a paying player base.

That moment — the act of telling the designer not to add quests and soften the grind — cemented my decision to leave social games.

Now these points of data make a beautiful line.

I still believe in the social game space, and in the players. If anyone needs more great games, it’s the huge Facebook audience that so rarely gets them. They’ve only just begun to see how games can be a meaningful part of your life.

I still believe in the power of metrics as an information source. Metrics are the most direct and honest communication from your players. Even more, I believe in free-to-play games. They force us to get us out of our own heads as developers and design for players rather than for ourselves.

But when it comes to social/mobile game “best practices” and especially friction-based monetization, I believe there’s a better way. Players stick with your game because they made an emotional connection. They pay money for your game because that emotional connection is meaningful to them.

There are emotional consequences to basing a game’s monetization around steadily increasing friction. Just because players are willing to spend money for something doesn’t mean they want to, they like to, or that you haven’t just eroded whatever good will they had toward you and your game.

We have models that show huge success, like League of Legends, The Lord of the Rings Online, World of Tanks, and Free Realms. Players will pay to save time, to have unique and visually appealing items, or to customize their experience. They’ll pay for fun, they’ll pay for coolness, they’ll pay for status, and they’ll pay for more content in the game.

We don’t have to beat them over the head with bricks just so they’ll pay us to stop beating them.

Social and social/mobile companies are trapped. Faced with an aggressive marketplace and skyrocketing costs, jobs and even whole companies are at stake. It’s hard to justify turning your back on a proven model. To do that, you have to take risks. You have to look beyond data and understand its emotional context. You have to be in the game for the long haul and not for whatever increases tomorrow’s profit. You have to see players as your allies instead of test subjects.

You have to stop thinking like GLaDOS and start thinking more like Stephen Jay Gould.

Our endgame isn’t a player who’s burned out after paying the maximum we can get out of him for three months. Our endgame is a happy, consistent player who sees the game improving, the community growing, and positive ways for him to spend his money with us over the years. Our endgame is a player who feels like the game community is his home.

Our endgame isn’t just about whales. Our endgame is to better the play experience for the whole funnel.

I feel FANTASTIC and I’m still alive.

My PET scan in September was all clear. As of now, I’m in remission. I see a specialist once a month to have a scope stuck down my throat so he can see if the cancer’s back. I’ll have ongoing PET scans and checkups for five years, and after that I’ll be called “cured.” When I feel a tickle in the back of my throat, like I have the past few weeks, I have trouble sleeping.

I still find myself looking at statistics from time to time. Many say there’s a 90 percent cure rate for this specific type of cancer. It’s a fairly new area of research, though, and there’s a small set of evidence that it may have a much higher than expected rate of metastasis to the lungs. Lung metastasis is tricky business, even if you can have radiation a second time.

But this isn’t about survival statistics, and the median isn’t the message. This, like life and like metrics, is about evolution. It’s about change. It’s about picking new behaviors based on the results of previous behaviors.

It’s about how an understanding of the endgame can change the way you play.(source:gamasutra


上一篇:

下一篇: