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列举游戏吸引玩家的返回触发器类型

发布时间:2013-07-29 18:09:05 Tags:,,,,,

作者:Will Luton

给予玩家一些返回游戏的理由,正是令游戏充满粘性的奥秘。如果没有这些理由,玩家就很容易转向其他游戏。可通过将其添附于一个明显的玩法优势或其他强制循环令玩家参与一些未来事件,就是返回触发器生效的时候。

当该事件发生时,玩家就不得不回到游戏中了。此外,游戏还会向玩家推送一个邮件或通知,提醒他们参与该事件。

返回触发器完成了一个可以产生多重会话的循环,并组成了返回循环中的一部分,详见下图:

return_trigger_loop(from gamasutra)

return_trigger_loop(from gamasutra)

*返回(新会话)

*会话

*离开(结束会话)

*返回触发器

良好的返回触发器是保证留存率的关键,它具有多种模式,例如约定、社交承诺和推进等。多数游戏一般都有一个主要的触发器,甚少游戏会同时使用多个触发器或者使用多个触发器的混合体。

约定触发器

约定是F2P(免费游戏)中最普遍的返回触发器,通常会绑定等待核心循环。这只是针对未来某个设定时间所发生的动作而给予的奖励。这些触发器就是所谓的约定机制,因为玩家通常会从一系列选择中挑出最合适的时间。

《FarmVille》中的每一种作物成长过程中都有相应的成本和奖励。玩家可以选择一种在自己有空玩游戏时就可以收割的庄稼。例如,玩家若是在早上9点上班之前玩游戏,他们就可以种植草莓,因为这种作物生长时间是4小时。这就创造了另一个在下午1点开始的约定,此时就是玩家的午餐休息时间。其他玩家可能每天只能玩一次游戏,他们就可以种植胡椒,这需要24小时的生长时间。而时间更充裕的玩家则可能每隔5分钟就返回游戏一次,收获更小更频繁的回报。

与所有基于约定机制的游戏一样,《FarmVille》设计的出发点也是让玩家根据自己的生活来安排游戏活动,鼓励他们按照自己的日程来玩游戏。但如果玩家错过一次游戏会话,就会受到惩罚——游戏中的庄稼就会在一定期限之后枯萎,迫使玩家遵守他们的约定——这是一种令玩家返回游戏的强大动力。

虽然约定机制在早期的F2P时代衍生出不少农场克隆游戏,其用法结合现实世界时间的使用,已经遍及该模型的多数游戏,甚至蔓延到了这一领域之外。《宝石迷阵闪电战》使用了一个竞赛重置系统,每周都会清理一次积分排行榜,以便玩家跟进最新战绩。这种做法可以平衡技能,防止一些侥幸得到的高分长踞榜首,那些不返回游戏的玩家名次也无法在排行榜长存。

与此类似,神秘盒子、日常奖励、彩票等奖励也是常出现于玩家当天首次登录游戏的奖励。这些奖励通常会随着玩家登录天数的增加而增长,鼓励玩家经常返回游戏,但正如惩罚一样,玩家若是有一天错过游戏,基奖励也会相应下降。

约定机制在培养玩家对游戏的长期忠诚度方面成果明显。综们提供了某个期限内(通常由玩家选择)的等待动力,并通过移除或减少奖励令迟到的玩家沮丧。

竞争触发器

人类在本质上就有竞争性,并愿意寻找更大的挑战——这也是游戏的核心吸引力之一。竞争返回触发器会通过弹出游戏或另一玩家发起的活动而激发玩家的竞争意识。

任何拥有积分排行榜的游戏,都有一个竞争返回触发器,在早期的电子游戏时代,积分排行榜遍布各个街机设备。这些机器会以其独特的吸引模式展示积分排行榜。这种吸引屏幕会呈现一系列游戏画面,旨在吸引路过的玩家驻足投币,体验一把,试试自己的运气,看看能否攀向积分排行榜前列,为他们创造一个突破前人的目标。同样,如果玩家未能达到某个名次,失去第一宝座或者持续丢分,也可能不断返回重玩游戏。积分排行榜造就了街机游戏以及电子游戏行业初期的爆炸式发展。

《宝石迷阵闪电战》积分排行榜也保持了这一传统:玩家分数的任何变化都可能成为他们重返游戏的原因。但是,分数并非唯一的竞争返回触发器。正如许多MMORPG一样,《Dungeons & Dragons Online》提供的是PvP战斗机制,战斗总会分出赢家和输家。在零和游戏中,玩家若战胜了其他人,就会产生一种强大的情感反应以及重返游戏的渴望。

社交承诺触发器

社交承诺,即让玩家感到自己的回应对另一者的游戏进程有影响,这是一种最为罕见但却最强大的返回触发器之一。

《Draw Something》就是一款玩家针对另一玩家,从一系列有限的随机列表中选词画图的游戏。另一方玩家的职责就是猜出画面所代表的意思。如果猜对了,双方都能赢得钱币,用于购买游戏中的新彩笔刷等道具。之后再由另一方玩家作画让对方猜图。

这种游戏风格通常被称为异步性,因为每位玩家在此都要有序地完成一个等待动作,而不是即时体验游戏,因为即时游戏要求所有参与竞争的玩家都要同时在线(正如同步玩法一样)。

优秀的异步游戏也会推动游戏留存率的发展,因为每位玩家都会为对方创造一个返回触发器:此时玩家会因为另一方的时间投入而觉得很有必要返回游戏。这种投入的意义远比一个机器的产出更为重大,因此也更有吸引力。

这种责任感也存在于许多MMORPG中,此类游戏的玩家通过公会组成相互依存的群体。公会是拥有共同兴趣的玩家群组,大家彼此具有强大的社交纽带。公会活动需要参与其中的玩家投入一定的时间。

地理触发器

正如玩家在正确的时间玩游戏会获得奖励的约定机制一样,地理触发器也会为在正确的地点玩游戏的用户提供奖励。这会给予玩家的日常生活创造一种新的返回触发器。

此外,为真实地点贴标签也会让玩家获得一种地域感,其作用类似于竞争触发器。例如,赢得了一名对手的某个地点,或者在游戏中搜集到了一种稀有资源,都可能让玩家在工作、学样、家里或乘公交车时重返游戏。

通过API绑定现成的服务、地理数据可以获得附近商店、地标、公共场所和街道的情境,这又为玩家提供了一种情感联系,形成一种地域感。

许多移动设备(游戏邦注:即使是那些不含GPS功能的设备,像iPod Touch或笔记本电脑),都能够通过计算附近的WiFi信号而提供较为准确的经纬度,从而创造了此类设备的大规模用户群体。

虽然这方面还没有出现具有重大突破性的热作,但Red Robot Labs的《Life is Crime》和Booyah的《My Town》系列已可谓是基于地理定位的代表作。

促销和活动触发器

许多F2P游戏都使用了限时活动,在短时间内提供一些特殊奖励。多数情况下,它们会采用促销或绑定地区或法定节假日(游戏邦注:例如感恩节、新年等)的季节性活动。

《Dungeons & Dragons Online》推出了Festivus活动(12月23日庆祝的假期),在此期间提供一些特殊的Festivus任务或道具,例如Beholder Cookie。活动结束后,玩家就不可再访问这些任务,保留这些道具,但可以保留那些自己收获的道具。

另一方面,《FarmVille》平均每月开启一个以上的活动触发器,例如情人节活动,促销花园肥料等。这些活动都有预先设定的起始时间,并且关注的是特定的限制性道具。与之相似,《宝石迷阵闪电战》经常展开Happy Hour活动,提供免费的能量升级道具和钱币折扣。通过推送通知、邮件或Facebook群组推广活动。

促销和活动的目标都一样:在特定时间为玩家提供一些优势和情感联系。这可能会为玩家创造一种立即返回游戏的冲动,并召回那些可能已经流失的玩家。

但是,这些活动之间的展开频率也有讲究:太频繁就会显得掉价,而间隔太久又会错失许多机遇。

推动触发器

推动触发器是最弱的返回触发器之一:它们会直接联系玩家,提醒他们返回游戏。通常情况下,游戏会向那些貌似已经流失的玩家发送这些信息,以便增加游戏的存在感。

推动机制可能会以手机推送通知(附带“你的角色想你了”这种语句),或者拥有新功能列表的邮件的形式出现。这种触发器通常是最后一招挽留已经离开的玩家,或者对其他返回触发器无动于衷的玩家的方法,虽然成功率很低,但还是值得一试。(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

Return Triggers: Enticing Your Players to Come Back

by Will Luton

The following blog was, unless otherwise noted, independently written by a member of Gamasutra’s game development community. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of Gamasutra or its parent company.

Want to write your own blog post on Gamasutra? It’s easy! Click here to get started. Your post could be featured on Gamasutra’s home page, right alongside our award-winning articles and news stories.

This post is an extract from my book Free-to-Play: Making Money From Games You Give Away, recently published by Pearson available at all good booksellers including Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Giving players reasons to return to a game is what will make your game sticky. Without a reason, players float in an abyss, gravitationally drawn to other games. Return triggers function by attaching an explicit gameplay advantage or other compulsion to play to a probable future event. When that event occurs, the player will be compelled to return. Additionally, the game may prompt players with an email or push notification (a popup message on a mobile device) as a reminder.

Return triggers complete a loop that generates multiple sessions and form part of what is known as return loops (Figure 1), which look like this:

Return (new session)

Session

Leave (finish session)

Return trigger

Figure 1: Return Trigger Loops

Good return triggers are the holy grail of retention, and there are multiple archetypes, such as appointment, social commitment and nudge. Although titles often have one predominant trigger, it is not unusual for several to be present or for titles to use hybrids, which mix and match them.

Appointment Triggers

Appointment is the most common return trigger in F2P and is often tied to a wait core loop. It is simply a reward for an action at a set time in the future. These triggers are known as appointments because the player often chooses the most suitable time from a range available.

FarmVille’s crops each have an associated cost and reward along with a growth time. A player can choose a crop that will be ready for harvest at a time when the player is available to play. For example, if players play before work at 9:00 a.m., they can plant strawberries, which will take four hours to grow. This creates an appointment for another session at 1:00 p.m., during the players’ lunch break. Other players may only find time to play once per day, so they plant peppers, which take 24 hours to grow. Or, a more time-rich player may return every five minutes for a lower, more regular reward.

FarmVille, like all appointment-based games, intends for players to plan their sessions around their lives, encouraging them to settle in to a routine of play. If players miss a session, however, the reward may be replaced with a punishment: FarmVille crops wither after an allotted time, conditioning players to keep up their commitment—a powerful driver for creating return play.

Although appointments drove the farm clones of early F2P history, their use and the use of real-world time has now pervaded most games in the model and even some outside it. Bejeweled Blitz uses a tournament reset that once a week clears the scoreboards, allowing for players to compete afresh. This balances dedication with skill, stopping runaway or fluke scores to dominate for eternity; players who don’t return don’t feature on the scoreboard.

Similarly, mystery boxes, daily prizes, lottery tickets and the like are rewards offered to players at the beginning of the first session of the day. Often, these rewards increase over multiple days, encouraging regular return, but as punishment, the escalation is reset upon missing a day.

Appointments are excellent at training players for long-term commitment to the game. They offer waiting incentives at an allotted time, often chosen by the player, and discourage late return by removing or lessening the reward.

Competitive Triggers

Humans are naturally competitive and are willing to seek the high of triumph—a core appeal of games. Competitive return triggers pique a player’s sense of competitiveness by using an event prompted by the game or another player.

Any game with a score leaderboard has a competitive return trigger and in the early days of videogames scoreboards were prevalent throughout arcades. Machines displayed leaderboards while in their attract mode, which consisted of a series of screens that demonstrated the game while not in play. An attract screen’s purpose was to get passing players to drop a quarter, play the game and hopefully post their initials at the top of leaderboard, offering a clear goal to other players. Similarly, not achieving leaderboard status, missing the number one spot or subsequently having your score beaten provided for continuous return and repeated play, yielding credit after credit from the player. Leaderboards drove the explosion of arcades and the beginning of the industry.

Bejeweled Blitz’s leaderboards maintain this tradition: Any change in a player’s score generates a new reason for that player to return. However, scores are not the only form of competitive return trigger. Dungeons & Dragons Online, like many MMORPGs, offers PvP (player versus player) battles where there is one winner and one loser. Zero sum games, where players triumph over others, have the ability to create a strong emotional reaction and a desire to continue or return.

Social Commitment Triggers

Social commitment, the sense of obligation players feel when they’re response is required for the progress of another, is one of the rarest, yet strongest, return triggers.

Draw Something is a game in which a player draws a picture, intended for another player, to depict a word selected from a short random list. The second player’s job is to guess the word the picture represents. If guessed correctly, both players gain coins, which can be spent on in-game items like new brush colors. The second player then completes the turn by drawing a picture as the first player did.

This style of game is often called asynchronous, because each player returns sequentially to complete a waiting action rather than playing in real time, which requires all competing players to be online at the same time, as in synchronous play.

Good asynchronous games drive incredible retention because each player creates a return trigger for the other: The players feel strongly compelled to return because of the time investment of another human. This effort is socially more significant than output of a machine, so is more compelling.

These obligations also exist in lots of MMORPGs where players form types of interdependencies through guilds. Guilds are groups of players who have similar interests and build strong social bonds with one another. Guilds may even require a minimum level of time commitment for a player to be included.

Location Triggers

Just as an appointment return trigger provides rewards for players playing at the right time, so can a location trigger provide players with rewards for playing in the right place. This gives rise to new return triggers in a player’s daily life.

In addition, the claiming or tagging of real spots provides a sense of territorialism that acts in a similar manner to competitive triggers. For example, winning a spot from a rival or collecting a rare in–game resource may cause players to return to a game when they are at work, school, home, or riding a bus.

Tying in with existing services via APIs, location data can be given context by associating it with nearby shops, landmarks, public spaces and streets, providing an emotional link for a player and enforcing the sense of territory.

Many mobile devices—even those without GPS functionality, like the iPod touch or even laptops—are able to provide reasonably accurate latitude and longitude data by calculating nearby WiFi signals, thereby creating a massive user base of location-capable devices.

Although there has yet to be a single breakout hit, Red Robot Labs’ Life is Crime and Booyah’s My Town series are notable location-aware titles.

Sales and Events Triggers

Many F2P titles utilize limited-time events, which offer something special for a short period only. Most commonly, they take the form of a sales or seasonal event, tying in with regional or national holidays: Thanksgiving, New Year and so on.

Dungeons & Dragons Online features Festivus—a secular celebration of the holiday season on December 23. The game gives access to a special set of Festivus quests and items available only during the event, such as the Beholder Cookie. Once it’s over, the player can no longer access the quests or obtain the items but keeps those that were acquired.

On the other hand, FarmVille runs more than one event trigger per month on average, ranging from Valentine’s Day to promotions for garden fertilizer. These events have predefined start and end times, and again focus on special limited availability items. Similarly, Bejeweled Blitz runs regular Happy Hour events, which offer free boosts and discounts on coins. These are promoted with a push notification, email or via a Facebook group—a key element to pulling in users.

The objectives of sales and events are the same: Offer players an advantage or emotional connection that they can only get within a limited period. This makes a compelling case for returning immediately and may draw back players who had otherwise been churned—left the game with no intention of returning.

However, there is a trade-off between how regularly these events can be run: Too regularly and they lose their value, whereas big gaps between each event signifies lost opportunities.

Nudge Triggers

Nudge triggers are some of the weakest return triggers: They consist of directly contacting players to remind them to return to the game. Usually, nudges are sent when a player has seemingly churned and serve as a reminder that the game exists.

Nudges may take the form of a mobile push notification along the lines of “your characters miss you” or an email with a list of new features. Although a last ditch attempt to retain a player who has missed or has little interest in other return triggers, they are worthwhile despite an often low success rate.(source:gamasutra


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