作者：joseph kim

2011年已经过去了，这个世界不需要另一款卡牌战斗游戏了。

昨晚参加Pocket Gamer的新活动，我遇到来自3位来自卡牌战斗游戏的公司的人。通过他们，我知道至少有2款卡牌战斗游戏表现不俗，我还知道至少3款正在制作中。而这些都是我所了解的游戏。

再接下来的2-3个月，我们还需要更多卡牌战斗游戏（对于美国市场）吗？

历史：

为什么如此计较卡牌战斗游戏？

因为日本手机游戏市场中有90%以上的收益是卡牌战斗游戏创造的，所以日本许多游戏大游戏公司如GREE、DeNA和CyberAgent都以为美国市场也能创造同样的奇迹。在这个假设的驱动下，为了占领市场份额，这些公司非常积极地投入于获取美国的卡牌战斗游戏玩家。

然而，他们错了。

当《Rage of Bahamut》和《Legend of the Cryptids》首次发布时，所有人都在谈论这两款游戏，因为它们在2011/2012的应用排行榜上名列前茅，让那些与它们有关的公司大赚了一笔（游戏邦注：据说，日活跃用户的平均收益超过1美元，用户终身价值超过5美元）。

问题是，日活跃用户平均收益并不等同于赢利率。关于高收益而认为许多/大部分卡牌战斗游戏都是有利可图的假设忽略了留存率的关系。赢利和留存率组成用户终身价值的阴阳两方面。

我看过《Rage of Bahamut》的早期市场营销预算（不要问我是多少）……真是太疯狂了。在CPI上花8-19美元，你还指望能产生利润？

这种策略锁定的是美国市场的卡牌战斗游戏玩家基础，因此不只是为第一款卡牌战斗游戏开发玩家，还要为未来的卡牌战斗游戏开发玩家：以在多款产品中分散玩家开发成本。这其实是一个非常好的策略，但结果是什么目前似乎无法确定。

卡牌战斗游戏在美国市场并没未出现与日本市场一样的繁荣。因为统治美国市场的不是卡牌战斗游戏而是其他类型的游戏（显然），如益智游戏（《Candy Crush》）和塔防游戏（《Clash of Clans。）。

这种现象我们以前也见过。在日本，游戏主机市场的巨头是幻想RPG，而在美国，科幻/现代战争FPS（第一人称射击游戏）才是主角。

本文前面提出的问题的答案是，手机游戏公司的主管们对卡牌战斗游戏趋之若骛是因为他们不理解我们的行业，错误地估计了当前的行业形势：

1、糟糕的假设：卡牌战斗游戏是有利可图的。事实上，在美国极少有卡牌战斗游戏赚得到钱。那些一直收益不错的游戏很大程度上有赖于著名品牌/苹果的厚爱。

2、糟糕的策略：在一个靠大把钱开发出来的玩家基础中，试图再以高得离谱的价格开发玩家，是相当愚蠢的行为。

3、糟糕的市场解读：这个市场已经供过于求了，况且还有更多卡牌战斗游戏源源不断地推出。

也许在这里应该提出一个问题：围绕一个存在根本缺陷的策略和基于任何稍微了解行业的理性人都可能回避的策略来设计游戏，你的公司还能生存下来吗？

对细微差别没有根本理解，就跟着高度简单化的观点走，是非常致命的……

如何胜出？

在这里我要澄清一下。我不是说任何新的卡牌战斗游戏都不可能成功了，而是说要成功会极其困难，光有与第一代和第二代的同类游戏竞争的策略是远远不够的。可悲的是，我所看到的基本上就是那样。

我所谓的“卡牌战斗游戏的世代和类型演化的简单化观点”是指：

card battle evolution(from quarterview)

如果你也打算制作一款“我也是”的卡牌战斗游戏，那么我劝你还是算了吧。但话说回来，我认为新的卡牌战斗游戏要获得成功，至少必须具备以下的任何一个优势或甚至全部：

1、品牌：有强大的品牌，如变形金刚、Marvel（游戏邦注：这是美国的一家漫画公司，曾经捧红过蜘蛛侠、钢铁侠、绿巨人等一系列英雄人物）等，以降低消费者开发成本和通过重复利用旧引擎节约成本。

2、+1设计：添加引人注目的游戏设计（如Zynga的《战斗之石》最终成为创意之作）—-可能改进的地方：社交、战斗系统、装备、公会战、类型混合（如《Puzzle & Dragon》和《Match 3》相结合）等。

3、简化：第一代和第二代卡牌战斗游戏仍然太过硬核了。Supercell对《Clash of Clans》施加的魔法是，简化这种类型（例如《后院怪兽》和《边缘世界》），以吸引更大范围的受众（也通过合适的美术风格等）。

尽管如此，卡牌战斗游戏仍然存在上述的重大障碍。所以，三思而后行！

再三考虑：

毫无疑问，在接下来的几个月里，我们将看到新的卡牌战斗游戏问世，所以在投身于这个类型游戏以前，务必再三考虑。

游戏行业需要的是更多艺术性，更少同质化—-更多纵向开发，更少横向开发。

我们应该制作更多新东西，而不是制作老游戏的50个翻版……

（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）

The World Doesn’t Need Another Card Battle Game (Gamasutra)

by joseph kim

Guys, it’s not 2011: The world does not need another card battle game.

Cruising around at the latest Pocket Gamer event last night, within 1 hour I randomly bumped into different folks from 3 different companies launching 4 card battle games. I know of at least 2 active RFPs for card battle and I also know of at least 3 others in the works as well. These are just the ones I personally know of…

Do we really need another 20-30 card battle games (for the U.S. market) to launch in the next 2-3 months?

History:

Why all of the fuss about card battle games?

Well, since the Japanese mobile gaming market is like 90%+ card battle game revenue, many of the large Japanese game companies like GREE, DeNA, and CyberAgent assumed the U.S. market would follow suit. These companies spent very aggressively to acquire users in a bid for market share ahead of what they assumed would be a U.S. market that follows the Japanese market.

They were wrong.

Everyone was talking about Rage of Bahamut and Legend of the Cryptids when they first launched as those games topped the charts in 2011/2012 and as the companies associated with those games touted extremely high monetization (well rumored and talked about ARPDAU of $1+ and LTV of $5+).

The problem is that ARPDAU does not equal profitability. The assumption that many/most of the card battle games are profitable given high monetization ignores the relevance of retention. Monetization AND retention are the Yin and Yang proxies of LTV.

I’ve seen the early marketing budgets for Rage (don’t ask)… it was pure craziness. How can you spend $8-$10 in CPI and expect a profit?

The strategy must have been to lock up the card battle user base for the U.S. market and thereby not only acquire users for the first card battle game, but for future card battle games as well: to spread user cost over multiple products. This is actually a pretty good strategy but who’s outcome at least for now seems uncertain.

Here in the U.S., the market did not follow the Japanese market. The dominating games in our space are not card battle games but a greater mix of genres such as (obviously) puzzle games (Candy Crush) and tower defense games (Clash of Clans).

We’ve seen this movie before. On consoles, in Japan the biggest hits are fantasy RPGs while in the U.S. the biggest hits are sci-fi/modern war FPS’s (first person shooters).

The answer to the initial question is that all of the fuss about card battle games is a matter of mobile game executives not understanding our industry well enough and misinterpreting our current industry situation:

Bad assumption: Card battle games are profitable. Actually, very few in the U.S. are. Those that have been profitable have been greatly aided by strong brands/Apple love.

Bad strategy: Trying to acquire a user base where there has already been massive amounts of money spent to acquire at ridiculously high prices is pretty silly.

Bad market read: There is a massive glut in the industry and more coming for card battle games (at least for the first and second generation kinds of games).

Maybe a good question to ask here is, can your company survive management that builds game designs around a strategy that is fundamentally flawed and a strategy that any reasonable person who spends a little bit of time studying our industry would likely avoid?

High level, macro-simplistic thinking without fundamental understanding of nuance kills…

How to Win?:

So let me be clear here. I’m not saying no new card battle game can be successful, but I am saying it will be extremely difficult and a strategy to compete in the first and second generation type of card battle games is likely not good enough. Sadly that’s most of what I’m seeing.

Here’s what I mean by the generations of card battle games and a simplistic view of the genre’s evolution:

If you’re thinking of creating another me too card battle game just don’t do it. Having said that, to have any chance of success, I believe new card battle games must do 1 or hopefully more of the following:

Brand: Have a strong brand (e.g., Transformers, Marvel, etc. to lower customer acquisition cost, can also lower cost structure by re-using an existing engine)

+1 Design: Add a compelling +1 game design (e.g., Battlestone – from Zynga what?? Finally getting innovative)

Areas to potentially improve: Social, Battle System, Equipment, GVG, Genre Mash-up (e.g., Puzzle & Dragon with Match 3), etc.

Simplification: The first and second generation card battle games are still too hard core. The magic of what Supercell did with Clash of Clans was to simplify the more complex versions of its genre (e.g., Backyard Monsters and Edgeworld on Facebook) to appeal to a broader audience (as well as with appropriate art style, etc.)

Even then there remains the key obstacles mentioned above to this category. Think twice!

Please Think Twice:

As we will no doubt see the coming avalanche of card battle games launched in the next few months, please think twice before launching yet another in the category.

What we need in this industry is more artistry and less distribution: more vertical less horizontal.

Let’s create something new and stop creating 50 flavors of the old…(source:quarterview)