作者：Patrick Miller

“用我的钱玩游戏，就像用我的感情玩游戏。”—-Big Worm

这是出自《Friday》的一句话，竟然成为这篇关于游戏微交易设计的文章的开头？

声明：如果你觉得你在阅读本文后将失去玩免费游戏的乐趣，那么请不要往下读了。反正，销售游戏和制作游戏的方法还有很多，并且没有唯一正确的方法。

许多免费游戏非常肤浅，非常花钱，这是事实。除了错误的期待，我认为部分是因为设计师对玩家购买物品的情绪反应理解得不够深入。他们掌握了大量刺激玩家消费的心理工具，但那不一定就能让消费者觉得自己的钱花得值。

我想，这就是为什么那么多手机游戏和社交游戏都以开发大额玩家（和为了寻找这些大额玩家而提高病毒性传播力）为目标。免费PC游戏如《星球边缘2》和《机甲战士OL》必须更“诚实”一点，因为他们面对的受众更加了解游戏对自己的心理操纵（并且如果他们讨厌一款免费游戏了，随时可以转向其他目标）。

注：“错误的期待”，我指的是，游戏中公然出现与钱直接相关的设计，让有些人非常震惊。这些人要么是非常非常天真的玩家，要么是非常反感免费游戏、共享软件、街机游戏等的玩家。不要指望用语言赢得这些人的心（相反地，要设计一款他们愿意付费的游戏）。

事实上，花钱的行为与微妙的心理活动有关。是的，所有人都讨厌看到存款数目减小、帐单数目上升，但那可能只是我们对消费行为最浅层的情绪反应，并没有让我们更加了解如何让玩家为我们的游戏心甘情愿地花钱。所以，为了辨别导致我们设计出让玩家不断觉得自己受骗了的游戏的误区，我认为我应该讨论一些让我乐意花钱的东西和我不喜欢购买的东西。

Money Heart Scales(from financialawakenings)

我喜欢消费的东西：升级/强化道具。我喜欢给我的小车或电脑购买新配件，以便提高它们的性能、实用度或便利性。我喜欢测试升级后的机器发现它的表现更好了的感觉，以及头几次使用安装了新部件的机器的新鲜感。我喜欢留下旧的、低级的部件，借给朋友或作为备用。购买新东西的部分乐趣就是，可以随心所欲地处置旧东西。

在这一方面，《机甲战士OL》做得尤其到位。因为玩家有一个放满机器的仓库。玩家有充分的理由留住这些东西：当你用更好的部件替换掉默认部件时，你可以把默认部件使用在其他机器上。考虑到大多数免费游戏都不允许道具在玩家之间直接交易（游戏邦注：可能是因为当玩家直接从另一名玩家处购买道具时，游戏会损失收益），这是一种对虚拟商品保持“所有权”的错觉的好办法。

这种做法也适用于消耗品。我喜欢购买健康的食品，因为对身体好，而且让我觉得自己“更新”了（就像使用升级或强化道具，其效果体现在我的身体的“用户体验”的品质上）。健康食品吃完了，效果仍然会维持，所以我觉得值得购买。

我不喜欢消费的东西：通过付费得到优势。说《机甲战士OL》做得好的原因之一是，游戏中更花钱的部分通常提供更好的效果，但代价也更高；改进后的激光枪可能重量减轻了，但产生的伤害不变，而且更占空间、修理费用更高。正是升级和副作用的平衡，使这种武器一方面能吸引玩家购买，另一方面又不会让玩家的购买行为变成“花钱买赢”。

另外，不花真钱购买这些昂贵的部件是完全可行的，即使有些部件的成本相当于全新的机器。我没有算过多少，但我始终讨厌不能用虚拟货币购买的任何东西。除非是我确实非常想要的东西，如果我不花真钱或更多时间玩法，我就很难得到我想要的东西，这确实让我觉得是我自己选择花钱而不是“刷游戏”，是我自己选择加快进度而不是慢慢玩。

如果我为一种刷90年游戏才能得到的东西花钱，我认为也是一样的。但知道没有谁会真正为了那东西刷游戏并不太管用。你应该让玩家在花真钱购买道具时可以理直气壮地告诉别人，“我非常喜欢这款游戏，所以我愿意花钱，”而不是“我想赢，所以我要花钱赢。”与前一种消费观相比，后者贬低了我的游戏成就感。

我喜欢消费的东西：优惠出售的东西。所有人都爱大减价，因为我们觉得购买优惠价的东西使我们辛苦挣来的钱换来更多价值。当然，这一行为的副作用是，我们往往比实际情况花掉更多血汗钱。赢利策略的制定者对此再熟悉不过了，所以有那么多免费游戏使用大减价或打折引诱玩家购买道具。

我觉得有些设计师对经常性打折考虑得太拘谨了，他们害怕这会导致玩家等到大减价才肯购买某种虚拟产品。在我看来，这个想法太愚蠢了！对于现实世界的产品，我们向那些按原价购买的人收税，然后补贴给那些打折购买的人。我们这么做是因为库存商品太多，除非卖掉否则就挣不了钱；为了给新商品腾出存放空间和预算，必须把旧商品优惠出售——即使利润更低或甚至倒贴。

游戏世界也是类似的，即使没有优惠，有些玩家也乐意在自己需要时就购买某种道具；而有些人只有等到打折时才肯购买——要么因为他们喜欢占便宜的感觉，要么因为折扣后的价格才是他们能接受的，要么二者兼有。优惠减价的目的基本上就是，用更低的价格刺激那些想要游戏道具但不可能按原价消费的玩家购买（多亏了限时促销作用下的消费冲动），同时不影响该商品的长期感知价值。既然你出售虚拟产品不需要再生产的成本，并且其价值不会随时间而减少，我就真心不理解为什么不能经常性大减价了。

我不喜欢消费的东西：确实不想要的东西。我得说，除非那种商品是我确实想要的，但因为各种原因而不得的，它打折时才会刺激我购买。也就是说，如果促销的商品是我确实不想要的，那么即使大减价也不会吸引我。如果我认为你的买卖带有欺骗性或操纵性，那么我就更不会上钩了（即使商品大减价）。我会继续作为不消费的玩家玩游戏，直到我遇到克服不了的障碍，那么我就退出游戏。

我喜欢消费的东西：捆绑销售的东西。我喜欢购买打包出售的东西，因为平均单价更便宜，总价更低。比如，简陋包装的商品通常把上等品与次等品打包在一起，大部分人购买这种成捆的商品是为了得到上等品，而其他次等品反正不需要多费钱，一起买了也无所谓。

基本上，我购买成捆销售商品是因为里面有一两种我确实想要的东西，而附带的其他东西虽然还不至于让我想要到另外花钱购买的程度，但其价格对我来说基本上也不亏。购买这种打包商品让我感觉良好，再加上我同时体验到挥霍和节俭的感觉：买到我不想用全价购买的东西（挥霍）和得到优惠（节俭）。

我不喜欢消费的东西：数量不合适的东西。我很讨厌的一种情况是：我想要的东西不能按任意数量定价，所以我必须多花钱。更让我生气的是，不仅买到的数量让我觉得恼火，还留下花不掉的散钱；或者现金与虚拟货币的比不是1：1（别让我计算我花了多少真钱）。打个现实的比方，不要卖给我6条一包的热狗和8个一捆的面包。

我喜欢消费的东西：有衍生价值的东西。我喜欢打赌游戏的结果，无论是我自己在玩的游戏还是我在观看的游戏。甚至下一块钱的赌注也会让情况变得格外有趣。在街机上玩格斗游戏需要用少量的钱作赌——花50美分继续玩这款游戏或不花钱玩另一款游戏。

当然，你希望玩家把钱放进你的游戏，而不是拿出来——所以不要让他们拿出来。玩家可以用真钱在你的虚拟货币上下注，然后使用这种游戏中的钱购买游戏中的其他东西（或购买更多虚拟货币）。他们是不是用他们自己的钱支付并不重要，只要有人支付就行了吧？

我不喜欢消费的东西：彩票、抽奖或任何看运气的赌博。如果我想花真钱在游戏上碰运气，那么我会玩在线扑克。我讨厌要求我花钱赌一个运气赢大钱大奖。

这也适用于看运气的卡片包（说你呢，《Tekken Card Tournament》）；我讨厌花更多钱购买随机数量的卡片包。

我喜欢消费的东西：在对我来说重要的人（或动物）上花钱。只要经济上承担得起，我总是乐意为人们做点好事——请朋友吃饭或喝茶、给我的猫买玩具、给我的女朋友买她想要的东西等。

当某人做了对我做了好事，我一般也会有所回报（比如，长辈请我吃饭，我再请晚辈吃饭），所以只是因为想成为对别人好的人，我就比实际情况更乐意花更多钱。换句话说，我是建议你通过让玩家在彼此身上花钱来增加他们的总体消费。

我认为这对在线游戏来说是个矛盾的难题，因为它不允许玩家之间交易道具。一方面，它要求所有交易行为都必须让游戏赚钱。另一方面，对玩家来说，拥有某物的一个好处是，当你不再需要它时，它仍然有价值——把它送给或卖给其他人。另外，如果我可以购买/出售/交易/捐赠东西给某个社区的人，我就会对那个社区更有感情。也就是，如果我看它当作一种可以提取价值的东西。

我不喜欢花钱的东西：税、费、过路费、停车费（也就是，对我来说没有直接重要性的人/动物/事物）。我讨厌付停车费，因为我已经在买车、车险、汽油上花钱了，所以我不想在为某时把车放在某地因为它在某时把我送到某地的特权而花钱了。

与此类似，我不想为游戏时间、使用权、精力或任何愚蠢的设槛的系统付钱。我玩你的游戏是因为我想玩你的游戏；如果你要因为我玩你的游戏这一权利而向我收费（玩多长时间就收多少钱），那么不如一次性让我付清费用。

街机游戏是例外，那主要是因为我擅长你的游戏后就会得到奖励——我比那些不熟悉游戏的人每分钟花钱相对少。这让我擅长你的游戏有了金钱上的动机，可能是相当强大的动机。

当然，“为了精通游戏而花钱的玩家”比“因为喜欢玩游戏而花钱的一般玩家”更少，所以技能动机其实会缩小你的整体赢利市场。所以，你的设槛系统其实很愚蠢，只是惩罚那些喜欢玩你的游戏的一般玩家罢了。更怪异的是，这几乎抑制了玩家掌握游戏，因为要求玩家更经常地玩游戏（自然就要花更多钱）。

我喜欢消费的东西：事件/娱乐活动的参与许可。我喜欢在能给我留下美好回忆的体验上花钱——比如旅行、去动物园和公园、听音乐会、看电影等。基本上，如果我够喜欢你的游戏，我就会乐意花钱玩它，所以你可能不必把它做成免费模式的。

我不喜欢花钱的东西：允许参与后又要求我花钱的活动。我不喜欢在让我进入某建筑后购买更多东西的事物上花钱。如果我可以得到大折扣（比如超市会员卡）的东西那也值了，但这之后只会成为整体成本-收益分析的一部分，而不是消费者对你的游戏产生的感情基础。

我想这（好长的终于！）就到了本文的重点。给游戏设计赢利策略可能是一种心理操纵实验（游戏邦注：从那些具有上瘾倾向、冲动消费倾向、容易被唆使的人身上赚钱），也可能是一个机会：把人们对钱的真实情感联系利用作额外的游戏内容——虽然是“情绪内容”而不是设计好的游戏内容。

让玩家心甘情愿地花钱

花钱是触发所有潜在的真实情绪反应的捷径（花一块钱跟你的朋友打赌一件事，看看你自己会有什么反应）。单纯地依靠游戏设计或叙述可能很难激发这些反应。问题是，如果你不利用一点对人类心理的共感和理解来设计你的赢利策略，你做出来的游戏可能会非常粗鲁、错乱，玩家对游戏的反应也会很消极（“不，我不想给你钱了，别再向我开口了”）。你应该利用人类对钱的积极情绪。事实上，如果你能让微交易对游戏产生积极作用、使游戏变得更有趣，对所有与游戏相关的人来说都是好事。（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）

Playing with money = playing with emotions

by Patrick Miller

“Playing with my money, is like playing with my emotions.”
-Big Worm

Who knew that a quote from Friday would turn out to be a great starting point for a post on microtransactions in game design? (For that matter, do people who like video games even watch Friday?)

First off: if you are reading this and you genuinely think that you will never ever have fun playing a free to play game, go away. There are many ways to sell games and many ways to build them, and there is no One Right Way to do either one. So stuff it.

Now: It’s true that lots of f2p feels soulless and exploitative. Some of this is due to mismanaged expectations, and some of this is due to designers that, at least from my perspective, seem to have a poor understanding of a person’s emotional reaction to buying stuff. They may have mastered an impressive set of psychological tools designed to extract money out of people, but that won’t necessarily make said people feel good about spending that money.

This is, I think, why so many mobile and social games are about monetizing the “whales” (and encouraging high virality in order to better find those whales) and f2p PC games like Planetside 2and MechWarrior Online have to be a little more “honest” because they’re dealing with an audience that is slightly more savvy to psychological manipulation within games (and have plenty of other games to go to if they find the f2p aspects distasteful).

A quick note: By “mismanaged expectations,” I mean that some people are simply appalled by the idea of having a game that explicitly includes money in the design. These people are either very, very naive, or they are ideologically opposed to f2p, and shareware, and subscriptions, and arcade games—and bowling, mini golf, etc. Don’t expect to win these people over with words. (Instead, design a game they want to pay for.)

The fact is, spending money is an emotionally nuanced activity. Yes, everyone hates seeing their account numbers go down and their bill numbers go up, but that is possibly the most superficial emotion we could possible evoke from a transaction, and really, it gets us no closer to learning how to make people feel good for spending money on our games. So I thought I’d discuss some of the things I enjoy spending money on, and the things I don’t enjoy spending money on, in order to perhaps discern potential design hooks that would enable us to design microtransaction-based games that don’t constantly make us feel like we’re getting fucked. (Avid readers may recall that I touched upon this earlier in a column for Game Developer, but I didn’t really get to go in detail.)

I like spending money on: Upgrades. I like buying new stuff for my car, or my computer; new parts to improve performance, accessories to make them more useful or convenient, and so forth. I like the feeling of testing my upgraded machine to see how much better it performed, or the novelty of using a new toy with an older tool for the first few times. I like having an older, inferior part left over to use in something else, if I want to, like lend it to a friend in need or use it on a spare rig. Part of the fun of buying a new thing is being freed up to reuse the old thing.

MechWarrior Online was particularly good with this because you maintain a hangar full of ‘Mechs, and there were plenty of good reasons to own and maintain a full stable—different variants of a chassis to grind masteries, different combat roles, and so on. So when you replaced a default part with a better part, you could choose to use that default part in a different ‘Mech. Considering most f2p games won’t let you trade items directly with another player (because, presumably, any time a player gets a part from someone other that you, you potentially lost money), this is a pretty good way to still maintain an illusion of “ownership” with virtual goods.

This can apply to consumables, within reason; I like buying healthy food because it’s good for me and is basically an “upgrade” for myself (one which is, like a good upgrade, actually reflected in my body’s quality-of-user-experience) and once it’s gone, its advantage still lasts, which makes me feel good about buying it.

I don’t like spending money on: Paid advantages. One of the reasons MechWarrior Online did it well was because the more-expensive parts often offered higher performance but at higher costs; an upgraded laser might do the same damage and weigh less, but take up more physical space than its default counterpart and cost more to repair if damaged. It strikes the right balance between upgrade and side-grade that makes it a compelling, but balanced purchase instead of pay-to-win.

Also, it’s totally viable to buy these expensive parts without using real money currency, even though some of them cost as much as an entirely new ‘Mech. I didn’t crunch the numbers, but I never felt like any single piece equipment was out of reach with just in-game earned currency alone—just that everything that I wanted, in total, would be too much work to earn without spending a few bucks or spending more time playing the game than I’d like. This really makes it feel like I am electing to spend money instead of grinding, that I’m choosing to expedite my progress instead of do work.

This is, I suppose, is also true if I spend money for a thing that would take 90 years to grind, but knowing that no one would realistically grind for that makes not work so well. Make it so that the things I can only buy with real money simply say to other people, “I liked this game enough to spend money on something,” not “I want to win enough to spend money to win.” Evoking the former feeling builds my sense of investment in a game; the latter cheapens my sense of accomplishment from doing well at a game.

I like spending money on: A good deal. Everyone loves a sale, because it makes us feel like just by virtue of the fact that we are in this store or on this website at a particular time, we have performed a magic trick that makes our hard-earned dollars stretch further. Of course, the flip side of this magic trick is that we end up spending more of those hard-earned dollars than we otherwise would have. This is nothing new to monetization designers; plenty of f2p games use rotating sales and discounts as a way of convincing us to buy stuff.

I imagine that some monetization designers get a bit wary at the thought of discounting too often, for fear that it’ll cause players to wait to purchase a particular virtual good until it’s on sale. This seems silly to me! With real-world goods, we exact a certain tax on people who want the convenience of having exactly what they want, when they want it, and reward people who are willing to wait with a discount. We do this because vendors that have a lot of inventory basically have their money tied up in products that aren’t making them money until their sold, which is no good for them, so they’ll discount the old stock in order to make space and free up budget for the new stuff—even if it means lower profits (or even a loss) on the old stuff.

Likewise, there are some players who are willing to buy your stuff at its normal price in order to have it when they want it, and some who will only buy when they get a deal—because they like the feeling of getting a deal, or because it’s now in their price range, or perhaps a little bit of both. Sales basically give you a chance to engage people who value your in-game stuff at different price points without affecting the long-term perceived value of the product, netting you buyers you might not have otherwise attracted (especially thanks to the impulse buy appeal of a time-limited sale, like a daily deal). And since you’re selling virtual goods that cost you nothing to reproduce and don’t decrease in value over time, I really don’t see any reason not to regularly put things on sale.

I don’t like spending money on: Manufactured inconveniences. I am inclined to point out is that putting something on sale will help persuade me to buy something only if I already want to buy it but cannot (for whatever reason). That is to say, if you try to sell me something that I already don’t want, you won’t have any more luck by cutting the price. And if I think your microtransactions are exploitative or manipulative, I won’t bite. (Even if it’s on sale.) I’ll probably play as a free rider until I run into a squeeze that’s just too painful, and then I’ll quit.

I like spending money on: Bundles.From Extra Value Meals to Humble Indie Bundles, I like buying me a group of things that are each cheaper because my total spend overall is higher than it would have otherwise been. I think the Humble Bundles are a particularly good example because they typically feature a few flagship items that are, for most people, the reason to buy the bundle, and then extra stuff which could be nice to have but that you wouldn’t necessarily go out of your way to buy.

Essentially, the trick to getting me to buy a bundle is to include one or two things that I really want, a few other things which would be nice to have, and a price that basically convinces me to spend a few extra bucks on something I don’t want enough to buy on its own. And it makes me feel good because it’s a sale, plus I get to feel both indulgent and thrifty, because I’m buying stuff I don’t feel like I need enough to purchase at full price (indulgence) and getting a good deal (thrifty).

I don’t like spending money on: Stuff I want in inconvenient amounts. Don’t make me spend more money than I want to simply because what I want is not priced in some arbitrary quantity. Subtract even more points if I will always end up with an annoying amount of leftover money after any given transaction, or if the dollars-to-game-currency isn’t 1:1 (if I have to do math to figure out how much real money I’m spending, then fuck you). Don’t sell me hot dogs in packs of six and buns in packs of eight.

I like spending money on: Side bets. I like betting on the outcome of games, whether it’s a game I’m playing on or a game I’m watching. Even putting a dollar on the line makes things disproportionately more entertaining and engaging. Heck, playing fighting games in the arcade has a minor amount of money at stake—the 50c required to continue vs. not having to pay money to play your next game—and that was enough to make people get All Kinds Of Real over it.

Of course, you want people to put money into your game, not pull it out—so don’t let them take it out. People can bet with your real-money in-game currency, and then use that currency to buy other things in-game (or make more bets). They may not be paying with their money, but they’re paying with someone’s, and that’s what matters to you, right?

I don’t like spending money on: Lotteries, raffles, or any kind of luck-based gambling, really. If I wanted to bet real money on a game of chance, I’d play online poker. I hate things that require me to pay money for a chance to win big money big prizes. This applies to luck-of-the-draw card packs (I’m looking at you, Tekken Card Tournament); I hate that I can buy a more favorable random number generator for packs of cards by spending more money.

I like spending money on: People (or animals) that are important to me. Whenever it’s financially feasible, I like to do nice things for people—paying for a meal or a drink for a friend, buying toys for my cats, whatever my girlfriend wants, etc.

It’s worth pointing out that when someone does something nice for me, I am inclined to pay that back or forward (say, someone senior buys me lunch, so I buy lunch for someone junior to me), so I end up personally spending more money than I otherwise would, due solely to the feeling of being a Nice Person Who Does Nice Things For People. In other words, I suspect this might let you increase each player’s overall spend just by letting them be nice to each other.

This is a problem, I think, with online games that don’t allow players to trade items with each other. On one hand, yes, it means every transaction should be one that made you money. On the other hand, one of the nice things of owning something is being able to still extract value when you don’t want it any more—by giving it or selling it to someone else, for example. What’s more, I’ll be more engaged with the community if I am buying/selling/trading/donating stuff to people in that community—in other words, if I see it as something I can extract value from.

I don’t like spending money on: Taxes, fees, tolls, parking. (In other words, people/animals/things that are not directly important to me.) I hate having to pay for parking, because I pay for a car, and insurance for the car, and gas to make that car go—I don’t want to pay for the privilege of putting it in a certain place for some time because the entire damn point of a car is that it puts me in a certain place for some time.

Likewise, I don’t want to pay for game time, access, stamina, or any other stupid gating systems. I am playing your game because I want to play your game; if you’re going to charge me for the privilege of playing your game whenever I want and for as long as I want, might as well just make it a one-time-payment game and call it a day.

The one exception to this is arcade games, and that is specifically because I am rewarded for being good at your game by being allowed to play the game at a cheaper dollars-per-minute rate than people who suck at your game. This gives me a financial incentive to get good at your game, which can be pretty powerful.

Of course, the hard part is that the set of “people who care about getting good at video games enough to spend significant amounts of money on them” is much smaller than the set of “people who like playing video games enough to spend money on them in general,” so skill incentives end up shrinking your overall viable market. So you end up with stupid time gates that penalize players who like playing your game. In a weird sense, it’s almost a disincentive to get good at the game, since that would require me to play more often (and thus spend more money).

I like spending money on: Admission to events/entertainment. I like spending money that leads to good experiences which build memories—traveling to new places, admission to zoos and parks, concerts, films, etc. Basically, if I like your game enough, I’ll be willing to pay to play it, so you might not have to make it free to play to begin with!

I don’t like spending money on: Admission to events that then demand I spend money. I don’t like spending money on things that simply get me into the building to buy more things—like bougie food events, for example. It might be worth it if whatever I can buy is then priced at a significant discount (see Costco memberships), but then this becomes part of an overall cost-benefit analysis with little additional emotional content to further sell your game.

Which is (at long last!) the point of this post, I suppose. Designing monetization into games can be simply an exercise in psychological manipulation (banking on people with addictive tendencies who are easily manipulated and compelled to over-spend), or it can be a chance to take advantage of people’s real-world emotional connection to money as, essentially, bonus game content—albeit “emotional content” instead of designed game content.

Putting our money where our hearts are

Asking people to spend money is a shortcut to all kinds of potential real-world emotional reactions—reactions that can be challenging to evoke simply with game design or narrative alone. (Bet a dollar with a friend on something competitive and see for yourself.) The thing is that if you don’t design your monetization hooks with a little bit of empathy and human understanding in mind, you’re going to end up creating a weirdly crass, almost psychopathic game which evokes mostly negative emotions (“No, I don’t want to give you money, stop asking”) when you could be taking advantage of certain positive emotional associations people have with money, instead. Microtransactions could actually be something which makes your game more fun, not less, which is good for everyone involved.(source:gamasutra)